I do this all the time:
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — A woman’s decision to write an offensive comment on her check when she paid a parking ticket has proven costly: She had to pay an additional $100 fine for contempt of court.
Eva Sas, 24, made an anatomical reference in the memo portion of the $22 check she mailed to the New Brunswick Municipal Court. She received the contempt summons last month after Ralph Stanzione, the city’s chief judge, refused to accept her check.
“Maybe what I did was a bit immature or disrespectful, but it’s my right, and it’s not illegal,” Sas said.
A 1999 directive from the state judiciary, which oversees municipal courts, prohibits judges from penalizing citizens for writing obscene comments. Court officials would not comment on why the order was not followed in this case.
Sas, a Rutgers University student, initially planned to appeal but instead paid the fine last month — in cash.
And who isn’t reminded of everyone’s favorite Briton, Dennis:
Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I’m being repressed! … Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That’s what I’m on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn’t you?
Well, unless ABACHA replies, I think I’ll keep the email scam postings down to a minimum (ha! I didn’t define what ‘minimum’ is, so I can get away with thousands). Anyways, yourname@movementarian.com just received this late breaking news from South Africa:
CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP SOLICITED.
ENGR KUMALO DILIZA.
DIRECTOR PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION (MEMR)
DIRECT TEL NO: 0027 731 522 629
Dear Sir,
I am an Engineer with the South African Ministry of Energy and Mineral
Resources and I am also a member of the Republic of South Africa Contract
Award and Monitoring Commitee in the Ministry of Energy and Mineral
Resources. It is a pleasure involving you in this project. Although, this
may sound strange but I seek your indulgence and pray you view it seriously.
Two years ago, a contract was awarded to a foreign firm in the Ministry of
Energy and Mineral Resources by my committee. This contract was over
invoiced to the tune of US$14.3Million. This was done delibrately. The over
invoicing was a deal by my commitee to benefit from the project. We now
desire to transfer this money which is in a suspense account with the MEMR
into any oversea account which we expect you to provide for us.
For providing the account where we shall remit the money, you will be
entitled to 30% of the money, 10% will be set aside for expenses incurred
by both parties during course of transfer, while the remaining 60%will be
for my partners and myself.
I would require the following:
1)Bank details ( Name and address / Account no/Beneficiary name )
2)Private Telephone and Fax number of Beneficiary
The above information would be used to make formal application as a matter
of procedure for the release of the money and onward transfer to your
account. It does not matter whether or not your company does contract
projects of this of this nature described here, the assumption is that your
company won the major contract and subcontracted it out to other companies.
More often than not, big trading companies or firms of unrelated fields
win major contracts and subcontract to more specialized firms for execution
of such contracts. We have strong and reliable connections, top government
contacts at the South Africa Reserve Bank and Ministry of Finance and we
have no doubt that all this money will be released and transferred if we get
the necessary foreign partner to assist us in this deal. Therefore, when the
business is successfully concluded we shall through our connection withdraw
all documents used from all the concerned Government Ministries for 100%
security. We are civil servants and we will not want to miss this opportunity.
Please contact me immediately through my above Telephone or email contact,
whether or not you are interested in this deal. If you are not, it will
enable me scout for another foreign partner to carry out this deal. But
where you are interested, send the required informations aforementioned
herein without delay as time is of essence in this business.
I want to assure you once again that this transaction is 100% risk free
both now and in the future.
I await in anticipation of your fullest co-operation.
Yours faithfully,
ENGR KUMALO DILIZA.
I really don’t have the time or inclination to reply to that one, but I did find a couple of things comical and worth pointing out.
What’s the deal with openly admitting that you stiffed (”overly billed”) a company? I suppose the people that fall for this kind of scam don’t process the “oh crap, that money might belong to someone else” variable into the equation.
Oh, and the part about them being civil servants… You know they say the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach (I don’t understand that physiology either), and as you can imagine, I’m touched that a bureaucrat who admittedly scams other companies wants me to be part of his Team of Integrity®.
At this point, I am reminded of the word gullible and how it was recently removed from the dictionary.
Note: the author of this blog is looking for a investor who wishes to transfer all of their monetary wealth in exchange for some special snake oil laying on the Brooklyn Bridge.
What do you call someone that says one thing, but does another? How about a Timocrite. So I said I pretty bored about blogging about blogs, well I don’t control the hands in this post, you have been warned.
