I'm Being Stalked by a 29-year-old Model

Recently, I've been advertising a room for rent in my house using the modern wonder Craigslist. Occasionally I receive an e-mail inquiry from a model from a foreign country. Just today, I received the following email, written (of course) in all capital letters:

From: "julian scott" julian_0030@yahoo.com

HELLO,

I`M JULIAN SCOTT 29 YR OLD MODEL, I HAVE BEEN OUT THE STATES FOR A WHILE NOW AND I AM WILLING TO MOVE BACK TO THE STATES, I AM LOOKING FOR A PLACE WHERE I CAN START LIFE ALLOVER AGAIN I NEED A ROOMATE I CAN CALL MY FRIEND AND PROBABLY CONFIDANT I AM SINGLE AND FRIENDLY I AM HUMBLE AND NICE, I HAVE GONE THRU HARDTIMES AND I WANNA JUST START ALLOVER AGAIN I SAW UR ADVERT AND I THOUGHT TO EMAIL YOU IF U HAVE A PLACE FOR ME OR WOULD LIKE TO BE MY ROOMIE, I WOULD LIKE TO RECIEVE AN EMAIL FROM YOU SOON COS I WOULD LOVE TO MOVE IN THIS MONTH,I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO COME SEE THE PLACE MY SELF BUT I AM NOT PRESENTLY IN THE STATES AND WOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT SO I WOULD BE TRUSTING THE DESCRIPTION ABOTHE AMOUNT WILL BE ISSUE ON THE CHECK IS $3200 COS THAT IS THE AMOUNT MY EX BOSS WANT TO PAY ME THAT IS WHY AND AS SOON AS U GET THE CHECK DEDUCT UR MONEY U WILL SEND THE REST TO MY AGENT SO THAT HE CAN MAKE AN ARRANGEMENT TO MY TICKET SO THAT I CAN BE ABLE TO COME OVER TO MY APARTMENT THANKS MAIL BACK AS SOON AS U RECEIVE THIS MAIL THANKS

Apparently this "woman" was never introduced to punctuation; that is one hell of a long sentence.

In addition, it is very suspicious that someone would send a check in an amount more than four times the rent. What will likely happen is that an innocent landlord will cash an expensive international check that will take some time to clear. Thereafter, it will come back as unpayable sometime after the victim has wired his own money to the scammer. I simply wrote back: "Hi, I'm not interested in people who use ALL CAPS in their emails."

But she wouldn't give up. A while later, I received an instant message and didn't recognize the sender:

julianpretty: Hi [Of course she's "julianpretty"-- to remind you that she's a model after all]

Libertarian Republican: Hi--- If you're trying to sell me something i'm not interested.

julianpretty: This is julian scott that emal you about your rooom that is available

Libertarian Republican: Right-- I see the email now. It looks like a scam.

julianpretty: Oh..What do you mean by scam

Libertarian Republican: Oh, defraud people out of money, that sort of thing. LOL Believe me, your ad is suspicious. Don't bother CraigsList people with such. If you really are who you say you are, get a cheap hotel room and then find a place to stay once you are here.

Libertarian Republican: Well, what do you have to say for yourself?

julianpretty: What?

Libertarian Republican: I mean, aren't you a criminal? LOL

Libertarian Republican: If you are who you say you are, drop me an email when you are in the states and I'll buy you a drink. Otherwise, I'll know you are a criminal. What do you have to say about that? I'm posting our Conversation on Craigslist. So speak now.

Well, my would-be dream model roommate Julian Scott had no response. However, fraud is no joking matter. It can happen anywhere. eBay is a notorious hotbed for fraud. Craigslist is merely the latest forum. More Craigslist scams, including one with the same message from Julian, reported here.

Daily Kos Asks Do You Despise Bush or Bin Laden More

Over at the prominent left-wing blog Daily Kos, a poll that has been posted for about a month asks: Who do you despise more? George Bush or Osama bin Laden?

Here are the results:

George Bush -- 164 votes - 41 %
Osama bin Laden -- 229 votes - 58 %

Perhaps there are 164 people out there who enjoy a very dry joke every now and then. Let's hope that if asked the question and asked to answer seriously, not a single liberal who even utterly despises George Bush would ever consider these two men as inhabiting the same moral universe.

Vice President Cheney Still Under Fire

Those people who have not had their fill of vilifying Vice President Dick Cheney and speculating about his level of competence or sobriety during the shooting of his friend Harry Whittington on February 11 will have more dead horse to devour as Time and Newsweek this week release cover stories on the shooting.

Indicative of the scorching eye of the media upon Cheney is the following passage from the Newsweek article:

A few weeks after 9/11, NEWSWEEK has learned, Cheney worried that he and his family and his staff might have been exposed in an anthrax attack. According to knowledgeable former officials, a mysterious letter turned up at the vice president's mansion. . . . The alarm turned out to be false. Still, to be safe, Cheney and his entourage began taking Cipro, the powerful antibiotic. The story was hushed up.

