Newsflash

This just in. After analyzing subpoenaed Google search records, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security announced that they foiled a new 9/11 Al Quaeda plot involving “blonde hair big tits.”

I hope that all you refuseniks and ACLU’ers out there stop and think about what kind of busty, peroxide doomsday your interference might have caused. Have more faith in your government. You’re not even using those civil liberties, anyway.

“…But they don’t mind throwing a brick…”

It’s touching that there are still people in this world who care enough to riot. I first heard about France’s proposed “first job contract” law from some of the French scientists with whom I am working. They’re absolutely pissed off.

The law would allow employers to hire first-time workers under the age of 26, and, for the first two years of this job, have no obligation to provide benefits and can fire the employee at any time for any reason. American workers have a similar status when they are hired for the first job, and for their second, third, fourth and tenth up until the day they die. Unless they have a union contract, that is.

Where is our outrage?

McLaughlin is Presumed Innocent

In a very troubling development, FBI agents raided the offices of the New York Central Labor Council and the district office of Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, the President of the CLC. McLaughlin has been President of the CLC for two decades, the third of three representatives of IBEW Local 3 who have headed the Council for the entirety of its 51 year history. His files were seized in connection to an investigation of a contractor, Petrocelli Electric, that did business with the city.

While McLaughlin’s tenure as President of the city-wide coalition of trade unions is open to criticism (McLaughlin is a skilled politician who has strived for unity in the labor movement; that unity has often been achieved through a lowest common denominator agenda that has precluded bold leadership stands), I have never heard any of his critics accuse him of corruption. To date, there have been no charges or allegations against McLaughlin or the CLC. The raid does have the unmistakable whiff of a politically motivated hatchet job. We should keep a critical eye on situations, as they develop.

“…the lines sag heavy and deep tonight…”

So, Friday, March 3 is my birthday. I’ll be turning 27. If I were a rockstar, I’d be about to die, but I’m a union organizer so I’ll merely get balder and fatter.

I’d like to see my friends, particularly those of you that I have not seen much lately (those of you that I have seen, I’m frankly getting sick of you).

Being an extensive party planner, I’m probably just going to go to Botanica at happy hour and hope to see you at some point.