I was making my rounds and bumped into this post at Blogroots which informed me that Microsoft is kinda-sorta-possibly-maybe getting into the blog publishing arena:
FrontPage 2003 to include blogging tools. According to the article, Microsoft plans to include blog publishing tools in its newest version of FrontPage. It is interesting that they include this feature along with more advanced web edting tools in a bid for more “professional” users.
That internal link goes to a story which mentions several features like XSLT and XML support, and states:
With such capabilities Microsoft hopes to attract developers of dynamic, data-driven sites. FrontPage was previously intended for novice Web-site designers.
The new package will also include prebuilt functionality to ease creation of Web logs or blogs, Microsoft said.
And that story doesn’t stop there. If you read the comments to that Blogroots story you’ll see that ‘hackworth‘ linked to Dave Weiner’s blog who posted on this shadow story several months ago, stating among other things:
On Wednesday last week at a meeting unrelated to weblogs, a Microsoft exec let it slip casually (heh) that the next version of FrontPage does blogging. I have my doubts, it’s probably the same way word processors in the 80s did outlining, but the hype is already beginning.
Mr. Weiner then continues by shamelessly plugging several features (like RSS 2.0) that he hopes MS will provide support for in their finished product due out later this year.
I don’t really have any original thoughts on this matter, so I’ll just tell you what the men in suits tell me to tell you: Soylent Green is people!
Actually, a couple of months ago I bumped into an article Anil Dash wrote called: Microsoft’s Weblog Software. In it, he discusses software that Microsoft already has developed, tested and is readily consumable by the market. However, Microsoft, for one reason or another, isn?t really pushing this (though, feel free to correct me, if you have seen an ad by MS promoting SharePoint, please let me know). Be sure to read Mr. Dash?s analysis of it and try the live demo (like the band) on the MS servers.
Anyways, I mentioned that just to prove that MS has had the capability to strike into the fledging blog software community already, but really hasn?t made much of a impact as of yet (if you know of any high profile sites or numbers on how many sites use SharePoint as their CMS, let me know). Maybe MS is not sold on the mania and hype behind blogs?
Which leads me to the British Blogorlowski (by the way, he?s operating out of San Francisco currently, maybe Ms. Cheyenne can deliver all of my love letters to him personally). In his latest ad nauseam attack on blogs, he states several things:
The nutty blog hype, such as it is, has been inflated by a handful of weblog tools vendors and exhibitionists who desperately see this as their big moment. By promoting the humble blog as a social tool that heralds an “Emergent Democracy”, or a fabulous network that can overthrow Big Brother, they’re crowning themselves with the mantle of populist heroes.
Damn those evangelists! I mean Orville and Wilbur Wright should rot in the Tower of London for their heinous crimes of self-promotion. And don?t get me started with Steve Jobs.
Continuing,
But the populism isn’t borne out by the statistics, which tell us that the number of webloggers remains extremely small. Pew Research recently pegged the number of blog readers as “statistically insignificant” and our own logs back up their findings. A story, such as this one, with ‘blog’ in the headline will almost certainly be the least-read item of the day. Our discussion of the consequences of removing of blogs from Google led the bloggers hit parade at Daypop and Blogdex for three days, but the story refused to budge higher 16th in our logs, despite its headline position over that weekend. In reality, a thousand or so links scarcely makes a dent in the million+plus page imps read by tech-savvy Register readers each day.
? and 73% of the populace knows that 26% of all statistics are created out of thin air. Actually, other than the little pompous skull-drudgery at the end, he has a point: not many people currently use blogs to find information. Of course, 8 years ago I could probably take the same survey that Pew Research used and conclude the same kind of ?statistically insignificant? numbers with regards to Joe Blow using the web to retrieve information. Of course, that is somewhat misleading too, because each blog post becomes in a sense, a web page which can be scanned and categorized by databases and search engines, just like a “normal” web site. And as far as why that particular story was the least read could be interpreted several different ways, including: no one wants to hear him talk about blogs. I mean, when you?re the new Jon Katz of cyber-zines you?ve got to realize that your name and your meme (?I hate blogs because X?) is your own worst enemy.
But if faux populism worked well enough in the dotcom bubble, when the empowering potential of private capital ownership (stock options) and new technology cloaked a huge transfer of wealth to the rich, why shouldn’t it work now?
