Rules of the Universe

I know that this has nothing whatsoever to do with scams, fraud or crime but it is great list, take it to heart.

Number 18 has been a part of my life for so long I think I own it.....

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. Don't worry about what people think; they don't do it very often.

3. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes you a car.

4. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

5. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

6. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention! It never fails.)

7. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.

8. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.

9. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.

10. A conscience is what hurts when all of your other parts feel so good.

11. Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.

12. Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it. Embrace your differences. Love each other.

13. No man has ever been shot while doing the dishes.

14. A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.

15. Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.

16. Opportunities always look bigger after they have passed.

17. Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.

18. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.

19. Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

20. By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.

21. Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator.

22. Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.

23. It ain't the jeans that make your butt look fat.

24. There is a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness.'

25. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

26. You should not confuse your career with your life.

27. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

28. Never lick a steak knife.

29. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

30. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

31. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

32. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

33. Your friends love you anyway.

34. Never be afraid to try something new.

35. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

36. How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?

The right response to a 419 scammer?

This person is more than a little peeved to be getting ANOTHER 419 (Advance Fee Fraud) solicitation and quite clearly just snapped, lost all control and blasted the scammer:

NOTE: I have removed the person's name in the interests of privacy and please remember that this is a 419 SCAM so don't answer the mail or click on any links. PLEASE.

Here is the original e mail:

From: Jim Siew

To: xxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com

Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 8:58 AM

Subject: Attn; xxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Please accept my apologies if this mail does not meet your personal values. I am Barrister Jim Siew, the personal attorney to my late Mr Saenz xxxxxxx whom I refer to as my client. Before the U.S /Iraqi war, my client, a business man made a numbered fixed deposit of ten million two hundred thousand United States dollars for 18 calendar months with the bank here in Malaysia. Upon maturity several notices were sent to him, even during the war in 2005, only to find out that him and his family have been killed in a bomb blast that hit their Bagdad home.
After further investigations I discovered that my client did not declare any next of kin in his official papers including the documents of the deposit with the bank. He confided in me the last time he was at my office that no one knows about the deposit except me. Right now, the ten million two hundred thousand United States dollars is lying in the bank and no one will ever come forward to claim it. What bothers me is, according to the banking law here, at the expiration of 5 years; the fund would be confiscated and reverted to the banks treasure as unclaimed deposit.
And right now, the board of the bank have taken a resolution to confiscate the deposit if I as the attorney fail to provide the next of kin/beneficiary to the deposit within 28 working days. Against this back drop, I propose to you that I present you as the beneficiary to the deposit since you are a foreigner and have the same last name as my client so that the proceeds of the deposit be paid to you for both of us to disburse.
MODALITY:
I want you to know that I have planned for the successful execution of this transaction. As the attorney, I will prepare and file all the necessary documents to back you up as the next of kin/beneficiary to the deposit. All I require from you at the stage is for you to provide me with your name and address so that I can commence the proceedings for the release and transfer of the deposit to the account you would provide to the bank. Remember to include your phone number for better communication.
I assure you that there is not risk involved; all would be executed under a legitimate arrangement that would protect us from any breach of the law. And once the deposit is transferred to your nominated account, we would share in the percentage of 60% for me and 40% for you. Should you be interested, send me you name and address to enable me commence action. According to my plans, this would take us less than two weeks once we commence.
I shall provide you with more details when you respond. Hoping to hear from you soon.
Kind regards,
Jim Siew

Then the response, poor old Jim clearly caught our friend on the wrong day!

From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To: Jim Siew

Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 6:48 PM

Subject: Re: Attn; xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Mr Jim Siew

It is sick little shits like you that we intend to get off the internet forever.  This reeks like a scam at a spitting distance.

How you obtained my email address is of no importance to me at the moment - what is important to me though is that sick little shits like you are around to try and scam innocent people. 

But be warned the innocent is hitting back and we may not get you but we sure will get some of you.

Signed

I'm not stupid you dickhead!

Now while a lot of people may be very happy to see this response an unfortunate side effect of replying to these messages in any way at all is that it establishes for them that they have a real, live person at the other end of the address AND one who responds.

This will result in a whole slew of new approaches and quite possibly other spam.

So my advice is that no matter how angry you may be, no matter how tempting it may be to strike back you are far better off just hitting the delete key.

You can contact us at scamstop@mercuryadvisors.co.cc, if you feel you need professional assistance.

