I'd be inclined to suspect caller ID spoofing rather than the call actually originating in Cameroon, but can't really justify that guess.

Your call did not originate from Camaroon -- if it had, it wouldn't have started with a 1, which is the country code for the US.

The only reference I can find to "two men charged in the murder of a Greenville man" has to do with Pennsylvania, although there is also a Greenville, Michigan in the relevant area. I can't find any news story in Greenville, Michigan's local paper that contains both "murder" and "work release" as key words, going back to 2005 - and Greenville, Michigan seems to have relatively few murders, so any murder should make the local paper. Seems to be an increase in the sleaze factor, if they're referring to a murder that took place in a completely different state and/or more than three years ago.

None of this explains why they're calling you in New Hampshire, of course.

Pardon me while I take another round of cold meds and fall into bed...

An outraged Independent voter in Wisconsin taped the call and played it on Air America's Ed Schulz show.

Love, c.

As in all human endeavors, especially those that involve software, Mistakes Were Made. During October and November, things went nuts with political calls, and in the rush, more mistakes happened than usual. That could be part of what's going on here with the caller ID, and the Michigan/New Hampshire thing.

When a system is making outbound calls, it's programmed with a caller ID to display. There are rules regarding these (which I don't recall). It could be that there was a typo when the number was entered, though it could have been intentional.

The numbers called may have been loaded from a file provided by the client, which could have had a smattering of errors in it. Or somebody at the business goofed and combined the script for Michigan with a phone list intended for another pitch.

They are probably trying not to call too early, or too late, but with portable cell phone numbers, these systems can no longer tell where someone is geographically just by looking at the area code. At least the system that I saw didn't have any address information — just the phone number. If you've got area code that looks like New York, but you are in Hawaii, you could get a call in the middle of the night.

Of course, the content of this call is appalling, but that was presumably intentional rather than user error.

Further, since the arrival of cheap and available SIP peering, Asterisk boxen and the like, it's never been easier to send whatever CLI you damn well like, and bugger the consequences. Some networks check them and some...don't.

There was also a phase in the late 90s dark fibre boom when international wholesale voice was so cheap it was worth moving your outbound phone bank to some really odd places; French Guiana comes to mind as the seat of a wide range of callback scams at the time (as outbound to Europe was dirt cheap but inbound was expensive).

I've heard of gerrymandering districts to favor one party, but this seems a bit extreme.

Family
- Mike is married to Linda, five children and three grandchildren.

It seems to me that murderous recidivists might be the least of his problems. I'm from Michigan, and I had to look up Greenville (thanks internets!) but I'm pretty sure multi-generational polygamous incest is frowned upon, even in the deepest darkest LP midlands.

WASSSUPPPP?

Sweet.

I appreciate the spoof even more after seeing the original. Brilliant, and moving.

Somehow, this repetition is starting to worry me. Even though I know it may just be boilerplate scare tactics about Obama exposing a fusion hammer-and-sickle/crescent-and-stars tattoo under his left buttock etc., and it seems unlikely that foreknowledge of a Sekrit Plot could be spread among only the party faithful without anyone else finding out, what the heck could be going on back there?

I am very faintly reassured that the stated intent is to change voters' minds, rather than just pump lead. (And yes, I already cast my early vote and doubt that anything could make me regret it short of Obama replacing Biden with Cheney.)

Courtesy of Jib-Jab

Huckleberry beats Ginster by 8 points for State House seat.

Huckleberry said his triumph marked the first time in 75 years that a Democrat will represent the area in the State House.
...
Ginster said he believed his campaign didn't mount any personal attacks toward Huckleberry, just pointed out information that was available to the public before the race began.