Beware YM phishing scam!

A number of people on my friends list, and now one of my sweeties, have been hacked by a phishing scam spreading through Yahoo Messenger.

It works like this: you get a YM from someone you know, telling you to check out a funny link. This link takes you to a page that looks like the "adult profiles" warning page on Yahoo which requires you to give your password. Once people give their password they get a page saying the server's down, which inspires them to think, "Oh well, so much for that," and then they move on. Meanwhile, the phishers change your yahoo password, locking you out of your own account!

There's a virus spreading through MSN messenger, too.

(For once in my life I'm glad I rarely ever use chat...)

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Me? Sticking up for the pope? If there was a hell, I'd ask someone to check the temperature there...

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I joined the union today. I was going to anyway, but the importance of doing so was driven home by something the union rep said -- that without a union in place, an employee has ultimately no input at all into decisions made regarding her work conditions, tasks, expectations, and so forth.

And while an employer might set out with the intention of taking the good of its employees into account, it happens (as we've seen) that greed disguised as "need for competitiveness" will eventually erode that intent and we'll see a race to the bottom with regards to employees' conditions. This is in fact what has happened in the United States, with stagnating real wages, fewer benefits being offered, more jobs being offered only as contract or temporary positions.

I'm going to look into possibly supporting organizations that are working to promote union organization in developing parts of the world. One of the great failures of "free trade" has been its effect in lowering, rather than raising, the standard of living for people worldwide. Labor exploitation is a major cause of that.