Politics: Raising the minimum wage

Starting in 1989, the US Congress has recieved automatic pay increases that match with the inflation-adjusted cost of living (though they have also turned down that raise a few times). The federal minimum wage hasn't changed since 1997.
Does this strike anybody else as wrong?

Apparently Hillary Clinton agrees; on April 20 she announced a bill to tie the minimum wage to the same increases that Congress recieve, and apparently (I'm having trouble finding details on the web) immediately raises the minimum wage to $6.25.

I think I agree with this bill; certainly the minimum wage needs at least a raise (preferably some overhauling); as Clinton's site details, two adults working forty-hour weeks at minimum wage earn $21,424 combined. The impact on the economy could be troublesome, but I'd be willing to live with that risk for the immediate benefits to the workforce. Technorati Tags: [Politics] [Hillary Clinton] [Minimum Wage] [Economics]

Personal/International: 5k/Genocide in Sudan

Sunday I started my running back up again after a ~2 week break by running a semi-competitive 5k with a bunch of other guys on the cross team. They all beat me, but I ran rather faster than I expected (19:18, somehow or other. Man did it hurt though).

Rather more interesting than my race was the purpose of the event, though: to raise money to stop the genocide in Sudan (through the Genocide Intervention Network). You should want to stop the genocide too, and tomorrow I'll be giving you some history on the conflict and reasons to try and stop it.
Meanwhile, the Genocide Intervention Network, Save Darfur Coalition, and Human Rights Watch are excellent resources.

Technorati Tags: [Politics] [Darfur] [Sudan] [Genocide]

Personal: Lazy & finals

It's been a long while since my last update; mostly because last week was "Dead Week" at my college and somehow all the time I spent gaming meant by the time I thought about blogging I was falling asleep. Then I actually started thinking about finals and studying. So, no blog posts. I do, however, have a lot of great ideas for blog posts and things I want to learn about. One of them I'm going to start on now.
Also, I took my chem final today. It was torture, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Plus, I'M DONE WITH FORMAL CHEMISTRY FOR LIFE! (Apologies to my chemist grandfather. ;))