Posts from — September 2006

PSotD tagged his blogroll asking about Labor Day, and I’m at a slight disadvantage because for a big chunk of my life it was celebrated as May Day where I was living.

It is rather unique, as it is the only holiday I’m aware of that was imported from Canada where it’s spelled Labour Day.

When I was an elementary school student, it marked the end of summer and beginning of school, but it is a rare holiday in the South as there is no tradition of blowing things up in celebration. There is also no tradition of honoring labor in the South, and labor unions are considered communist conspiracies.

Things were different in New York, as it was considered respectable to belong to a union and at various times I belonged to two, and was actually elected treasurer of my AFSCME local.

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More than two millennia ago a guy wrote a story about the unintended consequences of lying to people.

The IAEA inspectors reported back to the Security Council that they don’t know if Iran wants to build nuclear weapons. The Shrubbery said that if you can’t prove that Iran is not building weapons, then it’s obvious that they are and we must impose sanctions on Iran. The Europeans and the Russians aren’t buying it.

What bothers the Europeans and Russians is the fact that the Iranians are saying: You want sanctions? Well, we can impose our own sanctions by reducing our oil exports by a third. Because of the spike in oil prices, the reduction in output won’t affect the Iranian budget, but the loss of that much oil could double the price of a barrel of crude.

It was interesting to listen to the Robert Siegel piece, Negroponte Hopes to Prevent Intel ‘Fiasco’ :

Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte says he hopes that U.S. attempts to gather intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons program are productive — and accurate.

Someone must have warned Negroponte about the job Siegel did on Michael Chertoff after Katrina, letting Chertoff tell the world that there was no one at the New Orleans Convention Center while John Burnett was on the other phone reporting from the Convention Center. How nasty can those NPR reporters get – live fact-checking of government spokesweasels? It would never happen at Faux.

Negroponte also said he didn’t play Colonel Klink and Chertoff swore he never modeled for Edvard Munch. [You must include gratuitous snark on the weekend.]

Hie thee to Musing’s musings for Tom Tole’s cartoon and then continue with Michael’s view of Keith Olbermann’s righteous refutation of Rumsfeld’s American Legion speech from the point of view of a historian.

When you are done there, drop by YouTube to watch Mr. Olbermann and John Dean on Countdown discussing Rumsfeld’s speech and the attempts to spin by spokesweasels.

If you haven’t heard the spin, the claim is that Rummy didn’t really say that those who disagree with the Shrubbery are “appeasers”.

James Wolcott’s post, Parting Shots, points to the UN report that the vast majority of the cluster munitions that Israel used against Lebanon were fired or dropped during the last three days of combat, when everyone knew a cease fire would soon be in place.

He points to Tony Judt’s article in Ha’aretz, The country that wouldn’t grow up. It is a long essay, but worth the time because of the place Israel occupies in American foreign policy.

Feral Kittens

Oh no! It’s the axe murderer!

[Editor: I found this group in my Mother’s side yard. They belong to the Lone Ranger and still have blue eyes but are playing, so they are about a month old. She brought them out to begin the weaning process.

Friday Ark