I got one yesterday...didn't even bother with the I love you crap just straight to the point...he's in hong kong on business and if I just give him my bank info he can have his antique money deposited into my account and then pay me a $350 fee for each deposit and then when he gets back into the states he will show his appreciation by paying all my bills. Are there really people naive enough to believe this?[/quote] Oh yeah. I copied this post from August 2010 by a member of this site. I cleaned up the spelling and punctuation a little to make it more readable but it's a heart breaking story.
"Well, I got scammed a few weeks ago, and those of you who think they would never get scammed, I can tell you it can happen to anyone... Here is how it happened. A very nice looking man (that is what scammers do for instance, show the picture of a model) told me he fell in love with me when reading my profile. At the second chat he told me we were lovers. On the 4rth chat he asked me for marriage. We were going to meet 3 weeks later. Just like mimi's translation says, he knew how to talk to me, he had the psychological knowledge for knowing what kind of person I am, he sent me emails and would chat with me every evening. It was So beautiful and romantic that now, 8 weeks later, I am still in love with him, even if I lost 10 thousand dollars... He also showed himself on the webcam, it was the same model, all a trick... the romantic time lasted 31 days. once I said I was putting nail polish, he immediately answered "I wish I could help you", which is a way to take possession of your body. he would tell me "I belong to you and you belong to me". stuff like that. in the end if I had a tiny little disagreement with him, he would say "how are you talking to me?", just a way to become like a boss over me. then during several days he said about one money problem (credit card not working, not giving him cash) and always said "BUT IT IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM, HONEY, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT". then, on the 31st day, he did NOT ask for money, he COMMANDED that I send him money before 9 am the next morning. at that point, I was LIKE ONE OF THOSE BEATEN WOMEN WHO SAYS HER HUSBAND IS RIGHT TO BEAT THEM. my only thought was "not to say that he wants money to anyone, my friends would condemn me, and him". Second time, same thing, command and hurry (before 9 am), I emptied my bank account, had my heart swollen and thought "oh no big deal, we will soon get married and have everything in common". Third time, I had no money and started to feel very bad and called my brother. I changed email address and phone number, but 4 days later I contacted again that scammer, longing for his marvelous words and promises. What I learned: never ever chat, only email, and only with men that live close, that you can meet. now I see a psychologist, I am emotionally broken. money is an issue. but emotions is maybe an even bigger issue. hopefully this testimony helps someone (if only a scammer who could come to realize the emotional evil he causes...). Best wishes," -Isabelle
Sounds like a 419 (Advance Fee Scam) They tempt you with a huge sum of money but in order to get it some bogus fee must be paid which of course they don't have. If you take the hook and send them the fee they come up with another and another and it's always the absolute last one they need to close the deal. The more you "invest" in this scam the less likely you are to back out thinking one more payment and everything will be right in the end. When they figure they can't bleed you any more they simply disappear. And you're broke!
George Phillips of Meridian Mississippi was going up to bed when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.
He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?" and he said no. Then they said that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be along when available.
George said "Okay," hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again. "Hello. I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people in my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now cause I've just shot them all." Then he hung up.
Within five minutes three police cars, an Armed Response unit, and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips residence. Of course, the police caught the burglars red-handed. One of the policemen said to George: "I thought you said that you'd shot them!" George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"
Years ago people said you were senile when you got old and whacky. Then they put a name to it and called it Alzheimers desease. 200 years ago people didn't live long enough to get Alzheimers.
Well I wouldn't consider a woman a "Thing" so, I would bring a machete, a knife with a point which can be fastened to some bamboo to make a spear to dispatch game. a flint & steel kit for making a fire without matches. I would have no time for books because I'd spend all day just trying to stay alive.
Why don't you make a poll? People are afraid to click on a link from a stranger for fear of contracting a virus etc. Or you could just post the questions in the survey.
"Its about a guy who was cheating on his? girlfriend/wife and its symbolic because he did not want his wife to find out. The term the walls have ears came from this because it shows how gossip spreads as well." Another telling line is "Why tell them all your secrets? Who kissed there long ago?" or, "Why tell them all the old things? They're buried under the snow."
Regarding Alzheimers and Aluminum cookware you may want to refrain from throwing out all your pots and pans until you read the following.
"Drugs, Foods, Products With Aluminum Risk Factors Antacids contain aluminum hydroxide. Anti-diarrhea products may contain aluminum salts and aluminum magnesium silicate. Antiperspirants and deodorants contain aluminum chloride or chlorhydrate. Baking powers contain aluminum sulfate or sodium aluminum sulfate. Bleached flour contains potassium alum. Buffered aspirin contains aluminum hydroxide or aluminum glycinate.
Canned goods, cooking utensils, deodorants, douches may contain aluminum salts. Containers, aluminum coated waxed containers, used especially for orange and pineapple juices, cause juices inside to absorb aluminum. Beer and soft drinks that are stored in aluminum cans also absorb small quantities of aluminum.
Food additives in cake mixes, frozen dough, self-rising flour contains sodium aluminum phosphate. Food starch modifiers and anti caking agents also contain varying levels of aluminum compounds.
Processed and grated cheese contain sodium aluminum phosphate. Shampoos, anti-dandruff contain magnesium aluminum silicate. Other shampoos may contain aluminum lauryl sulfate. Table salt contains aluminum calcium silicate. Tarter sauce, tobacco smoke may also have high levels.
