Slashdot Mirror
419 Scammer Gets Scammed
johnduffell writes "There's a lot of awareness of 419 scams at the moment, including a report from the BBC of a baiter who managed to get $80 and a birthday card by courier! He did this by convincing the scammer that he was in the Church of the Painted Breast and there's even a photo of the scammer with his breast painted! Presumably the scammers are hoping that the scammees are as stupid as they are."
The question now is just, whether the stupid idiot on the other hand might
;-)
actually sue those who tricked him for having been scammed for US$80.
There is not much chance he would get anything out of this, as he
tried to scam people himself, nevertheless - it might keep the guy
here quite busy for a while (because he might STILL have to appear
in front of a court).
Now - THAT would be interesting to see...
Always remember - they might be on the "safe side", since THEIR
judicial system doesn't care too much about them. But on the other
hand, by tricking the 419 scammer out of his money, we are breaking
OUR laws (be that in the US, Europe, or wherever you are - and our
courts look very different on these issues!). Or - in simple
terms: Two wrongs don't make a right!
Also - in comparison, the guy in Nigeria is guilty of ATTEMPTED
fraud, whereas the guy who tricked him out of his US$80 is guilty
of ACTUAL fraud...
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for making sure that this whole 419
scam thing stops. But I don't think we should simply skip the
principles of our 'western world' while doing it!
This was on the page 419eater.com, which was linked by an artical about 419 scams step by step or something.
Isn't running a reverse scam like this one illegal? I mean, the nigerian scammer got what he deserved in every way, but isn't it kind of dangerous to do these kinds of reverse scams? I know the governments in the U.S. and UK might actually prosecute, which the nigerian scammers don't have to worry about from their govs.
From the article:
If you're tempted, just remember Prince Joe who's still sending e-mails saying he's sticking to his promise and saying the daily prayer: "When all above seems a great test, Get on down with the Holy Red Breast."
w00t! Where do I join?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The story about the whole Church of the Painted Breast thing has been on 419eater.com for quite some time now. It's long, but certainly amusing.
Personally I like this one better:
http://www.419eater.com/html/kothapalli_rao.htm
...the first time one of these smarmy nerds gets his ass handed to him by a pissed-off criminal, I'll definitely be feeling the urge to laugh a bit...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Greed is the common denominator whether it be the greed of the scamee or of the scamer. It goes way back to the old adage, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't. Couple greed to gulibility and you've got the wild west show that is the www.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
When they get counterscammed for a significant amount, let me know.
"Presumably the scammers are hoping that the scammees are as stupid as they are."
Having met a decent slice of Human population, I can say that in fact that is the case.
"/Dread"
If they ever knocked on the 419 eater's door, all he'd have to say is, "Listen, I know what it looks like on the website, but it's all photoshopped and fake. I emailed the guy, but he never sent the money. It's my cash, a picture the guy sent, and a photoshopped photo of the envelope."
They'd never get a conviction.
I AM NOT A LAWYER, but if the guy ever gets that knock, the only thing he should say is, "I want a lawyer," over and over again until he gets one.
You're correct, though: two wrongs don't make a right. There's no point in having a Criminal Justice system if we don't uphold our laws and lead by example. Rather than punish the scammer by ripping him off, he should have used the information he gathered to get charges pressed against him in Nigeria.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I always think that these sort of people should be punished for making use of people's greed. Granted, we all know that without the greedy evil mind of the mark they would never succeed and this would also serve as a good rule for natural selection, but then these kind of fraud should not be tolerated and should be terminated.
as for how we should terminate these people - the easiest thing to do is to do a ye olde IP class BAN, which imposes ban on all IP that send nigerian 419 scams through - it is true that this would hurt more people than it should, but then this is far nicer than declaring nigeria as 'terrorist' nation and battering them with bombs.
If we can make block list due to open relay, why can't we do the same for nigerian scam? they are readily identifiable even for computers and they are all from several country, if not one or two.
I want to join too. Maybe we should get a website together? It can be our very own -419 cult. :-)
"Now you have to drink this koolaid we're shipping to you and sing around a fire." (too subtle?)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I have responded to the nigerian scams. Pretending to be a spy. I sighted specific locations and recent events that took place in the country. Never heard back from them.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Several commenters have expressed concern that what this guy is doing is equally wrong, and that he could risk getting sued.
