more great things the state does

Government steals peoples' homes and gives their land to private corporations. Supreme Court approves, saying the theft serves a legitimate public purpose, presumably because the city claims that it is all part of a plan to lure big-pharma ogre Pfizer to the area and create jobs. A few years later, Pfizer announces they're shutting down operations and leaving. Hooray!

why gay people shouldn't adopt children, according to Utah Senator

So the quote is funny in that way, but also note the obvious contradiction. If gay people living their lives or fighting for equality offends him so much that he sees such actions as "stuffing it down his throat," then, no, he isn't okay with gay people.

Virginia cops kill an unarmed man suspected of stealing flowers. Hooray for the state!

a brave kid

Not a big fan of lawyers, but his career aspirations aside, I'm going to say that Will Phillips is awesome.

All living no blogging these days. Most of what's going on I just don't want to blog about.

I churn out one of these most weeks, but those are geared to a fairly narrow audience.

The strike here ended with the union accepting the offer that had been on the table before it started, leaving me wondering why the hell we were on strike.

Noam Chomsky on life without his wife

union

My union of teaching assistants has been on strike for over a week now. I've withheld my labor, and put in 5 days of picket duty, each 4 hour shifts, for which I was paid $10/hour from union funds, which partially offset my lost teaching wages. Picketing has been a memorable and exhausting experience. I wonder if I've been fighting for nothing though.

I suspect the union will cave and accept a bad contract from the University, which is a shame, because I think it will hurt the quality of education here in the long run, and it will make it even harder for grad students to pay their bills without debt financing. Ideally we'd have a huge turnout and a decisive rejection of the offer, which would put tremendous pressure on the administration to come back with a better deal that includes protection for TAs from tuition increases, better benefits, and limitations on class sizes. More likely, in my estimation, is that the offer will be accepted with less than half of the union bothering to vote. Results will be announced later today; maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

I do want to get back to work soon though. I genuinely like many of my TA duties (with marking exams as the primary exception), and picketing is distracting me from my research. But if the strike continues, I'll most likely be back out on the lines...