Everyone deserves a few days off, right?

At least, that’s our defense, and we’re sticking to it.

We’ll meet you back here on Tuesday, bright n’early.

A happy (and safe) Labor Day to all!

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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The new Starbucks has opened on 300 N. Charles Street — and as much as I hate to say it, I actually kind of liked it. Yes, it’s true, the caffeinated beast of business that I always labeled as a corporate monolithic infestation has some appeal. Of course, I had to sign over the rights to my first-born child for a Chai Tea Latte, but it was quite tasty. And I can always adopt.

There were free samples to be had on the street, but it wasn’t exactly bustling outside due to the upcoming Labor Day weekend. It did seem odd to choose this Friday to open, and it was no shock that the newly minted baristas were staring at a barren store. Probably a good thing, since the employees were still learning — and arguing — about what goes in what, how grand a grande is, and how lite is a latte.

Before I wandered on up to the second-floor lounge level, I perused the featured CDs while Ella Fitzgerald crooned in the background. Fourteen bucks for a CD is a price I would never pay, but maybe when you’re hopped up on coffee beans, you lose all rhyme and reason. Being a music purist, I did feel a little queasy seeing jazz and blues discs on the counter next to after-coffee gum and boutique beverage accessories.

Is nothing sacred?

Enough was enough. As I walked back to our newsroom, I could feel the glare of the local mom & pop shop — just 100 steps away from the new Starbucks — follow me across Charles Street. However, I was proud to have managed to escape the antithesis of small business without selling my soul any further.

Although I do have to name my first son Frappucino.

-FRANCIS SMITH, Special Publications Assistant Editor

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There is something about going to the state fair that takes us to a better place…a place where we can stroll the midway eating cotton candy while barkers shout at us trying to get our hard-earned dollars; a place where the Ferris wheel climbs high and the breezes cool us off on a hot August night.

Sure, in the harsh light of office life, thoughts of the fair seem like stolen moments from our youth, a time before we were too busy to just have innocent fun for a few hours.

But that’s what it was—and what it still is.

It’s not the manufactured world of Disney or the voyeuristic adventure that is the Ocean City boardwalk. It’s a place that, but for fashions and a few rides, is not so different than it was 20, 50 or 100 years ago. It’s a place filled with families and music, the smell of popcorn and candy corn in the air. It’s the kind of place we can take our kids and watch them run around laughing while we enjoy an ice cream with no television or e-mail to distract us.

Where else can we find that?

What are your memories of the Maryland State Fair? Was it a family tradition to go each year? Do you take your kids every year?

Let us know what your fair experience was like.

—LOUIS LLOVIO, Business Writer

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You know how when you’re desperately looking for something and it ends up being right under your nose? Well, those pesky weapons of mass destruction that were the rallying cry for entering Iraq may have been easier to find than we originally thought.

Reuters is reporting that the U.N. found vials of a chemical agent, which was removed from Iraq in 1996, in a U.N. building near its headquarters in New York. Maybe our search should have started on the East River instead of the Euphrates?

Among the agents stumbled upon was Phosgene, which was actually used in World War I, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Chemical warfare and all its grandeur — minus the dreaded, foreboding acronym WMD — was introduced to the world well before our current collection of Middle East madmen.

However, in this case, we all can breathe easy (no pun intended) — officials said there was no danger from the recently discovered vials.

-FRANCIS SMITH, Special Publications Assistant Editor

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Looks like residents of San Francisco and Chicago won’t be getting citywide wireless Internet anytime soon.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported this morning that EarthLink backed out of its proposed contract, just one day after Chicago’s plan fell apart. Earthlink and AT&T were both contenders in Chicago.

Philadelphia signed Earthlink to provide its citywide network, an initiative that began in 2005 and is just now coming to fruition (about half the 135 sq. mile area is covered to date). Anyone who’s recently visited the City of Brotherly Love know how it’s working?

How strong’s the signal in Annapolis now that the state capital has free public WiFi?

And is a citywide wireless network truly a feasible, good idea?

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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Remember Ellen Sauerbrey?

Former minority leader of the Maryland House of Delegates, two-time unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor, former U.S. Representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and now Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration.

Sauerbrey was on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” last Sunday, explaining why the United States government has admitted so few Iraqis to America, even though the Iraqis are translators who assisted the U.S. military, and whose lives — and those of their families — have been threatened by insurgents who accuse them of “collaborating” with the enemy.

According to “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley, there are about 100,000 Iraqis who have worked for America. Add their families and the number climbs to perhaps half a million people at risk. And how many have been admitted so far? “About 100,” Pelley said.

Although the State Department has said it would consider 7,000 applications, and admit some 2,000 to 3,000 people this year, there has been very little progress, according to Pelley.

Sauerbrey, who is in charge of the State Department’s refugee program, said the problem is the “very thorough security checks” that the U.S. put in place after Sept. 11, 2001. “ … It takes a lot of time to work people through the security process,” she said.

But the translators have already been vetted by the U.S. armed forces. They’ve worked with Americans in very sensitive positions, and they were trusted. Now they feel “left behind.”

