Going Thru the Headlines, Losing All My Drive
Now that I did my "2005 nostalgia" post, here's some vaguely current links.
++ Several NoVa tech companies are heading to Southwest VA coal country for workers, because there's no jobs there are entry-level workers can't afford to live in Northern Virginia anymore. It's going to be interesting, seeing if that part of the state become urbanized (and eventually turns Blue) like NoVA has.
++ Speaking of coal: I just heard about this horrible coal mine explosion in WVA that has 13 miners trapped. Hopefully there will be some way to get these guys out safely.
++ Interesting year-end trend for the DC area: violence *decreased* in the actual District of Columbia (which had the highest murder rate in the country during the crack boom of the 80's & 90's) but *increased* in the Maryland & Virginia suburbs, especially in Maryland's Prince George's County. PG County is getting a really scary reputation these days.
++ Mark Warner is still the most popular governor (*beams*) and Bob Taft is still the least popular. Whoo!
++ States Take Lead in Push to Raise Minimum Wages
Thwarted by Congress, labor unions and community groups have increasingly focused their efforts at raising the minimum wage on the states, where the issue has received more attention than in Republican-dominated Washington, said Bill Samuel, the legislative director of the national A.F.L.-C.I.O.
Opinion polls show wide public support for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which falls far short of the income needed to place a family at the federal poverty level. Even the chairman of Wal-Mart has endorsed an increase, saying that a worker earning the minimum wage cannot afford to shop at his stores.
"The public is way ahead of Washington," Mr. Samuel said. "They see this as a matter of basic fairness, the underpinning of basic labor law in this country, a floor under wages so we're not competing with Bangladesh."
When even WAL-MART wants to pay their slaves more, it's time to take notice. Shame on you, Congress.
++ NYT talks to a 19 year old female recruit from Kansas, heading to Iraq for the first time.
++ The Sex Lives and Sexual Frustrations of US troops in Iraq. Enlightening.
++ Via Kos: Military support for Bush, War effort significantly slipped in the last year:
Approval of the president’s Iraq policy fell 9 percentage points from 2004; a bare majority, 54 percent, now say they view his performance on Iraq as favorable. Support for his overall performance fell 11 points, to 60 percent, among active-duty readers of the Military Times newspapers. Though support both for President Bush and for the war in Iraq remains significantly higher than in the public as a whole, the drop is likely to add further fuel to the heated debate over Iraq policy. In 2003 and 2004, supporters of the war in Iraq pointed to high approval ratings in the Military Times Poll as a signal that military members were behind President Bush’s the president’s policy.
The poll also found diminished optimism that U.S. goals in Iraq can be accomplished, and a somewhat smaller drop in support for the decision to go to war in 2003.
Color me incredibly not surprised.
++ Everyone needs to read Juan Cole's Ten Amazing Predictions for 2006, immediately.
++ Hullabaloo rips to shreds that pathetic Newsweek story which Atrios already ripped apart the other day. BTW, is anyone else amused at his Buffy OMWF shout outs lately? I never knew there were so many Buffy geeks in the political blogosphere.
++ Snoopgate continues: NSA gave other agencies surveillance data. I bet J Edgar Hoover is just dancing in his grave.
Random Techie Links:
++ What's so bad about Microsoft?, explained in exhaustive detail.
++ Wow, Coldplay fucking sucks. Just for that, I'm going to illegally download X&Y three more times, even though I already have it on my hard drive. Ha ha!
++ I've mentioned my del.icio.us bookmarks before, but I'm trying to use Digg now too. I find mostly tech links there, but occasionally good political or news stories as well. I'm trying to branch out. :)
++ Several NoVa tech companies are heading to Southwest VA coal country for workers, because there's no jobs there are entry-level workers can't afford to live in Northern Virginia anymore. It's going to be interesting, seeing if that part of the state become urbanized (and eventually turns Blue) like NoVA has.
++ Speaking of coal: I just heard about this horrible coal mine explosion in WVA that has 13 miners trapped. Hopefully there will be some way to get these guys out safely.
++ Interesting year-end trend for the DC area: violence *decreased* in the actual District of Columbia (which had the highest murder rate in the country during the crack boom of the 80's & 90's) but *increased* in the Maryland & Virginia suburbs, especially in Maryland's Prince George's County. PG County is getting a really scary reputation these days.
++ Mark Warner is still the most popular governor (*beams*) and Bob Taft is still the least popular. Whoo!
++ States Take Lead in Push to Raise Minimum Wages
Thwarted by Congress, labor unions and community groups have increasingly focused their efforts at raising the minimum wage on the states, where the issue has received more attention than in Republican-dominated Washington, said Bill Samuel, the legislative director of the national A.F.L.-C.I.O.
Opinion polls show wide public support for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which falls far short of the income needed to place a family at the federal poverty level. Even the chairman of Wal-Mart has endorsed an increase, saying that a worker earning the minimum wage cannot afford to shop at his stores.
"The public is way ahead of Washington," Mr. Samuel said. "They see this as a matter of basic fairness, the underpinning of basic labor law in this country, a floor under wages so we're not competing with Bangladesh."
When even WAL-MART wants to pay their slaves more, it's time to take notice. Shame on you, Congress.
++ NYT talks to a 19 year old female recruit from Kansas, heading to Iraq for the first time.
++ The Sex Lives and Sexual Frustrations of US troops in Iraq. Enlightening.
++ Via Kos: Military support for Bush, War effort significantly slipped in the last year:
Approval of the president’s Iraq policy fell 9 percentage points from 2004; a bare majority, 54 percent, now say they view his performance on Iraq as favorable. Support for his overall performance fell 11 points, to 60 percent, among active-duty readers of the Military Times newspapers. Though support both for President Bush and for the war in Iraq remains significantly higher than in the public as a whole, the drop is likely to add further fuel to the heated debate over Iraq policy. In 2003 and 2004, supporters of the war in Iraq pointed to high approval ratings in the Military Times Poll as a signal that military members were behind President Bush’s the president’s policy.
The poll also found diminished optimism that U.S. goals in Iraq can be accomplished, and a somewhat smaller drop in support for the decision to go to war in 2003.
Color me incredibly not surprised.
++ Everyone needs to read Juan Cole's Ten Amazing Predictions for 2006, immediately.
++ Hullabaloo rips to shreds that pathetic Newsweek story which Atrios already ripped apart the other day. BTW, is anyone else amused at his Buffy OMWF shout outs lately? I never knew there were so many Buffy geeks in the political blogosphere.
++ Snoopgate continues: NSA gave other agencies surveillance data. I bet J Edgar Hoover is just dancing in his grave.
Random Techie Links:
++ What's so bad about Microsoft?, explained in exhaustive detail.
++ Wow, Coldplay fucking sucks. Just for that, I'm going to illegally download X&Y three more times, even though I already have it on my hard drive. Ha ha!
++ I've mentioned my del.icio.us bookmarks before, but I'm trying to use Digg now too. I find mostly tech links there, but occasionally good political or news stories as well. I'm trying to branch out. :)