Yes, you read that correctly, the story was "'hushed up" as if Cheney had flown his daughters to Kyrgyzstan for the purpose of obtaining abortions. So much for a sympathetic story of what was likely a traumatic experience; did all of America absolutely need to know about a false alarm?

The article acknowledges that the Vice President has undergone a lot of stress in connection with his job, but it is not a flattering portrait:

Has Cheney changed? Has he been transformed, warped, perhaps corrupted—by stress, wealth, aging, illness, the real terrors of the world or possibly some inner goblins? The few who know him (and few really do) aren't saying much, except to argue that he takes a longer view than the mean politics of the moment. But there is no doubt that Cheney has become less amiable, less open, less willing to conciliate and seek common ground than he was as a younger politician.

It must be surreal to read about one's supposedly warped psychological condition in a national publication.

Left-of-center blog commentary about the incident reveals both a contempt and automatic-second-guessing of the Vice President, as well as a bit of paranoia. There is speculation that Cheney had several beers, was drunk at the time of the shooting, and sought to coverup this fact. Lawrence O'Donnell at the Huffington Post writes:

How do we know there was no alcohol? Cheney refused to talk to local authorities until the next day. No point in giving him a breathalyzer then. Every lawyer I've talked to assumes Cheney was too drunk to talk to the cops after the shooting. The next question for the White House should be: Was Cheney drunk?

For his part, Cheney in the Fox News interview said that he had consumed one beer with lunch, several hours before the accident at 5:30 p.m.

Even if Cheney drank three beers, this was not a drunk-driving situation. All of the hunters in the party were likely aware of Cheney's drinking (likely very little drinking) and voluntarily chose to be with him... It is highly unlikely that a typical hunter would join other hunters who had been drinking the same day unless he or she he thought the amount of alcohol consumed was safe.

The police have cleared Cheney of wrongdoing-- "This was a hunting accident," said the chief deputy of the Kenedy County Sheriff's Office, "There was no alcohol or misconduct." The wounded lawyer (let's not kill all the lawyers) has publicly apologized to Cheney for what the Vice President has gone through the past several days. Let the conspiracy theories lie and let's move on.

Sheehan SOTU Snafu Highlights Lack of Style

Tuesday night, shortly before the President was to deliver his State of the Union address, the Capitol Police swiftly ejected Cindy Sheehan from the House chamber for wearing a t-shirt that stated "2,245 Dead. How many more?" Naturally, the message referred to the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq. Now she vows to file a lawsuit based upon the First Amendment.

Sheehan doesn't have much of a First Amendment case. Although this woman may have a hard time understanding legal matters, since she keeps violating the law by engaging in illegal protests, all free speech is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The police here did not discriminate against Sheehan based upon the viewpoint of her speech, but rather sought to enforce a neutral policy against t-shirts with messages on government property (later determined to be a good faith erroneous application of the policy).

We know that Sheehan was not targeted on the basis of the content of her speech because Beverly Young, the wife of Republican Congressman Bill Young (FL), wore a shirt that read "Support the Troops" and she was ejected as well ("Shame, shame" the Congressman said, admonishing the police). This didn't stop Rep. Pete Stark (D) from introducing a resolution directing the sergeant-at-arms to investigate and report back concerning Sheehan's removal, declaring: "President Bush regularly requires his audiences to be screened and sanitized before he will appear before them. But this is supposed to be the people's House. The president should not be able to override our governance and make us part of his Gestapo regime."

The level of partisanship in Congress has led to crazy conspiracy theories and terribly tired references to the Nazi regime. I cannot imagine that Bush's team cares what people wear to his speeches. Will everyone please give it a rest?

Here's the latest indication of Sheehan's detachment from reality or logic, as reported by USA Today:

"They said I was protesting," she told the St. Petersburg Times. "I said, 'Read my shirt, it is not a protest.' They said, 'We consider that a protest.' I said, 'Then you are an idiot.'"

Sheehan is likely the only person in America who believes that the message on her shirt was not intended as a protest.

She might have a 14th Amendment Due Process as a result of the arbitrary administration of a statute, but her damages are nominal. In the end, Sheehan might want to think about sending a large check to the national police for giving her far more publicity than she would have received if the police had just left her alone. Her quote telling police "you are an idiot" received 752 hits on Google news. The Libertarian Party would love to receive that many stories in a month. A Google News search for "libertarian party" turned up 236 hits, versus 10,200 for the Republican Party or 16,300 for the Democratic Party.

The real scandal is that these two women were wearing t-shirts to the State of the Union address. One might excuse Sheehan, the professional protestor, for wearing a t-shirt. She's supposed to maintain solidarity with the counter-culture left. But what is a Congressman's wife doing wearing anything less than than semi-formal attire to the SOTU, seated as she was within earshot of the First Lady? Shame, shame indeed. Ladies, have some respect.