View Poll Results: Political discussions are:

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  • Legal

    9 47.37%
  • Illegal

    10 52.63%

Thread: Is this board good for political discussions?

  1. #16
    and the hat of int overfl Salem's Avatar
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    > NO THEY DON'T. You @ss!
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  2. #17
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Possibly the most famous of their sketches. I love to see it on tape. Priceless!
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  3. #18
    Slave MadCow257's Avatar
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    It would be fine, but your thread will be on something completely different within 15 posts

  4. #19
    ... kermit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MadCow257
    It would be fine, but your thread will be on something completely different within 15 posts
    Sometimes hijacking can be politically motivated...

  5. #20
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by twomers
    It's not quite international nor was it political (more personal), but I believe I'm currently on the loosing side of an international war with dwks
    Scotland is at war with Canada? Why don't I hear about these things!?!?

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  6. #21
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    [hijack]How about that invisibility post, eh? Pretty crazy, eh? Eh?!?[/hijack]
    Huh? Well, I'll be. Duh. You sound just like a Canadian.

  7. #22
    The superhaterodyne twomers's Avatar
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    I don't know what you are on about!! Invisability?????

  8. #23
    System Novice siavoshkc's Avatar
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    Invisibility.
    I saw the use of this hiding technique for the first time in a site of a Swiss bank. It has a story:
    Once I was in yahoo chat, a girl PMed me and said she is from Azerbaijan but now she is in Nigeria and her father is dead by a gun shut. She said her father was a business man who had 7 million $$$ in his Swiss bank account and she is unable to unblock this money because she has no money to do so and she is now living in a poor old man house whose son is dead and the computer was for his sun. She directed me to the Swiss bank website and told me two passwords to enter the account that was blocked to prove me she is true. She even sent some pics of her and a dead certificate for his father. Then she asked me to send some money for her (heh, never ever even if I believed her). That day I went to our police website. There was a warning about Nigerian mails. I checked that in Interpol website and with one my american yahoo friends too. They said sometimes these criminals bring some people to Nigeria and steal their money. It seems that Nigeria government is a partner of these people.
    It was the first time I faced this type of faking.
    I had more chats with her later and told her you are a fake, but she never accepted. I told her I will call interpol for this and she answered:"Wow, I am so scared I am waiting for FBI troops."
    But she told me something that I think was true. She said these situations such as blocked money are common in Nigeria.
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  9. #24
    and the Hat of Clumsiness GanglyLamb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by siavoshkc
    But she told me something that I think was true. She said these situations such as blocked money are common in Nigeria.
    I spent one year in Nigeria doing voluntary work. I've been to small villages , small towns and cities like Lagos.

    Now during that year I never heard of such things from Nigerian that I was close to. I even used Nigerian Banks for a while to transfer money from Belgium to Nigeria. Except that all these things take forever , money is never blocked.

    What I did see alot in the cybercafes were people writing these 419 mails ( thats how they call it back there, something with a police code for scamming I guess ).
    Now you would think that someone who does professional 419'ing would copy paste those mail, well the ones I saw always typed there mail in the cybercafe, after sending it they started on writing the next one .

    419 is so common back there they even write "This house is not for sale, beware of 419" on every house". The reason is, and this is how it goes:

    I own a house, I go on holiday, some guys know I'm away for a longer period, they break into the house, and pretend to be the owner, they then say they want to sell the house. No problems since all kinds of papers can be and will be faked in Nigeria as long as you have enough money. When I come back I find strangers in my house who claim they bought it ( and everything is perfectly legal since all official papers were ok ).

    The fact that normal common people start with 419 is the fact that they are poor, don't have anything to eat, get in debt with richer Nigerians that give them money but at the end they'll have to pay 10 times as much back.

    If these normal people go to work ( for example a teacher in primary school ) they will earn around 3000 to 5000 Naira. ( 160 Naira is probably around 1$ on the black market ). Now they have to pay the rent for a small room ( maybe 2 meters by 3 meters, where they live with their wive and maybe 3 or 4 children ). After paying for that room they can maybe keep 1500 Naira...
    A bread was like 80 Naira when I was there ( although six months before the same bread was only 40 Naira ... inflation huh ).

    Now try to feed your children with only 1500 Naira left, then you don't even have electricity or water in your room....

    So the only solution is to let your children work as well after school, or better yet most don't go to school and work on the street just to try and make ends...

    And the place where all this misery starts is the top... President, Politicians , Police, Immigration services ... in short every government body or whatever is as corrupt as it can get ...

    Rich people keep getting richer and the poor are becoming poorer...

    So if I was a Nigerian and living in places like Ebute Meta or in any other crappy place I'd probably do this 419 as well... As I got nothing to lose.

    All of this also applies probably to many other West african countries , and is the reason why so many risk their live trying to get to Europe by sea on these crappy boats...

    When you see dead people lying by the road, or see your own children dying of starvation or see them getting ill with no money to treat them , and all you can do is stand by and watch ... I'd do the same thing and would start a 419 as well!

    Btw, you don't want to know how many Nigerian 419 mails I get in my Inbox as soon as I got back home, if they were all true then by now I would be richer then Bill Gates I think .
    Last edited by GanglyLamb; 08-02-2006 at 05:17 AM.

  10. #25
    System Novice siavoshkc's Avatar
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    And the place where all this misery starts is the top... President, Politicians , Police, Immigration services ... in short every government body or whatever is as corrupt as it can get ...
    UN should do something for them. Change they gov by force maybe.

