Idiot Elites

New England Brahmins: People who rape the world, and whose children think of themselves as Luminous and Enlightened Beings. Money is poison.

My All-Time Favorite "Scamming the scammers" story

Guy gets a typical 419 scammer email from an "exiled dictator" - "We need you to hide our millions, in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. [etc.]"

Guy responds, and after a few emails and calls (during which he keeps "forgetting" to give them his account and routing numbers), "discloses" to scammers that he wants to sell some stolen laptops in their country - they can keep 20% of the proceeds (they're like, "Oh Sure. We'll send you your 80% share, honest...") -- the only wrinkle is he doesn't have enough funds to pay for the shipping, so he will need them to pay shipping charges collect.

After hemming and hawing and guy threatening to walk, the scammers agree.

Guy then buys two used washing machines on craigslist for 20 or 30 bucks, removes the motors and guts, and then fills them to the very top with cement. Then he crates them up and ships them, air freight, to their country.

Hilarity and death threats ensue.

Krugman Gets It

Krugman (a hero of mine) on the "affinities" of the WSJ:

Maybe subscribers buy the paper for the reporting (although if you ask me, that’s been going downhill since the Murdoch takeover). But as far as I can tell, lots of people still take the editorial page’s pronouncements seriously, even though it seems likely that you could have made a lot of money by betting against whatever that page predicts.

[...]

I guess it’s an affinity thing. The WSJ editorial page comes across as the work of people who love the rich (unless they support liberal causes), hate liberals and the poor, and feel personally affronted by lucky duckies too poor to pay income taxes; and a significant number of well-heeled readers see this and say, “those are my kind of people!”

Proposed Slogan for Obama's 2012 Re-election campaign:

"Vote for us: we'll make sure things will get worse more slowly than under a Republican President."

Good Question

"Which Side Area You On?" by Florence Reese

Come all you poor workers, good news to you I’ll tell,
How the good old union has come in here to dwell.
Which side are you on, which side are you on?

We’re starting our good battle, we know we’re sure to win.
Because we got the gun thugs lookin’ pretty thin.
Which side are you on, which side are you on?

You go to Harlan County, there is no neutral there.
You’ll either be a union man or a thug for J.H. Blair.
Which side are you on, which side are you on?

They say they have to guard us to educate their child.
Their children live in luxury, our children almost wild.
Which side are you on, which side are you on?

Gentlemen can you stand it, oh tell me how you can?
Will you be a gun thug or will you be a man?
Which side are you on, which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner, he’s now in the air and sun.
he'll be with you, fellow workers, till every battle’s won.
Which side are you on, which side are you on?