Travis Seitler: Web Designer

Don’t talk to me about Virginia Tech. Don’t you dare tell me that those 30 college students’ deaths are more to be mourned than the 47+ million killed by abortionists in the USA since the Roe v. Wade ruling. Think about that: 15% of this country’s population has been murdered for no good reason.

And then the Supreme Court upholds a partial-birth abortion ban (just barely: it was a 5–4 decision), and the pro-life community acts as if it’s some sort of major victory… but it’s not:

Hey Planned Parenthood, you can still legally dismember the fetus in the womb. You just can’t deliver 3/4 of the baby backwards leaving the head inside, cut a hole in the baby’s head with scissors, and suck the baby’s brain out any more. (The Harford Republican — Heroes)

Nearly 24 million of those “legally” murdered in the womb would now be as old as—or older than—those killed at Virginia Tech. 24 MILLION. So don’t tell me to put a Hokies ribbon on my sidebar.

We have given up our tithes and offerings, sacrificing our children to Mammon. In return, he has seen fit to bless us with wealth, comfort and prosperity. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. The United States of America is bathing in the blood of its own people, and they just love it.

Yesterday I received the following e-mail claiming to be from BMG Music Service. The story is legit, and there really is a class-action suit like it says… but every link on the page goes to cdlounge.com, not bmgmusicservice.com:

Now I was suspicious, especially since there’s nothing but a login box at cdlounge.com (Strike #1 in my book). So I started digging around a bit.

BMG Music Service’s FAQ section states:

Q. How do I know an email is from BMG Music Service?
A. BMG Music Service will send you emails about your orders and account as well as special sales and promotions, and these emails will come from bmgmusic@bmgmusicservice.com. Occasionally you may receive a fraudulent email that appears to be from BMG Music Service but is actually an attempt to trick you into providing personal information that can be used for identity theft. These emails are often called spoof or phishing emails.

BMG Music Service will never ask you to confirm account information like passwords or credit card information through email. If you receive suspicious email, please forward it to us immediately at emailspoof@bmgdirect.com and we will investigate it.

The e-mail I received says it came from cs@bmgmusic.com, so that’s Strike #2 (it should be coming from bmgmusic@bmgmusicservice.com, according to the FAQ). I looked at the questionable e-mail’s headers, and its Return-Path is soneill@103637-litigation1.yourmusic.com—Strike #3 (Yourmusic.com looks as if it may be owned by BMG Music Service, but like CDLounge.com, it could just as easily be a competitor).

I tried to forward the e-mail to emailspoof@bmgdirect.com like they said, but it failed in a “this account does not exist” sort of way. So I’ve forwarded the thing to bmgmusic@bmgmusicdirect.com now, and I’m waiting to hear from them. If this isn’t an instance of phishing, the folks at BMG really need to get their act together. You just don’t tell people that you’re one site on the logo (BMGMusicService.com) but link it to another site (CDLounge.com) and have your e-mail originate from yet another site (YourMusic.com). So it’s either really fishy or really tacky.

UPDATE: Looks like it’s legit. See my recent update for more details.

At least, that’s one of the implications of research like this:

“I think the really interesting question here is the morality of our relationships with avatars and artificial lifeforms. If we seem to forge emotional bonds with artificial life—even against our will, even when we know the bots aren’t real—what does it mean when we torture and abuse them?” — collision detection: Scientists remount Milgram “shock” experiment using 3D avatars

This is so annoyingly inane that I just can’t believe it’s true:

“A suit alleging that the Bush administration is engaged in ongoing, widespread violations of our criminal laws must be dismissed because the alleged wrongdoer, the Bush administration, asserts that any adjudication of the issue would be counterproductive. In other words, under the administration’s legal theory, the administration gets to determine unilaterally which of its actions will be subject to judicial review.

“And while it assures us that the program is perfectly legal, the administration claims it cannot even divulge whether the named plaintiffs (Christopher Hitchens, Larry Diamond, etc.) were spied upon without harming national security. As Jack Balkin put it:

“If the issue were not so grave, the government’s arguments would simply be farcical. If the federal judiciary accepts the government’s argument to dismiss the case without requiring the government to make somewhat finer grained distinctions about what it can and cannot disclose, it might as well close up shop….”

From Unclaimed Territory: Orwellian Doublespeak by Glenn Greenwald.

You know what? If the U.S. was just a giant corporation—and all these “laws” just internal policies—then I could totally understand this response. But we’re talking about the Law here! You know, Lex Rex and all that? The President is not the ruler of this nation; the Law is. Bush must submit to the Law; not vice-versa.

Surely… hopefully… there’s someone in his cabinet who knows how stupid this all is?

I say from here on out, corporate CEOs should be barred from running for President. They’re just too power-hungry.

Apparently that last post was too much of a downer; I got the lowest daily traffic in a long time! (Hmm… or maybe a Narus 6400 just decided my blog was too unpatriotic for the general public to access. Stranger things have happened!) Anyway, I wanted to lighten the mood a bit, so here’s some short videos from iFilm for you!

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