Several blocks of Avenue A was closed by the police midday Friday due to a suspicious package. The closed area stretched from 9th St down to at least 6th and included portions of Tompkin’s Square Park (most notably the playground) and several side streets (including St. Marks Place between 1st and A). I didn’t see anything on the news about the closure and thankfully it was apparently all just a precaution.

“This is what I signed up to do, to help people.”

Actions have consequences. I’ve been reading Henry Norr’s columns about Mac technology in various publications for probably a decade, but I have to side with his employers here. Mr. Norr wasn’t suspended because of his beliefs, he was suspended because his beliefs interfered with his job, because he lied, and because he asked his employer to endorse his beliefs by paying him for missed days of work.

Here he basically makes their case for them:

“On Wednesday, March 19, after the bombing of Baghdad began and I got home from a long protest march in the rain, I sent e-mail to my immediate supervisors informing them that I planned to get arrested the following morning and wouldn’t be in until I got out of jail.”

“Nevertheless, claiming sick pay for the day wasn’t a point of principle for me. My supervisor knew exactly why I was out of work that day.”

Protesting for a cause is not the same as serving in the National Guard, your employer is under no legal obligation to honor your ‘commitment’ and keep your job open when you return. If you cut work with the intention of being arrested, then claim that day as a sick day, you lied and should face the consequences. Having a job means going to work. Keeping a job means you protest on the weekends or after hours. At very least you do not claim a day missed because you willingly broke the law as a sick day and ask your employer to pay you. That’s essentially asking them to endorse your behavior and political agenda, and that’s just plain wrong. Additionally, although not explicitly stated, Mr. Norr apparently missed more than just Thursday, having spent Wednesday the 19th protesting in the rain.

Mr. Norr needs to step back and reevaluate these events. Regardless of his beliefs, in this situation he’s clearly in the wrong.

I finally wrote a workaround for the worst joesfilters.com CSS float problems introduced by Safari v60. There are still plenty of problems with float handling and margin collapsing in this version and I really wish Apple would publicly release the fixes mentioned by Dave Hyatt.

I didn’t watch the Oscars (there’s a war on), but if Bill Simmons promises to watch with his mom and stepdad and write about it again each year, I promise to never watch again, ever.

Ralph Peters in the New York Post:

We are not going to be lured into a “Stalingrad” in Baghdad. Ignore the prophets of doom, who have been wrong consistently. As this column has steadily maintained, we have time, but Saddam doesn’t. If we have to sit in a ring around Baghdad for several weeks while the last resistance is dismantled in innovative ways, then that’s what we’ll do.

I’ve been thinking that for a while, a war of attrition would be the smartest tactic for taking populated cities while minimizing damage to people and infrastructure. Speaking of which, it’s amazing that the lights are still on in Baghdad.

The Command Post has become the best source for news on the war. It’s a blog collective with people all over the world helping filter the news into a coherent timeline.

Bowling for Columbine won the Oscar for best documentary. Too bad it’s not a documentary. (more here and here and here and here)

Update: And here and here…