Collateral Damage: A Specialty of the Feds

As we no doubt all know by now, the Feds took down Megaupload. Now, this may mean that a source of widespread "piracy" has gone dark, and the Feds' paymasters at the RIAA and MPAA are likely rejoicing a little about that.

(Just a little, though, considering they brought the fury of Anonymous upon themselves.)

The thing is, Megaupload had legitimate uses as well, uses that a lot of people are reconsidering. One such thing? Offsite backups. Yes, the promise of the vaunted Cloud. Whether it's a library of personal music rips or a priceless digital copy of precious photos, those were taken down along with the pirated copies of crappy movies, albums and porn vids.

Of course, being the highly paranoid type of girl I am, I keep onsite backups. I even have a copy of the contents of my first computer on a CD-ROM somewhere (which shows that machine's age.) I didn't trust the "cloud" from Day One because I was worried something like this would happen.

Now, it has. I feel like the smart one, but the fact is, many people lost a lot of stuff. One would hope that the Feds would show some compassion and try to make these people whole, but... I highly doubt that will happen. The more likely result is that the drives of the servers housing this info will likely rot in some evidence locker until the next Ice Age.

...And in the end, this is the M.O. of U.S. government agencies as of late, from the FBI to the military. To hell with the consequences, so long as the primary target is taken out.

I cannot stand for this. Something must give.

One girl's rant against the legally sanctioned monopoly known as cable.

Long title, even longer ranting session. During my nightly aimless browsing where I often start at the Ubuntu forums and somehow end up looking at a Wikipedia article about a low-power radio station in Idaho by the end of the night, I stumbled upon some bullshit that my ISP's looking to get going soon.

DSLReports - Charter Confirms New Caps

Slashdot - Charter Cable Capping Usage Nationwide This Month

(Remind me, I need to kick a certain infernal package's ass for moving his IRC feedbot.)

Sadly, I'm in an area served by Charter, and only by Charter when it comes to cable TV and Internet. The only other options are the satellite companies for TV, and AT&T for DSL. The weather here is too unpredictable for satellite and AT&T's in bed with the **AA. (As we all know, I am most certainly against the illegal cartels known as the RIAA and MPAA. Any company supporting their aims is one to be buried.) Assuming there was realistic competition, I could do like a good capitalist consumer is supposed to do when they get pissed off over someone's services or goods - vote with my wallet by going elsewhere and doing without the offerings of the offending company. However, I'll note now that my parish has something known as a franchising agreement. In a nutshell, the only way to get cable here is through a single company.

Now that one company is screwing us.

One company, for a service that multiple provide. What's that called? Oh, that's right. It's a blasted monopoly, and last I checked, those are supposed to be illegal... not that it matters anymore. The pro-big-business laws enacted by the last few regimes have managed to destroy anything in business that would actually aid the people (sorry... consumers) when mega-companies screw them.

Now, I don't actually use the TV component that much anymore... I think the only things I watch on television anymore are wrestling and Olbermann. (He makes me laugh. So does Rush.) Truthfully, I could do without cable TV nowadays, even with the (now-delayed) digital transition, and no digital equipment. (My 15-year-old Trinitron delivers crisp enough picture for my tastes... screw HDTV.)

What I do use is the Internet aspect, and I use a good bit of it. Ever seen Serial Experiments Lain? I'm a real-life her, but cuter and bitchier. :P I enjoy exploring the work of various open-source movements and organizations... so I end up downloading a LOT of Linux .iso files. I listen to music on last.fm, Jamendo, OC Remix and Digital Gunfire. I watch some YouTube videos, specifically Freewayjim's stuff. I also watch some TV episodes online where ever I can. Don't forget all the images and flash shit that everybody and their mother seems to be putting on their sites now.

On the upload side, I sometimes grab files from my home machine to listen to on my laptop when I'm out and about. Sometimes I'll grab a video from a DVD I ripped onto my hard drives. Sometimes I'll even grab a whole season of said videos if I'm going to be away for a while. (NCIS never gets boring.) Other times, I'm uploading hundreds of highway pictures at a time to Picasa, Flickr or Imageshack. (Or all three.) Let's not forget seeding my Linux isos so others can have them... sharing is caring after all. The point is, I use a ton more bandwidth than the average user.

