This interior shot of the Ayasofya Mosque predates its conversion into a secular museum in 1935. The calligraphic roundels in front bear the names of Mohammed and Allah – others carried the names of various caliphs. If Brown’s new novel Inferno ever gets made into a movie, this building will likely get some additional exposure; if you ever get to Turkey, it’s definitely worth a visit.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
This scam combines the worst of the “psychic connection” schemes with modern-day phishing. Protect your loved ones!
This letter arrived yesterday, addressed to my mother – deceased since 2010. However, it’s plain that her name is still on numerous “sucker lists” circulating out there.
The Envelope (click all images for full resolution)
Notice how the letter tries to make it look as though the ink on the envelope has bled through to the paper below.
It’s plain that the photo is supposed to look mysterious and powerful, but seriously, folks – this looks like someone who’s been locked up for 50 years in St. Mungo’s Institute for the Criminally Disturbed. I say that without judgment, because the picture is doubtless not whoever is behind this scheme, and could be someone’s very loving grandfather.
At any rate, the letter is full of the typical handwavium and orange smoke about mystical powers, good luck forthcoming, millions of dollars to be won, but instead of money, this Josef v. J. drone just wants a few pieces of critical information so he can “work everything out correctly on your behalf”: your father’s first name, your date of birth, and your signature. With those pieces of information, you have (if you’re Mr. or Mrs. average American) opened the door to most of your financial accounts.
The “Magic Voucher” – Front
The “Magic Voucher – Back
The Return Envelope – Josef v. J., PO Box 3182, South Hackensack, NJ 07606
Why the Post Office, the FBI, or other government agencies are unable or unwilling to shut operations like this down is beyond me. It seems to violate every mail fraud ordinance ever written. Be that as it may, the force is with you – if you have vulnerable loved ones out there, watch out for camel ejecta of this nature. Monitor their affairs and make sure they don’t get sucked in by criminal organizations like this.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Cushlamochree… would you buy a used car from this man?
A San Francisco church is creating a space for pet cremains, in honor of the patron saint of animals. But the project is stirring a theological controversy.
An outdoor pet cemetery in the Presidio in the 1990s.
“This is, after all, the City of St. Francis. So when a shrine named in his honor announced plans to build a repository for pet ashes in a catacomb-like hollow under the stairs of its 19th-century church, many animal lovers were elated. Little did they know the plan would stir old-fashioned church politics and deep theological questions. (Is the stair nook a sacred space? Does placement of cinerary urns equate to pet burial? Did St. Francis only care about living creatures?) Now, as plans for the pet columbarium move forward, critics are taking their concerns well up the church hierarchy.”
Read more at the Los Angeles Times.
Of course, the voices in my head being what they are, I was immediately put in mind of this lovely story, which I originally heard in Irish Gaelic: [1]
Muldoon was living in the country in Ireland and he had a dog. Muldoon was very fond of his dog, but one day the dog died, and he went to the priest.
Muldoon said, “Father, my poor dog died. Could you be saying a Requiem Mass for him?”
Said the priest, “‘Tis sorry I am, Muldoon, but there’s no Requiem Mass for animals. There’s a Protestant church down the road, God alone knows what they believe. It’s to them you should be going.
Said Muldoon, “Faith and that’s a good idea. I’ll be going there straightaway. What do you think? Would 50,000 pounds be enough for the services?”
Replied the priest, “Damn you, Muldoon! Why didn’t you tell me the dog was Catholic?”
From where I sit, the joke makes more sense than people arguing about a pet cemetery, but that’s just me.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
[1] Original Irish text:
Bhí Muldoon ina chónaí faoin tuath in Éirinn agus bhí madra aige. Bhí Muldoon an cheanúil ar an madra sin, ach lá amhain fuair an madra bás.
Chuaigh Muldoon chun an tsagairt.
Deir Muldoon: “A Athair, fuair mo mhadra bocht bás. An féidir leat Aifreann na Marbh a rá?”
Deir an Sagart: “Gabh mo leithscéal a Mhuldoon. Ní féidir Aifreann na Marbh a rá d’ainmhí. Tá teach pobail nua thíos an bóthar, agus ag Dia atá a fhios cad é an creideamh atá acu. Iarr orthu.”
Deir Muldoon: “Smaoineamh maith atá ann. Beidh mé ag fiafraí láithreach bonn. Céard do bharúil? An mbeadh 50,000 punt go leor le haghaidh na seirbhíse?”
Deir an Sagart: “Damnú ort a Mhuldoon! Cén fáth nár dhúirt tú liom go raibh an madra Caitliceach?”
Today’s Dilbert cartoon made me smile:
It just reconfirms what Mark Wieczorek wrote about in 2005, which I found so insightful that I reblogged it here:
They’re out there, and most of us have to put up with them.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
There’s a superb colorizer haunting reddit these days – I’d love to see him/her take a crack at this one.
I love old pictures of New York; you can take the boy out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the boy.
Charles Addams, most famous for his cartoons in The New Yorker and elsewhere, did some lovely cartoons about the city – one in particular comes to mind every time I see a picture of the elevated trains that used to run up and down Manhattan:
The 3rd Avenue El –
“Sometimes, on nights like this I can still hear it rumble by.”
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Official planning map for the US Interstate Highway system. However, during the 4-year freeway reconstruction project for I-15 prior to the 2002 Olympics, we wondered if the good folks at the Utah Department of Transportation were doing this behind closed doors:
(This is a multi-generation Xerox… I’d pay dearly to have a good copy of the original)
Recently we had to endure three years of freeway widening down south, 24 miles of road torn up at the same time from American Fork to Spanish Fork; I created this video to commemorate the event, with music shamelessly stolen from Salzburger Echo:
As with the Salt Lake project, we did survive… but it was a hellish experience, and I’m glad it’s over. Of course, now they’re adding an extra lane from Spanish Fork to Payson, which will take another two years. There’s no rest for the wicked.
♫ And they tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you can’t get through,
This road is
under construction. ♫
(From MAD Magazine, if I remember correctly)
The Old Wolf has spoken.
This image of a sunspot (with superimposed USA for approximate scale) was taken by the New Solar Telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory. It is the most precise image of a sunspot ever taken. The granules on the sun’s surface are approximately 1 million meters (621 miles) in diameter, and roughly 2500 miles deep.
From the BBSO website: “New observations of the solar granulation with the New Solar Telescope (NST) at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) allowed a NJIT-Stanford research team to make the next step in understanding of the solar surface structure. A new complex world of very small granules became visible between normal solar granules. Mini-granules, as small as Maine, form a multi-fractal structure, similar to other systems in nature, such as coast lines, glaciers, earthquakes, stock market, etc. A key property of such systems is their unpredictable, burst-like behavior and jagged, irregular shape. Usually, occurrence of numerous independent random processes lead to the formation of a such system. Studying of such systems is beneficial for understanding both the universe and the social life.”
So much energy there, free for the taking.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
High school girls learning auto mechanics. The revolution begins.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
This beautiful picture of Cape Town is all over the net – but I can’t find the original photographer. Gorgeous.
Available as a poster – click through and follow the link “zoom in fullscreen” for a zoomable view. Fascinating…
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Playing in the World Game 