We're glad to report that skippy is back from his Alaska vacation and sounds just like, well, Skippy. And Howard Bashman of How Appealing is back from his week at the shore and blogging away. We missed both of them and found ourselves checking in to read some of their older stuff.

We're still waiting for Jim Capozzola of Rittenhouse Review to return from his labor day weekend break, and Lisa English of Ruminate This to come back after getting her kids settled into their first week of the new school year, and then we'll feel like things are right side up in the blogosphere.

Elsewhere around the hood, Kevin of Reach M High Cowboy has an interesting post about Bernard Henri Levy's book on the murder of Daniel Pearl, which is about to be published in English. Kevin says the book will be controversial, and likely cause more French-bashing but that Levy is "not so easily pigeonholed." In an interview, Levy says, "I am alarmed by the way anti-Americanism is becoming globalized. Through Danny Pearl's experience, I had the feeling that the idea of America as a magnet for the worst was becoming a global phenomenon."

In other globalization news, check out the blog Earth Info.net which has the latest on the The World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference taking place in Cancun, Mexico from September 10th-14th.

Nathan Newman has the first post in a new series on the importance of labor unions and on unionization as the key to progressive social change. Today's entry is Nathan's personal story of how he became so committed to unionism.

Liberal Oasis has an interview with Paul Krugman, about his new book, The Great Unraveling.

And Buzzflash was on the job all through this holiday weekend, so if you took a few days off from the computer, you can catch up there in no time.