Government Dirt

I received an email a few days ago from "Mr. Stephen Webster." It actually went to my spam box, but I dutifully fished it out and decided to read it.

Good thing I did because the death of a "great industrialist," Mr. Kurt Kahle, his wife and son in 200 will be Stephen and my gain! He left "No beneficiary to the account," and getting the money will be "100% risk free."

I am posting the emails that I send and receive from "Mr. Stephen Webster" online in the hopes that others will enjoy and might avoid this Stephen in the future.

By the way, if you have suggestions of things I can ask him that would be great - just add them to the comments!

I will continue posting as we continue conversing.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mr. Steven Webster
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 7:50 AM
Subject: Re: Profit

Hello

I am Mr. Stephen Webster I am Executive Director in charge of Credit and Foreign bills of my Bank of Scotland (UK) PLC. , 11 Earl Grey Street Edinburgh EH3 9BN. I am in search of an agent to assist us in the transfer of 15,000,000.00 GBP (Fifteen Million pounds Sterling) and subsequent investment in properties in your country.

You will be required to:-

(1) Assist in the transfer of the said sum
(2) Advise on lucrative areas for investment
(3) Assist us in purchase of properties.

If you are willing to assist us in the transaction, your share of the sum will be 50% of the 15,000,000.00 GB, 50% for us. I will be pleased as soon as you indicate your interest by including your confidential phone in your positive response, this will enable us furnish you with further information on the procedures and modalities on how funds will be transferred or made available to you.

I await your immediate response. Keep this as a secret and reply to stephwebsterXXX@gmail.com because my work email address is monitored.

Yours Sincerely

Mr. Steven Webster
Bank of Scotland Plc.,
11 Earl Grey Street
Edinburgh EH3 9BN.

With riveting prose, a firm grasp on the issues and international experience to wit, Sarah Palin has electrified the electorate.

What more can be said, but ...

Thanks Maria Fotopoulos!

Ahmadinejad's remarks were deemed as a response to the allegations of US President Bush who claimed in his address just a few hours earlier that Iran's nuclear ambitions pose a threat to the world.

The Iranian President said Iran like other countries has an "inalienable" right to peaceful nuclear energy but said a few bullying world powers have tried to thwart Iran's program through political and economic pressure.

"A few bullying powers have sought to put hurdles in the way of the peaceful nuclear activities of the Iranian nation by exerting political and economic pressures against Iran and also through threatening and pressuring the IAEA," the UN nuclear watchdog.

"These are the same countries that are producing new generation of nuclear arms and no international organization is monitoring their program. The catastrophe in Nagasaki and Hiroshima was perpetrated by one of these powers," Ahmadinejad added.

Ahmadinejad stressed that such powers are not against a proliferation of nuclear weapons but they want to monopolize advanced technologies to use them as a tool to impose their own will on others.

"It is natural that the great Iranian nation will resist the bullying powers and will continue to defend their nuclear rights," remarked the president.

In his latest report to the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors, the UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei once again verified Iran's non-diversion of declared nuclear material, adding that the UN agency has failed to discover any "components of a nuclear weapon" or "related nuclear physics studies" in Iran.

Ahmadinejad said his government has fully cooperated with IAEA inspectors, who he said should redirect their scrutiny to the world's declared nuclear powers.

ElBaradei praised Iran's cooperation and truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities in two of his recent reports - one in November and the other one in February.

"The Era of nuclear bombs has ended and those who are after such weaponry are losers", President Ahmadinejad told reporters during a press conference following his address to the 63rd UN General Assembly meeting in New York on Tuesday.

The Iranian president challenged the UN Nuclear Watchdog to report on the nuclear weapons of current nuclear weapon states and criticized major powers for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile foreign ministers from the six major powers canceled their meeting to discuss further sanctions against Iran after protests from Russia which has officially stated its opposition to further Iran sanctions.

The United States and its Western allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program, despite the UN Nuclear Watchdog finding no evidence support the claim.

"We believe the nuclear issue is resolved and the ongoing hue and cry is just negative propaganda," press tv quoted Ahmadinejad as telling reporters.

US President George W. Bush has repeatedly threatened Iran, stating that "all options are on the table" if Iran continues its uranium enrichment program. Israeli officials, have also said explicitly that they would be prepared to carry out air strikes to end Iran's nuclear program.

Earlier in his address to the world leaders at the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly, the Iranian president criticized the UN Security Council's support for the Zionism under pressure from the United States and also its failure to end the US occupation of Iraq.

During his speech, Ahmadinejad slammed the "unjust (international) system" and urged respect for human dignity.

By Larry Hunter, Ph.D.

I'm a lifelong Republican - a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole's presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp's Empower America.

This November, I'm voting for Barack Obama.

When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that's antithetical to almost everything I believe in?

The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies - this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.

Taxes, economic policy and health care reform matter, of course. But how we extract ourselves from the bloody boondoggle in Iraq, how we avoid getting into a war with Iran and how we preserve our individual rights while dealing with real foreign threats - these are of greater importance.

John McCain would continue the Bush administration's commitment to interventionism and constitutional overreach. Obama promises a humbler engagement with our allies, while promising retaliation against any enemy who dares attack us. That's what conservatism used to mean - and it's what George W. Bush promised as a candidate.

The Economist, not exactly a bastion of liberalism had something to say about McCain ... that you may not expect.

AS RECENTLY as a few months ago, it seemed possible to hope that this year’s presidential election would be a civilised affair. Barack Obama and John McCain both represent much that is best about their respective parties. Mr Obama is intelligent, inspiring and appears by instinct to be a consensus-seeking pragmatist. John McCain has always stood for limited, principled government, and has distanced himself throughout his career from the religious ideologues that have warped Republicanism. An intelligent debate about issues of the utmost importance—how America should rebuild its standing in the world, how more Americans could share in the proceeds of growth—seemed an attainable proposition.

It doesn’t seem so now. In the past two weeks, while banks have tottered and markets reeled, the contending Democrats and Republicans have squabbled and lied rather than debated. Mr McCain’s team has been nastier, accusing Mr Obama of sexism for calling the Republican vice-presidential candidate a pig, when he clearly did no such thing. Much nastier has been the assertion that Mr Obama once backed a bill that would give kindergarten children comprehensive sex education. Again, this was a distortion: the bill Mr Obama backed provided for age-appropriate sex education, and was intended to protect children from sex offenders.

These kinds of slurs seem much more personal, and therefore unpleasant, than the more routine distortions seen on both sides.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12262173