    Now the most important question: How much they earn by 419?
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  11. #26
    and the Hat of Clumsiness GanglyLamb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by siavoshkc
    UN should do something for them. Change they gov by force maybe.

    Now the most important question: How much they earn by 419?
    As for changing government, recently Obsanjo ( the president of Nigeria ) wanted to change the constitution just so he could stay in charge for another 4 years on, although I don't think the change got trough.

    I'm not saying he hasn't done anything for the people, he organised a commitee that is supposed to check and crack down on corruption on all levels and so on.
    But the question is then, how corrupt is this commitee itself ...

    I was there when there were elections for the head of states ( governor ), and when I talked to the people on the street and asked if they were going to vote, they said "why bother , they'll rigg the elections one way or the other". So although not many people went to vote, when the votes were counted it seemed alot of people went to vote. Even in areas where maybe in total 10 000 people may be living for example they received more then 12 000 votes for example...

    So changing government should be done by elections, but these elections should be carefully monitored by the UN ( just like they did now with Congo ).

    As for how much they earn it depends what they want to achieve, if someone writes a 419 saying someone could make 7 million $ then its unlikely they'll get somewhere with that. If you say someone could make 1000$ by donating 10$ to the 419'er , and the guy who setted it up would get like 100 people doing this then he'll be earning alot .

    Now to be honest I myself have been 419'ed when I was there, I was only 18, and still believed that everybody was as honest as me, and I was blind to alot of things that were going on... That stage only lasted 3 months, after that my eyes were opened and since then the world I see is less pretty though more realistic.

    My foolishness , thinking that people are good from nature costed me alot of money, even so much that by the end of the year when I had to return from there, I didn't even had enough money to rearrange my flight ticket. I had to borrow money and when I returned I payed it back...

    Although actually I should be thankfull that they pulled that trick on me, since I didn't have alot of money and was barely surviving of the money I was earning with my second job there , I got around 15 € a month( besides my voluntary work ). This brought me much closer to 95% of all the people that are living there, I lived like them, I ate like them etc etc ... I cant even count the times I didn't eat for like 3 days on, just having enough money to buy some water... at those times I felt the love of the Nigerians, if one can't make it on his own you can always count on your neighbour if he has more money then you at the time. And the opposite also happened more then once.

    The only luck I had when I was there was that I had a full medical insurance, so at least I could go to the hospital if I was seriously ill.

    But there are people that don't have any other bussines then 419 and they can make a decent living out of it ( way better then having a normal job ).
    I should also say that even if you are educated it doesn't matter how much you earn... I've met numerous taxi drivers that have a university degree, some are doctors but there is just no employment for them...
    Last edited by GanglyLamb; 08-02-2006 at 07:10 AM.

  12. #27
    and the Hat of Clumsiness GanglyLamb's Avatar
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    Yes they'll do it again, they get caught and bribe the one apprehending them .

    On the loose again, they start all over again, for example:

    The thief steals *duh* , he gets caught he hands over 1/5 of the loot to the officer apprehending him. The officer is pleased since his living standard is now raised for a short while. The thief is pleased since he as well raised his living standard and can steal again.

    The person the thief stole something from has little left and for him the long way to get back where he once was starts all over again.
    It's easy to get to the dark side when you are in this kind of situation... in the end he'll give in and go along with the thief.

  13. #28
    Moderately Rabid Decrypt's Avatar
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    I'm with Cheez. It's nearly impossible to have an actual dialogue, since most people will have already made up their minds. In that situation, the "debate" becomes more about "winning" the argument than producing any sort of discussion.

    There are plenty of people out there, and, I imagine, more than a handful on this board who would be willing and able to have worthwhile political discussions. You just need to keep the trolls out of the thread.
    There is a difference between tedious and difficult.

  14. #29
    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    We don't have enough police officers, if people knew that they could get away with crimes without being punished.
    Shh... you could bring the whole show down with your lack of discretion.
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  15. #30
    and the Hat of Clumsiness GanglyLamb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MDofRockyView
    A vicious circle? And what can hold people back except examples of criminals being punished for commiting crimes. That is what holds us back here in North America. We don't have enough police officers, if people knew that they could get away with crimes without being punished.
    Heh, well instead of letting official people take care of these problems, the people have started their own movement in Nigeria ( and I bet it wont be any different in other places ).

    Vigilante groupes are popping up like mushrooms all over the place. The punishment for thieves is basically in 80% of the cases:

    1) Find a tire of a car
    2) Go to the nearest fuel station and get some litres of fuel
    3) Go to the thief put the tire around his neck, pour some fuel over his body, take a match and light it up.

    At least that is the common scenario for thieves in the south were Yoruba are dominant, in the North the Sharia law will deal with them in an appropriate way.

    In the rural areas they would just take you to the swamps/bushes and kill you there.

    That's why there is a constant curfew, depending where you are , in villages/town mostly 10 o clock, in cities like lagos it was 12 o clock. Whoever is seen on the streets after that curfew better has a good explanation, else you are not far from lying dead on the ground.

    So that is what holds them back, not the police or any other official since they can be bribed, the vigilantes can't be bribed in such cases, since the vigilante is made of ordinary people struggling to survive. And they will certainly not let anyone disrupt their way to a better life, even if they are offered money, because they know that if they would accept it , their neighbour would deal with them.

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