er virus, I can haz

Bugger...a while ago I was doing lots of things at once, including reading email and facebook. Clicked link in innocent-looking email. Did other stuff while it loaded. Went into web browser to do stuff there. One screen is a facebook login. I was expecting that. Except it wasn't a facebook login, it was a bloody virus-feeding site. I twigged about thirty seconds after logging into the scam site, and changed my facebook password and stuff, but too late, now I've got something which redirects Google searches now and again and (more scarily) hasn't let my antivirus software load or update itself for the past four days.

I could probably figure out how to get rid of it, given time and support sites, but given how much work I have on atm, it's going to be more efficient for me to pay someone to do it. I'm going to Montreal Sunday and Monday, so I suppose when I get back Monday night I will back up important stuff and set about finding someone to sort it out.

No idea how; I've never needed to employ anyone to work on my computer before. Anyone got any recommendations in NYC? I know that e.g. Staples have computer-fixing departments, but I fear they are staffed mostly by hacks and idiots.

this bomb plot business

There's a general atmosphere of Scared and Relieved in Riverdale the past few days, since the news broke that some terrists had been Foiled in an Evil Plot to blow up shuls round here.

Call me cynical, but it seems to be a bit too convenient that it made front-page news just as things were getting a bit sticky over what to do with Guantánamo Bay.

In a nutshell, officially Bush's anti-terror policies were Wrong but we are keeping them; officially we want to close Guantánamo but we will not give any resources to doing that. One might be forgiven for thinking this was Not Exactly In Line with Obama's original vision, but you won't find many people today in Riverdale arguing against the present set of anti-terror measures. They're all too shell-shocked by how nearly we got blown up. Except that we sort of didn't.

I mean, read the press release from the U.S. Attorney's office. It sounds like the guvmint were jolly well aware of the plot from its inception - perhaps they even whipped it up, one can't say - and could have stopped it any time they liked, but you get better arrests if you nab people with bombs in hand, so they supplied fake explosives and then foiled it dramatically on Wednesday.

This sort of theatrics is supposed to make us feel glad that foolishly restrictive measures are in place. This morning, there were police outside all the shuls round here, and people were glad. People felt safer. I felt safer. Even though I think it's idiotic for police to check people's tallit bags, I felt safer because theatrics are effective. And everyone reading about this narrowly-foiled plot is supposed to think that maybe it's not so bad the current anti-terror policies will stay in place.

Guvmint, you may be Democrats, but you don't get any cookies from me right now.