Besides the previously mentioned unlikeliness of any sort of extradition, the article made clear that all proceeds from these reverse scams go to a children's charity. Therefore he's clearly not doing this for personal gain.
I'm would guess that as long as this type of thing doesn't become a serious epidemic, there's no reason the reverse scammers would receive an adverse judgement. Besides, someone has to lodge a complaint against this activity, and who's gonna do that?
Customs Agent: Reason for entering the country?
Scammer: I'm here to beat the tar out of David Hyde Pierce of the Church of the Painted Breast, who stole $80 from me while I was trying to rip him off for $18,000.
Customs Agent: *puts on gloves* Step into this room, sir.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
If you don't want to directly engage the scammers, but still want to hurt their cause, check out this site. All the images there are taken from the fake banking sites that the scammers set up. The pages refresh every 2 minutes to keep the bandwidth usage going. If you REALLY want to hurt them, and have bandwidth to spare, try going to this page. It will load 12 images, all from the aforementioned fake banking sites as fast as your connection will allow.
The story reminded me of this site. I'm not sure if the responses are real but I particularly enjoyed reading the Cthulhu response to a 419.
There's a very good reason that Mike didn't want to give the BBC his real name. These guys are like the mafia, I don't think they appreciate being made fools of. Many Nigerians believe in "Sharia" - or the death penalty for all kinds of transgressions. Source link
Probably not good people to have your home address and phone.
Or these successful counter-scams (this one and the p-p-p-powerbook thing) sound too funny to be real? The more I think about it, the more I think these counter-scams are just hoax posted by some guys looking for cyber-attention. Well, the p-p-powerbook thing seemd to involve too many people not to be real, but this breast painting thing definately sounds like a hoax to me.
perception is reality
It's a statistics thing. If 50% of all their marks take 3 weeks to find out their some 13 year old playing a prank on their african ass, then it becoem 50% less profitable. IF we ensure the number of counter-scammers and time wasters is equal to or greater then the number of gullible fools then we're doing the fools a favor and reducing how many marks the scammers cand o. Also we might be savign lives. These scammer try to invite these people to their country, then rob/beat/kill them for their possesions. So I'l suggest all \.'s do what ever you can to help. Find a nigerian scam mail? reply and fake interest. At least waste their time.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
convincing the scammer that he was in the Church of the Painted Breast
I work for the Ministry of Silly Walks.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Phasellus vel sem pharetra metus pharetra bibendum. Quisque ultrices, dolor non laoreet aliquam, arcu erat consequat wisi, vitae consequat leo ante non ante. Donec at nunc at tortor dapibus commodo. Integer dapibus tellus sit amet arcu. Nulla lobortis erat ac orci ultrices congue. Sed lacinia malesuada pede. Proin tempus. Fusce id augue. Donec sollicitudin. Suspendisse ante. Morbi sodales bibendum augue. Cras in ligula. Sed nonummy tristique lorem. Donec eu mauris. Nam dictum nonummy purus.
Bot Assisted Blogging
"This would all be funny if it wasn't for the millions of dollars being stolen and probably put into drugs or other criminal activities."
Everything was fine in the article until this stupid line. It's just a scam, it's just someone trying to make some cash.
THERE IS NO CORRELATION TO DRUGS OR SATAN OR PURPLE MUPPETS, WHAT WOULD MAKE YOU THINK THAT THERE IS?
Is the Bush and Cheney scambait. Don't forget to click the links here and here for the trophies. That's a lot of trophy pictures for one scambait!
Would the 419'er true and prosecute you for counterscamming? I think not.
It's the old "you can't con an honest man" (not entirely true, but often enough so). People will be hooked in on something that doesn't sound legit, but they're too greedy for sound big-bucks or quick-cash that they fall for it. When they get scammed, they don't go to the police because to do so would be basically admitting they were duped while trying to circumvent the law.
Of course, there are some notably stupid exceptions. I believe police once arrested a woman because she claimed she'd been sold sugar instead of cocaine. They arrested the dealer, and the woman (it was cocaine).
http://www.scamorama.com/bigmac.html
Con artists target the greedy and gulible... They target you and try to convince you that you can scam them.
Conning a con artist is NOT equivalent - you're scamming a person who deliberately targeted you in hopes of stealing from you.
As far as I'm concerned, conning a con artist is like beating the crap out of someone who tries to mug you - something that should be applauded.
You think that these scams are run by individuals trying to pull some cash? They're not. The average Nigerian citizen can't afford Internet access of any kind.
