Category: Just Saying …

From: Minister of the Treasury Paulson
Subject: REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer thesefunds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully

Minister of Treasury Paulson

(found at http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/09/request-for-urg.html )

I find it interesting that the folks on Wall Street are experiencing a bit of problems…..and that today is “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” (http://www.talklikeapirate.com ).

Because the current financial situation makes me say “Arrrrghhh !! “

Several news stories caught my eye today during the morning surf routine. Although I saw these on the MSNBC news site, a bit of simple Google-fu will find them for you. These are the headlines:

1) “Judge rules saggy pants law unconstitutional” — it’s nice to know that not all of our constitutional rights are being discarded. Although at my age, my pants sag because of my “dunlap” disease — my belly done lap over my belt.

2) “Toilet-paper researchers create 3-ply tissue” — Yes, three-ply toilet tissue is what I will be looking for, even though the new product will be aimed by the “Quilted Northern” foks “to women 45 and older who view their bathroom as a ‘sanctuary for quality time.’ ” What about us guys? I view my bathroom as a place to catch up on some quality reading. It’s a very private and quiet place, although I do appreciate the included fan.

3) “Sons of infertile men may be next” — This one is just confusing. If a man is shooting blanks, how can his son inherit the same problem? Think about it. But not too long.

Apparently, it’s time to go take my medications.

If you are worried about the Hadron Collider destroying the world, you can use this web site to answer that question:

Has the large Hadron collider destroyed the world yet?

And if you don’t believe that site, here’s another one:

How ’bout now?

Heh.

(from

Mostly the usual today at the office. Some minor mail problems fixed, some VPN users activated, and some reading of the Innerwebs.

Nice to see that Jerry Pournelle (www.jerrypournelle.com ) is back to full speed after his bout with cancer. The inoperable tumor in his head was successfully zapped, and he seems to be on track to getting back to his old breakneck speed. I’ve read his stuff for at least 25 years, starting with his Byte columns. (Sometimes those columns were the only thing that I understood in that magazine.) His daily blog (although he dislikes that word, but he is definitely a long-time blogger) is a daily Innerwebs stop for me. His mail section is one of the best.

Tonight, some phone calls for www.protectmarriage.com are on tap. Along with DVR’ing Sarah Connors.

Today’s task list was to hose off the patio under the bird feeder (the birds are a bit messy). And then I cleaned the carpet in the family room.

Then I watched “Firewall” with Harrison Ford (in real time, rather than DVR’ing later). Not a bad movie, even with all of the commercial interruptions from FX.

Sloppy Joe’s on tap for dinner tonight. I lead such an exciting life.

Lots of interest in Google’s “Chrome”. But not me. I’m happy with IE running Maxthon, which has given me tabs and groups for a couple of years. It’s a free IE add-on, available here www.maxthon.com , and works with any version of IE. Haven’t tried IE8, I do too much browsing to worry about a beta release.

Which is why I am waiting before using Chrome. It’s in very early beta, has security and crashing issues, and doesn’t offer me a whole lot more than what I use now. While I suspect that the Googlers will fix things, it’s a bit too early in the process for me. I sent out a warning to our business users internally to avoid it, and posted a short entry about it on my SecurityDawg site.

And it’s nice to see John Dominik back on-line, posting from the mosquito- and Republican-infested land of Minnesota. I think both of those irritate him, among other things.