While We Were Gone

Vacationing in the Fields of Low Band Width these last two weeks, we missed:

Lileks:

Nancy Pelosi announced that should the Democrats retake the House, item #1 will be Bold and Sweeping: they will “give America a raise by increasing the minimum wage."

Apparently she believes that America makes the minimum wage. The population consists of industrial workers who get a dime each day for the number of fingers they haven’t lost to the machinery, a few million skinny Bob Cratchits shivering in underheated counting houses, and six plutocrats whose tight control over Consolidated Spats, Amalgamated Whalebone and other nefarious trusts keeps everyone poor and shoeless.

The minimum wage was indeed a New Direction – last century, anyway. Compared to the unofficial GOP slogan – “Fight and win the War on Terror by blowing up more bad guys real good” – it’s like running against FDR in ’42 with a pledge to reduce postal rates.

Scott Ott:

(2006-07-06) — In another sign of lukewarm support from his own party for Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s reelection campaign, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy today branded the Connecticut incumbent as “a J.F.K. conservative, a relic of another era.”

“I’m not sure we need someone in the Senate who’s still mired in the provincial, hawkish John F. Kennedy ideas about U.S. military power,” said Sen. Kennedy. “But if he wins the primary, I’ll show my party loyalty by refraining from campaigning against him openly.”

Mark Steyn:

Personally, if celebrities have to "put their bodies on the line for peace," I'd much rather see them bulk up. How about if Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow promise to put on 20 pounds for every month Bush refuses to end his illegal war?