Please join our Scam Stop group on Facebook if you want to help rid the web of these predators.

Vengeance is Mine......

A never acknowledged but nevertheless integral part of our society is the concept of vengeance.

Of payback.

Revenge.

Hurt the one who hurt you as badly and, if possible, worse than he hurt you.

This concept seldom finds public expression.

It is an ugly and asocial behaviour trait.

A person will not admit that he had done something for revenge, for vengeance as this is an ugly, anti social and somehow fundamentally wrong and inherently evil.

The Bible teaches us that God has said “Vengeance is mine….”

So, theoretically at least, we are supposed to leave vengeance, revenge, payback to God.

Why?

Because vengeance et al always, always has unintended consequence.

Having said all of this there is one area of our society where vengeance has a very public, acceptable even honourable face.

It is in our criminal justice system and more particularly in our jails.

We must punish wrongdoers and evil men and women.

Everybody, even the criminals will agree with this.

There are, very definitely people who should be removed from society.

People beyond redemption, people for whom no hope of redemption or rehabilitation exists or ever will exist even in the very best of circumstances.

People who no civilised society can tolerate.

Fundamentally evil people.

But there are also people who stumble into crime for whatever reason; misguided youngsters who fall victim to the drug plague and commit crime to feed their habit; people who are desperate and steal to feed their family.

Our publicly acceptable love affair with vengeance throws all of these people into one system.

They say “Look at the level of crime, these people are animals, treat them like animals.

We have a right to be protected from them….”

And they are half right. They do have a right to be protected from those people who are animals.

But what about those that are not animals, those who have made a mistake?

The one who makes a mistake could be their son or daughter.

What about the uneducated man who cannot get a job but must feed his family?

What about the drug addict who is himself, after all, also a victim of crime?

Once a person hits the jail system he is thrown into the system with no screening, no differentiation of crime, no protection of any sort at all.

He is at the mercy of jail system.

The jail system is worse than you can ever imagine, no matter how many episodes of “Jail Break” you have watched or how many books you have read.

One well known educator working in our jail system describes jail as being “worse than death”.

In jail you die a little every day.

The part of you that makes you a decent normal person dies, piece by piece, every day and you don’t even know it.

For self protection you become hardened, emotionless, and robotic.

Emotion of the sort expressed in normal society does not exist in jail.

Emotion in jail is weakness and weakness in jail is deadly to your survival.

All that is expressed in jail is emotions of violence, revenge against society.

More payback.

People who come into jail as being normal, those who made a mistake are converted into hardened, emotionless individuals with no compassion for any person.

Petty criminals are turned into hardened criminals.

People who have been in jail have no fear of consequence and it is fear of consequence that causes people to adhere to the rules of society.

So our system is designed for revenge not rehabilitation.

The purpose of the systems may seem to be the rehabilitation of offenders but it only serves to provide society with a means to obtain legal, acceptable payback.

This situation has consequences.

Violence breeds violence, revenge breeds more revenge, humiliation breeds the need to humiliate others.

And so on and on and on.

The truly viscous circle.

When a person is eventually release from the caring hands of the system he has turned from a person who may only have made one mistake into a truly hardened, cold hearted criminal.

Well done the system.

When people complain about the crime levels, the degree of violence present in the crimes committed do they realise that it is the system that they designed to combat crime and punish offenders that is responsible for the degree and type of crime we are experiencing?

No, of course not.

This is not possible.

Not possible but true.

This is why we should leave vengeance to God.

We should design a system based on proper intervention and rehabilitation.

We should acknowledge that no man is beyond redemption, beyond rehabilitation.

Just as fairly innocent young men become hardened criminals in jail, so can hardened criminals can be helped with the correct intervention.

The problem is that no programs of intervention exist in our jails.

The system is in crises because of the overcrowded situation, poor staff morale, staff shortages in the critical areas of rehabilitative services and poor pay levels.

The system concentrates on punishment and security and at the end of the day the system produces what it was never designed to produce.

Hardened criminals.

I am sure that this was not the original intention, but as we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

And we are on the road to hell.

Vengeance is mine saith the Lord……………………………………………..

Moving House!!!!!

I have moved my blog to WordPress.

You can find me at Corporate Crime Watch 

http://corporatecrimewatch.wordpress.com/

Please subscribe to my feed at the new address.

I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this any cause you and trust that you will enjoy your experience of Corporate Crime watch in future.

Thank you.