Right now, I have 5 meg service. That's it for downstream. Even then, I can roll through the proposed cap in a few days of light usage. Of course, they're saying they'll have an uncapped tier, but that tier isn't available here. The 5 meg I'm on right now is the top one there is. That means no matter what, I can't move past the cap. I'm not allowed the option to be uncapped by agreeing to be extorted for more. Never mind that I'm not exactly willing to pay the extra $100 to stop them from screwing me.

Some of us can't work, after all. Ever heard of a fixed income? Specifically, disability? I can't just make more money when prices go up. Can't look for better pay and all that. Don't have much of anything I can sell to make ends meet every single month to come up with another $100. Chump change to you? Huge f'n deal to me. This month, I'm already doing without groceries simply because having a working vehicle does more for my mental health than having food does. I'm also having to do without medicine that I need that Medicaid doesn't pay for. Needless to say that when bills go up, sacrifices are often made. This month, "sacrifice" was food and medicine. Next month, it may well be Internet.

(And please, do not ask me why I can't just give up Internet so easily instead of resorting to starvation. Of all the skills that I have that could help me land a job whenever I can get my mental state sorted and become un-disabled, computers are the only ones, specifically network-related stuff. It's all I have. It's like asking a carpenter or mechanic to sell his tools.)

As it is, I have no choice, none at all... except to call bullshit on the whole thing. All of it. I heard Charter's circling the drain as it is... let's hope they get sucked in and go away. No bailout for these bastards.

Now, I must go get my 15 hours of sleep and pray tomorrow's not so depressing.

Another DWI on the Causeway...

Times-Picayune - St. Tammany Parish Councilman booked with DWI on the Causeway

Yep, another politician got busted on the Causeway for driving drunk... and this time, it wasn't Drunk Eddie. Instead, we'll call this one "Drunk Marty" - Councilman Marty Gould of Parish District 5.

Seems he got loaded at the Saints game one Sunday, then decided to drive across the bridge.

Then... (Shock!) the cop pulled him over and actually did his job, writing the esteemed Councilman a ticket on the spot. Unheard of!

I guess some people can learn after all... so for once, kudos to the bridge police.

The sad thing here is how the Councilman responded to all this... his only regret? Getting caught. The classic sign of the unrepentant criminal. So, just like I'm (still) calling for Drunk Eddie to resign (or get indicted), I'm also going to call for Drunk Marty to get the hell out of public office. Never mind the fact that he seemed to be the only one harmed (did he take a header in the Dome to get that cut on his head?), he could have harmed someone else, especially on the Causeway. Personal responsibility dies a little more each time one of these idiots does something stupid like this, and the stupidity needs to end before someone gets killed.

The Mother Of All Rants

No cable since Monday, nowhere to go, nothing to drink and nothing to do but listen to the radio. Story of my week. So I listened. And then I listened some more, and as I heard optimism change to pessimism, pessimism change to desperation and desperation change to outrage, I felt the same.

Gustav wasn't the "mother of all storms" that Hizzoner and his lackeys across the parish line was claiming, but true, it could have been much worse than it was. Grand Isle went underwater, but everything seemingly puts Grand Isle underwater during hurricane season. Nevertheless, virtually everyone and their brother in southeast Louisiana fled for their lives.

In my last post before the storm, I posted about the bottleneck along I-59 at I-20. Well, there's another one that bit people in the ass. You see, Gustav was a Rare Event. There were two ways to go to escape that ended up working out: North and east. I-55 played fine the whole way, and I already bitched about I-59, but there's one other way out of town... I-10. Sure, you couldn't just stay on I-10 through Slidell, you'd get forced onto I-59. If you were on I-12 eastbound, though, you were able to transition onto I-10 eastbound just fine. A bunch of people did just that, or they took US 90 eastbound. Either way, people got to the closed I-10 East. You had smooth sailing until you got to Alabama. Some people were smart and turned onto I-65 northbound toward Montgomery, Birmingham and Atlanta. Others figured on going even farther east to Florida (which in itself is a stupid decision during Hurricane Season.) So on they went... and met the most unholy of all bottlenecks along the entire Interstate System, the Mobile Funnel.

