Some people are dumb.

Everyone always wonders why there is so much spam if no one buys any of the sketchy pills or ... um, whatever else they try to sell in spam.

On Sunday, I received 3 e-mails with a stock tip. These made it past Gmail's spam filters, so I assume lots of people read them. Amazingly, all hyped the same stock: NHVP. (I don't know anything about this stock, and this is not an endorsement to buy or sell any security. Duh.)

Here's what the stock has done the last 5 days, courtesy of Yahoo!:




Yes, this little stock went up 40%, for no reason that I can find. Other than a bunch of stupid people are probably getting caught in a potential pump and dump scheme.

This one isn't nearly as clever as one last year, though. Be sure to scroll to the bottom and listen to or read the message.

Sometimes, other people are funny.

This made me laugh. That is all.

Hurricane Naming Rights

So you have Tropical Depression Tammy heading into Frorida. You have the NOAA running out of names because they refuse to use a name that starts with Q. Or a U. Or, X, Y or Z. If Vince and Wilma form, they're moving on to Alpha and Beta.

You have people arguing to cut the funding of the NOAA. The obvious solution, of course, is offering hurricane naming rights to corporations ... or, really, to anyone. The most surprising thing here is why no one thought of this sooner. Oh wait ... people have.

First, there were silly names for college bowl games. And, now, pretty much every stadium out there has sold naming rights. Why not hurricanes?

Here's the deal. You pay nothing to get on the list. So take your chance and put "Hurricane Joe's Barber Shop" at the end of the list, and hope they don't get to you. But, given recent trends, the odds aren't with you.

If your storm forms, you pay a sliding scale to the NOAA based on how severe it becomes. Tropical Depression Microsoft would only cost Bill gates maybe $100,000. But Category 2 Hurricane Halliburton might cost a million. And Category 5 Hurricane Exxon/Mobil would cost $10 MM.

More importantly, each company agrees to pay up to $50 MM in recovery costs should their storm cause damage somewhere. This way, no one will complain about the arrangement. It's not as crass to have Hurricane eBay mentioned all over the world when people know you've put yourself on the line to help out.

We could open this up to anyone. For a really special gift for a loved one, you can offer Hurricane Happy 50th birthday Tom Swanson!. Or, for the one-of-a-kind proposal, forget about the scoreboard at [Insert Name of Large Company Here] Field, and go for Trpical Depression Sally Will You Marry Me?.

In 2008, maybe your political contribution will lead to Hurricane Vote Clinton for President. If they time it right, maybe that one will form in late October, just before the election.

It's only a matter of time.