Niger(ia), Please

Okay, we're kind of back. The Moose is well enough that he wants to play and watch Zobomafoo, so I have a few minutes to put down my thoughts, and today, despite lack of sleep and Sudafed head (sweet, sweet Sudafed head), I have thoughts. First, today's soundtrack (for those of you who don't know how this works, click the link and let the default occur, and if that fails, right click the link, save it to your computer, and then open it).

Message No. 419

So, one would hope that at this point this kind of public service announcement would be unnecessary, but the gullibility of the common man never ceases to amaze me. Case in point: the nice lady who sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to someone she didn't know, cleaning out hubby's retirement fund, mortgaging her house, taking a lien on her car - all hoping to get a cut of millions of dollars from someone escaping Africa. It's known as the "Nigerian Scam". Note the last word there.



Now, this is hardly a new phenomena. The whole "I have to escape the country with my 40 million dollars and will happily give you a cut if you give me your bank account information" thing showed up in my first inbox about eight years ago. Since then, it has been well documented. So yeah, no excuse there.

But let's assume that this woman somehow missed the television, radio and print news stories about these scams. Maybe we should cut her some slack. After all, we're all human, right?

In the immortal words of Will Smith, "Aw, hell no".

Her friends told her it was a scam. Her family told her it was a scam. The %#@$ing police told her it was a scam. Not even a supposed letter from George W. Bush full of misspelled words clued her in that something was not right here. I mean, I would believe the misspelled words, but he has people for proofreading. It's a Presidential perk.

So, for any of you that still don't get it, there is no way that anyone, anywhere, is going to offer to share lots of money with you. People are, in their tiny little hearts, essentially greedy beings. It's part of survival. There's a reason we all wait around for our inheritances - death is pretty much the only way to get people to give away money without wanting something in return.

Now forward this to all of your really gullible friends. They'll thank you. Actually, wait...just send me their emails.

I have some lovely swampland that I would like to talk to them about.