And The Moral Is...

...be a pirate. Don't buy legal music CDs; you'll be punished by the big record companies (who, might I add, were convicted in federal court of illegally colluding to force CD stores to inflate the price of CDs.) Basically Sony put this "rootkit" software on some of its new CDs that installs itself on your computer and it uses some sort of shadow tech so not even your antivirus can detect it. Needless to say, this makes your computer extremely vulnerable to hacking if you're running Windows. Here's a list of CDs infected, although it's not a complete list.

article about the software


Some class-action lawsuits have already been filed against Sony. I hope they have to cough up big cash. I know I'm certainly not planning to buy any of their CDs anytime soon. I *like* my computer.


In other news... clayjar and I went driving around New Orleans almost two weeks ago. We took pictures of the damage, although I also took pictures of some of the restored areas. The hotel we (old Planet Namek buddies) stayed in is up and running again. It's in the French Quarter, which largely escaped the flooding, although it suffered damage from the looting according to an employee I spoke with. I didn't realize that the lower 9th Ward (the place you kept seeing in the news - lots of people died there) was so close to the French Quarter. It's within walking distance - we strolled by it at night once or twice. I'll upload some of the pics to Photobucket for y'all.

We tried to get into St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes to survey the damage there but the police had roadblocks up. Only residents are being allowed back in. They were hit so badly that they may not be able to recover (these parishes or "counties" are below New Orleans.)

I thought about posting about the political situation but I just can't seem to get the gumption up to do so in detail. It's extremely depressing. I really wish Bobby Jindal had been elected governor - he would be so much better than Governor "Blankstare." :p She is extremely incompetent and unable to "work" Washington. Jindal, on the other hand, has worked under two White House Administrations and was elected "Freshman President" of Congress on his very first term (I guess that means they like him up in D.C.) It's vital that we have people here who can work with D.C. because we desperately need federal dollars to rebuild. However, it's obvious we haven't had any real political pull for years - we couldn't even get proper funding for rebuilding our coastline while tons of ridiculous projects are funded in other states (the infamous "road to nowhere" in Alaska, for example.) To make matters worse, other states are heavily recruiting our displaced health care professionals - there's a shortage everywhere in America, so they see the opportunity to strike now. Yay.


To put matters into perspective, 1/3 of Louisiana's economy is gone. 1/3 of our population is suffering. We're a small, extremely poor state - we were *before* the mess. We aren't going to bounce back like NYC after 9/11. Our economic growth has been set back by eleven years. Don't get me wrong; there's plenty of spirit here. But from a realistic standpoint, we have a huge number of small business compared to NYC. Small businesses can't absorb damage like larger ones, and the loans and aid for them to reopen is either coming too slow or not at all. I hate FEMA. I'd like to cuff Bush for appointing a n idiot to be its director. Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin aren't great either, but I did not vote for either of them. I did vote for Bush, so I feel really disappointed in him. Still, I know the whole "local/state/federal division of powers" complicated matters, but Bush clearly appointed an incompetent man as director for political reasons.


In other news, we celebrated Veteran's Day here by the Governor's Office proposing cuts to retirement homes for veterans. Mmm-mmm good! Your country loves you, vets. <3 We also balanced the budget by cutting spending to unimportant things like health care and education. Yay! Seriously, maybe it seems to some states that we're being greedy by asking for so much aid. But we're cutting into the meat and bone here. There's really not that much fat to trim.