News from the Rest of the World

• Journal has it (no link because they're overprotective of their content) that the Senate's reached a compromise on offshore drilling and will actually pass it. Thank god.
• The Gang of 14 is supposedly meeting today to preemptively discuss William Haynes' 4th Circuit nomination. In a year when we've got much bigger issues to debate than judicial nominations, and getting caught up in a partisan pissing contest to satisfy the bases of each party, I applaud these 14.
• Unsurprisingly, the Democrats are pushing again to get a vote on the minimum wage before the August recess. This is, in essence, a feel-good issue as the number of people working full-time minimum wage jobs to support themselves or their families is minute but those employing minimum wage owners are often small businesses for whom a minimum wage hike could be a trip into the red. Admittedly, there are also plenty of minimum wage earners who are at McDonalds and elsewhere where a wage hike wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would pass higher on costs onto consumers. Sometimes I wonder if Democrats ever took an economics class in school, or at least one where the textbook wasn't Das Kapital.
• Bush is off to Europe for the G-8 Summit, a summit no doubt consumed by international issues throughout Southwest Asia.
• Some predictions have the economy slowing down in the near future due to rising energy costs and higher interest rates (I'll try and get a link soon, real work calls).