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Heading to Margaritaville and Open Thread

I'm off to Key West for the annual NORML legal seminar where I'll be speaking Saturday on Terrorism and the War on Drugs. The full agenda is here.

It's just about my favorite seminar of the year, between getting together with other drug defense lawyers, the Pier House Resort and Spa (check out my favorite room) and the free-spirit, laid back style of Key West itself.

This was going to be the first time TChris, Last Night in Little Rock and I were together in the same place, but TChris had to cancel due to his work load. Hopefully, he'll be posting here (as will Big Tent Democrat) while I'm gone. Also, check the diaries, Scribe and others have some new ones. I'll check in as well a few times a day.

So now, it will be LNILR and me sharing a happy hour conference on Talkleft. I'm also bringing a screening copy of Hunter Thompon's new film that I'll wathc on the plance and offer up to group if we can find an hour to sreen it during the weekend.

I couldn't have picked a better time to head to a beach. It's way below freezing and snowy in Denver, with very icy roads. Not to mention, for the first time I planned ahead and packed all my stuff in a big box instead of a suitcase and took it to Fedex today to deliver tomorrow. So I'll only have to manage myself and my laptop during the mutiple change of flights. It's a 12 to 14 hour journey, no matter how you cut it. But leaving in snow gear and arriving in sandals with that waft of humidity that hits you as soon as you leave the plane is one of my favorite effects.

I am going to make the most of every moment outdoors in the warm weather, since three days after I get back to Denver, I head on to Telluride for a court case. Talk about cold and snowy!

So wherever you might be today and this weekend, I hope you have as much fun as I will in Margaritaville. Here's an open thread to get you talking.

And if any of you readers want to post a diary, send me an email so I can set the softwar to approve you. You can cross-post your stuff at your other blog, or it can be original.

I only have four hours left before getting up to trek out to the airport, and I better get some sleep now, so I'll leave you with this:

Jimmy Buffett Singing Margaritaville.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Talk about irony (5.00 / 2) (#3)
    by aw on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 08:44:57 AM EST
    At last, the national government is responding to the widening income gap and the severe economic side effects of greed-fueled globalization by extending real power to labor unions and cracking down on sweatshop goods.

    Unfortunately ... this national government is not our own. It's China's. Yes, the Chinese rulers, who have a brutal record of repressing labor, have suddenly embraced a new doctrine of protecting worker rights. This is not altruism at work but self-preservation - the ruling elites are in a sweat over massive social unrest there. So, they've proposed a new law to empower formerly toothless labor unions to negotiate on wages, safety protections, and workplace rules.

    Now guess who is howling in protest? Dell, Ford, GE, Microsoft, Nike, and other brand-name corporate giants that have been abandoning U.S. workers and communities for Chinese sweatshops. They have profited for years on the backs of China's impoverished workers, hiding behind the doctrinaire hokum that globalized sweatshops will somehow, sometime raise the living standards of those workers. As the surge of Chinese social unrest indicates, however, workers are no longer swallowing the hokum, and the time for push-back is now.

    Expatriate U.S. corporations are lobbying ferociously to get China's government to drop its labor reforms, wailing that the new law amounts to socialism. Socialism in a communist country? Imagine! Well, say the Dells and Nikes, these rules would make it more difficult for them to fire workers. Well, duh ... yes! The corporations might ask their former American workers if that seems unfair.


    link

    SSDD, talk about trade policy, promise... (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by Bill Arnett on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 12:09:48 PM EST
    ...to raise the living standards of sweatshop workers, and then complain when they get what they claimed they wanted.

    They have profited for years on the backs of China's impoverished workers, hiding behind the doctrinaire hokum that globalized sweatshops will somehow, sometime raise the living standards of those workers.

    And while China's standard of living gets better you can bet America's won't. Higher prices for Chinese goods on the wholesale level will call for big price increases on the retail level to maintain the profits of the companies.

    The Chinese, unlike our government, makes not only 5 & 10 plans, but 50, 75, and 100 year plans. They leased Hong Kong to the British for 99 years, let the Brits build the most beautiful deep-water port in the Orient and a thriving economy, and then took back possession of a vastly improved Hong Kong without spending a dime.

    With the world spiraling out of control, provoked by bush's desire for world domination through military might, the Chinese, our financiers, watch as America goes the way of the old Soviet Union -borrowing and spending the country into bankruptcy - you can bet that the Chinese have a calendar with a date certain circled on it for the day they will cut-off financing, bankrupting America, and, eventually, taking over the failing state America has become.

    It may be in 25, 50, or 100 years, but it is almost guaranteed that China will soon be the world's greatest superpower and America just a subsidiary of the Chinese government UNLESS America elects some true leaders that can lead us out of the swamp into which bush/cheney have cast us.

    Parent

    We're (none / 0) (#9)
    by aw on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 12:17:57 PM EST
    going to be begging the Chinese for debt-forgiveness like any third world country.  What will they want in return?

    Parent
    Our souls. And everything else. (none / 0) (#10)
    by Bill Arnett on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 12:41:42 PM EST
    How much... (none / 0) (#11)
    by Edger on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 12:51:07 PM EST
    ...is bush's worth now, do you thin?

    Parent
    I thin it's not much, Lucy...uh, Edger! (none / 0) (#12)
    by Bill Arnett on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 01:00:21 PM EST
    Ummm... (none / 0) (#13)
    by Edger on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 01:09:14 PM EST
    ...Bill? Shut up, huh? ;-)

    Parent
    You got alot of 'splainin' to do... (none / 0) (#14)
    by Bill Arnett on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 01:19:20 PM EST
    ...so I'll be quiet for just a little while! ;>)

    Parent
    Hokay! (none / 0) (#15)
    by Edger on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 01:45:19 PM EST
    heh!

    Parent
    Corporate idiocy (4.00 / 1) (#6)
    by Dadler on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 12:08:55 PM EST
    When multi-nationals finally realize that profit cannot be their sole motive, that helping create more social stability (higher wages, benefits, better working conditions, etc.) is just as important, and more so if we all think about it.  Without a stable society, wealth is simply a means to isolation and denial.  Or worse.  But at least you'll have a really cool car.

    Parent
    Caught another bad link (none / 0) (#8)
    by aw on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 12:15:32 PM EST
    link

    I have to pay more attention.

    Parent

    Today (none / 0) (#16)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 09:16:25 AM EST
    Well, it's good to see them doing something.

    Perhaps in 50 years they will catch up where are are today.

    Parent

    Nice place - enjoy (none / 0) (#1)
    by ding7777 on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 06:18:22 AM EST
    Instead of the War on Drugs maybe the government would be more sucessful with a Pamper the Pothead at Pier House campaign

    key west? (none / 0) (#2)
    by cpinva on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 08:07:15 AM EST
    a NORML convention? m'dear, be sure not to breathe to heavily, you just don't know what you're going to inhale! :)

    have fun, and we all hate you! lol


    Meow... (none / 0) (#4)
    by desertswine on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 09:55:49 AM EST
    Say hello to Ernie's cats.

    It's a tough job, but someone has... (none / 0) (#5)
    by Bill Arnett on Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 11:52:55 AM EST
    ...to do it!

    Godspeed and wishes for good trip (no pun intended).

    Look, it's DECEMBER!!! (none / 0) (#17)
    by Edger on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 04:56:22 PM EST
    You just had to post that graphic, didn't you??????

    :>/

    Great talk (none / 0) (#18)
    by roger on Sun Dec 03, 2006 at 05:01:23 PM EST
    Good weather too.

    Glad that you could be there.

    Wasn't the real sunset better that a webcam?