Yet Another Website

Here we go again…

Here’s one that got by gmail’s spam filter:

MR. KEVIN JONES
ANTLANTIC PROMOTIONS
REF NUMBER: LTH/9129/7769/006
BATCH NUMBER: ALI-FR983-06
Dear Winner,

We are pleased to inform you that as a result of our recent lottery draw held on the 24th of April 2006. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number 00742086-84 with serial number 7759-1882 drew lucky numbers 09-10-23-24-26-29-38, which consequently won in the 2nd category. You have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of €2,000,000.00 (Two Million Euros only)

Note that all participants in this lottery program have been selected randomly through a computer ballot system drawn from over 20,000 companies and 30,000,000 individual email addresses from all search engines and websites. This promotional program takes place every year, and is promoted and sponsored by eminent personalities like the Sultan of Brunei and other corporate organizations to encourage the use of the Internet and computers worldwide.

For security purpose and clarity, we advise that you keep your winning information confidential until your claims have been processed and your money remitted to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claims and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants.

You are requested to contact our Lottery coordinator strictly by the email below: atlanticlott@netscape.net. This is to assist you with your winnings and subsequent payments immediately. All winnings must be claimed not later than one month after the date of this notice. Please note, in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications, remember to quote your reference number and batch numbers in all correspondence. Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible. Congratulations once more and thank you for being part of our promotional program.

NOTE: YOU ARE AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFIED IF YOU ARE BELOW 18 YEARS OF AGE OR SEEN TO DOUBLE CLAIM THROUGH ANY OTHER COORDINATOR. Sincerely yours

MR. KEVIN JONES
(LOTTERY COORDINATOR)
atlanticlott@netscape.net

Check out:

ticket number: 00742086-84
serial number: 7759-1882
lucky numbers: 09-10-23-24-26-29-38 (these numbers are lucky for a lot of people)

Are polygraphs worthless?

Polygraph Results Often in Question:

The CIA, the FBI and other federal agencies are using polygraph machines more than ever to screen applicants and hunt for lawbreakers, even as scientists have become more certain that the equipment is ineffective in accurately detecting when people are lying.

Instead, many experts say, the real utility of the polygraph machine, or “lie detector,” is that many of the tens of thousands of people who are subjected to it each year believe that it works — and thus will frequently admit to things they might not otherwise acknowledge during an interview or interrogation.

Many researchers and defense attorneys say the technology is prone to a high number of false results that have stalled or derailed hundreds of careers and have prevented many qualified applicants from joining the fight against terrorism. At the FBI, for example, about 25 percent of applicants fail a polygraph exam each year, according to the bureau’s security director.

The polygraph has emerged as a pivotal tool in the CIA’s aggressive effort to identify suspected leakers after embarrassing disclosures about government anti-terrorism tactics. The agency fired a veteran officer, Mary O. McCarthy, on April 20, alleging that she had shared classified information and operational details with The Washington Post and other news organizations, a charge her lawyer disputes.

CIA officials have said that McCarthy failed more than one polygraph examination administered by the CIA, but the details surrounding those interviews remain unclear. Dozens of senior-level CIA officials have been subjected to polygraph tests as part of the inquiry, which is aimed at identifying employees who may have talked to reporters about classified programs, including providing information about the agency’s network of secret prisons for terrorism suspects.

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know, fiction.
— Stephen Colbert (White House Correspondent’s Dinner: April 29, 2006)

Deck Chairs

So the white house has personnel changes. Then you write they’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This ships not sinking.

This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg…
— Stephen Colbert (White House Correspondent’s Dinner: April 29, 2006)

A Note to Rachael Ray

For future reference, it’s pronounced Saint Louis. Noboby here says Saint Louie.

It’s Saint Louis, not Saint fscking Louie.

F#%king Spammers

Since January 16, 2006, over 11,000 attempts to post comment spam to this site have been logged. That’s 1,000 spam comments since April 20, 2006.

Friday Random Ten: 2006-04-28

	Name	Artist	Album	Genre
1.	Dumb All Over	Frank Zappa	You Are What You Is	Alternative & Punk
2.	Solo in 4 Movements – 3rd Movement – The Circle and the Square	Terry Bozzio	Solo Drum Music (Disc 1)	World
3.	Shawnee	Ed Shaughnessy	Burning For Buddy: A Tribute To The Music Of Buddy Rich	Jazz
4.	She’s Got A Problem	Fountains Of Wayne	Fountains Of Wayne	Alternative & Punk
5.	Peace And Love	Fountains Of Wayne	Welcome Interstate Managers	Alternative & Punk
6.	The Big Heat	Stan Ridgway	The Big Heat	Rock
7.	El Congo Valiente (The Valiant Congo)	Stan Kenton	Cuban Fire!	Jazz
8.	Itaipu: I. “Mato Grosso”	Atlanta Symphony Orchestra And Chorus: Robert Shaw	Itaipu, The Canyon	Classical
9.	Nanook Rubs It	Frank Zappa	Apostrophe (‘)	Alternative & Punk
10.	Bye-Ya	Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane	At Carnegie Hall	Jazz

Book Meme

(via Peripetia)

Review the following list of books. Boldface the books you’ve read, italicize those you might read, cross out the ones you won’t, put an asterisk beside the ones on your bookshelves, and place brackets around the ones you’ve never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
* The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
* His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J. K. Rowling)
The Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
* Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (George Orwell)
* Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)
* The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon)
* Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
* 1984 (George Orwell)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J. K. Rowling)
* One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
[The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)]
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
* Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
[The Secret History (Donna Tartt)]
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
* The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
[Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)]
[Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)]
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
[Atonement (Ian McEwan)]
[The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)]
The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
* The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
* Dune (Frank Herbert)
[Sula (Toni Morrison) ]
Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier)
The Alchemist (Paulo Coehlo)
[White Teeth (Zadie Smith)]
The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton)

Adolescent Sex Cults

(via Think Progress)

The latest FDA “science” being used to block over-the-counter access to the emergency contraceptive Plan B: one agency researcher said the drug could “lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.” Back in reality, peer-reviewed studies have debunked this point, and also shown that 1.3 million abortions could be prevented if Plan B were available without a prescription.

Why is an administration which is supposed to be “pro-life” blocking something wich can potentially prevent over a million abortions a year?

High Mach

(via Peripetia)

Take the Machiavelli personality test: Are you a cutthroat or a pussycat? Find out, if you dare.

The Machiavelli personality test has a range of 0-100
Your Machiavelli score is: 64
You are a high Mach, you endorse Machiavelli’s opinions.

Most people fall somewhere in the middle, but there’s a significant minority at either extreme.