Question of the Day

What was your favorite news story of 2006?

It can be good news, political victories, something that made you laugh, a "cat rescued from tree" story... anything.

Aside from the elections, I was greatly amused by a story I saw on either the news or Nightline... I can't remember exactly where I saw it. It had to do with Nigerian email scams, and the "victims" that had lost their life savings. It was the tone of the story that had me so tickled; it had a very "look at these poor, victimized *cough*whiteandaffluent*cough* Americans that have been taken advantage of by these evil, sinister *cough*bigandblack* Nigerians!" aspect to it that just made my head spin. They never waggled a finger at the Americans that were trying to get a ton of money on the sly, tax-free, of course.

Seriously, have you ever received one of those emails that are something along the lines of "I know I'm a complete stranger from halfway around the world, but if you let me have your bank account number I'll give you half of this bajillion dollars that I inherited please and God bless you," and not just laughed and deleted it?

Here's what I really loved: they were particularly outraged by a popular Nigerian music video that mocks the gullible people taken in by the scam.

The scammers' anthem is a popular song called, "I Go Chop Your Dollar." A tongue-in-cheek comedian and singer named Osofia belts out, in local slang, a song that translates to, "419 is just a game. You are the loser, I am the winner. White people greedy.... I take your money and disappear.... You be the fool, I be the master."

You can see the video here. "They're not just scamming us, they're making fun of us! Have they no shame?"

Very thin skins amuse me.

So, how about you?