Stupidity is now a crime

Nigerian high commissioner Olu Agbi has made stupidity a crime. Okay, he blames greed.

You've probably received a letter dealing with millions in frozen accounts and your help is necessary to access the money. You pay a small fee (small in comparison with the millions in the account) and the person who sent you the email promises you a percentage in return for your favor.

The scam predates the internet and has had high profile victims recently. This article mentions some:

New revelations in the trial of Mary Winkler, the young American woman who shot and killed her pastor husband at point-blank range, show that the couple had been caught up in a Nigerian scam that no doubt boosted marital tensions. Winkler was in contact with the scammers, who eventually sent her checks totalling US$17,500 from both Canada and Nigeria. When the checks arrived, she was supposed to send thousands of dollars back to the scammers in "processing fees." She apparently did so without waiting for the checks to clear; of course, they bounced.

In New Zealand, a recent Labour Party candidate named David Maka is in disgrace after being caught up in a similar scam, though he took it one step further by soliciting cash from friends in order to "free up" millions of dollars in an offshore account. The 49-year old pleaded guilty in court and is due for sentencing in the next few months. Maka eventually paid all the money back, though he had to sell his home to do so.

Here in the US, a Florida lawyer stole US$300,000 from a client's estate, but when hauled into court to face judgment, claimed that she had lost most of the money in a Nigerian 419 scam. She told the court that the scammer "had a contract with the [Nigerian] government of $38.6 million, and he needed my participation... I was not thinking clearly." Indeed.

These and other similar scams related to Nigeria (apparently there are many fake Nigerian mail-order/internet brides as well, just like Russians) have made it tough for the country to attract investments:

Nigeria. This has, unsurprisingly, cast Nigeria in a negative light. Olu Agbi said that Nigeria's reputation for being involved with the scams has even hurt the country's ability to land business deals. "[T]hose who want to transact business with us are always very suspicious," he told the newspaper.

The newspaper article mentions that Australians

lose at least $36 million a year to the online scams,

serving as a sign of their stupidity.

Despite their losses of a lot of money, he posits that they as just as guilty as the scammers and should be jailed. He told the paper,

He likened victims to gambling addicts. People were in denial about the scams even after being warned because the thrill of a possible windfall at the end raised their excitement and they became emotionally involved.

By this logic, he contends

THE Nigerian high commissioner says people who are ripped off by so-called Nigerian scams are just as guilty as the fraudsters and should be jailed.

Good luck trying to get other countries to jail their citizens for stupidity. I'm not sure any addiction is strictly illegal (though possession of drugs may be, depending on what country you're in -- but that's not jailing you for your addiction per se either).


And here is the rest of it. Read more!

Obama birth certificate not fake; someone sues anyway

Ed Brayton and the WorldNutDaily have noted that Philip J. Berg:

has sued Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and, therefore, is not eligible to be president of the United States.

For his efforts, Ed has given him the not-so-coveted Robert O'Brien Trophy that he awards regularly for special displays of stupidity (he apparently manages to have a blog, see PZ's dungeon for more details about Robert O'Brien.

A summary of Berg's claims are:

Obama was not born an American citizen; lost any hypothetical American citizenship he had as a child (Editor's note: This point is not supported by U.S. citizenship law); may not now be an American citizen and even if he is, may hold dual citizenships with other countries. If any, much less all, of these allegations are true, the suit claims, Obama cannot constitutionally serve as president.

Note that even a WorldNutDaily editor knows more about the law than this crazy fellow.

Obama was born an American citizen, as confirmed by FactCheck.org:

The certificate has all the elements the State Department requires for proving citizenship to obtain a U.S. passport: "your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records." The names, date and place of birth, and filing date are all evident on the scanned version, and you can see the seal

To quell even the most diehard of conspiracy theorists about this:

In fact, the conspiracy would need to be even deeper than our colleagues realized. In late July, a researcher looking to dig up dirt on Obama instead found a birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961:

Obama's birth announcement

The announcement was posted by a pro-Hillary Clinton blogger who grudgingly concluded that Obama "likely" was born Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu.
Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday. We suggest that those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat. The evidence is clear: Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A.

And Philip Berg sues with no basis for his lawsuit because 1) Obama was born a US citizen, 2) even a wnd editor knows that 2) one cannot lose citizenship as a child, 3) is still an American citizen even if 4) he holds dual citizenship (which is not a crime is most cases; embarrassing perhaps, but not a crime; in any case, the US does not prohibit dual citizenship). If Obama were not a citizen or were not born one, then, yes, Berg would be right. Since he was born in Hawaii he is a citizen and unless he specifically renounced (even then, it's not necessarily final) he still is -- and was admitted to the bar, the senate... Maybe Berg will get reprimanded for filing a frivolous lawsuit.
Read more!