Sakawa Boys: Ghana’s Cyber-Juju Email Scam Gangs
What do you get when you combine identity theft and email fraud with black magic, spells, and shape shifting? The explosively popular West African subculture known as Sakawa. Via Motherboard, who filmed their visit in Ghana with Sakawa boys:
While Nigeria’s 419 scammers may have written the book on West African internet fraud, their shtick looks like Compuserve compared to what’s going on in Ghana. Ghana’s scammers decided to stack the odds in their favor the old-fashioned way: witchcraft.
Traditional West African Juju priests adapted their services to the needs of the information age and started leading down-on-their-luck internet scammers through strange and costly rituals designed to increase their powers of persuasion and make their emails irresistible to greedy Americans. And so “Sakawa” was born.
Not only is Sakawa the country’s most popular youth activity and one of its biggest underground economies, it’s a full-blown national phenomenon. Sakawa has its own tunes, clothing…
Resorting To God To Solve The Housing Crisis
As millions of Americans know all too well, no matter what Wall Street says, the housing crisis is far from over. Rather than blame the banks though, the Street’s paper of record, the Wall Street Journal, features a series of photographs of religious and spiritual types trying to “cleanse” foreclosed housing stock of bad vibes. Yeah, that’ll do it guys. I’m not sure if I’m more amused or disgusted. Sample photo below, the rest here.
Lori Bruno, modern day Salem witch. Photo: Christopher Capoziello for the Wall Street Journal.
Romania Legally Recognizes Witchcraft As A Profession
The Romanian government has recognized jobs such as witches, embalmers and driving instructors, as professions. The interest was in gaining income tax as an effort to recover from the nation’s recession. From The Huffington Post:
Romania has changed its labor laws to officially recognize witchcraft as a profession, prompting one self-described witch to threaten retaliation.
The move, which went into effect Saturday, is part of the government’s drive to crack down on widespread tax evasion in a country that is in recession.
In addition to witches, astrologists, embalmers, valets and driving instructors are now considered by labor law to be working real jobs, making it harder for them to avoid income tax.
For months the measure had been debated, protested by witches and mocked by the media.
On Saturday, a witch called Bratara told Realitate.net, the website of a top TV station, that she plans to cast a spell using black pepper and yeast to…
Air Force Academy Finally Accepting Spell-Casters
Noah Shachtman writes on the always interesting WIRED’s Danger Room:
Just a few years ago, the Air Force Academy was considered such an evangelical hothouse that the place got sued for its alleged discrimination against non-Christians. Today, the Academy is boasting of its thriving pagan community — and its friendliness towards spell-casters.
In a press release issued [on Oct. 21st], the Academy features Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier, “the lay leader for the Academy’s Earth-Centered Spirituality community, which includes Wiccans and Pagans from various traditions.” (It’s part of a larger effort by the school to promote an image of tolerance.)
During an inter-faith discussion group, the release notes, one cadet asked Longcrier “whether Wiccans or Pagans practiced ‘black magic.’”
Sergeant Longcrier responded by citing the Wiccan credo, or Rede: “An it harm none, do what ye will.” That would seem to preclude harmful spellcraft.
Do Americans Have a Chance of Having A (Former) Witch in the U.S. Senate?
Another great thing coming out of the recent Real Time With Bill Maher besides the deserved knock on the Democrats’ “rebranding” is that Bill Maher mentioned he had Delaware Senate hopeful Christine O’Donnell on his old show Politically Incorrect 22 times!
So we get to find out fun things like Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell dabbled in witchcraft and believes it’s wrong to tell a lie under any circumstances (that certainly won’t work for her in the Senate).
Man, do I like Maher’s proposed strategy to try to get Candidate O’Donnell on his new show:
Alex Sanders, “King of the Witches”
Taken from the 1985 documentary “The Occult Experience,” this interview with Alex Sanders is fantastic—a real gut-buster. An attentive viewer should come away with an appreciation for flame-retardant loincloths and a demented curiosity about Sanders’ “second degree, which involved a third.” Warlocks beware the blue-haired Id.
