Dear Weather Channel,

Weather is all you do. When there's a winter storm warning for the area, could you give us local radar that isn't three hours old?

No love,

Fred

ita, maybe "you can't con an honest man" bugs you for the same reason it bugs me. It is not true. Certain cons require dishonesty on the part of the mark, but lots don't. So that saying is a con person's justification: "the mark had it coming." About 20 years ago, it was common among scam artists to refer to the mark as "the mooch". (Don't know if still true today.) My thought when I first heard that: projection much?

Incidentally the particular scam was covered in the LA Times and was a perfect example of cheating extremely honest people, not even stupid, just naive.

During a period of high unemployment, con artists would put together businesses they sold as operating businesses, but really only existed on paper, to people who still had saving but were desparate for work. The con artist justification was "that who expects to get a dry cleaning business for $25,000. The mooch was after something for nothing and got what he deserved." But of course all the victim was guilty of was not doing homework, and not understanding basic business principles. The person was unemployed, has savings and tried to buy a small business he expected to work hard and make a go of. There is zero dishonest about that. It is not even a bad idea in principle. And there is nothing wrong trying to find something in your price range. It was incredibly naive, but a lot of people have no idea of what kind of investment even a labor intensive small business takes. And a lot of people really don't understand what kind research due diligence takes. A lot of non-stupid people can be naive in that particular way, especially when they are desperate.

So in my opinion a very cruel way to cheat an honest person.

So that saying is a con person's justification: "the mark had it coming."

Pretty much only true on Leverage.

OMG PERKINS FUCKING ROCKS MORE THAN ANYTHING!

\\o/

Oh right, Onerous Task Day. Good thing that I scheduled the appointment with the emergency therapist today. Which I am not looking forward to, but I know will be good for me.

Pretty much only true on Leverage.

But not actually true on Leverage. I don't recall them ever saying it. They say it a lot on Hustle though, and I hate it.

On Leverage they choose their targets, and that's the end of that.

On Hustle they have conned honest people. And still claim they can't con an honest person. It drives me batshit. Yet, still I watch. It's Adrian Lester. He's crack. Also, Robert Vaughn. And a little bit of Glenister.

Speaking of cons, my morning work today involved securities filings, with a great one coming from Alabama. Someone there got a cold call selling stock in a company. After a few days, he received a packet from them, and then he got a followup call from a woman. He asked her if she and the company were registered to sell stock in the state, and she said they were. She then asked him what he thought of the opportunities as shown in the packet, and he said that "he was so impressed with said investment opportunity that he shared it with the Alabama Securities Commission," whereupon she promptly hung up the phone.

Smart guy.

I am printing out receipts from therapist visits in 2010 that I never filed claims for.

YEEHAW!

Other onerous tasks include editing a 16 page whitepaper, and going to buy a bunch of silica gel so I can start drying the flowers people have sent in memory of Mom.

Kathy -- I've seen a lot of consumer complaints involving getting fleeced by fraudulent cashier's checks. So I can only say, Wonderful story!