03 Aug 2006
Minimum-wage bill threatens tips, opponents say

Morons.

This was political grandstanding on the part of the Republicans from the get-go. Did they really think they could slide something like this in at the last minute and not have it noticed? Raising the minimum wage was supposed to make them look like a "friend of the working man" (and we can debate if that's really a very friendly thing to do to todays workers) - instead they're coming off as heartless bastards taking change out of the pockets of poor working mom waitresses...

The Republicans are somehow managing to alienate their base constituency (minimum wage laws are pretty much anathema to conservative economists) and everyone else at the same time - in the same bill!

If they keep up with this kind of strategy through the elections the Democrats will get control of both houses of Congress in a landslide.

Tip money earned by waitresses in Las Vegas, manicurists in Hollywood and bartenders in Seattle is on the table in the nation's capital as lawmakers scrap over an election-year minimum wage bill.

(link) [CNN.com]

Update: CNN has changed this article substantially since I blogged it: see the writebacks for further info.

23:09 /Politics | 3 comments | permanent link

Iran warns of $200 oil if US pursues sanctions

And the 82nd Airborne would be in Tehran in a week - possibly joined initially by the Chinese. I doubt if they'd go to Caracas with us. The EU (with most of NATO) and the UN would erupt in a cacophony of noise. The US would withdraw from both. The Russians would be rubbing their hands with glee, the Pakistanis would be running for cover and the Indians would be furious about Chinese participation in anything with the US.

Saudi Arabia would erupt, but in a lot less noisy and more serious way than Europe. And quite probably turn off the taps on their oil, too. At least temporarily. They'll say.

The US economy would grind to a halt, the President would declare a state of emergency, dissolve Congress and suspend elections. The American Empire that everyone's been expecting will have finally arrived, although, like Rome, we'll probably hold onto the trappings and the rhetoric of democracy for a while.

This is probably an overly pessimistic analysis of what happens if we sanction Iran. Unfortunately, this is probably an overly optimistic scenario if we don't sanction Iran, and the Iranians pass a bomb to their buddies in Hezballah. Then both Tel Aviv and Isfahan would be glowing in the dark, in addition to the dire sloggings posited above...

Why is it getting warmer, and why are we in this handbasket?

Reuters - Global oil prices could hit $200 per barrel if the United States pursues sanctions against Iran for its nuclear development program, an Iranian official told Venezuelan state TV on Thursday.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

09:29 /Politics | 4 comments | permanent link

Hackers Clone E-Passports

Too often people see technology as a panacea - an easy fix for all problems. It's not. It's just as trivial to copy an RFID tag as it is to forge a paper document, and it may be even easier.

There's nothing inherently wrong with using technology to help solve social ills, but expecting it to solve them by itself is a dangerous fantasy.

The United States swears RFID tags can secure travelers' documents against forgery. But German experts clone the chips at will, while another group shows how terrorists might build a passport-triggered roadside bomb. Kim Zetter reports from the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.

(link) [Wired News: Top Stories]

08:13 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link