Yes, the Mobile Funnel. You're cruising along on a WIDE section of I-10 and then suddenly it sheds all but two lanes. Traffic backed up all the way to Mississippi at points due to this.

Strike one!

Eventually, people got where they were going, but for one reason or another, people just have to hurry and get back. Maybe they're the working poor who had to use their bill money to run, or maybe they're the paranoid ones who are rightfully concerned about the property they left behind because the Bad People will come and loot it all away. For the former, the sky-high costs of fuel and lodging screwed them. Regardless, the most they could stay away was maybe two days. So, they turned tail once the winds died down and started their trek back, learning from their mistakes and making it back inside a day.

Then they got stopped at the Twin Spans. They got stopped at the US 11 bridge. They got stopped at the Jefferson and Orleans Parish lines.

These people sat for HOURS with no food, no water and no fuel. These people had children, elderly and those with less-than-stellar health traveling with them. They watched as the Troopers, Guardsmen and parish deputies got food delivered to them so they could continue to turn away the weak.

So, people called in and bitched over the radio. Eventually, the All-Powerful Lord Broussard and others decided to let those people in. Some did so Tuesday (Lafourche, who I actually give high marks through this nightmare), some did so on Wednesday (Everywhere else except Orleans). Even St. Bernard Parish, which had virtually no power and restricted the movements of the citizens via a 24-hour curfew... THEY let people back in on Wednesday.

But Hizzoner stood firm on not letting the people back in until Thursday.

It's far better to let the people come back and assess things, maybe decide if they want to stay away a while longer until all the amenities come back, or stay despite no power and sewerage.

Broussard, Nagin, Davis... It is not your call, it's ours. Fuck you. Strike two!

Let's get back to the evacuation here. The best ways to go were north and east. A bunch of the Contraflow plan pushed people west, though. West was not the way to go. West got slaughtered in this storm. Baton Rouge suffered the worst hurricane damage in their history, and even at the time of this posting, is still suffering widespread power outages.

And Baton Rouge caught only a glancing blow compared to other prime Contraflow destinations. Lafayette, Opelousas, Alexandria... all of those safe havens to the west caught a LOT of damage. There was even damage as far north as Shreveport.

Problem is, Contraflow is only one plan. It scatters people in all directions, even when we KNOW the storm's going a certain way.

Contraflow succeeded somewhat in getting people out, but it sent many to places that caught much more damage than the New Orleans area did. What we need is variable Contraflow. We need different plans that can be changed in the event that the storm heads one way. Right now, you can't go east if Contraflow is active.

Ok, in theory you can go east on I-10 instead of getting forced onto I-59 Contraflow North if Mississippi doesn't call an evacuation, but if the storm's hitting anywhere that would force Southeast Louisiana Contraflow to be active, Mississippi's calling some sort of evacuation.

Either way, you can't go east, which SUCKS when the storm's coming to the west like Gustav did.

Unlike the Mobile Funnel situation, I've actually got an idea for this, but it's going to require Mississippi and Alabama to play ball. Let's call this Contraflow Plan B.

• Keep northbound I-55 the same.
• Leave I-59 as it is in normal Contraflow, but allow traffic to remain on eastbound I-10.
• Traffic from eastbound I-12 contraflows onto westbound I-10. If you're coming from Mississippi for a hurricane heading west, you shouldn't be heading west. Sorry.
• Contraflow I-10 through the entire state of Mississippi this way. Traffic entering the Interstate from Mississippi can use either the normal east or contraflow east lanes to leave Mississippi, or use northbound arterials to go north. (And build I-61 north, for fuck's sake!)
• Entering Alabama from the west, I-10 remains in Contraflow until it reaches I-65.
• I-65 north becomes Contraflow for about 20-30 miles, all lanes northbound. All traffic from Contraflow eastbound I-10 (the westbound lanes) will use I-65 Contraflow northbound (normal southbound). I-10's normal eastbound traffic will have a choice - two lanes to I-65 north, and only two lanes to eastbound I-10 and the Tunnel. All other eastbound lanes will be blocked off!
• Normal westbound I-10 at Mobile will be forced to divert to northbound I-65 if they don't get off beforehand.

It could work if all three involved states (Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama) would play ball.

Strike three, yer out!