The people running these scams are almost always associated with criminal gangs, and these gangs do pull in quite a bit from their acts of fraud, and they do funnel the money into criminal enterprises.
No, they're not "terrorists", but they are hard-core criminals who will stop at nothing to rob anyone they can blind. They all deserve to die a horrible, painful death. Unfortunately, we don't have that power, so the best that we can do is utterly humiliate them by making them paint their body or getting them to dump water on their heads.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Last fall I received an email from a Nigerian who identified himself as a psychologist and was interested in obtaining some stress management materials I referenced on my website. As soon as I read it I thought to myself that this was going to be the start of a 419 scam. I almost ignored it but then thought that I would play along. I told him that to mail the materials I would need $15US to cover the postage and to my surprise a couple weeks later a cheque arrived. I was sure it was going to bounce but when it didn't, I sent him what he asked for. The moral is that Nigeria is a big country and not everyone there is trying to run a scam.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
If I were this guy, I'd forget about the spammers -- I'd be more worried about his involvement at the Church of the Painted Breast. I just asked my Most Holy Pastor here at the Church of Scientology, and he told me the Painted Breasters are a scam and just a "stupid made up religion to scam the weakminded out of their money". And my pastor isn't lying -- in fact, he *can't* lie, even if he wanted to. He cast out the demons of lying when that exorcism went on sale last fall. I wish I had the $23,500 required; all I had was $15,000, so I just exorcised the demons of disobedience and free thought.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
C'mon guys, a server can only take so much abuse.
With clothes and without.
(On topic, for once.)
...try it yourself. Study the posted scam baiter correspondence and try to mimic it with a few pet mugus. You'll find that while some of them are wise, many of them will fall for quite a bit of bullshit.
I've not yet conned money from anyone, but I have managed to get two scammers to be 'baptized' in the name of my church (the Church of the Golden Shower), and you can see the pics linked in a previous posting of mine (the pics are also in the 419eater.com Trophy Room, along with two other trophies that I received previously, one of them a Father's Day card for my dad, but right now the site is slashdotted). The "Golden Shower" baits are still ongoing, and I'm tempted to get the scammers to send me something via snail mail. Perhaps not money, but maybe hardcopies of the photos.
At some point I plan to document the email exchanges that led up to me receiving the pictures. I'm not as funny in my presentation, but it would at least give other baiters who haven't had luck getting pics an idea of how to convince the scammers to send one (in my case, I played along until they asked for money, then confessed that I personally couldn't afford what they wanted, but I could appropriate church funds ONLY if they agreed to join the church).
I have no reason to doubt the Church of the Painted Breast bait. The guy in the pic was successfully baited by others (note that one of the pics that Shiver/Mike/David sent is of a group of clowns with other pictures of "Joe" photoshopped in -- those came from other baiters, and you can see one where he's dumping water on his head and holding a sign that reads "SOAKED!") and Shiver is a resident expert amongst the baiting community.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
...wasn't even intentional. Guy asked a scammer to pose for a photo holding a sign with a company logo.
Scammer didn't exactly pose with a sign. Scammer did something else, something that no one expected, and that now has the baiter being revered by other baiters as a god (this is not my work, I really envy this guy);
Behold.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
they have _murdered_ poor saps who came to nigeria to "collect" on their "deals".
they even hired mafia to carry out a murder in north america, related to the scam.
419 flashmob
If the cops show up and you are kicking the mugger while he is on the ground in a fetal position, you will be arrested.
If you cross the line between violence for the sake of defence and violence for the sake of punishment, you are no better the mugger and you will be dealt with accordingly.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
It's the anti-fraud statute. I mean, duh - lying to get money from someone is the very definition of fraud.
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
Uh... never mind.
That is purely classic.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Would the people who can't figure out how to spell ARTICLE be invited?
I don't think the scammers are going to be complaining too loudly. 419 scams are a form of theft, and under Sharia law thieves have a hand cut off. Pretty barbaric, but these days liberal Muslims would much rather have a modern legal and penal system.
Islam doesn't have a unique claim to this sort of barbarity. According to the Bible, if you find a thief breaking in, you can simply kill him. If he is caught later, and doesn't have sufficient funds to make restitution, he can be sold into slavery.
The people the scambaiters need to fear are not the proponents of Sharia law, but the scammers themselves. The scammers are, after all, simply organised criminals.
