The Morning Blog, A Tad Rushed Edition

I'm slightly pressed for time this morning. There are some things I need to take care of about the apartment and I really need to figure out what precisely I'm going to do with myself when I reach Seattle (If anyone has any suggestions concerning things to do there, SEND 'EM!)

And so, let's get into the thick of it...

Iran has been accused of handing bags stuffed with cash to political aides in Karzais "government" in Afghanistan. The Iranian response? Shocked, Shocked! that they would be accused of such a thing.

"Such baseless speculations are being spread by some Western media outlets in order to confuse public opinion and damage the strong ties between the governments and nations of the Islamic republics of Afghanistan and Iran,"

The Karzai response? Well, of course Iran hands over bags stuffed with cash. Who doesn't?

Speaking at a news conference, he said many countries had given money to Afghanistan in this way, including the US.

"The government of Iran has been assisting us with five or six or seven hundred thousand euros once or twice every year, that is an official aid,"

So after spending billions of dollars to rebuild the country from scratch, they still don't accept checks?

Strikes in France are costing the countries economy as much as $557 million a day. To put that in perspective, that's also the price of about 111 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

A company in Tennessee is being sued after firing several employees who tested positive for legally prescribed pain medication. One of the employees fired is a supervisor who took oxycodone in order to be able to work effectively after enduring three back surgeries. Not surprisingly, the company is participating in Tennessee's Drug Free Workplace Program which provides incentives including premium credit on workers compensation insurance.

This is pretty shady actually. It appears as though though the company was well aware of these prescriptions. I would assume that they were paid for using the health insurance provided by the company:

Although Dura officials said in court documents that the goal of expanded testing was to protect employees, some plaintiffs in the lawsuits claim they were injured on the job and supervisors knew about the medications they were taking. Others say they believe the company wanted to get rid of them because they were costing it thousands of dollars in insurance premiums, a charge the company has denied.

“The reason I was taking the medication was a work-related injury,” said Mark Long, 38, who worked at Dura and was fired for taking hydrocodone. “I really didn’t expect for my job to end.”

I've harped on this before but Obama is worse than Bush on civil rights.

Report card for yesterdays Steelers game. We were extraordinarily lucky. And cursed. Losing Aaron Smith is going to hurt us profoundly.

Japan chills the fuck out.

Japan will grow or falter, economists and sociologists say, upon the shoulders of these mild, frugal, sweet-mannered men.

Hopefully, this augurs a reduction in the production and consumption of mind-bogglingly horrifying pornography.

Kacee bait.

Here are some robots making pancakes.

This makes me sad: The largest wild animal in England has been killed.



That's it for the MoBlo. A couple of really, really interesting people have died so expect a post on them shortly.