The zeitgeist folly walked out of prison,

but to the disappointment of those

who expected her to emerge in prison-issue garb,

she sashayed out in a fetching sage jacket

and skinny jeans, demure with

an uncharacteristically unmade-up face

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Keywords: celebrity, culture, paris, zeitgeist, hilton

Democrats in Congress have been hailing their bill to increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $5.85 in July, increasing to $7.25 in 2009, as a victory for this battling middle class. In truth, the minimum wage is so low that it will only help the very poorest.

My wife and I, working for a major corporation such as Barnes & Noble, started on a healthier sounding $9 an hour. (The minimum wage in California is $7.50 an hour).

Yet that still adds up to less than $35,000 a year combined. According to the Northwest Area Foundation survey, around 70% of Americans reckon a family of four needs a bare minimum of $40,000 to make ends meets.

Oh, and at Barnes & Noble we didn't get any health insurance, paid sick leave or holiday pay, either.   more »

I suppose that astonishment is not the word for it. Stupefaction comes to mind. I simply could not believe my ears in Beirut when a phone call told me that Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara was going to create "Palestine".

I checked the date - no, it was not 1 April - but I remain overwhelmed that this vain, deceitful man, this proven liar, a trumped-up lawyer who has the blood of thousands of Arab men, women and children on his hands is really contemplating being "our" Middle East envoy.

Can this really be true? I had always assumed that Balfour, Sykes and Picot were the epitome of Middle Eastern hubris. But Blair?

That this ex-prime minister, this man who took his country into the sands of Iraq, should actually believe that he has a role in the region is now going to sully his hands (and, I fear, our lives) in the world's last colonial war is simply overwhelming.   more »

Political Attention Deficit Disorder [PADD]

means that people devote more of their time,

energy and money to pleasure-seeking distractions

PADD is correlated with profound statistical significance

to clinical symptoms such as obesity,

alcoholism, drug addiction, video game addiction,

Internet addiction, sexual promiscuity,

excessive shopping, gambling addiction,

and other harmful behavior

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Keywords: makebelieve, avoidance, reality, politics, satire, truth

Hillary Clinton has assembled the largest team of top-level female advisers ever seen in a presidential campaign in an attempt to maximise her support among women voters, who could hold the key to the White House.

The women are known simply as "the Board" - a group of strategists and spin doctors, many of whom worked for Sen Clinton in her husband Bill's White House, 15 years ago. Cynical hacks call them the "bitches coven".

They do yoga together, give each other birthday cakes, dodge baby toys in strategy meetings and, of most importance to Sen Clinton, they never leak information. They share one goal: to ensure the former First Lady wins a place in history as America's first female president.   more »