Regardless, evacuation went well, but repopulation failed because of the ego trips of all the leaders involved. Unless the roads are all under 2 feet of water or something, the people should be allowed to return as they feel it's safe. Instead of saying "You can't come back yet", tell us why we can't come back. We've got TV, Internet or radios. If there's a nest of live power lines down in Algiers, tell us this. If Metairie's under 6 feet of water, TELL us this! Don't just say we can't return, give us a damn good reason not to and let the people judge for themselves! We still have Katrina on our minds, being locked out for weeks, even months at a time. We're antsy because of the looting and such that occurred after Katrina. We're poor and can't afford to stay in hotels that gouge us half a month's earnings for two or three days and can't afford gasoline prices that have been speculated out of reach of the poor. People will not evacuate ever again due to this bullshit!

Every elected official in Orleans Parish, as well as parishwide leaders in Jefferson need to be removed from office. These officials dropped the ball on the final out of a perfect game.

That's right, the final lame baseball analogy... That's it, off to the showers. You're OUT the game!

Finally, a proposal. Feds, you listening?

STORM PROFITEERING

In the event of a hurricane warning, prices of food, automotive fuel and lodging shall be frozen at current levels in areas covered in the warnings, as well as likely destinations of the evacuating population. No establishment in these areas offering these items or services shall raise their prices in the event of an impending natural disaster, lest they face the same penalties as those prescribed by law for war profiteering. They may lower prices as needed to clear perishable stock, but cannot raise their prices past pre-storm levels afterward, although they may match pre-storm pricing if desired. This law shall remain in effect for 60 days after landfall of such a hurricane, although this period may be shortened or waived at the discretion of the President or a majority vote of either the Senate or the House of Representatives. The President or the aforementioned legislative majorities may also call for 15 day extensions of this period if conditions warrant.

Yay, nepotism. (Yes, another Drunk Eddie post.)

NOLA.com - Contracts linked to mayor's family

And more shit hits the fan as the days pass. You've got to love nepotism. Get into power, pass the perks along to the family. Pity it's illegal.

Yet it seems that the City of Mandeville's Public Works Department has been handing out contracts to companies connected to Drunk Eddie's family - just one of the blatant violations of state law during that process. It's bad enough Drunk Eddie's been using taxpayer money to go to Pebble Beach and other destinations for the overlord-class, but his extended family's benefiting as well with these illegal lets.

Of course, the City also ran afoul of a law requiring public advertising for projects that are slated to be bid if they run more than $100,000... several times. Drunk Eddie's excuse? The projects were divided into phases and he "was not aware that the work should have been viewed as one project and added he was unaware of the bid law requirement."

Last I checked, ignorance of the law still means you're guilty if you break it. If I'm (hypothetically) illiterate and I do 90 in a 55, I'm still going to get busted for speeding. Never mind that I (hypothetically) can't read the sign or my speedometer.

Drunk Eddie's been in office now for 28 years or so. He can't have just been doing this for the past few years. He has to have been perpetrating this felonious stupidity for a long time. Who knows how much taxpayer money his crony in-laws and corrupt buddies have pocketed in the greater part of three decades?

The right answer is: "It doesn't matter how much it was - if he stole or squandered even one cent of taxpayer money, he should be jailed."

Now the Feds are looking long and hard at Business As Usual at City Hall in Mandeville, and I for one say it's well past About Damn Time. I'd beg him to resign while he still has some small sliver of a good name left, but it's WAY past time for that.

It's way too late to simply resign now, Mister Mayor. As they say in Monopoly: "Go to jail. Go straight to jail. Do not pass 'Go', do not earn $200." And feel free to drop the soap. You deserve the end result.

Last Call for Drunk Eddie?

WWL-AM/FM - Audit paints bad picture of Mandeville mayor

WWL-AM/FM - Goyeneche says Price needs to resign

WWL AM/FM - Mandeville Mayor says he won't resign (NOLA.com - Related: Mayor's personal statement)

Legislative Auditor's Report (.pdf)

Lots of links, and I apologize for that, but it appears the shit's really hit the fan for Drunk Eddie. (Warranting three separate stories back to back to back on WWL's website, by itself, is amazing.) The Legislative Auditor's Office has released their report on what goes on in Mandeville city government, and some of it is pretty damning for Price and the rest of the Good-Ol'-Boy Network in charge here.

