CNN.com - Democrats vow to block pay raises until minimum wage increased - June 27, 2006: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Democrats ratcheted up their election-year push for an increase in the federal minimum wage Tuesday by promising to block a congressional pay hike unless some of the lowest-paid hourly workers get…
It looks like if there is a common thread running through recent posts it is the idea of buying local. My concern was originally in the way of food. I feel a bit leery of the commercialization of the organic movement. Call me a “Luddite” but when the big Agri-Business…
In the Senate, Covering Themselves in Old Glory: "The Citizens Flag Alliance, a group pushing for the Senate this week to pass a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, just reported an alarming, 33 percent increase in the number of flag-desecration incidents this year.The number has increased to four, from three."The…
Washington Post: House Sacrifices Revenue and Earmarks: "The legislation, which passed 269 to 156, would exempt estates worth as much as $5 million -- $10 million for couples -- from taxation indefinitely. The tax rate on estates worth more than the exemption level up to $25 million would be set…
Thursday, June 22, 2006 Thoreau's Journal: 22-Jun-1851 As I walk the railroad causeway, I notice that the fields and meadows have acquired various tinges as the season advances, the sun gradually using all his paints. There is the rosaceous evening red tinge of red clover,—like an evening sky gone down…
Lawmakers' Profits Are Scrutinized: House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds.A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly double what he paid…
The Carpetbagger Report: "It hasn't generated a great deal of attention, but congressional Dems are keeping Republicans on the defensive over a minimum-wage increase. At this point, the GOP leadership looks a little flustered.Last week, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $2.10-an-hour increase to the minimum wage, despite the demands…
Wandering through the blogs I read regularly today led to another interesting discovery... via Colleen thru her sister Kathy to Christina Baldwin and her book "Storycatcher". Now it looks like I need to make another trip to the Amazon site. In reading at the storycatcher.net site a couple of things caught my eye...…
I spend my days in a darkened room staring at twin windows on the electronic world. My twin windows are the twin 20” monitors on which I design my projects before sending them through the cable that ties my machine to the others in this network of interconnected ideas. My…
I was sitting at the kitchen table this morning with the doors and windows open enjoying our unseasonably cool morning, answering email and reading the daily news and views (as in blogs), when my youngest daughter wandered in and wanted to know why the AC wasn't on. Now folks, the…
