Caleb in the observation bubble

Caleb in the observation bubble
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Black Salve

You'd think with all these miracle cures resulting from black salve someone would have published case studies in a peer reviewed journal. "Big pharma is suppressing the evidence" is the cry of quacks who want to avoid having to provide scientific evidence of their claims. If you really believe it works, get the ball rolling on FDA approval. Start with having a few doctors publish case studies. That's cheap, easy and gets the attention of the people who fund independent pilot studies.

Mississippi lawmaker: Coat hanger abortions might come back. 'But hey, you have to have moral values'

Mississippi lawmaker: Coat hanger abortions might come back. 'But hey, you have to have moral values' at least for certain, twisted and bizarre versions of "morals." Mississippi State Representative Bubba Carpenter makes sense if you look at things from his point of view. The women resorting to coat hanger abortions as a result of these laws will be mostly poor minorities, scarcely human in his eyes. Even when it's a white woman dying from a botched abortion, it doesn't matter, because in his eyes, they're murderesses anyway. Dying as a result of a botched abortion is God punishing them for murdering a child. In this politician's eyes, the rape victim bleeding out in a motel room because she, in desperation, turned to a med-school drop-out for help, is getting exactly what she deserves. So what if the kid was the result of rape? It was probably her fault anyway, right? It's amazing how much conservative "logic" makes sense when you assume the man speaking is a closeted homosexual who has sublimated his lust for other men into a boiling, cancerous, vile, vindictive hatred of women.

Cornerstonepayday.com Revisited

Back in September of 2011, I wrote an article entitled Payday Loan Scam Site cornerstonepayday.com. In that post I took a look at the "security" behind the spam advertized site cornerstonepayday.com. I decided to revisit the site after a spam comment was posted to my blog post.

There were many issues with cornerstonepayday.com:

1. Annoying popups trying to prevent you from leaving the site.
2. Rip-off fee structure.
3. No security or encryption protecting your name, address, social security number and bank details.
4. Spam based marketing strategy
5. The stolen SSL certificate being used ion the site
6. The hard coded submission from making it impossible to submit your data securely even if you wanted to.
7. False claims on the site of using encryption to protect your data.

The site has made two major changes since the original article. The annoying popups trying to prevent you from leaving are gone and their fee structure is no longer as readily accessible. That's it. The major security problems remain.

cornerstonepayday.com's facebook page links to needcashpaydaynow.com, which has a slightly different design, but still has NO encryption, despite having the logos of several security vendors on the site. This site is a bit worse, as you get an error message when you try to load the site using HTTPS instead of HTTP. It doesn't even have a stolen security certificate for you to use in submitting your social security number.

needcashpaydaynow.com has links to a few other sites:

• holidaypayday.com
• speedypayday.ca
• eloanadvance.co.uk

These sties at least load over SSL, which is small comfort given the company they keep.

To be blunt, you'd have to be a complete idiot to trust any of these sites with your information. They're probably con artists looking to steal your identity. Even if they aren't con artists, they're incompetent when it comes to rudimentary data security. You'll probably have your identity stolen if you give them your information.

not many people eat lasagna with chopsticks

not many people eat lasagna with chopsticks
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

daddy daddy can I climb the sculpture?

daddy daddy can I climb the sculpture?
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich