Talking Points Memo brought to my attention that there are, even in the deep south of the USA, police chiefs who recognize that their job isn’t to pander to the frightened, bigoted, citizens they protect. Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson wrote a marvelous response to someone who sent him an email essentially demanding that he use excessive force in dealing with non-violent protesters. The person who wrote that email is, among other things, annoyed that the protests adversely impacted his activities (e.

I agree with Hemant Mehta, The Friendly Atheist: why would anyone vandalize a nativity scene on private property? Whether or not the offender is an atheist they should be prosecuted by the, secular, civic authority. I vociferously support the “separation of church and state” but will equally support the rights of religious people to promote their views as long as that does not involve government forcing me to adhere to those religious views.

After Kentucky informed AIG they would not be receiving $18M in tax incentives due to their discriminatory hiring practices AIG responded that they are being discriminated against. You’ve got to love this statement in their whine: Nobody seems to want to force the group American Atheists to hire Christians (and we do not advocate it). American Atheists and every other secular organization doesn’t require “statements of faith” (or non-faith) in order to be hired.

Three months ago I wrote about my unhappiness regarding the obscene increase of 70% in my bill in a single year. That resulted in a temporary, as in one month, decrease, in my bill. Yesterday I received my most recent bill which was back to the absurd amount of $31.09; which is greater than it was in September. As before it included more than $3 for long-distance service which I’ve never authorized or used.

A hacker finally noticed that if they don’t include the expected HTTP headers (specifically the wordpress_test_cookie=WP+Cookie+check cookie) then attempts to exploit the WordPress /wp-login.php URI are trivial to block. Up until yesterday 99.9% of the attempts to hack my WordPress blog by logging in were caught by my .htaccess rule that forbids POST commands if the expected cookie wasn’t present. I’m still seeing a lot of obviously bogus requests but since yesterday superficially valid requests make up a significant fraction of the attacks.

As reported by FAIR, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, the only time the word “torture” is acceptable is when a country other than the USA uses “harsh interrogation tactics”. I already knew this given that I have listened to NPR nearly every morning for the past ten years. But to see it documented so clearly made me retch. Sorry, NPR, but you’ll never get another donation from me. I gave up on OPB several years ago when they started promoting hucksters like Deepak Chopra on a regular basis.

I just sent the following message to the advertising department of my favorite local theater: Camera Cinemas If you manage to force Sony Pictures to let you show “The Interview” I’ll pay you $1,000 for a single showing or $200 per showing up to a maximum of $2,000. If you think I’m not serious I’ll be happy to hand you a check for that amount contingent on screening the film at least once.

This article breaks my heart. Her parents assert they had no idea their daughter was unhappy, let alone suicidal, and would have been accepted: During the inquest Lizzie’s tearful father Kevin, an engineer, said he and her mother Hilary had no idea about the issues their 14-year-old daughter was grappling with. He said: “She was just normal and seemed happy. There was nothing to suggest she was distressed or had any issues.

Since December 11 there have been 574 attacks on my server from machines in Italy. Of those 574 machines 561 (98%) have attempted to hack my WordPress blog via the /wp-login.php URI, 12 have attempted to hack my SSH server, and one was an attempt to exploit a router bug (the “GET /tmUnblock.cgi” exploit). To put this in perspective during the same period there were a total of 54 attacks of /wp-login.

Having recently finished reading James Risen’s book “Pay Any Price” I was already predisposed to spit on James Mitchell, war criminal and the American equivalent of Josef Mengele, if our paths ever crossed. But after reading his whine I’m inclined to think something more proactive is needed: Mitchell told Kelly that this ordeal “is like being caught in a bad spy novel.” He said that those who released the CIA report knew the results they wanted beforehand.