Foreign Service Workers of the world, UNTIE!

The US Secretary of State, who occasionally gets referred to as Mrs. Clinton, although that is not now nor ever has been her legal name, has goofed big time.

In an effort to show the Obama administration's desire for Change, she presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a "reset button" that may have passed OSHA inspection, but didn't pass muster with the Russian press. Why? Well, in an attempt to express the idea of 'reset' in both languages, the gag included what was thought to be the right Russian word. Apparently, like Templeton the Rat, they went looking for a good word and found one on a circuit breaker in the American Embassy, because the word actually means 'overload.'

Five Hundred Russian Linguists trained at the Defense Language Institute, and they never consulted a one of them for the correct rendering. And they didn't even write it in Cyrillic characters!

Yeah, we got Change, all right.

Child killer prosecuted in Florida

A few weeks ago I reported on the unusual case in Florida where The legislature initiated prosecution of a homicide.

It evoked the following comment by 'sjc' which I give here in italics, with my own comments interspersed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actually you probably don't see this elsewhere because it isn't true. Notice the article ONLY references its own website for more info. Notice too that the facts don't make sense

This is rather sobering that sjc would still, as of March 6th, think this was a made up story, when it now being followed by:

CNN
The South Florida Times
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel
The Miami New Times
Buffalo News
The Tallahassee Democrat
Poligazzette
Just to name some American news outlets.

It's made international news as well, with articles in
Spanish:
Diario Las Americas
ACI Prensa

Portuguese:
O Globo

French:
Avortiment IVG

Italian:
Iconocast

Polish:
Christianitas

Dutch:
Dagelijk Sesstandaar

To name a few.

Suspect claim: The doctor only showed up after the baby was born
FACT:
Abortions are NOT performed that late in pregnancy. There is 0 chance that she was there for a legal abortion and the baby was born.

Fact: abortions are performed at all stages of pregnancy, from several hours after conception to the moment of birth.

This sounds to me like yet another made up story with no other purpose than to sicken people and give them an incorrect view of what actually goes on in the world.

But it isn't.

There is probably no news here at all. If this really happened, and the police were at all involved, it would be ALL OVER the news.


Yes, it should be, but that was the whole point of me posting it. Sooner or later it will get picked up by everybody else, should the case result in a conviction for Second Degree Murder.


This one doesn't pass the stink test at all.

Hmm. . . and it was even covered a whole month ago by the Huffington Post!

I rest my case. Thanks, sjc, for your comment. I hope you take the time to closely examine my response.

A System Doomed to Failure

I don't want to overwhelm my readers with more than one post a day, but this one was just too good to pass up. Watch the CNBC anchors scramble for cover after an opening statement by Ron Paul in the House Financial Services Committee Hearing yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW2V50AS7K0

The White Man makes the Black List

This blog has a growing following--even attracting the attention of the US House of Representatives, the US Defense Department, and the ACLU, to name just a few of the organizations that have shown up on our site meter. And we just helped shut down a scam on Facebook. So we will do our best to keep producing posts of interest. And this blog will continue to offer both this poster and any commenters the opportunity to express themselves anonymously.

Why, you may ask, do we insist on anonymity? Well, let this article serve as an answer:

* * * * * *
Intimidating Critics of Islam
Politicians and citizens who raise questions about the religion are targeted.
By former Senator Rick Santorum
Posted: Thursday, February 12, 2009


ARTICLE
Philadelphia Inquirer
Publication Date: February 12, 2009


We lost more than a million jobs in the past few months, the headlines remind us. So last month's story about a Dutch court's ruling that Geert Wilders was "inciting hatred and discrimination" - and that "it is in the public interest to prosecute" him - understandably didn't make the American news.

Did Wilders rip off a minority in a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme? No, he's a member of the Dutch parliament, and his precise villainy was releasing a 15-minute film. Entitled Fitna, it suggests a direct link between certain verses of the Koran and acts of terrorism.

Not to be outdone, the United Kingdom this week banned Wilders from entering the country. Its reasoning: His "presence in the U.K. would pose a genuine, present, and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society." A letter from the home secretary went on to tell Wilders that "your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film Fitna and elsewhere, would threaten community harmony and therefore public security."

In 2007, Cambridge University Press destroyed unsold copies of Alms for Jihad after it was sued by Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi-Irish businessman whom the book accused of financing al-Qaeda. So much for academics standing up against book-burning.

In 2005, reporters from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten were forced into hiding after publishing a series of 12 cartoons about Muhammad. Islamic fundamentalists found the images blasphemous and threatened to bomb the paper's offices and kill its cartoonists - apparently, in certain quarters, an alternative to a letter to the editor.

Last year, at the urging of the Canadian Islamic Congress, author Mark Steyn was forced to defend himself against charges of racism and "Islamophobia" that were filed with three Canadian human-rights commissions, based on his columns in Maclean's magazine.

And, following a 2008 U.N. resolution urging nations to outlaw "defamation of religion," several nations - including Italy, the Netherlands and France - are attempting to ban "hate speech" against religious groups.

All of these incidents are calculated to intimidate critics of Islam in Europe and across the West. The message in the European Union is clear: Politicians, religious figures, and even private citizens with religiously and politically incorrect opinions will be subject not only to Muslim protest, but to criminal prosecution and violent retribution.

* * * * * *

And yes, this blog has been displayed numerous times on computers located on the Arabian Peninsula. Enough said.

