Get Cynical

Let’s hope for clear skies on Saturday because of the Lunar eclipse.
I was always scared to death of solar eclipses growing up for fear of
going blind. But lunar eclipses may be viewed without any worry of burning
your retinas.

This will be our second chance in 2003 to view one. Space.com has some
good facts and info about the eclipse.

The Washington
Post had a good article on Iraqification and how it is a losing
strategy.

The NY
Times has an article about the illegal immigrants working for Walmart.
Technically, they were working for subcontractors paying them off the
books to clean Walmart stores.

Last February, Pavel responded to an intriguing Web site that boasted
of cleaning jobs in the United States paying four times what he was
earning as a restaurant manager in the Czech Republic. He flew from
Prague to New York on a tourist visa and took a bus to Lynchburg,
Va., where a subcontractor delivered him to a giant Wal-Mart.

Pavel immediately began on the midnight shift and said he soon learned
that he would never receive a night off. He said he worked every night
for the next eight months. In this way, Pavel, who refused to give
his last name, became one pawn among hundreds employed by subcontractors
that clean Wal-Mart stores across the nation, paying many workers
off the books.

What a nice family company!! Here is a link of an employee
of Walmart who writes about his experiences working for them.

You should check
the conversion rates before you go on vacation.

A New Zealand traveler paid 20,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$2,595) for
his.

The man later told his bank he thought he was paying only about HK$19
(US$2.45) for the single beer, and that he believes bar employees
duped him by adding additional zeros to his tab and then pocketing
a big tip.