Spamese II

I find it hard to believe that ANYONE with more than three interconnected brain cells would bite on this spam that arrived in my mailbox a few moments ago...

Good day dear clients,
We are sorry to inform that the fraudulents with the accounts of our bank have recently increased. That is why our bank changes the security system, which will provide maximum security to our clients if the accounts are used by frauds. You will receive a special program to your e-mail this week, as well as the instruction how to use it. With its help you will have an opportunity to make payments. Without this program no one will be able to transfer money from your account. If you lose the program, you will have to pay $4,99 and we will send you the copy of it. To confirm the registration of this anti-fraud program visit this web-site and complete the necessary forms:

I'll spend much of the day trying to get my head around "fraudulents with the accounts of our bank", which takes creativity in the English language to a whole new level.

I wonder if the spammers sit around at a post campaign meeting discussing the performance matrix of the campaign?

SPAM BOSS
Today, we sent 437 million emails and got a record 12 responses... good work people! Unfortunately, we're not hitting on the right demographic because the total funds across all 12 bank accounts was just $229.36.

SPAM ASSISTANT
We need to find out why we're not appealing to a higher income demographic.

SPAM BOSS
Good suggestion people. Let's have a workshop, tomorrow, where we can explore ways to target people with more money. So I want you all to come tomorrow prepared...

Not much different to any corporate marketing planning session really.

Deserving Of A Standing Ovation

Each time I write about the clash between Islam and the West, I implore moderate Muslims to speak up.

Wafa Sultan is a Syrian American psychologist who lives in Los Angeles. This interview on Al Jazera has made her an international sensation. She says what we all think more eloquently than I could ever write here.

I stand in ovation, with a tear in my eye that there is, perhaps, some hope in the world.

Young People Today...

We're on the hiring merry-go-round again, and I still struggle with the sad fact that most young people just don't get it.

This is a brilliant opportunity for someone... we'll give them a car, pay them an allowance, wind them up and off they go. All we care about after that is performance. They can work whatever hours they like, they can work from home, and they work mostly unsupervised. They just have to pay their way or we're not interested in having them stick around.

Here's an example of one of the applications I received today...

i wish to apply for the pasition you have advertised on the jobsearch website job ID: xxxxxxxxxx This position would be excellent for me has i am tafe learing make-up and beauty. i am a very self-motivated,enthusiastic and have great communication skills. i believe that this position would be ecxellent for me. yours sincerely

That's EXACTLY as it arrived (other than the italics, of course).

I can overlook those pesky capitals, and though I struggle with it, I can even overlook the spelling. What I can't overlook is the assertion that the position would be good for her.

Um... I don't really care whether you think the job would be good for you or not. All I care about is whether you'll be good in the job, and sadly, in your application, there's no mention of that at all.

(In the unlikely even the applicant actually reads this blog, I invite her to re-apply, and do it properly.)

Extreme Sport

Thanks to CAW for introducing me to this wonderfully addictive sport.

No Limit To Stupidity III

As regular readers will know, I keep constant watch for stupidity because the price of sanity is eternal vigilance.

This photo was taken in Swansea, in the UK, from an office opposite the site where council workmen were cleaning up after doing an excellent job of installing (and concreting in) steel traffic bollards to prevent cars from parking on the footpath (or sidewalk if you're on the wrong side of the Atlantic) outside the gray building on the right.

Take a careful look.

(I'd give the photographer all due credit, if only he/she had been given credit in the email the pic came in. Sorry.)

What's In A Name?

It's a trivial thing, but I was scouring through my spam box this morning, and was struck by the colour of some of the senders' names.

Names like...
Jordan Lavender - which sounds more like a porn star name (not, that I'd know anything about that, of course)
Coleman Q Mag - who?
Augustine Hollbrook - who one might expect to have a holiday home in the Hamptons.
Guadalupe Hewitt - a bit of cross culture creeping in there.
Jesus Hopkins - isn't that a hospital somewhere?
Montague O Fortune - would look great on a business card.
or
Wilburn Bautista - sounds like he should be running a revolution in Central America.

I know they're made up, (and the more spam I get, the more I have come to realise those behind the spam definitely don't speak English as a first language) but seriously, common English names are not hard to come by, are they?

