Weekend Tids and Bits

BIPARTISAN BONE-HEADEDNESS was on display this week when the Obama administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided American Apparel in Los Angeles, threatening the jobs of 1,800 workers whose documentation didn’t square with federal records. The Bush administration liked to do these things with guns and dogs, but the bone- headedness is truly bipartisan. Here is the largest clothing manufacturer in Los Angeles, one of the few remaining in America, one that pays its workers $10-$12 hourly with health benefits and trains them. So let’s ignore dangerous sweatshops here and overseas and raid these guys, right? As The New York Times editorialized, “A crackdown that forces 1,800 taxpaying would-be Americans into joblessness in a dismal economy is a law-enforcement victory only in the bitterest, narrowest sense. As a solution to the problem of unauthorized workers — 1,800 down, millions to go — it’s ludicrous.”

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NOT THEIR KIND OF TOWN, CHICAGO IS – at least to the International Olympic Committee which shot down Chicago’s bid for the 2016 games despite personal pleas from President and Mrs. Obama. Word is Chicago was the first to go because of doubts raised by Pakistan and similar countries over their citizens getting extra scrutiny to make certain their visit was to see the Olympic torch, not torch the Olympics. Rio, where the homicide rate in 2006 was was 37.7 per 100,000, citizens got the IOC nod. Chicago’s homicide rate in 2007 was 16.

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STIFFS GETTING STIFFED is the problem in Detroit where CNN reports 67 of the dearly departed are in a freezer because neither their families or the county can afford to bury them. If budget money is found in 2010, burials will be on a first-in/first-interred basis, suggesting the first burial will be Detroit’s Sense of Decency.

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NEED AN INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADE? GET INVADED BY U.S. – An Associated Press report this week shows Iraq’s electricity, telephone, water and sewage services are significantly better after the U.S. invasion than before. Beats raising money from government bonds, I guess.

Last Week’s Lessons:

· Live convicts cost less than dead ones is the revelation that may finally bring arguments against the death penalty to a level elected officials can understand at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/09/death-penalty-debate-dead-certain-at.html

· Please go find a car back seat is the message to students at Tufts University, who are enjoined from having dorm sex in front of their roomies at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/09/birds-bees-and-tufts-university-birds.html

· It is because we say it is and it’s also a banner year for Chimera Research, the shadowy company the government and media use to find things that aren’t there and didn’t happen at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/10/big-year-for-chimera-research-head-of.html

Have a great weekend!

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