Areas of concern from the Auditor's Office include the Citizen's Service Fund, city credit card usage...

"The City issued credit cards to the mayor, all department heads, and numerous other City employees. Several of these credit cards are consolidated into one account and are summarized on one monthly statement by cardholder. In addition, Mayor Edward Price, III and Milton Stiebing, finance director, each has separate credit cards. From September 2003 through March 2008, Mayor Price made 620 credit card transactions totaling $56,733 and Mr. Stiebing made 119 transactions totaling $17,210. Of the amounts charged, we noted 65 personal charges by Mayor Price totaling $8,845; 356 charges for meals totaling $36,103 that lacked proper documentation; and 15 charges relating to parties and celebratory functions totaling $6,143. By using a City issued credit card for personal use, Mayor Price may have violated state law."

...personal use of City vehicles and Fuelman cards...

"The City provides vehicles to all department heads and certain employees including Mayor Price. In addition, the City provides insurance coverage, pays for maintenance, and provides each vehicle user with a Fuelman card to purchase fuel. During our review of vehicle and Fuelman usage, we noted (1) the City does not have a written policy on the use of City vehicles and Fuelman cards; (2) City employees, including Mayor Price routinely use City vehicles and Fuelman cards for personal purposes such as out-of-state vacations; (3) the City does not include the value of the personal use of the vehicles as income to these employees; and (4) the City does not mark all its vehicles in compliance with state law. By using public vehicles and Fuelman cards for personal use, these employees may have violated state law."

...improper gifts...

"Louisiana Revised Statute (R.S.) 42:1115 provides, in part, that no public servant shall solicit or accept, directly or indirectly, anything of economic value as a gift or gratuity from any person or employee of any person who has or is seeking to obtain contractual or other business or financial relationships with the public servant’s agency. During a review of Mayor Price’s e-mails, we noted several messages which indicated that people doing business with the City were providing things of value, including golf trips and hunting trips, to Mayor Price, Mr. Stiebing, and Councilman Gerard Coogan. We spoke with Mayor Price, Mr. Stiebing, and Councilman Coogan and some of these third parties and confirmed that Mayor Price, Mr. Stiebing, and Councilman Coogan may have received gifts."

...and the list goes on. Read the full Report for all of it. Needless to say that Mayor Price, as well as a couple of other city officials, seem to be pretty much caught red-handed on this stuff by the Auditor's Office. OF course, after the Report was released, Mayor Price responded, saying that he wouldn't resign. I'd post snippets from his denial, but I'm trying to conserve space.

Fact is, with some of these findings, getting kicked out of office would be the LEAST punishment that could be applied here. Louisiana politicians may have once been able to get away with murder, but that trend's been changing as of late. Don't believe me? Just ask Edwin Edwards, Jim Brown, William Jefferson or Derrick Shepard. They've either been burned already, or are feeling a ton of heat right now. Also ask the current governor. Although he hasn't done anything illegal yet, he sure as hell vetoed the raise the Legislature voted themselves after feeling the heat from the voters, including heat in the form of recall petitions.

In an age of near-universal discontent among not only the disenfranchised minority and impoverished populations but also the middle-class, and of massive amounts of information available to anyone who knows how to Google, politicians can't get away with outright blatant abuses like Price has appeared to do during his time in office. He might even end up as EWE or "Dollar" Bill's cellmate in federal prison.

The first thing he should do when he wakes up is to announce he's resigning. The second thing he should do is hire a damned good criminal lawyer. And please... please, for the love of $deity, use your OWN money to hire the lawyer.

Drunk Eddie: No record on file

Times-Picayune - Causeway stop exposed mayor's 'ghost' license plate

Back to my favorite subject around here, it's another post about Drunk Eddie!

So, you see, Drunk Eddie doesn't really exist. He has no record on file... oh, wait. His car doesn't really exist, or more accurately, its registration doesn't exist. This is yet another example of the abuses going on in Mandeville - the abuse of "ghost plates."

Ghost plates are a tool most commonly used for and meant primarily for undercover investigations. Simply give the car a false registration, feed in some fake info, and voila, your undercover has an identity that even shows when you run the plates. However, Drunk Eddie's SUV also has a ghost plate.