Dark and Darker

There are a couple of things that deeply disturb me about the rising tide of anti-Muslim sentiment in the West, things that challenge the very core of my belief system.

Before I get to the point, remember, I am Jewish, and that's going to be central to the issue.

I also have a passionate belief in freedom, and both the rights and responsibilities that come with living in a free society. I've always held in the highest regard those words of Jefferson in the preamble to the American Constitution about an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To me, that translates into an easy philosophy... that we can all do whatever we feel like, on the proviso that in so doing, we don't impact directly on someone else's right to their own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. (Note the emphasis on "directly". That's also central to the issue.)

With that set of core beliefs, I view the rise of anti-muslim sentiment, especially across Europe, as the new anti-semitism. It makes me very uncomfortable indeed. Try it, next time you read a newspaper article on 'those evil muslims'... replace muslim with "jew" and and a very dark evil re-emerges, all the more so because the people of Europe still hate the Jews. They just hate the Muslims even more.

However, there is one significant difference... the Jews do not proselytize. That is, they don't run around trying to convert everyone they meet to Judaism. Instead, we rather arrogantly proclaim that we're God's "chosen people", and unless you've been chosen by birth, we make things rather difficult (though not impossible) for you to enter the fold.

In Islam, you have an agressive faith which seeks to convert all whom it encounters, backed by a holy book that preaches deceipt, violence, war and intolerance as a way of life.

"Ah yes," I head you say, "isn't that what the Christians did during the Spanish Inquisition. Yes, I suppose it is, but with one significant difference... the New Testament largely preaches tolerance and peace (despite the violence and atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition). More importantly, it didn't single out anyone and preach a duty of violence against them.

Contrast that to the Koran, where hatred of non-believers is inscribed in the law, and where there is a holy duty to carry out that law. Contrast Judeo-Christian ethics with a holy book that holds up truth as a duty, but only between believers (in other words, among believers, you must be truthful, but when you deal with the non believers, it's ok to lie. Yes, that's what the book says!).

So how can I stand up and defend Islam against attacks that are looking more and more like the vile anti-semitism of old, when in doing so, I give impramateur to those who believe thay have a holy duty to kill me, and anyone else born under the Star of David?

And let's not forget that these are the same people who practice the vilest, most virulent, most deceiptful anti-semitism in history.

The bottom line is, such people don't want me to defend them. They don't want you to defend them either. They don't want to be "in dialogue" with you. They don't want to share your city or country in a spirit of tolerance that we, in the West, take for granted. They just want us dead... Jews, Christians, Hindus, Budhists... anyone who doesn't believe. They even want each other dead, in a factional war that makes the old Catholic/Protestant rivalry look like a schoolboy football match.

They view our quest for tolerance and peace as weakness and will exploit that weakness until their will is done. They understand nothing but the rule of an iron fist... anything less is fodder for their war.

Which brings me to the second part of my dilema.

The simple problem is that Western Civilisation has become weak. We lack the guts to stand up for ourselves, and for what we believe in.

I'm not talking about nations... I'm talking about you and me... the ordinary people... people who've become soft, who lead soft, all-too-easy lives and for whom political or philosophical debate is a chore. We're all far to pre-occupied with how long Paris spent in prison, or how much David and Posh paid for the LA residence, that we are about the things that really matter. All we care about is how soon we can have that new iPhone, or a new LCD TV.

We cower in the corner of political correctness, and fail dismally to stand up for what we believe. When we do, the bleating, bleeding hearts step up to intervene, makign us appear even weaker.
Finally, we have worthless, corrupt politicians who display a dismal lack of leadership, and who are more interested in winning the next election, or even the next opinion pole, than they are about making decisions for the good of future generations. There are no statesmen. There are no leaders other than those interested in their own power.

In short, we've become facile shadows of the extraordinary minds that made Western Civilisation great and prosperous... Descartes, Jefferson, Copernicus, and a very long line of others.

In a sense, we deserve our fate, because there are people out there with more passion and will to attack what we have than we currently have to defend it. We're throwing away 2000 years of of cultural legacy and if we don't change, it will be gone in our lifetimes.

Conditioning

Back in the early sixties, behavioral researchers conducted a series of experiments that should privide you with a real explaination for your own behaviour, and the behaviour of the people around you.

Think this through, because that reserach has far reaching implications.