Among other things, that is just one big Straw Man. He uses the ?blame the rich? cliché for problems that the Federal Reserve caused. The Fed?s monetary policies produced a bubble, which discouraged savings by the appearance that savers are suckers and that you can get rich quick through financial speculation. That obviously didn?t work, so why would it work for blogs? Furthermore, blogging software itself is just an extension to many of the technologies that were developed prior to and throughout the Bubble (I don?t see Mr. Orlowski singling out Alexander Bell or Thomas Watson for their ?conniving? and ?sinister? assistance in this technological-based conspiracy).
Well, primarily because blogging is a solitary activity that requires the blogger to spend less time reading a book, taking the dog for the walk, meeting friends in the pub, seeing a movie, or reading to the kids. The reason that 99.93 per cent of the world doesn’t blog, and never will, is because people make simple information choices in what they choose to ingest and produce, and most of this will be either personal and private, or truly social. Blog-evangelists can fulminate at the injustice of this all they like, but people are pretty smart and make fairly rational choices on the information they process.
Talk about sweeping generalizations. Look, these same people that Mr. Orlowski considers ?pretty smart? and ?fairly rational? in their decision making were also snookered into the dotbomb. Additionally, what Mr. Orlowski just described were ?opportunity costs? ? yes you do have less time to spend doing other activities, but some of those can be replaced or compensated for with what you do gain online, especially in terms of new virtual friends (oh, I know, the horror of virtual relationships, it?s going to destroy humanity).
Conclusion: The circle is now complete. When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the blogmaster. Err, something like that. I?m still not convinced by Mr. Orlowski?s arguments and am puzzled as to why he spends so much time trying to discredit this medium. If it was such a terrible and audacious ?thing? and otherwise ?intelligent? individuals would ignore it, then shouldn?t the market collapse onto itself or remain stagnant?
Sure, I do not think everyone or even a majority of earth?s population will blog, but the same can be said for so many other hobbies and professions as not everyone will: write a book, teach a class, fly a kite, play the violin or become a ventriloquist. Here, Mr. Orlowski sounds like one of those old cranks that would complain about that new fangled radio or television contraption? no one is ever going to use those to find information because intelligent people use established newspapers and magazines.
Rather than viewing blogs as a blending and mixture of mediums that allow Joe Blow to become an instantly recognized and syndicated pundit on any and all topics, Mr. Orlowski continues to clamor for its imminent downfall and certain demise. And along with having large quantities of Tenacity?, he uses the time honored ad hominem and guilt-by-association tricks to sully the word ?blog.? Too bad his contentions only work if the barrier to entry truly required the stamp of approval by a grizzled kaniggate.
As you will see, Lorena Bobbitt has met her match, gulp:
Four women have chopped the penis off a man after he refused to have sex with them in western India.
Parkeet Manjhi, a migrant labourer, has been admitted in a hospital in Mumbai and doctors have had it reattached.
But they are not yet sure whether the organ will ever again be functional, reports NDTV news.
Mr Manjhi told police: “I was going to the toilet. A girl called out to me and then other girls came out from behind the bushes.
“They asked me to have sex with them, but when I refused one of them pounced on me and then the others cut it off and I fainted,.”
Police say this is the third such incident in two years where women in Uran region have attacked men and cut off their penis.
Now, I’ve met some interesting ladies in the past, but uhh, I can’t say that I’ve ever been in a situation like that before. Though John Wayne Bobbitt seems to be making the best of the entire situation (or not). This is yet another example of women trying to dominate mankind! They must be stopped, save us He-Man.
Thanks Ryn (get a blog so I can link to you, wink wink).
I haven’t made a snide comment in this category for too long and I was just talking to an old friend, who’s all Jebusfied (he caught me Judah-handed today doing something I shouldn’t have). Anyways, it struck me, I know what the opening lyrics to ‘What Would Jebus Sing’ would be:
Me, me, I love me - I’m all that I want and all that I need, I can lean on myself when times are tough and pray to me when in need of an answer, Oh thank me for being me
So that got me thinking: the original sound bite can be used in a slew of other situations, like:
- What Operating System Would Jebus Use
- Who Would Jebus Worship
- What Kind of Belly-button Lint Would Jebus Have
- When Would Jebus Wax His Car
- Where Would Jebus Dine
- How Would Jebus Get Out of this Speeding Ticket
- Why Does Jebus Send Me Naughty Emails
I think anyone tight with the gods could answer the above, however, two that I’m still stuck on are, ‘Who Would Jebus Boink’ and ‘What Position is Jebus Approved?’
Stay tuned for some equal opportunity mocking, Hare Krishnas and Zoroastrians coming right up.
