The Morning Blog

I'm going to take a break from talking about all the protest demonstrations and crackdowns and counter demonstrations inflaming the Middle East. It's a one day hiatus from the really important stuff. Frankly, I was up late and just don't feel up to dealing with it (UPDATE: As it turns out, I'm also violently ill. Lovely. No work for me today). Well, I'll provide links because it's the right thing to do but...

So briefly then:

Libya.

Bahrain. (I will add that an interesting interview with a number of Sunnis in Bahrain that are perfectly happy with the status quo is available here. )

Yemen.

Jordan.

Suffice to say, nothing is particularly pleasant or stable in the Middle East right now.

On a slightly more upbeat note, things are every so marginally better in Haiti. Cholera deaths are declining minimally. Let's all let out a tiny 'huzzah'.

Have to say, our celebrities just don't match up when it comes to criminality. Even the impish impudence of Randy Quaid has nothing on the crimes of Caravaggio.

Lawyer superstitions: Some of them are pretty unusual. My personal favorite:

For three straight days while awaiting a verdict in the recent terrorism trial of his client Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Mr. Quijano ordered a cheddar burger and bloody mary from the same waitress in the same booth at the Whiskey Tavern on Baxter Street. 

Mr. Quijano, as he did in that case, also tries to insert the name of his Scottish terrier, Watson, into summations.

Must be some dog.

I don't know what to say about this. They're from West Virginia... I'm sure it seemed like a clever scheme at the time...

This piece sums up quite nicely, the joyless hell of corporate merry-making. I suppose it's much worse in the corporate sector than in my own blue collar one. At my job, there's no such thing as the "joyless consumption of free booze". Believe me, we're happy as all hell when something like that happens.

Happy Birthday Ferrari!

The best photo of the "English Nessie" is crap.

What now? What's this about a badger cull? What on Earth are you English people up to? I never would have imagined such a thing was necessary. I see that they might be a source of bovine TB? Just the whole idea of the organized killing of badgers is strange to me. It led me here which carries a solid point:

"It is an image issue," admits Kevin Pearce, head of food and farming at the NFU. "A lot of farmers like badgers but we also want to control the disease. If your vector spreading TB was a rat, I'm sure that there'd be no problem for farmers in securing a licence to take action."

Still though...Badgers? These guys?



Speaking of badgers: I really haven't been following developments in Wisconsin but it is clearly a very weird place. The fact that legislators have fled the state to undisclosed locations adds to the surreality of it all.