silliness.JPGDisjointed observations from a disordered mind on current events, passing on stuff (most of it good) you're not likely to see on the evening news:

– Criminy!  First Lou Dobbs comes out in favor of a higher minimum wage.  Now the Wall Street Journal (though not its editorial staff) have run an article (subscription only, natch) on – wait for it – the rise in income inequality worldwide, including here in the US of A. (Here's a nifty chart depicting all of this.)  Who do they think they are, John Maynard Keynes?   Next thing you know they'll be admitting that Bush's massive 2003 tax cuts were a bad idea.

– TPM's Steve Benen points out that there have been amazing about-faces in certain aspects of Bush foreign policy recently: 

… Dems said Bush should talk directly to Syria; Bush said Dems were weak to even suggest it; and Bush eventually came around. Dems said Bush should talk to North Korea and use Clinton's Agreed Framework as a model for negotiations; Bush said this was out of the question; and Bush eventually came around. Dems said Bush should increase the size of the U.S. military; Bush said this was unnecessary; and Bush eventually came around.

And Dems said Bush should engage Iran in direct talks, particularly on Iraq. It took a while, but the president came around on this, too.

For years, all we've heard from the right is that Bush is a bold visionary when it comes to foreign policy, and Dems are weak and clueless. And yet, here we are, watching the White House embrace the Dems' approach on most of the nation's major foreign policy challenges.

Now, if Bush could just bring himself to accept the Democratic line on Iraq, too, we'd really see some progress.

– Dean Baker over at TAP's Beat the Press column demonstrates that at least one member of the editorial staff of the New York Times is a very silly person:

In an editorial calling for companies to voluntarily allow non-binding shareholder votes on CEO compensation packages, the NYT warns that if companies don't allow such votes Congress may force them. It then adds that Congress "is not the place to set corporate salaries."

Of course no one is proposing that Congress would set CEO salaries. Congress is debating a change in the rules under which CEO salaries are set, and in fact Congress is the place that such rules are set. (Sorry NYT editorial writers, they weren't handed down by God.)

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