Here's a quick quiz: Do you know the difference between England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom? If you do, chances are you are one of my Canadian readers, who assumably learn such things in school.

OK, the whole issue is kind of silly, and is nothing more than an introduction to what I really want to talk about, but I did want to react to the whole tempest in a teacup. Plus, it's Thursday, when I traditionally get a bit disjointed in subject matter. Ahem.

For those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the story is that President Barack Obama is (fill in your own right-wing insult), because when speaking to the press in a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, Obama said "England," when he should have more properly said "the United Kingdom" (to be more inclusive).

This non-issue is ridiculous, because Americans are notorious for getting basic country names wrong. And I'm not talking about political refusals (like the "Burma/Myanmar" issue), but just plain getting it wrong. For most of the Cold War, virtually all Americans used "Russia" when they really meant "the Soviet Union" or "the U.S.S.R." Plus, I would be willing to bet a whole stack of quatloos that George Bush is on film a number of times using "England" in just such a fashion.

In other words, from the American public to the British public: "We're sorry, no disrespect meant, it's just that Americans don't know beans about the rest of the world's geography."

Sheesh.

For the record, England is a country, separate from the countries of Scotland and Wales. All three together form the island of Great Britain. Add in Northern Ireland (also a separate country) and they all form the United Kingdom. And if you add in the remnants of the British Empire who still put the Queen on their stamps and money (Australia, Canada, Gibraltar, etc.) then you have the British Commonwealth. And never, ever (under any circumstances) call a Scot "English"... unless you are looking for trouble in the first place.

I hope this clears everything up.

But what I really wanted to talk about today was not names, but numbers. And the lack thereof. From Democrats.

Now, we've all been having a whale of a good time ridiculing the numerous (meaning "there's a lot of them," and not "they have lots of numbers in them," of course) attempts by Republicans to come out with their own "budgets." You simply have to use quote marks around that term for anything they've come up with yet, since they aren't actually bills, merely "overviews" and don't have enough numbers (in any of them) for someone like the Congressional Budget Office to put some real numbers on (How much revenue? How much deficit?). With the possible exception of John McCain, who did at least put his idea up for a vote in the Senate. It got shot down, of course, but McCain at least drafted actual legislation rather than just trying to get the media's attention, so I have to credit him for at least that.

All of this squabbling amongst the Republicans is dangerous for them, because the media shows signs of waking up and noticing. This is dangerous for the Republicans indeed, because the media has been content to attempt pushing the theme "Democrats are divided!" no matter how many times the party shows unity by all voting together for bills -- and (even worse) the media is starting to think the Republicans are playing them for fools. This could cause them to turn and savage the GOP in one of their trademarked feeding frenzies. Which could shift the whole theme to "Republicans are divided!" which would at least have the benefit of actually being true (meaning the stories could get quite ugly).

Every time another Republican "budget" is rolled out, the media is getting harsher and harsher. Their latest attempt, today, was met with an embarassing and stony silence from the press during the "on the Capitol steps" dog-and-pony show, which isn't a good sign.

But, like I said, while it's been more fun than a basket of kittens to snicker at the Republicans flailing around in such a fashion, the Democrats are being just as ingenuous on a separate issue.

Because, once again, they've refused to put any number on what, exactly, constitutes "excessive executive compensation." The House tried taxing all the Wall Street bigwigs at AIG who got bonuses for, essentially, ruining America's economy -- at a steep 90 percent tax rate. That didn't fly (the Senate has largely ignored the bill, which passed with one shy of half of the Republicans voting for it).

So the House has now tried again. This time, however, they passed the buck. To Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. What the House passed leaves it up to the Treasury to decide what is "unreasonable or excessive" compensation. Because the House bill didn't have any numbers in it.

Seeing as how Geithner has been the one (according to many reports) who is the biggest champion of not limiting executive compensation for Wall Street fatcats, I don't have a whole lot of confidence that this plan would change the status quo at all. Geithner has fought pretty much all limits on pay and bonuses so far, so its hard to see why giving him the authority to determine what is "unreasonable" is very... well, reasonable.

If Democrats aren't willing to get behind some numbers of their own when it comes to the subject of executive compensation, then they really shouldn't make too much fun of Republicans not coming up with budget numbers. Bite the bullet, decide on a number (one million per year, five million, ten million, whatever...) and then attack the problem through honest legislation.

Because anything less, as with numberless "budgets" from Republicans, is doing nothing more than attempting to reap political benefits without actually doing anything meaningful. In other words, playing politics while defending the status quo. And hoping people don't notice. Which, no matter which party it comes from, should indeed be ridiculed.

-- Chris Weigant