Twitter!

Posted at Twitter, because it's really too short to post here...

• Ooh, I hope so! RT @JamesUrbaniak: @SarahPalinUSA, today: "R death panels back in?" bit.ly/4xTSzr
• "Last Airbender" whitewashing counterbalanced! tinyurl.com/yda37sc
• Cream black tea from @AdagioTeas tastes strange, not at all like I remember it. Blecch!
• Westboro wingnuts in town Jan 7 to protest @ladygaga. I didn't think her act could get stranger.
• "Thanks for following me!" DMs tell people that you like to be set on fire.
• Love how the media is trying to make B Murphy sound like a junkie because she had relatively mild migraine meds on hand. Jeez...
• Current job involves toys. Awesome eco toys. Must try not to squee too loudly, lest I scare the employer.
• "Skinhead Nazi Strip Club in East St. Louis." It breaks the brain, doesn't it? bit.ly/4BGSWe via @RiverfrontTimes #STL
• Grievance: "HumanLight Day"? Why not just latch onto the Solstice like everyone else?
• All I'm getting for Christmas is a rash, and iPod envy from gowalla.com/gift

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I never thought this scam would work in the US!

"Grandparent scam" targets Mo. seniors

The scam works like this: A caller posing as the grandchild will phone the intended victim, claim that he or she's in Canada and has been arrested for DWI, injured in an accident, or has experienced some other emergency.

The caller then asks for money to be wired to an account in Canada via Western Union. ... "Because perhaps of distance or trouble hearing, the senior citizen may actually believe that it is their grandchild on the other end," [Attorney General] Koster said.

In some cases, Koster says the caller will also have the Social Security Number or other information connected to the victim's actual grandchild.

A scam like this made big news in Japan a few years back. I remember articles saying that, because the Japanese don't often introduce themselves by name over the phone, and because it's embarrassing to admit you don't know who a caller is, it was easy for callers to say, "Hi, it's me," and ask for money.

I thought this would have a harder time taking hold in the US. Maybe that's just because my family is more likely to demand a name than to take a guess--it's a big family, most of us sound the same over the phone, and we all get peeved by the odd relative who gets a giggle out of making us guess. (Not that we don't each do the same thing when people don't recognize us on the phone, of course.)

Also, I suspect my family is more likely to organize a road-trip/ass-kicking than to wire money....