"So we might increase the workweek by 50 percent, say, to three days."

So said Arlen Specter to the National Press Club last Monday. He speech was on C-Span yesterday, and -- I'm such a nerd -- I listened to it -- in its entirety -- on the satellite radio as I was making my way home in the dark toward the end of that ridiculously long drive. Specter spoke for 18 minutes -- he was scheduled to go 20 -- and "yielded back" the rest of his time. Then, there was a great question and answer session. The quote above came after he was asked what Senate rules he would change. At the end, he was asked what he learned from cancer. He said he learned that you can still do almost everything you did before, and he kept playing squash and working long, hard hours. You should just keep working and work really hard and then you won't have time to think about it. That's exactly not what you expect from a question like that. You expect a statement about how family is really the most important thing and how every moment is precious and you need to stop and smell the roses. There's that classic line "No one ever said on his deathbed, I wish I'd spent more time at the office." But the people repeating that cliché are never themselves on their deathbed. They're fully functional and trying, perhaps, to justify a two day workweek.

CORRECTION: Arithmetic corrected. Specter is claiming the senators work two days a week, not one and a half.