“60 Minutes” also reported that. according to Julia Taft, a former assistant secretary of state who headed the program that saw the admittance of Vietnamese refugees into this country after the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, there were 131,000 people admitted to the United States over an eight-month period in 1975.

“President [Gerald R.] Ford said, ‘Let them come. Let’s help them. This is what we must do for them. They deserve it,’” Taft recalled. And communities all over the United States accepted the refugees.

“It was a huge enterprise. But it never would have worked had there not been the sustained commitment on the part of the administration working with Congress to make it happen,” Taft said.

Where is the determination on the part of the Bush administration and Congress to help people who have helped us?

Asked if she’s not seeing the kind of political will and leadership in this case that she dealt with in 1975, Taft, a lifelong Republican, replied, “I’m afraid that’s the case.”

-PAUL SAMUEL, Associate Editor

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Maryland golf courses just aren’t up to par, according to GOLF magazine’s new ranking of the top 100 courses in the U.S.

The highest-ranked golf course in the area was the Blue Course at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, which narrowly missed landing in the top half at No. 51. Its 2005 rank was No. 45.

The top rated-rated course in the Baltimore area was Baltimore Country Club in Timonium. But its rating fell drastically, to No. 84 from No. 63 in 2005.

New Jersey’s Pine Valley course held onto its top spot, and courses in New York and Pennsylvania were well represented in the top 10.

So how about it, golfers — are metropolitan-area courses just not up to snuff? Did the magazine miss excellent courses in the state?

Thanks to our sister blog in Long Island for tipping us off.

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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It sounds like the premise for a bad horror flick, but it’s all too real: there are 28 giant nuns on the streets of Baltimore’s central business district.

Seriously.

Don’t panic, though. They’re just 8-foot-tall cardboard cutouts (whew!) of the Sisters of Mercy.

Their mission? To guide troubled drivers to safe harbor, aka Mercy’s Saratoga Garage (227 St. Paul Street).

See, the medical center has closed its Old Pleasant Street Garage, which will face the wrath of the wrecking ball this fall.

Maybe the powers that be at Mercy figured it’s harder to grumble about parking woes to an instrument of God?

Or maybe it was just a thinly veiled (get it?) attempt to grab a headline.

Either way, it’s all to make way for Mercy’s new $400M inpatient building, which should grace downtown Baltimore in 2010.

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

Photograph by Stephanie Miller.

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The little squirt who unlocked the iPhone has announced he’ll be trading the reworked gadget to a Kentucky-based cell phone repair company in exchange for a “sweet” Nissan 350Z.

George Hotz, who I first blogged about last week, will also receive 3 8GB iPhones, which he says he’ll send to the online friends who helped him outsmart AT&T.

“This has been a great end to a great summer,” Hotz, of New Jersey, wrote on his blog.

Is it wrong to be so jealous of a high schooler?

-JACKIE SAUTER, Daily Record Multimedia Editor

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Legal Sea Foods is serving up some new technology to go with raw oysters, 2-pound lobsters and wood-grilled wild salmon.

Last weekend I took my family to meet my mother for dinner at the Legal Sea Foods in King of Prussia, Pa. (I’m a very good son!)

After a lovely meal and scintillating conversation, our waiter brought the check and I pulled out my American Express card. He then brought me the credit card machine.

He explained that Legal was using the device, which uses Wi-Fi technology to connect to the restaurant’s computer, so that the waiters wouldn’t have to take customers’ credit cards away from them during the payment process. So I swiped my card in the device, entered the tip and tore off the receipt after it printed out.

Legal thoughtfully gave me four options on the tip: press “1” for 10 percent, “2” for 15 percent, “3” for 18 percent or “4” for 20 percent; I also could have picked my own figure. The percentages, by the way, were figured correctly — on the total bill before tax.

The Legal Sea Foods restaurant at the Inner Harbor is not yet using the devices, but general manager John Roemer said Monday the restaurant will switch to that system when it moves to its new location in the Verizon Building, probably around February.

From Legal Sea Foods’ Web site:
Where else but in restaurants do you hand over your credit card to someone who walks away with it?

We are serving up something new to ensure the safety of our guests’ credit cards – the ability to self checkout tableside. Now available in several locations and soon to be rolled out in all of our restaurants, the “Pay @ Table” handheld devices brings the payment process front and center. At Legal, guests will no longer have to lose sight of their credit cards and will, instead, have the added convenience of controlling the payment transaction.

Our commitment to our guests is at the heart of this new initiative, but we’ll leave no (tech un-savvy) guest behind! Our associates will gladly process your payment tableside for you if you prefer.

While it is being presented as a security precaution, I couldn’t help but wonder if this raised other security issues. For example, if Legal’s Wi-Fi network wasn’t protected, could anyone with a laptop and a strong wireless connection sit in a car outside the restaurant and “eavesdrop” on the transaction?

Would you feel safer swiping your own credit card at a restaurant?

-ED WALDMAN, Managing Editor, Business

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