Chief Enabler Buell tried explaining that several city vehicles used by public officials have the ghost plates in case they're needed for an undercover op. Right. MPD has some unmarked vehicles set to go with the ghost plates that are meant for undercover. They don't need the officials' vehicles for that. In fact, the last time an official vehicle was used for an undercover op was "a long time ago" (according to the Enabler.) Almost every other local agency in the area (city and town governments) doesn't use these plates for any local officials' vehicles. Some even go as far as adding the city/town/parish seal to these vehicles. (At least, this is according to what the Picayune found out. Take it with a grain of salt if you must.)

However, many official city vehicles have the ghost plates, when they should have public plates.

Of course, now Drunk Eddie's SUV is among those with a government seal on it, and it's supposed to eventually gain public plates, like it was supposed to have in the first place. Just as soon as he completes his 13-step program and becomes Sober Eddie, that is. (Like that'll stick.)

Fact is, since Drunk Eddie's ride was off the grid, just how much did he screw up on the roads, with no record due to the plate? No one will know.

All I can say is that this cannot continue. He needs to get himself out of office yesterday.

Lafayette seems busy lately...

The Advocate (Acadiana bureau) - Traffic tickets plummet since cameras installed

(You happy now, Anthony?)

*cough* Ok, so the outsourced revenue-takers aren't raking in the funds like they should. People appear to be catching wise. (And if that's the case, why is it that every day the Advertiser's website seems to have 45767443570237 new pictures of red-light-cam violators?)

Aha. You saw the dirty "o" word. Outsourced. This traffic camera revenue machine reeks to me much worse than every major company's outsourcing of work. At least with companies like Dell, the outsourced work isn't out to steal your money. (Ok, they steal your jobs, which indirectly steals your money... but anyway.)

This outsourcing is even more insidious, though. Run a light, get a letter in the mail. You're guilty, of course, so you need to pay the Corporation. Consequences? No, just pay the Corporation now, little Sheep. Wait. You're not guilty? Too bad. No due process for you, silly Sheep. Pay up, there is no other option.

It's one thing to be outsourcing tech support, it's another to outsource the LAW, especially with technology that can't get it right sometimes. Suppose someone takes the Deathmaschine to Lafayette and decides to make one of the Advertiser's vids. Also suppose that that person who took the car is not me, in no way could be confused with me... yeah, you get my drift. Totally not me. Guess who the outsourced revenue takers would mail and harass? Yep. Me.

At the least, in the same situation but with a flesh-and-blood Revenue Taker, they'd actually pull the person over and realize it's not me, but actually Calrog in a dress or something. The actual "who" of the equation is unimportant. I would probably never even know about this unless the Takers thought my car was stolen. Needless to say that I wouldn't see hide nor hair of any ticket. The system, stacked against us all and broken horribly as it is, would work.

With the cam, though, I've got a ticket to pay for a drive I never even took. Where's the justice in that? Where's the legality?

Sometimes they nail the right target and that Sheep happily feeds the Corporation's coffers, rightfully so, but it's when they get it wrong that the whole experiment falls apart.

Of course, someone's suing over this hypothetical scenario and a couple of little Constitutional issues as well. It's how we do things these days in Amerika, you know. Don't like something? Sue it or them. Like I said, these cameras and the subsequent way in which You Are Simply Guilty via a civil, not criminal process seems to run afoul of things like constitutional guarantees that you get to confront witnesses, the ability to refute evidence, or holding the government to a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. There's also some question to the legality of using the mail for this.

Aside from that, there's also no way to really check up on the Corporation here. The system in Lafayette operates "off the books," supposedly. There's no public accountability for the Corporation. What a surprise there...

Lastly, is this really happening at all? Guess the source of the material in the linked news article. No, really, guess. I'll be waiting here while your brain churns.

.........

Finally figured it out? Redflex and some employees of the City put out the news release. The Corporation pats their own back. The City stands idly by, smiling, all the while with their thumbs up their asses while the Corporation "diverts" the funds of the populace into their own pockets.

At this point, I don't care if they hire more Revenue Extractors... sorry, more police... just get RID of these cameras and the law-circumventing Corporation.