AP (in the New York Times): In a stunning show of proof that idiocy knows no party line, "Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., formally proposed legislation that would give the industry unprecedented new authority to secretly hack into consumers' computers or knock them off-line entirely if they are caught downloading copyrighted material."

Under the provisions of the bill, there would be little or no legal recourse for consumers if they are so attacked.

I somehow doubt (well, hope) that wiser heads in Congress will not allow this unfettered delegation of executive and judicial power to corporations. But stranger things have happened.

Dave feels pretty strongly about this. George thinks we should wait and see. I think we should show Berman (and his RIAA and MPAA cronies) the bum rush.

My DVD-ROM drive in my PowerBook G3 (aka PowerBook G3 2000, aka PowerBook G3 FireWire… man, these things need model numbers) started slowly going south back at Christmas. I couldn't watch Blazing Saddles on the DVD over Christmas without going through an elaborate ritual of rebooting the computer (yes, I was running X, but the drive wouldn’t be recognized again otherwise after it stopped working), listening to a few tracks from a CD, and then putting the DVD in.

As Linus once said, “You’re looking at me as though this weren’t a scientific explanation!”

Eventually the drive mostly cleaned up its act. Then when we moved to Seattle, it conked out completely. I looked for replacement options and ended up bidding on a replacement drive from EBay. It’s pretty close to a direct replacement, I think, from Matsushita, a Model SR-8171-B. I was pretty much able to drop it right into the caddy from the old drive, which came off by removing six screws. Though I did have to file down the door plate to get it to fit in the Pismo case. It works with DVD Player and iTunes, which is good enough for me right now.

Kudos to XLR8YourMac, which had posted an article a while back about mounting a similar combo drive in the Pismo. Curses that I wasn’t able to find a combo drive being auctioned; I would have loved to have a CD burner too.

…or just about everything. Lisa got a call from Delta saying they would bring her bag by later tonight. The plumbers are all but finished—just some touch up work in the bathroom they were remodeling. I may get a car this weekend. My DVD-ROM drive has been replaced in my laptop (more on that below). Feeling pretty good, if a little tired.