URLs du Jour

2008-06-24

  • Not yet countered at Fight the Smears: Obama's first general election ad takes credit for legislation providing "healthcare for wounded troops", but the reference is to a bill to which he had neglible input and for which he didn't show up to vote. That's audacity!

  • Want something to write your Congresscritter about? How about: "Senate Housing Bill Requires eBay, Amazon, Google, and All Credit Card Companies to Report Transactions to the Government"

    Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd's 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America’s small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill's managers without debate this week, would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.

    FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey commented: "This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week. Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay's PayPal, Amazon, and Google Checkout that are used by many small online businesses. The privacy implications for America's small businesses are breathtaking."

    Financial privacy has been degrading for decades, but this is a pretty big chunk out of what remains.

  • A dispiriting number of our local users have fallen for old-style phishing spam. Here's an actual sample:

    Dear University Email Owner,
    
    This message is from University Communication  messaging center to all
    University email Email owners.We are currently upgrading our data base
    and
    e-mail center.We are deleting all unused university email
    to create more space for new one.
    
    To prevent your account from closing you will have to update it
    below so that we will know that it's a present used account.
    
    CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL BELOW
    Email Username : .......... .....
    EMAIL Password : ................
    Date of Birth : .................
    Country or Territory : ..........
    
    Warning!!! Email owner that refuses to update his or her
    Email,within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her
    Email permanently.
    
    Thanks,
    University Team
    UNH. BETA
    

    Now, I'm sure no Pun Salad readers would fall for that, but you might want to clue in your less-savvy friends, say by hitting them in the head with a brick. I'd like to post the following somewhere prominent:

    warning sign

    … but I'm afraid management would object to that wording. (Warning sign generator is here.)

  • George Carlin died! What can I say? Gosh!

    Seemingly every other m*#@@f##(@* blogger is posting his dirty-word stuff, and that's fine. But (showing my age), I remember the first time I saw him, doing his "Wonderful WINO" routine. And thanks to the magic of the Internets, here 'tis, from the old Hollywood Palace variety show, introduced by—whoa—Jimmy Durante:

    Also, Sean Higgins has a juxtaposition that seems callous at first blush, but, hey: George Carlin would probably have found it amusing.


Last Modified 2012-10-12 6:20 AM EDT