The Snoozeletter @ snzltr.blogspot.com

 
Amazon having security problems? A set of hoop earrings recently appeared in my Amazon shopping cart. As much as my wife and I like the look of hoop earrings, they don't go with anything in our closets. Then Anikó received this eMail about her Amazon account:

As a precaution, we've reset your Amazon.com password because you may have been subject to a "phishing" scam. [...] Go to amazon.com/phish to read more about ways to protect yourself from phishing.

We've both been well aware of phishing scams for a couple of years - we receive several attempts per week, and we're careful to delete them from our non-Microsoft eMail clients. So we didn't do anything to trigger this password change. It looks like some cracker has breached the Great Firewall of Amazon.
 
The Click That Broke a Government's Grip: The Great Firewall of China | A Letter's Journey in Cyberspace (Washington Post). It looks like Chinese censorship can't keep up with the Internet.
 
Brazen self-promotion: My first contract with H&R Block will end soon, so if you need our tax preparation services, please stop by the Rancho Mirage office!
 
Cartoons: Denmark's secret weapon in the war on terror. Who woulda thunk the Jihad could be brought on by those wacky Europeans, instead of us?

"The trigger for the clash of cultures was the publication by the Jyllands-Posten on September 30 of 12 cartoons of Mohammed. A biographer of the prophet had complained no one would dare to illustrate his book, and the newspaper challenged cartoonists to draw pictures of the prophet in a self-declared battle for freedom of speech. [¶] One cartoon showed Mohammed wearing a bomb-shaped turban. In another, he tells dead suicide bombers he has run out of virgins with which to reward them." [more]