Dayjob: One of those one-day wonders yesterday: 4 metros, 4 airplanes and a rental car, all for a 20 minute meeting. Worth it, but....
Father Knows Best: Then tonight, my newly driving daughter #2 calls to inform me that she has a flat tire. It's freezing cold, I'm in a very light jacket on the way to pick up the #1 daughter at the train station, back home to get glove, boots, another jacket, then to the rescue. I'm cold, dirty, aching -- but I'm a hero. As the kids get older, the Dad gets to be a hero less and less often. So I guess I should savor it.
Meanwhile, daughter #1 has returned from college with a computer housing a record-setting, world-class collection of spyware. I've spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get rid of it so that I can be a hero for daughter #1 as well.
Anyway, back to the "real world." When thing get busy, bloggers -- crib off each other:
Workers Comp Insider has a good review of an article by Liz Mineo in the Metro West Daily News highlights the unacceptably high rate of fatalities among Hispanic workers.
Revere up at Effect Measure covers the current turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control, reported in the Washington Post, under the questionable leadership of Julie Gerberding. Some Confined Space readers have pointed out that the Post article didn't even mention the turmoil caused by the reorganization of NIOSH.
Revere also reports on a group of scientists who sent a letter to NIH Director Elias Zerhouni with data demonstrating that
the baneful effect the biodefense agenda was having on support for important research into organisms of genuine public health concern, while simultaneously diverting vast sums into research of little public health significance, all on the grounds it involved potential biowarfare agents.Mick Arran discusses the bankrupt Bankruptcy Bill and it's frontal assault on the middle class. And Suzie Madrik at Suburban Guerrilla notes that there are far too many Dems jumping on board.
Nathan Newman at LaborBlog trashes Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum's (R-Neanderthal)
that would ostensibly raise the minimum wage by $1.10 per hour, but in reality would cut wages for millions of American workers and expand unregulated sweatshops across the country.Oh, and by the way, it would also get rid of overtime and state minimum wage laws.
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The upshot: while 1.2 million workers could qualify for a minimum wage increase, another 6.8 million workers, who work in companies with revenues between $500,000 and $1,000,000 per year, would lose their current minimum wage protection.
He has a number of posts on this "Sweatshop Expansion Bill" here, here and here.
Finally, I've found a couple of interesting new blogs. Citizen Chris is written by Chris Snyder, who has been working on tugs in the San Francisco Bay area while getting a degree in political science. He's amazed at how few rights people have outside of collective bargaining sphere and wants to help educate people. Welcome.
And another welcome to Kittlybenders, written by a public health professional whose "major interests include public health, the environment, and the intersection between the two, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of ethical (or, more commonly, unethical) behavior." Check it out just to find out what "Kittlybenders" means.
