Thursday digest

- In a twist on the ol' saying "you play with the bull, you get the horn", Cindy Sheehan's mouthing off caused a Democratic press conference to be interrupted and moved to another location on Capitol Hill yesterday.

That's what you get for courting nutters like her.

- Speaking of the congressional majority party, what was this Clintonista trying to hide and why aren't we hearing more about it?

- Still can't say I'm totally sold on John McCain.

- In a very informative article, George Will looks at the impending increase in America's minimum wage rate. The data he cites shows that not only is it unnecessary but it will have a positive effect on unemployment, particularly for youth as it makes it a) more costly for employers to to hire them and b) more attractive for those already employed to drop out of school:

Most of the working poor earn more than the minimum wage, and most of the 0.6 percent (479,000 in 2005) of America's wage workers earning the minimum wage are not poor. Only one in five workers earning the federal minimum live in families with household earnings below the poverty line. Sixty percent work part-time and their average household income is well over $40,000. (The average and median household incomes are $63,344 and $46,326 respectively.)

Forty percent of American workers are salaried. Of the 75.6 million paid by the hour, 1.9 million earn the federal minimum or less, and of these, more than half are under 25 and more than a quarter are between 16 and 19. Many are students or other part-time workers. Sixty percent of those earning the federal minimum or less work in restaurants and bars and are earning tips - often untaxed, perhaps - in addition to their wages. Two-thirds of those earning the federal minimum today will, a year from now, have been promoted and be earning 10 percent more. Raising the minimum wage predictably makes work more attractive relative to school for some teenagers, and raises the dropout rate. Two scholars report that in states that allow persons to leave school before 18, a 10 percent increase in the state minimum wage caused teenage school enrollment to drop 2 percent.

- Finally, it seems that there are two sets of laws in Canada when it comes to public smoking bylaws; one for Aboriginals and one for everyone else.

And what is our so-called Conservative government doing about it?

Nothing.