[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

I got a cute spam this morning:

From: service@paypal-ebay.com
To: Durrell <durrell@innocence.com>
Subject: Notification of PayPal Limited Account Access

PayPal is constantly working to ensure security by regularly screening the accounts in our system. We recently reviewed your account, and we need more information to help us provide you with secure service. Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account features will be limited. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we would like to restore your access as soon as possible.

For more information about the status of your account and for instructions on how to restore full use of your account, please log in using the link below:

http://www.paypal-ebay.com

And so on. Good grammar, smartly constructed. The domain paypal-ebay.com is owned by Justin Young, at 2780 Fairlane Avenue, Columbus OH, 68601. This is in no way similar to either Paypal or Ebay. Naughty little scammer.

There's also a phone number. So I called it. I got Justin Young's wife, who either doesn't know what her husband did or who is a good liar. But she gave me his work number, so I'll be calling over there later.

How stupid do you have to be to run a Paypal scam and leave your real contact info attached?

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

There's been some discussion of a certain controversial painting of late. Interesting topic. James Lileks claims that a hypothetical "Self-Portrait of a Racial Cleanser" wouldn't get the same treatment on campus. "The painting would be draped in a day."

How quickly we forget. In 1998, Stephen Hunter trashed Tony Kaye's American History X in the Washington Post. He called it "rank, repelling hypocrisy." He accused it of allowing "its fantasy versions of American Nazis to spew their blackest, cruelest vomitus of hatred" while taking "energy and vitality (and ticket-selling notoriety) from the electricity of that hatred."

These are the same objections Lileks levels at "Self Portrait of a Martyr." He is simply wrong when he claims that his hypothetical skinhead painting would receive different treatment. We've seen that painting, and it drew the same sorts of objection. There's no double standard here.