Green Eyed Monster

I read through PZ's hate mail bag after his pointing out the a communion wafer is really just a cracker. There is quite a bit of it, and I can't say I read every bit of it (it gets boring after awhile).

2 Observations:
PZ might have a real problem here. Try as he might, his university is going to get hit with some of the fallout. He won't get fired or anything, but I think he might get a chewing out.

Many of the catholics who responded are both deeply afraid of, and very envious of Islam. You can tell from the tone (and the death threats) that they a) want to do a lot of violence in the name of their religion (but can't) and b) feel they are getting a poor deal compared to the Muslims. I've argued with a lot of catholics in my day, usually on a very civil level. Most kind of quietly assume that once I'm dead, I'll change over when I see the proof. To be fair, that might happen should I find myself in an actual afterlife. I'm betting the other way of course, that there isn't one, but I could be wrong.

A subset though seem to really be torn between what they want to do and their religion, and express this through a great deal of misplaced anger. I assume every group has maladjusted people and that's what comes out at times like this (there are plenty of maladjusted atheists, muslims, jews and Steeler's fans), it's just a little shocking to see it so openly.

Venture Brothers Quiz

I'm Phantom Limb!

You are an unsettling supervillain, with invisible but deadly limbs, who favors a purple spandex costume, and is still obsessed with Dr. Girlfriend. You haven't forgiven the Monarch for stealing her back. He should probably be worried.

Take the Which Venture Brothers character are you? Quiz at HeavyInk.com

Hate Crimes

The next time someone points out to me how only the "left" cries "hate crime" at the drop of a hat, I can point them to this:

Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn't eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

...

"We don't know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was," said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese. "However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it."
We just expect the University to take this seriously," she added "To send a message to not just Mr. Cook but the whole community that this kind of really complete sacrilege will not be tolerated."

PZ summarizes my thoiughts well.

Secret Project, Revealed!

I posted this a bit earlier, but I had jumped the gun. One of my "secret projects" became public today. On purpose.

This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in the Windows Domain Name System (DNS) that could allow spoofing. These vulnerabilities exist in both the DNS client and DNS server and could allow a remote attacker to redirect network traffic intended for systems on the Internet to the attacker’s own systems.

One of my guys just finished his press conference. I'll link a you tube video when it gets posted.

Bottom line: the internet is once again safe for spam and porn.

Update:
Dan is one of the folks on my pentest team and this has been pretty much his whole project since early March. Hear his podcast.
Also, read about "the largest synchronized security update in the history of the Internet"

These are the days when I'm glad I got out of my old job, even though I occasionlly miss it. Despite being "worldwide" we never pulled off anything of this magnitude, or made this much of a difference to so many customers. It was great, but I'm doing stuff now with real impact and it's very rewarding.

At least it is today. Ask me again next week and I might say something different.

...but with Helium

I'd like my funeral to go something like this: