verycunning on "Can't make initial connection to WordPress.com?"

The problem seems to be resolved. (yay!)

I was editing the .htaccess file to include the following (to track php errors)

# Catching PHP errors:
php_flag register_globals off

php_value error_reporting 2047
php_value display_errors true
php_flag display_startup_errors true
php_flag track_errors true

php_flag display_errors on
php_value error_reporting 7

And found the following code present, which I commented out as follows:

# php_flag display_errors on
# php_value error_reporting 6143
# Action php-cgi /cgi-bin/php4
# AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
# AddHandler php-cgi .php .phtml .php3

# Zend Optimizer htaccess handlers#
# AddHandler ZendOptimizer .php
# Action ZendOptimizer /cgi-bin/php-cgi-Oct-31-2011
# End of Zend Optimizer htaccess handlers#

I was then able to connect and login into wordpress.com.

I can't say for sure where this code came from. I will leave this open for another day, and then it can be marked resolved. Thank you.