Scammer fail

I really get a kick out of phishing scams. They're just so terrible. I don't understand how anyone can fall for them. Here's one I received today:

This is customer support service we are notifying you to carry out urgent verification of your account as we are having some congestion due to so many unused account that has been registered on our system. We are therefore closing some of this account and we need you to verify if your account is still very active and useful to you in order for us to wipe out the unused accounts. In order to verify your account kindly click reply and insert your password on this box (*********) for urgent purpose or you face to lose your account within 48 hrs of receiving the message.

Thank You For Your Understanding and we are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Indeed. I particularly love "kindly click reply and insert your password on this box (********) for urgent purpose." And the Caps they use in the final paragraph are just so special.

Seriously, how do these guys make money? They'd need entire nations filled with nitwits to...

Oh. Never mind.

Cut from the same cloth

Jesus is in Phoenix

There's been a new, incredibly stupid Jesus-sighting. I suggest you kneel as you read the following excerpts from a highly ignorable story. Apparently right now, this very second, Jesus is appearing as a stain on a tile floor at the Phoenix airport. Hallelujah!

The smudge — dubbed the "Tile Jesus" of Terminal 3 — is seeing worshipers flocking in their hundreds to catch a glimpse.

"It's definitely Our Lord Jesus Christ," said unemployed dental hygienist Becky Martin, who's visited the site every day for the last two weeks.

"He appears to us from time to time in ordinary places, to remind us He is here with us always, being our spiritual guide," she added to the Phoenix New Times.

Highly uplifting. Truly.

I love religion -- for the laughs

In an AP article at the NYT about "El Santuario de Chimayo, one of the most popular Catholic shrines in the Americas", I found this:

Some pilgrims will make the 90-mile, three-day walk from Albuquerque to the shrine that houses "el pocito," a small pit of holy adobe-colored soil that some believe possesses curing powers. 

Indeed. I don't understand what's wrong with people's brains that allows them to believe in this sort of nonsense. A pit of soil?

Just two weeks after Pope Francis was elected, around 50,000 are expected to visit the popular northern New Mexico Catholic shrine, and officials say even more may come because of Argentine-born pontiff. 

Because there's such an obvious connection between the new pope and this pit of holy soil. Everyone can see it. Sigh.

France doesn't get it

Even if you've never read Glenn Greenwald, you should take the time to read this column. It's about the insane efforts various countries are making to ensure that they and their beliefs are not criticized. We've seen it with religion; we've seen it with politics.

Putting a muzzle on people is the end of democracy. And as you'll see in the column, even France (not Iran; not China; France!) doesn't understand this.

The list of the beast

Today The Beast published their list of "The 50 Most Loathsome Americans of 2010". Wanna know who was number one? I agree with the choice:

1) You
Your brain’s been cobbled together over millions of years of blind evolution and it shows. You’re clumsy, stupid, weak and motivated by the basest of urges. Your MO is both grotesquely selfish and unquestionably deferential to questionable authority. You’re not in control of your life. You wear your ignorance like a badge of honor and gleefully submit to oppression, malfeasance and kleptocracy. You will buy anything. You will believe anything. You believe that evolution is a matter of belief. You likely scrolled down to #1, without reading the rest, because you’re an impatient, semi-literate Philistine who’s either unable or unwilling to digest more than 140 characters at a time. You think Epic Beard Man is a national hero and that Bradley Manning might be Eli and Payton’s brother. You believe in American exceptionalism despite the contrary, compelling and overwhelming evidence. You tacitly partake in all manner of atrocity without batting a lash. You’re actively participating in our species’ extinction and you’re either in denial or you just don’t give a shit. You escape into every sort of mind-numbing distraction and ridiculous, convoluted fantasy, so you don’t have to face the bitter, terrifying fact that your life is utterly meaningless.