In the ’60s, a Future Candidate Poured Her Heart Out in Letters - New York Times

In the ’60s, a Future Candidate Poured Her Heart Out in Letters - New York Times

I was raised to believe that a letter is a private thing. The thought of someone making private letters public without permission is highly offensive to me.

While it's easy to envision scenarios in which such a unilateral release would be justified, this doesn't seem to be one of them. That holds even though, in one of her letters, young Ms. Rodham jokes about saving her correspondent's letters for the money they might be worth in the future.

I don't know whether John Peavoy had Mrs. Clinton's permission to release her private letters to Gail Sheehy or to the New York Times, but if not he should have his face slapped. If so, never mind.

There's just something unseemly about all this.

Wife, 2 daughters dead after doctor's family held hostage - CNN.com

Wife, 2 daughters dead after doctor's family held hostage - CNN.com

That perpetrators of an act like this will not be executed in three months or less is a glaring indicator of the need for reform and streamlining in the administration of the death penalty.

Fresh Thorns

Last week I got a letter from the power company saying they couldn't read the meter because the trees had grown to block their line of sight (I guess they use binoculars rather than jump the locked gate).

In the background of the picture is Camelback mountain. In the middle-ground are the mesquite trees I tried not to hurt myself on, and in the foreground is the reason I wasn't successful. For scale, that's my forefingertip supporting the stick of thorns, which are stout and extremely sharp.

Blogger domain blocked by Spamhaus

Yesterday I discovered that if I send an email containing this blog's URL (in the signature, say, or as a link for the recipient), my email service provider is blocking it. Turns out I cannot send or receive such an email, nor can a third or external party send such email through my provider's system.

This turns out to be because Spamhaus has listed the entire Blogger domain. So says my email service provider's friendly tech rep. He said that it's a Google/Blogger problem, and that in the future I could simply obfuscate the URL to avoid the problem. That's a shame because it defeats the purpose of placing a link. [Apparently it's not the entire domain, but some subset of Blogger's servers, which is hardly a better situation.]

I don't know how many major Internet service providers subscribe to Spamhaus, but if they do, they are probably blocking any inbound or outbound email that contains a Blogspot URL.

I wonder if other blogging services are similarly affected? If they are not affected, why is Blogger listed? Is it something Blogger is or isn't doing?

This is apparently not a new problem. It would seem that Google/Blogger and Spamhaus, both of them good guys, could do something about it.

This is the sort of reason that I registered Skeptacles.com a long time ago. Maybe I should think about using it instead of the trusty, familiar Blogspot account.

Oh, well...