How do we know that the nigerian scammer didn't send a round of false emails to more unsuspeting victims promising millions for an 80 dollar fee to be sent to some guy in England. A third party might have been scammed to fulfill the scamness repsonsibility of scammer by reverse scamee.
scam-a-rific
What do you mean, scam?
And, by the way, when do my concubines show up?
I remember a few years ago I had a run in with people like this. I was trying to sell my 91' corsica on autotrader.com. It was rather humorous. The guy sent me an email in incredibly broken english saying he wished to purchase my car and ship it back to Africa (forget what country). Considering the car was only worth about $2000 USD, and that the cost of shipping was more then the car's value, yeah. I probably played with this fool for 5 or 6 email transgressions. I was almost tempted to contact my bank and see about getting this guy busted, but decided that the bank just wants to do legit business, not fight crime and that I did not have the time anyway. Always good to keep these bastards occupied. Plus its fun!!!
Brendan
I don't have the time to bait 419ers, so I do the next best thing - subscribe their reply-to addresses to several choice opt-in spam registries!
Would it be possible to crate a script for writing auto replies to the scammers? You know, the one which says:
,
Dear
I am very interested in doing business with you. Can you send me more details?
So that scammers waste their time on trying to write replies and at least lose some of their time?
Let society sort itself out
You really do take your chances in front of a jury, or even a judge. You can make a solid argument, backed by the facts and the law, and still be ruled against. I know, I've seen it happen first hand. There are simply no assurances.
-cp-
Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets
About 20 years ago my fathers company got a bunch of Nigerian scam mail (snail mail, not email). They were all actually posted in Nigeria. The name comes from the fact that this has been going on in Nigeria since way before email was popular.
It's funny looking through these letters today, because they look almost exactly like the modern email version except they are usually typed and signed in an unreadable manner at the bottom.
Sindri Traustason.
Anyone that falls for these scams deserves what they get (ok, not all the scams, but most of them). The basic premise of these scams is that someone wants you to participate in a scam. Why doesn't anyone focus on this fact. These people are asked to help move money, merchandise, or something else, for larges sums of money, and none of them could even for a moment appear to be legitimate. No matter who gets taken for what, if they were trying to help somone spirit money away from the countrymen that it was stolen from, they deserve to lose it all. What about an 80 year old woman on a fixed income? Sure, she should lose it all, she should no better, but in her greed, she was blinded. If you get blinded to basic ethical living by a couple of dollar signs, you deserve to suffer.
According to the Bible, if you find a thief breaking in, you can simply kill him.
That's how it is according to Oklahoma law, too, and many other states.
It's called the "make my day" law: if I find you breaking into my home (castle doctrine), you are presumed to be there with the capability and intent to do me harm. Accordingly, I can employ lethal force in my own defense. And, for the record, I don't consider this barbaric at all: if you're invading my home, why should I have to stand at grave disadvantage and risk of grievous bodily harm while determining what your plans are? Out on the street, in public, etc., yes--circumstances are open to interpretation, and I need to be sure that the threat actually exists. When you break into my home, though, you're explicitly demonstrating some threat, even unarmed. There is no confusion about your intent when you've broken into my home: you're there to break the law, and you've demonstrated that by doing so (B&E is illegal). How many more laws you're going to break, I don't know, but I'm not obliged to wait for you to start assaulting/killing/raping/etc. me/my family before I act defensively.
Anyhow, no, Islam is not unique in how it deals with home invasion, but I don't consider that barbaric, just good defensive practice. As for hand-chopping, well, I don't care for the practice (I think it is barbaric), and I don't like the idea of selling him into slavery, either (though I'm quite fond of the idea of restitution), but I don't get to make those decisions (at least not until I take over the world).
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
One of the baits I did had the scammer claiming that I really was the next of kin for the fictional "deceased" -- not that I'd be standing in as such, but that I really had been tracked down as a living relative of someone who died and left a lot of money in the bank. The name of the 'deceased' was even tailored to match my baiter identity's last name. You could get someone who was naieve fooled by that, even though they have no idea that they're participating in a scam. The lottery scammers also don't specifically state that they're running a scam, they're simply claiming that you've won a prize and there are people who might think that they simply entered without realising or forgot.
Regardless of the circumstances, almost every scammer claims that the transaction is completely legal and 100% risk-free. Some of the phony documents that they send the victims are used to aid in sustaining this illusion.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I use Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Ted Nugent as my aliases. Great fun!
My favorite line: "You see you are not even interligent i did not told you that am a Lawyer."
http://blake.prohosting.com/picard/
I use Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Ted Nugent as my aliases. Great fun!
At least one mugu is a TNG fan!.
To boldy go where no mugu has gone before...
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
That's how it is according to Oklahoma law, too, and many other states.
Well that's somewhere else to add to my list of "places I don't want to live". Somewhat contrived example: I live next door to you. My wife goes into labor, but the phone is out, so I can't call for an ambulance (my car's in the shop). So I run to your house and ring the door bell, bang on the door. Nothing. Wondering what to do, I see an open window and a phone just inside. Now of course I'm not rally thinking straight, the life of my wife and child are at risk right now, so what the hell, I jump in and pick up the phone. Then you come out from the shower where you were happily singing "The Star Spangled Banner" rather loudly (hence not hearing the door), grab your handy 9mm and shoot me dead.
Reasonable?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Not only do fators for consideration work on the plane of a decision matrix, but the universe is sufficiently sadistic as to insist on things coming out of nowhere to provide a level of complexity that presently exceeds human understanding. This variability scales down, and that's why things don't always go as planned.
People who buy these kinds of books are simply lackingthe level of imagination necessary to avoid getting caught in some corporate peter principle, and want quick answers as to how they can out-edge or out-compete their rivals.
What the 2x matrix world view, in present contexts, fails to understand is that the challenges ahead are not of competition but of co-operation - not unipolar dominance but multipolar consensus - not an overpopulated mass of hungry people, but a vastly depopulated technologically productive species exploring the universe. There is nothing matrical about that - the vision is completely wrong and off - we need more nuanced and complex decisions aided by a technical offloading of horsepower to machines, not simpler faster ones based on the quarterly bottom line...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
How 'bout a reference? I'm dying to see where you got your information.
Well, how exactly was he to know the circumstances of your breaking and entering?
The situation that you describe is incredibly far-fetched. How often do people break into the homes of others for benign purposes?
If I catch an intruder in my home, I'm going to assume nefarious intent rather than that he simply needed to use the phone and didn't think to try a different house when no one answered after he knocked.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
including a report from the BBC of a baiter who managed to get $80 and a birthday card by courier!
That Mike sure is a master baiter.
I know the governments in the U.S. and UK might actually prosecute
True. However, at least in the US, the Bill of Rights, Article 6 says we have the right "to be confronted with the witnesses against" us. Which means not only do you have to find a prosecutor asinine enough to press charges against the counterscammer, but the original scammer has to SHOW UP in court to testify... and risk being arrested and charged in turn.
Furthermore, I suspect (though IANAL) that $80 would not be enough to bring you to the felony level, but that the attempt at scamming $18,000 by the 419 fellow would be. And most prosecutors are quite willing to make deals with small time crooks in exchange for testimony to catch bigger ones.
Plus, of course, "No jury would ever convict me!"
No, the real risk here is that the big 419 crook finds the counterscammer's real name and address, and has connections enough to do something dreadfully violent.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Don't you mean YELLOW MUPPETS? Or specifically, one particular yellow muppet, with a unibrow?
http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/bert.htm
Yeah, yeah - off topic, blah blah blah. But funny.
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
The difference is, Christians do not take Bible as the literal words of God. They debate the meaning of parables and accounts endlessly. The Pope doesn't call for suicide bombings and tell everyone it's alright to kill infidels. There was Reformation for the Church, while Islam never goes under the period of self-inspection.
Quran, however, is taken as the literal words of Allah. Noone can question it under the pain of death. I just learned that it's alright for muslims to lie and to do things for the benefit of Islam (taqiyya and kitman), so the next time your friend tell you Islam does not allow killings of infidel, he may just lied. That explains why those terrorists can shave their beards, go to dance clubs, drink alcohol and fuck western women. Even Arafat once said that he was willing to kill, why would he be opposed to lie?
Jas
Software is like a goldfish - it'll grow to fit the size of it's bowl...
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this chap
The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet. -- William Gibson
You must have *WAY* better looking inductees breasts to send them than those guys did.
-moitz-
Screw 'em...who cares what anyone thinks.
The most interesting thing to me is none of the law enforcement agencies were interested in their information. Given the face this guy was stupid enough to send $80 the photo could have been of an actual scammer. The joke is law enforcement would be more likely to go after him for the $80 reverse scam than that didn't benefit him than the real thief that is stealing 18 grand a shot. I realize there is little they can do from England and the United States to a Nigeran scammer. Given the millions involved there should be pressure on Nigeria to prosecute these men. It may be bringing in millions to the local economy but the threat of a trade embargo from the US and Europe would scare them and could have an effect. Trust me, if Enron was being scammed out of hundreds of millions of dollars the government would be all over it. The fact it's mostly retired people and people who are stupid or desperate the government could care less.
This is all well and good, but the problem with playing with 419'ers is that it takes a lot of one's personal time. It would be better if someone would write an automated script to make the letters for you. Apparently, it wouldn't take much A.I. to defeat most of these thieves.
Go tell that to the Young Earth Creationists. Most Christians in the USA believe (or at least claim to believe) in the Bible as the literal Word of God. 61% believe in creation from Genesis. 60% believe in Noah's Flood.
Go look at the nutters at the Creation Science Fair, for example. (I was originally sure this site was a parody, but am becoming less and less convinced of that as time goes on.) Middle School level, 2nd place, "Women were designed for homemaking."
No, I'm not aware of any Christian group who believe that the Bible was "dictated" by God, and that is the position of many Muslims. However, there are a lot of Christians who believe 2 Timothy 3:16; that is that all scripture is divinely inspired. The fact that the Bible's human authors were left to find their own words for God's thoughts is not, in the end, very different from dictation.
What you say about "parables and accounts" is a slightly different issue. The Bible and the Koran both contain passages which are not intended to be taken literally, or where the meaning is just obscure. However, the examples I gave were taken from the books of law, which appear to be the Israelites' legal code. I'm not aware of any other way you can interpret these books. I would like to know about any interpretation which does not impart harshness to God in the way that comes over on a naive reading.
What I was trying to show, though, was the danger of learning about Islam by reading pro-Christian blogs. I have noticed a process where some blogger decides to have a look at the Koran. He finds something that shows Islam in a bad light, so he posts it on his blog. Perhaps it sounds striking, and so it gets copied by lots of other people. Unfortunately no one bothers to ask a real Muslim how they actually interpret that part of the Koran.
My quotes from the Bible were meant to highlight the fact that a similar process could be applied to Christianity. I don't know of any Christians who advocate slavery, whether or not for thieves. Yet it is there, in the Bible, and could give people a wrong idea about what Christians think.
Fours boxes keep us free: Jusry, Cartridge, Soap, Ballot
(*Yes I know the subject line was spelled poorly. I wanted to get that into the subject line since a lot of people wouldn't read the message body.)
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
MY particular sect of Baptists believ the book was written by god himself. So don't generalize about christians.. .I however do nto beleive it's directly divine. I think it's almost idolatry to hold the book up so highly.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Boy, that's what you call a bad day. Good example. Now that you made up that story I'm pretty sure that people break and enter for benign purposes all the time.
Getting back to reality, if someone breaks into your home, you probably have a better chance winning the lottery than of them being "benign". I personally wouldn't just up and shoot somebody I found in my home, but I can understand the reaction. What are you supposed to do? Make a citizen's arrest? If the law says you can't use lethal force against intruders in your own home, wouldn't it make the criminals more bold? They know you can't, so how do you make them stick around for the cops? If you just let them leave, how do you know they won't come back?
WWJD? JWRTFA!
>Reasonable?
No. If you lived in oklahoma, you probably know your next door neighbor well enough to have a key.
One of my grand parents' houses never had a back *door*, let alone "locked."
I bet the camera used by the scammer to ID himbself is payed with cash he stole from careless non-slashdot readers heh
So! does he get caught? Last time I have been to louisianna I saw that same guy 87 times in a week heh
A court will not award damages to a party that has 'unclean hands'. The scammers are attempting to negotiate a contract by which they have no itention of abiding--indeed, by which they cannot abide (they don't have eighteen billion dollars, now do they?)--and which would be illegal even if they could carry through their promises. Loosely speaking, the terms: Scammer gives Baiter $80, Baiter gives Scammer $18000, Scammer gives Baiter $millions.
Consequently, the doctrine of clean hands (Link, Link) would tend to preclude successful legal action by the scammers. No court would enforce the contract, and trying to get the original $80 back would expose the scammer to far more costs and probably criminal prosecution.
~Idarubicin
I recieved this..... Nasty! http://www.oilcareers.com/content/community/board/ view.asp?mode=viewtopic&topicID=1026
they even hired mafia to carry out a murder in north america, related to the scam.
