Labor Day, Labour Day

Labour Day isn’t just an excuse for a long weekend. The idea behind a weekend is, some people actually do work hard enough through the week that they need two days of rest at the end of it, or the value of their labour will steadily decline over a relatively short period of time.

I’m no longer (thankfully) in the group for whom that is physically true, but posting seven days a week is exhausting in several rather unexpected ways, and so I’m taking time off the blogs and will see you all on Tuesday.

Of course, quite a lot of people (most people in the US, according to several studies I’ve seen) no longer have full employment with two days off each seven; the average worker has one to three part-time jobs, and substantial difficulties synching up their days off. This, plus the outrageous protests of, say, the fruit industry that they cannot find workers (try having fewer convictions for slavery and assault, more benefits, better wages…you get the picture) to pick one at random, is proof that those battles need to be re-fought. Some day they’ll be won again.

Meanwhile, enjoy this hands across the ocean video of Billy Bragg’s “There is Power in a Union” set to a slideshow of American workers through the 20th Century.

Stolen from Cord at the very good Mollygood, and here you thought gossip blogs were all fluff!

The Grand Plan

It’s hard for me to type; in fact, I had to shut the doors and windows, because the constant drone of the sirens is becoming too much even for my hardened nerves.

But I’ve come up with a plan.

You see, every Welfare Wednesday (aka Mardi Gras) the sirens go; actually, they start the night before, as that’s when some people receive their cash. And they go all day and all night. And then, they do it again the Friday after that, when the ones who have jobs decide to party. And if the latest shipment of heroin that’s come in is particularly bad, the sirens don’t let anyone have any breathing space; they overlap one another for a solid 24-36 hours.

So the plan is this: The next time it’s Mardi Gras or Friday After, I’m going to get on Twitter and tweet when the sirens stop. And when they start. And when they stop. And how many of them I can hear at one time when they ARE going.

It’ll be dry as hell, but historic.

Sirens started again…

a casual observation

I am meeting far too many people who won’t walk down certain streets, won’t go into certain restaurants, won’t attend certain parties, won’t set foot in certain parts of town, lest they encounter someone with whom they have become personally unpopular.

If I let that stop me, I’d never leave the apartment! So tell me, is icing people and burning bridges the new hotness, because if it is, howcum I’m not queen of the fucking prom?

Seriously, though, I like my way better. Just work patiently around them until either they want you back or all of their friends start to think THEY’RE the weird one.

Works every time.

Operation Global Media Domination: The Steve Jobs and Longhorse Situation

First of all: Steve Jobs is not dead.

Second: Bloomberg posted, then pulled, his obituary today, Gawker picked up on it, posted about it, and into the comments thread on that post I dropped a link to my over Steve Jobs’s dead body post, which has subsequently rocketed to the top of the stats page off of that third-hand high. This has, in turn, lifted the Steve Jobs=Cthulhu post to near the top of the Top Posts, as Steve Jobs surfers see the name in the sidebar and click. And a fine post it is, too (36 painstakingly collected links if I recall correctly)

Third: for no reason I can determine, the Longhorse post is suddenly getting a lot of attention, which suits me perfectly, as I consider it one of my best. And you will, too, once you’ve read it.

LA ICE: shovelling the snowbacks back

This is remarkable video of one of LA’s most secretive police units, ICE: Illegal Canadian Enforcement. They sweep the streets clean of Canuckistani invaders, tipped off by nothing more than a glimpse of an NHL jersey, a whiff of maple syrup, or just a whistled bar of “Snowbird.”

Fear them.

Stolen from EvilBeet