[OT] Ohio Apologizes

[Bill Campbell]

This just in from an anti-spam list I'm on:

<quote>

The State of Ohio Department of Weather Request Management would like to
apologize to all those in states who had ordered a White Christmas Option
when submitting this year's Form 403: December Weather Request and who
have been denied delivery in time for the holidays due to lack of supply
of powdered low-temperature H20.

This unusual situation was caused by a computer virus within our
department intercepting a single Weather Request Form 403 being sent to
the World Central Weather Agency (WCWA) at the South Pole.  This virus
caused the form to be replicated countless times using individual
addresses on a 'Millyons CD' in the infected machine's CD-ROM drive and
which contained addresses of residents of Ohio and surrounding states.
These request forms, many with bogus addresses, were then sent by the
virus via a Chinese open relay site, thus bypassing the usual measures
which would normally prevent that many requests at once from being
processed by the WCWA.  As a result, the World Central Weather Agency
diverted the entire available supply of powdered low-temperature H20 into
Ohio and surrounding states, depleting the supply intended to provide the
White Christmas Option to those outside the affected states.  We have been
assured by highly placed, trusted British intelligence sources that there
are large stockpiles of White Christmas Options in Florida being readied
for deployment.  We can't state a firm delivery date at this time as we
are currently awaiting a report from on-site UN inspectors.

We would also like to extend our sincere apology to the residents of Ohio
and surrounding states which had unexpected delivery of extra White
Christmas Options to their towns and neighborhoods.  While we had hoped to
provide White Christmas Options to all those who had actually requested
them, we did not intend to impose extra options on anyone.  Even though we
enlisted assistance from our sister agency, the Ohio Department of
Redundancy Department, we were far too under-staffed to cope with all the
request form bounces.  We realize that this format change suddenly popping
up on yards and roads was not really solicited by all residents; but it
wasn't commercial in nature, so the term 'Snow Spam' commonly being used
for this format change is inappropriate.  We would remind everyone that
the December Weather Interval often has errors in Weather Request
processing, though we are confident an error of this scale is infrequent.

In order to help ease the situation we have installed extra capacity on
our Removal Request web site in Nigeria.  If you feel the format change
to your yard or drive is unacceptable or an abusive use of your property,
please use your browser to access the Removal site at
                http://www.makethesnowgoaway.gov.ohio.ng
You should have your Ebay, Visa or Citibank account information available
for verification.  We will try to process your request as soon as
possible, but understand we cannot make any guarantee that additional
weather format changes will not occur in the interim.

We are required by recent ruling from the Ohio Attorney Corporal to
provide the following disclaimer:

   WARNING:  This site best viewed with FireFox or Lynx.  Enter
   at your own risk or go back now.  The Removal site may contain
   Javascript, Flash, pop-unders, spyware, adware, and/or other advert^w
   experience enhancing features designed to exploi^w fully utilize the
   flaw^w unique capabilities of Internet Explorer.  Also, visitors should
   be advised that a small initial fee may be required to brib^w help
   expedite format change transfers.   These fees will be returned to you
   along with $15 million, a Genuine Rolex Replica Watch, a 42.76 percent
   mortgage, and a winning European lottery number in appreciation for
   your patience.  These gratuities are  courtesy of the Yukos Oil Company
   and the wife of late dictator Mufasa Mobimbo.  Full value of these bonus
   gifts less any un-recouped fees must be claimed as income on State and
   Federal taxes for 2004.  Order External Revenue pamphlet 2284 and contact
   your tax attorney for further assistance.
                                          [MS-Word98 c:/disclaim.doc]

We must emphasize that recent rumors that this format change was caused by
the Commercial Weather Marketing Agency (CWMA) in conspiracy with the Road
and Driveway Plowing Service (RDPS) are totally *FALSE*.  The fact the
'Millyons CD' had a CWMA label and the infected computer belonged to the
RDPS is purely coincidental.  We are, however, launching a full
investigation into why an RDPS computer was in our office in the first
place.  Results of this investigation will be announced within days of the
2008 Presidential election, either before or after, depending on which
party is implicated.

Finally, we would like to make a formal correction to the official
statement regarding this situation by Ahnold, the Governor of California.
He did *NOT* say: 'Shut up and eat your snow!' His actual statement was:
'Shut up and don't eat the *yellow* snow!"  He went on to clarify in an
after lunch press conference: 'Let them eat white snow!  But not until
they've been at work for 6 hours.'

Again, the Ohio Department of Weather Request Management regrets any
inconvenience.

$joyousdjective $midwinterholiday to all and a $optomisticadj New Year!

</quote>

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
UUCP:               camco!bill  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676
URL: http://www.celestial.com/

``We'll show the world we are prosperous, even if we have to go broke to do
it.''
    Will Rogers