Really? I'm pretty sure the Mafia don't do contracts for other people. They have principles. Do you have any references?
"paid"
dumbass. sheesh! kids today are fucking stupid.
There is a masive difference between "simply kill" and "act defensively".
A stranger in your own home, "act defensively" is a fair thing to do, "simply kill" is not.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
heh?
Even as a none christian I beleive (to a degree) in Noah's Flood.
The "world" was much smaller then.
I wonder how many will make their wifes leave the village for a week during "that time of the month"?
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Yeehaw! Now that's a law I like, pardner.
What and do you think I'm going to let you Squat in my living room with your fscking horse, can of beans and frypan and make cook them on a fire you made out of our antique family footstool from the year 1699? And then do you think I'll stand idly when you make shiskabobs out of our pet parakeet, and annoint your urine unto our carpet and masturbate to goatse porn? And then you think I'll stand idly when you bring that evil television into our family room and kick out our family washpan and family sewing wheel thus corrupting our Amish way of life?
/w00t # userdel mlk; rm -rf /home/mlk ::Die mlk bit duh sausage with saurkraut
You can get your pan-handling ass back in New Jersey you goddam queer; infadel!. I'm defendin' my-self from the likeness of you and your slashdot ID.
w00t@DieRoxenBoxen3.andyweaverbarn.mil
I work in the fraud department of a major online vendor. We have tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise stolen from us every month. We do not attempt to prosecute those who were involved in the theft. It costs more to prosecute than the goods were worth. The authorities will not help in the cause. When we attempt to get the law behind us they pretty much laugh. This is from a very respected business. Unless we can provide hard evidence that a single person has done several thousand dollars worth of damage and have good evidence they don't even want to hear about it. If we did have incontrovertible evidence they might be interested. I am amazed at how people think the law is going to step in and prosecute this guy who no one is going to file a complaint against.
I wonder how many will make their wifes leave the village for a week during "that time of the month"?
:-)
Admit it - you would if you could
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
I was burgled this year. The thief took some cigarettes, an old phone, a broken camera and helped himself to food in the fridge.
The food bit was suprising to me. I wonder how we can live in a society where people must steal food in order to live. I felt sorry for him because worrying about eating has never been a problem for me.
Does he deserve to die for a few crusty bit of bread? No. Death is not a suitable punishment.
"Make my day"? I feel sorry for you too.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
seeing as we're talking lawyer territory and boy do they like to argue minor points, that's probably 'English Law' - there's no such thing as 'British Law' (e.g. Scotland has different legal system). I believe the same is true on your side of the pond, no 'American law' but a separate 'USA law' 'Mexican law', 'Canadian law' etc :-)
I applaud you, sir.
Bloodthirst of many folks sickens me, especially here, you wouldn't expect to find most barbaric rednecks among techies.
How the values of americans (and sorry for generalization) can be so perverted and just plain WRONG I can't even begin to comprehend.
The person breaking into your house needs help, not a bullet.
Does anyone deserve death for eating your food? No.
Does anyone deserve death for breaking into your house? No.
Doed anyone deserve death for stealing your jewelry? No.
Does anyone deserve death for waving a knife around threateningly? No.
Does anyone deserve death for fantasizing about raping and killing your wife? No.
For actually doing it? Yes.
The point is, you don't know what their intentions are. I'd much rather have these kinds of laws than not. Yes, there will be some accidents. Do you have any idea how many people are killed in car accidents each year? Yet we as a society have determined that the benefits of being able to get from point A to point B in a short amount of time and in style and comfort far outweigh the risks associated with vehicular usage. If we can be that seemingly callous (when you consider the number of gruesome infant/children deaths), why should we be too worried about accidently killing a home intruder that was only going to steal most of our possessions and threaten to kill us, but not actually do it?
I feel sorry for you.
PS: And what makes you think he needed to steal you food in order to live. It's possible that he just wanted to grab something for the hell of it. There are some pople like that. I've had people ask me for money to eat because "they are pregnant and hungry," but when I offered to go inside (this was in a grocery-store parking lot) and purchase food for them, they quickly left and went on to the next car. The only reason I offered to do this is because the woman looked extremely strung-out, had track marks on her arms, and didn't appear the least bit pregnant. I know I may come off sounding like some hard-case, right-wing nut, but I do honestly care about people. It's just that some of them will try to take advantage of that, and you should be wary.