Here's what they did...

They put a large school of mackarel in a tank. They then put their natural predator in the tank, a barracuda.

They let the barracuda happily enjoy mackarel smorgasbord for a couple of weeks, and then they introduced a glass barrier into the centre of the tank. For a couple of days, this didn't effect the barracuda at all. There were plenty of mackarel on his side of the glass.

However, as the fish stocks started to run out, the barracuda would start to attack the mackarel on the other side of the glass.

Smack. Ramming into glass hurts. So each time the barracuda tried to eat a mackarel, he got a large dose of negative re-inforcement, and each subsequent time, his enthusiasm diminished. Eventually, and if I recall, it was after 30 such attempts, he lost interest.

The researchers then removed the glass from the tank, and the barracuda was once again surrounded by mackarel smorgasbord. He starved to death.

That barracuda had been so negatively conditioned to failure, that he gave up. He 'knew' he would fail, and that there were negative consequences of trying to eat mackarel.

The researchers then correlated that observation to humans, and estimated that while it took the mackarel 30 attempts to negatively condition himself, it will only take a human two or three negative experiences.

These experiences shape your life, your reactions, your confidence, and your chances of success at whatever it is you do.

Here's an example. If you're in a relationship, and it ends with your partner running off with someone else, it might distress you, but it's unlikely to effect your behaviour in your next relationship. However, if your next partner does the same, from now on, you'll subconsciously enter every subsequent relationship with a dual expectation, that a) it will fail, and b) your partner will be unfaithful and run off with someone else. That expectation will manifest itself in the way you relate to your partner, a self fulfilling pattern that will further entrench your now solidly ingrained attitude.

None More Deserved

For those who've been living under a rock for the last ten years, or perhaps living in the Excited States, where such things would be less than relevant, the bloke in the pic is soccer super-megastar-demigod Mr David Spice.

First of all, let me state this clearly in the most unambiguous language I can use in a family blog... I think soccer is a boring waste of a good football field. It's played by high diving pansies who think deliberately falling over and staying down until the tissues arrive and the whistle is blown is all part of the strategy of the game. It's corrupt to the core, and is followed in most parts of the world by thick headed thugs for whom rare moments of cognitive function would raise behaviour to levels unprecedented among ovines.

So with that qualification out of the way, let me get to the point.

It's not often I read The Times of London, but with looney Islamists up to their usual trickery, I spent a few minutes on its website this morning. It was there that I found an article by Matthew Syed who I'm guessing is one of The Times' better sports scribblers.

He was writing of the tradition whereby outgoing British Prime Ministers are able to nominate a handful of knighthoods, a favour bestowed on them by the King or Queen since the days of... um... some dead monarch with roman numerals after their name.

These gongs (that's what a Knighthood is called here in Oz) usually go to political mates or over-generous supporters of the Party, in much the same way that the outgoing US President is able to grant pardons (the latter being a far more honest reflection of the true nature of the political process).

Syed suggested that with Tony Blair's retirement, a natural candidate for such a gong would be the ubiquitous David Beckham, formerly of Manchester United and Real Madrid, and lately strapping on boots and jockstrap for the Los Angeles Galaxy.

And not, as you might imagine, for services to sport. After all, Mr Spice is no Sir Johnny Wilkinson, the freak rugby half whose golden boot snatched the World Cup from Australia a few years back, and whose mortal remains shall surely be laid to rest under said boots in Westminster Abbey along with other great contributors to England and Empire like Newton, Chaucer, Kipling, Darwin, Dickens, Olivier and Stevenson.

Sadly, under Beckham's captaincy, you can count the number of international tournaments the English Football Team has won on less than one finger.

No. Syed's reasoning is rather different...
"Beckham has been the single most significant catalyst in the metrosexual revolution, changing the contemporary notion of masculinity, softening it, smoothing it, widening it, diversifying it. He has not only made it possible to be a real man and gay. He has also made it possible to be a real man and sensitive; to be a real man and concerned about one’s appearance; to be a real man and to cry in public; to be a real man and to wear dresses and high heels."

If ever there was a reason for Knighthood, Order of Australia, Congressional Medal of Honour or whatever the gong is in your part of the world, "Contribution to Metrosexuality" is surely compelling.

The full article is HERE.