The longest day

My friend Dolores sent me a solstice greeting, reminding me that here in the northern hemisphere, today is the day we get more hours of daylight than any other, that is if we were to get any light at all through those persistent clouds parked over us. But the beginning of summer is cause for celebration all the same.

Blogger Pro has come up with an odd way of commemorating the day: they've migrated us to their new interface, and in the process disabled most of the functions of Blogweaver. That makes posting a bit of a pain as I have to type in all the HTML codes to make things bold or big. I hope Blogger Pro and Blogweaver will work out their difficulties soon. Meanwhile, happy solstice, Alban Heruin, Epona, Litha, Midsummer, Vestalia, Yemaya, or whatever you choose to call this day.

According to some of those legends, wishes made on the summer solstice, or the eve thereof, are more likely to be granted. Just in case, yesterday I made a wish list for The Dagley Dagley Daily at amazon.com.

All wishes granted, if any, must be counted as business income, if any. By the way, don't feel compelled to go out and buy me a Segway anytime soon. I put it on the list, but I've heard those things can be dangerous.

Redecorating

Spiffed up the site today; that'll have to serve as most of our daily post. Hope you like the new design. More new features coming soon.  

Meanwhile, let's go back to Baghdad, where as usual Salam Pax is providing the best coverage. His vivid, personal reports are colorful, and some of the things he reports on are, too, such as the Baghdad bureau of the media organization known as the Gray Lady.

Thank you, Senate Commerce Committee!

A round of applause for the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, who were on it today.

Not only did they approve a bill to overturn most provisions of the FCC's recent decision on media deregulation, which anybody would have considered a full day's work, but they kept going and approved another bill to send on for a full Senate vote: the Can Spam Act, aimed at reducing unwanted e-mail solicitations.

New Jersey is ably represented on the committee by veteran freshman Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat, who pointed out this week that "Roughly speaking, two people have lost their jobs for every minute George W. Bush has been President." 

'You're much thinner than you look on TV'

I wrote about my 1990 visit to Moscow the other day, but neglected to include a photo, so I'm making up for that today. Mikhail Gorbachev was very busy in those days, winning the Nobel Peace Prize and such, so most of those who wanted to meet and greet him had to make do with stand-ins, such as this cardboard version.

Still nuke-free?

This is not the picture that was supposed to be here today. The picture that was supposed to be here today was a picture of the sign that has long graced the entrance to the city of Hoboken, announcing that Hoboken is a nuclear-free zone. What with all the talk of weapons of mass destruction and the like, I figured it was time to let the world know that while Hoboken may have dangerous chemicals or even creepy biologicals, at least we had no nukes. But the sign is gone. This one is still there:

and this one, too:

but no no-nukes sign. Since there have been no announcements about nukes moving into town, I wondered if the no-nukes sign might have met the same fate as the antlers (biological weapons!) on the local Elks Club elk, which seem to get stolen about as fast as they can be replaced. As I was putting the camera away, I ran into non-councilperson Beth Mason, who, like the rest of the Hoboken Alliance, has assured us she is still on the case even though she didn't get elected. I told her about the sign's disappearance, and she was surprised. I, in turn, was relieved, because she keeps close watch on our city government, and if the city had decided to take the sign down because it was no longer accurate, I'm sure she would have heard about it.

Another side of Full Frontal Fashion

I'm not the only one covering the waterfront: Full Frontal Fashion's Robert Verdi was here with a TV crew just the other day. If these stylish dressers are trend-setters, then we might expect red shoelaces to be hot next season, along with extra-long jeans, lime floral bags, and jackets tied around the waist.

EU-phoria!

Congratulations to the Heart of Europe, which will now take its rightful place as part of Europe after Czech citizens voted overwhelmingly to join the European Union. Congratulations, also, to the Czech voters who showed the world a thing or two about democracy with a healthy 55.2 percent turnout. The last time U.S. voters managed a turnout that high was in 1992. Thanks to Dagley Dagley Daily European Bureau Chief Jesse Lynch for posting that bulletin yesterday on Ohrada News. Of course, the Czech Republic has always been part of Europe, although its name has changed a few times over the years, as these historic maps from the University of Texas Library illustrate.