Eye drops used for the treatment of glaucoma and increased pressure in the eye contain mono-basic and dibasic sodium phosphate and sodium hydroxide in buffered water solution. Aluminum hydroxide is used as the gelatinous flocking agent to filter out particulates in the water. Aluminum hydroxide is prepared at the treatment plant from aluminum sulfate by reaction with the sodium hydroxide."
But by all means, throw away your wonderful club aluminum pots. I think not!
I like going to flea markets. There is a big indoor/outdoor one about 15 miles from my house. I'm pretty sure there's a big difference in price between the two locations.
People buy the weirdest things. A friend of mine had a gas grill to sell and someone wanted to buy the fake lumps of coal but didn't want the grill
Years ago when I was married we had a tag sale and I sold my wifes old breast pump to a 60 year old woman and I had to explain how it worked. My wife got a lot of enjoyment watching me stumbling all over the place. So did the woman which I think was really what she paid for.
I didn't really steal a bible although it wouldn't really be stealing cause the motel got them for free and the printing costs were paid for with money taken from poor people by deception so it's just a case of taking back what we already paid for. Sorry I was gone as long as I was, I had no idea this nutcase would flood my thread with BS.
Well, given the limited amount of start up capital at your disposal, I can think of only one area that might be suitable for you. It has a very poor risk/reward profile, however, the potential for incredible capital gains in a very short time frame is unbeatable. Drugs!
The article was about two men from your side of the isle who put the blame for gridlock squarely on the Republican side. They are YOUR people not ours. You Republicans with your Tea Party fools nearly crippled this country with that debt ceiling dabacle and got us a credit downgrade, thank you very much. Scott Walker is going to get booted out of Wisconsin and Mitt Romney will be sent packing back to Massachusettes. He's got about as much chance of being the next president as I have even with all the money he's made by liquidating companies and outsourcing jobs overseas. But hey, look at the bright side, at least your guys can take a rest and stop trying to torpedo Obama because he can't serve a 3rd term. Of course that doesn't mean a Republican will follow him into the White house in 2016.
Hey everybody, come on over to my thread everybody is welcome. I never hide anybodies post or ban anybody because I feel everybody has the same rights to free speech as anybody else. It's even in the Constitution. On;y people who don't believe their own convictions resort to stifling other people with different views or opinions than themselves. It's a sure sign of a conflicted unsure mind full of doubt.
Teresa MacBain has a secret, one she's terrified to reveal.
"I'm currently an active pastor and I'm also an atheist," she says. "I live a double life. I feel pretty good on Monday, but by Thursday — when Sunday's right around the corner — I start having stomachaches, headaches, just knowing that I got to stand up and say things that I no longer believe in and portray myself in a way that's totally false."
MacBain glances nervously around the room. It's a Sunday, and normally she would be preaching at her church in Tallahassee, Fla. But here she is, sneaking away to the American Atheists' convention in Bethesda, Md.
Her secret is taking a toll, eating at her conscience as she goes about her pastoral duties week after week — two sermons every Sunday, singing hymns, praying for the sick when she doesn't believe in the God she's praying to. She has had no one to talk to, at least not in her Christian community, so her iPhone has become her confessor, where she records her private fears and frustrations.
"On my way to church again. Another Sunday. Man, this is getting worse," she tells her phone in one recording. "How did I get myself in this mess? Sometimes, I think to myself, if I could just go back a few years and not ask the questions and just be one of those sheep and blindly follow and not know the truth, it would be so much easier. I'd just keep my job. But I can't do that. I know it's a lie. I know it's false."
MacBain made that recording in her car on the way to Lake Jackson United Methodist Church several weeks before the American Atheists' conference.
Finding Atheism
MacBain, 44, was raised a conservative Southern Baptist. Her dad was a pastor and she felt the call of God when she was 6. She had questions, of course, about conflicts in the Bible, for example, or the role of women. She says she sometimes felt she was serving a taskmaster of a God, whose standards she never quite met.
April 30, 2012 Congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein are no strangers to D.C. politics. The two of them have been in Washington for more than 40 years — and they're renowned for their carefully nonpartisan positions.
But now, they say, Congress is more dysfunctional than it has been since the Civil War, and they aren't hesitating to point a finger at who they think is to blame.
"One of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition," they write in their new book, It's Even Worse Than It Looks. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, join Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep to talk about the book, which comes out this week.
Mann and Ornstein posit that democracy in America is being endangered by extreme politics. From the first day of the Obama administration, Ornstein says, our constitutional system hasn't been allowed to work.
"When we did get action, half the political process viewed it as illegitimate, tried to undermine its implementation and moved to repeal it," Ornstein says.
The authors make no secret of whom they blame for most of the dysfunction in Congress — the Republican Party. And Ornstein says some of his colleagues at AEI, which is known as a conservative-leaning think tank, "are going to be quite uncomfortable" with his position. "We didn't come to this conclusion lightly," he says. He points out that he and Mann have been highly critical of both parties in previous works. For example, they called the Democrats "arrogant, condescending complacent" after Democrats had been in the majority for 40 consecutive years up to 1994.
ooby_dooby Forum Posts (7,671)
But you're right some people can be pretty dumb about trusting complete strangers.
Mitt Romney
defined by fellow Republicans