Remember how the GOP’s and Bush administration’s Medicare drug plan prohibited Medicare from negotiating for better drug prices? Well, lots of seniors are finding out how that’s affecting them. Some are discovering that their subsidized purchase of drugs via Medicare are more expensive (and sometimes come with more restrictions) than buying their drugs at Costco.

Bush and the GOP like to talk about how Medicare is “broken.” Well, it is now they’ve sabotaged it.

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It seems that finally a media company has figured out that in order to be successful in selling downloadable movies, they have to get rid of the ridiculous restrictions recently laid down by the big studios. Instead of limiting downloads to people with Windows, IE, and specific media players, instead of limiting the download to the feature attraction only, and instead of prohibiting the burning of the movie to DVD, one media company has boldly decided to allow customers to download the entire DVD content, with special features and all, and burn it to a DVD at home, for the same price as buying one at a store. The DVD will have some copy protection, but nothing the average consumer would notice unless they tried copying the DVD.

Who is this upstart media company? Vivid Entertainment Group. Who are they? They are an “adult entertainment giant.” That’s right, following a centuries-old paradigm that any popular new media concept will be first pioneered by the porn industry, Vivid will apparently be the first to sell downloadable videos without prohibitive restrictions. The big Hollywood studios are said to be watching this move closely (maybe in more ways than one), and if successful, they may emulate it. Where would we be without porn?

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The new Macbooks (formerly “iBooks”) should be arriving in about a month. If they’re priced right, then they should be a huge seller. These laptops are supposed to be outfitted with Core Duos, only slightly slower than the Macbook Pros, and will have a widescreen 13.3″ display that should make them large enough for most people’s wants yet small enough for those who desire compactness. They will also be able to run Mac OS X and Windows XP side by side, at relatively low cost. I think a lot of my students would buy this one, where they wouldn’t buy the iMac or Macbook Pro. I think a lot of other people will be that way as well. However, if you’re at the other end of the scale and like to splurge, the 17″ Macbook Pro is reportedly just a few days away from release.

Meanwhile, Apple is doing very well. Sales have more than tripled over the past six years, much of it due to the iPod and iTunes Music Store, which now account for about half of Apple’s sales. Apple has bought 50 acres of land in Cupertino to build a new Apple Campus, since they have rented every square foot of available office space in Cupertino and still need more. On news of Apple’s sales report, Apple stock surged $3 (almost 5%).

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Want to see something freaky? Go to this site and check out the video of the Robotic Chair. It collapses into six pieces, completely breaking apart. Then watch what happens. [WMV video; via Engadget.] The table videos are kind of cute.

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Not so cute is the FBI’s apparent new policy: when an investigative reporter dies, they get first dibs to view all the reporter’s notes and documents and classify whatever they want. Seems to me to be less a matter of national security and more an issue of hiding dirty laundry. Not to mention the dirty tricks they appear to be using to accomplish this.

Naturally, the media is in an uproar, blasting the FBI and shouting “no fair” from the treetops. My question is, why didn’t the media do this when they knew Bush was lying to the American people about Iraq? It seems the media only gets outraged when the government screws with them, but not when the government screws the people.