Happy May Day!

Today is Labor Day for everyone other than the United States who did not want to share the holiday with the Soviet Union and celebrates in September. Perhaps its for the best, since today also marked news of layoffs in the U.S. continuing to rise. Almost 100,000 people have had their jobs cut over the last month. With this in mind, I have decided not to work in order to join my fellow man in the realm of unemployment! If you think unemployment is bad, think about how the rest of the world celebrated May Day. In Hamburg and Russia thousands of marchers gathered for more workers' rights and economic equality, and in Turkey protesters were met with water cannons, police batons, and over 450 were detained! Thats right, I rather be unemployed than have no rights and beaten. Solidarity my unemployed brothers... from the safety of the blogosphere!

In an interesting turn... there has been a downturn in illegal immigration lately, and this is creating labor shortages. Thats right... there are jobs available, especially in agricultural fields... where produce is going bad. So for those of you being laid off or if you just can't find a job, go work the fields, this will provide you with a source of income and help reduce the overall prices of produce! Officials say the reduction in illegal immigration is due to tighter security, which leads to a more perilous and expensive journey, and the overall U.S. economic downturn! Who needs a fence when we have a falling dollar?

Mess In The Middle East

The Iraqi Prime Minister has sent a delegation to Iran in order "to press the Iranian government to stop financing and supporting the armed groups." It would seem that significant amounts of Iranian weapons have been found recently including more than 1,000 mortar and artillery rounds, hundreds of rockets and dozens of armor-piercing bombs. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I think that the Iranians do care about what the shape of their future relationship with Iraq will be .... Do they want to work with the government of Iraq or are they going to subvert the government of Iraq?" I'm going to go with "Subvert for 100 Alex." Perhaps someone has forgotten about this whole Iran-Iraq war?

While there is one less al-Qaida leader following a U.S. airstrike in Somalia, it might have been a diplomatic blunder. The Alliance for Liberation and Reconstitution of Somalia, the biggest alliance supporting Somalia's Islamic insurgency said it might pull out of planned talks claiming, "The U.S. strike can undermine the U.N.-sponsored peace parlay." While the attack was a symbolic victory for the U.S., it is unlikely to significantly weaken the insurgency against the weak interim government, as a militia spokesman said, "This will not deter us from prosecuting our holy war against Allah's enemy... If Ayro is dead, those he trained are still in place and ready to avenge against the enemy of Allah." Based on case history, the talks would probably have been meaningless anyways... but then again, so was the attack. At least we know that U.S. and Somali intelligence can work well together... and in the end, thats whats gonna keep me safe, well that and not visiting Somalia.

Your Government at Work

It's not big brother, it's just 4,500 cameras in Washington DC being monitored by Homeland Security and Emergency Management. The cameras are trained on schools, public housing, traffic and government buildings, will be monitored at one location. The city will be spending about $1 million a year, in addition to the $10 million to homeland security grants it expects to spend on the completed system. The system will expand to homeland security and the departments of Parks and Recreation, Corrections, Health and Fire and Emergency Medical Services by the end of the year. While the D.C. police chief has said that violent crime had decreased 19 percent near each of the police crime cameras, critics say the cameras simply displace crime to other streets. Critics also say, "The new system is excessive in scope, with absolutely no safeguards for individual liberties." The head of D.C. Homeland Security rejects this claim saying, "We're doing everything we can, humanly possible, to make sure we are respecting the rights and privacy concerns." I'm much more concerned about the amount of money being spent on this and how effective it will be!