May 10, 2008

This morning I got a request from a friend to connect through Reunion.com. Seemed innocent enough, and I fell for it. Which is to say, they got one of my email addresses. Nothing more. Far as I know. But somehow they put X and N together and began spamming people I know.

Now I have five emails from friends, so far, plus one each from my wife and my sister, each with copies of spams from Reunion.com. The reunion.com emailings go like this:

Hi,

I looked for you on Reunion.com, but you weren’t there. I use Reunion.com to search for lost friends and contacts, and to stay connected with people I know, so please connect with me.

– Doc

RESPOND TO DOC:

Connect with Doc Now! - You’ll also find out if anyone else is searching for you.

I left out the links.

Oh, I also got one like the above, from myself. Another other notified me that “You’ve just been added to Doc Searls’s Reunion.com Address Book.”

What address book? And how exactly did they get that list of contacts?

Fortunately all those friends and relatives who wrote back were smarter than I was and saw the email from reunion.com as the scam it is. Others? I dunno. Live and re-learn, I guess.

Here’s the Google lookup of Reunion.com and spam. Plenty there.

I am among the least litigious people on Earth. But I can’t help but wonder … Could I (or we) sue these bastards for false representation? Invasion of privacy?

Back when Bush the Elder was running for President, campaign strategist Lee Atwater said he was going to make Willie Horton into Michael Dukakis‘ running mate. He did, and it was a lesson that has been applied to great effect ever since.

Now in Wright Controversy Deepens Voter Divide, the Washington Post says,

Religious voters in Indiana and North Carolina held to familiar patterns in Democratic primary balloting Tuesday, with the controversy over Sen. Barack Obama’s relationship with his former pastor deepening the divide.

Exit polling sought associations between votes, race, religious affiliations and frequent churchgoing. What it didn’t probe, apparently, was talk radio listening. Every time I hit SCAN on the car radio’s AM band, Rush or Savage or some other right-wing yakker is still working the topic like a fat piece of gum.

The other tar for Obama is culture. Here’s Charles Krauthamer:

The line of attack is clear: not that Obama is himself radical or unpatriotic, just that, as a man of the academic Left, he is so out of touch with everyday America that he could move so easily and untroubled in such extreme company and among such alien and elitist sentiments.

They’re working that one too.

Here’s Obama’s path to the election.

Via Andrew Sullivan.