A new twist to an old scam

If you go to http://coreyhasmoney.com, you will see a photo of a bright young man in a tux, informing you that he is originally from your home town, but now he's a millionaire making his money by posting links on Google.

Don't you believe a word of it. Corey Peters is one big urban myth, and the swindler behind this website has figured out how to tap into your computer and identify the location of your web server in order to make you think that Corey's your homeboy. What he wants is your credit card number, and you're going to give it to him because you just can't believe that a nice guy from your home town is lying to you through his pearly white teeth. So what we need to establish right away is that he's not your homeboy, and he is a colossal liar. Here's how we'll do it:

This blog gets hits from every continent but Antarctica (and probably only because there's no ISP HQ'd there--but this post did incite one from north of the 72nd parallel), including a lot of viewers that do an excellent job of concealing their ISP; some are no more specific than the continent, and a rare few are even less so. I'd love to hear back from you as to where 'Corey' claimed to you that he's originally from. Just leave your comments below; and also please tell me whether or not you ran across Corey on Facebook.

Edited five hours later with the following revision: Come on, people. I'm getting hits on this post from several countries--probably at least one of them from Corey himself. Just to make it easy I've removed comment moderation to make it real easy to post comments (anyone who isn't a robot can participate). Please, tell me where Corey Peters told you he's from. And while you're at it, let me know what he's changed his name to this time. "Corey Peters" is less than a week into its run.

Added 2-26: Okay, folks, we can consider this project a success. A commenter alerted me to the following announcement posted to Facebook:

**Alert to Facebook Users**

You may have seen ads appearing on your FB profile in which a young man named Corey Peters or Mike Miller, and who claims to be from or near your home town, explains how he makes thousands of dollars posting links to websites. He claims that Google pays him to do this.

Some websites associated with this are:
coreyhasmoney.com
alexgetsgreen.com
mikemintsit.com

An American blogger asked people to send him a note to tell him where Corey was telling them he was "from" in his ad.
The answers he got back... Bedford, MA... Montreal, Quebec... and New Delhi, India.
Either Corey is quite the globe-hopping guy, or he has great software which detects your ISP address and then adjusts the ad to reflect a better "connection" to you.

When you go to these sites, they will ask you for your credit card information to sign up for a "Google Cash Kit".

Here are some comments from ComplaintsBoard, an online site dedicated to exposing web scams:
"ppl sign up for a google money system kit and have a couple $100 charged on their credit account. emails to contact them bounce back, the kit doesn't come and by the sound of it, neither does the promised cheque
13 days ago by T.Khan
I also did the same, no confirmation or e-mails, no such log in website. I found the ad on facebook and thought it was reliable. I am just waiting to see what i can do if they end up attacking my credit card. Such scammers..."

Other commentators on the ComplaintBoard explain how difficult it was to get the Google Cash Kit subscription cancelled... and many, many cases of people having to cancel their credit cards in order to stop the monthly payments.


RECENT NEWS

Official response from Google to an enquiry regarding CoreyHasMoney.com

"Ads like these appear to be the latest iteration of a trend we have observed for some time. Our Legal team reviews them and takes appropriate action if necessary. As Google is not affiliated with these sites, though, we can't comment on individual claims. We recommend that users exercise the same amount of caution they would when evaluating other types of get rich quick claims."

Update March 21, 2009

Well, this post continues to get dozens of hits a day--including one recently from Google Inc., so let's hope they do something about it. In any case, today I did something I'm not ever supposed to do--I actually read one of the ads that I've allowed Google to post on this blog. Boy, was I ever surprized to read a corey-peters type scam from cathysteeth.com being advertized right on my blog! Supposedly Google will cancel my Adsense account for doing this, but I'm going to cancel it anyway, maugre the money I'll be out for doing so. I refuse to participate in these sort of scams. Just look at the fine print for this "free trial offer:"

You have 14-days from the date that your order ships to use the product and evaluate the results. If you enjoy the system, simply do nothing. You will be billed the low price of $78.93 at the end of your 14-day trial period. Additionally, you will be automatically enrolled in the AlwaysBright™ Membership Program and every 30 days from your trial signup, you will receive a new 30-day supply of Bright Teeth™ Whitening Gel (10cc) and Remineralization Gel (3cc) at the low price of $80.93, plus $4.99 shipping and handling, totalling $85.92. . .

It goes on to say as much as that unless you cancel your credit or debit card, these charges will go on indefinitely. Because of course, you'll never be able to get through on their toll-free line, with thousands of other people from Pond Inlet to New Delhi all trying to cancel too.

Well, thanks to corey peters, I've gotten more hits in less than a month than I typically got in a year. But in the end, by participating in such scams, Google Inc. lost my Adsense business. And, I expect, unless they face the music soon, that of a lot of other bloggers as well.

There are ways to make money, and there are ways to take money. This is clearly one of the latter, and I will have none of it.

Update 3/23/09
To the kind folks at Google, Inc., who frequently check this post for new comments:
1) Thanks for deleting my Adsense account. You can keep the change.
2) I'm sorry I'm not able to keep up on approving comments as fast as they come in. I trust, however, that you've seen enough by now to get the picture. So I think I'll be taking this post down again; I could use a break from this issue for a while. Unless you take decisive action, it's not going to go away.

Update 3/26/09 I'm taking this offline again. Way too many hits to handle!

Update:  2013: This post has finally fallen out of my 'top ten' so I'm bringing it back up.