Congratulations D.C. Hotel Workers!

At the risk of turning ai into an “all congratulations, all the time” blog (see the past two posts and this one), congratulations to D.C. hotel workers who just won what sounds like a great contract offer from their employers! The D.C. members of UNITE HERE, “the merged union of hospitality, gaming, apparel, textile and laundry workers” which represents nearly half a million workers in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico, were ready to strike, which would have seriously messed with the plans of the nation's elite who are descending on D.C. next week for the 2005 inaugural. I guess now all the rich and famous Bush supporters will get to be pampered in peace and the management of D.C.'s finest hotels will be able to rake in the cash hand over fist w/out having to worry about any of those pesky “labor issues.” As the union reported:

The tentative agreement ensures that there will be no work interruptions and the hotels will be able to proceed with all guest services for inauguration week as planned. The contract language includes new protections from workload increases, harassment at the workplace and other problems workers sought to improve. The economic package improves wages, pension contributions and maintains a strong health care package. Details will be released after members have read and voted on the contract.

Sounds great to me!

Posted 08:56 PM | Comments (1) | general politics

BlawgCoop Welcomes Divine Angst!

After a bit of template magic to make her new home her own, stellar 0L Divine Angst has migrated her blog to her own domain! Check it out at divineangst.com. Congrtulations, DA! (And everyone else, don't forget to update your links!) For now, when you go to divineangst.com you'll find that you actually end up at a blawgcoop url. Why? Because DA had the ingenious idea of getting her own domain, but hosting her files w/blawgcoop! Barring unforeseen difficulties, DA can eventually hide the redirect so that users who go to divineangst.com will never know they're actually being served files from the blawgcoop server. This is such a neat little innovation that I'd like to invite anyone interested in moving or starting a legally-related blog to do the same thing. The “get your own domain but host with blawgcoop” plan offers the following advantages:

1. You secure your own domain name so if you ever decide to host your blawg yourself, you've got the domain you want.
2. Readers will be able to find your blawg easily—you can make the URL match the name of the blawg.
3. You don't have to pay the $5-$10/month it would cost to host the domain somewhere. If you register somewhere like GoDaddy.com you'll get free forwarding (and “masking” so that users won't see the foward) with your domain registration for only $8/yr.*
4. You don't have to hassle with setting up and maintaining your own MT or WordPress installation, but you get all the benefits of MT or WordPress.
5. You can import your entries from an existing blawg to your new blawgcoop-hosted blawg so you'll have everything in one place. If you ever decide to fully host your own blawg yourself, MT makes such a move relatively easy. (I'm not sure about the migration features of WordPress but I'm sure we could figure it out.)
6. Bottom line: Your total annual bill for your own MT or WordPress blawg at your own, custom URL will be $13. Per year. ($8 for your domain registration, $5 to host at blawgcoop.)

That's a pretty good deal if you've been wanting to move away from blogspot or some other free service.** (For the sake of comparison, it's hard to find web hosting anywhere for less than $5/month.) Something to keep in mind, anyway. So thanks to DA for coming up with this slick idea, and congratulations on your new home! * If anyone knows of a quality domain registrar that would be better than GoDaddy for these purposes, please share. My own host, Dreamhost, will do it, but they charge more. ** It's possible there are drawbacks to this plan that neither DA nor I recognized. If you see any, please share them with us so any potential future users will understand the pros and cons.

Posted 07:44 AM | Comments (3) | life generally

Happy (late) B-Day, E. Spatch!

In the “better late than never” vein, here's wishing a happy birthday to Energy Spatula at Will Work for Favorable Dicta. Judging by the gazillion birthday wishes she received here and the cake her friend Legal Quandary made her, E. Spatch did not miss my good wishes, but I thought I'd send them anyway. Plus, it allows me to link to her post-birthday post, which is truly funny.

Posted 07:02 AM | Comments (1) | life generally