Anyone hooked on Katrina coverage should visit www.nola.com, which has lots of news coverage, links to the PDF versions of the Times-Picayune, and the best set of photo galleries I've seen yet.

What a bind those people -- and everyone in America -- are in. New Orleans is such an important point of commerce, for oil and agriculture. Something HAS to be there; and a lot of people therefore need to live there. And they need Wal-Marts and restaurants and everything else. But making it how it WAS is just unthinkable right now, and I don't think a hard-headed intention to rebuild everything serves the future very well (particularly those who, in the future, may not be able to evacuate the city when the next big one approaches). I'm sure glad I don't have to make such decisions...

I like to complain that I never feel compelled to blog, but usually all it takes is to open up nytimes.com and something will inevitably jump out at me as worth commenting on. So let's get to it.

Google , it would seem, is replacing Microsoft as the tech company most hated. While no one can deny what wonders it has done for the internet, its dominance is a bit, err, domineering. It is bar none the best, most efficient search engine. Period. No questions. But the problem when you're that good is that now everyone whines about there being no room for competition. Google is so popular that other websites look to integrate its technology into their own websites, using the Google engine to power indexing services for searching their own websites.

Following the IPO, Google now has the resources to recruit the best engineers in the biz, and has apparently singlehandedy caused 50% inflation in Silicon Valley salaries. I say, lay off Google. They make a mighty fine product, and free market dictates that they should be allowed to deliver that product so long as people are ready and welling to consume said product. Besides, what has Google ever done to me, David Hodges? Not very much I'd say. I don't see what liberal Leftist hippies are so scared of when it comes to big corporations anyways. It's like they think they're going to wake up in the middle of the night to banging on their door while these big corporations take their first born child or something. Get over yourself. You're not that important, and big companies like Microsoft and Google just don't care that much. If it really bothers you so much, here's a thought, stop using Windows and stop using Google. Oh, you like their ease of use and efficiency too much to give them up? Then for heaven's sakes, SHUT UP.

It looks like New York City subways are getting camera's installed for security reasons. Looks like Big Brother on the surface, and maybe it is. But after riding the subway all summer to and from work, I can tell you that it isn't a very pleasant experience to start with, and I very seriously doubt that cameras will detract in any significant sense the pleasure someone might derive from taking the subway. One would only hope that it might add a degree of normalcy back to the subway with the knowledge that any antics are going to be captured on film. But that, I'm afraid, is a fairly vain hope.