Linky links

So...we've been pretty much downright awful about updating the blog. Seriously. And since I'm sitting at the voter registration drive, I figured I'd pass along two links for procrastination.

First, isbarackobamamuslim.com seeks to answer one question: is Barack Obama Muslim? Hint: you can get the same answer by going to isitchristmas.com on any day but December 25.

Second, the wonderful thingsyoungerthanmccain.com compiles a list of things younger than John McCain, including Zip Codes, Nachos and Alaska.


Finally, not a link, but how bad was John McCain's speech last night? Seriously. You can watch it at thingsyoungerthanmccain or just look at the summary:

McCain: I'm not bush. The Surge is Working. I'm ooooooooollllddd[cut]
Wolf Blitzer: We're interrupting McCain to bring you this...CNN projects that Barack Obama will have enough delegates to clinch the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States.

Because nothing much has been posted lately...

...I figured I should at least throw something on. More later after midterm hell. But enjoy:




Have I mentioned that some times the media is stupid?

Obama's speech on race

I know it's exam week, and people have things to study for, but if you're done or procrastinating, you need to watch and/or read Obama's speech on race from earlier today.

It's awesome. Beautiful. Brilliant. Etc. I'm very glad I watched it instead of studying for my contemp african worlds final, because I'm pretty sure it'll stick with me a lot more than the stuff from that class.

The only real issue is that it's like 37 minutes long. But if you've got time, watch it.

Keith Olbermann takes down Hillary

Also, Ron Paul? Seriously? 100%?

Yes We Can!

Yes We Can...the music video:


Note: Northwestern University College Democrats do not endorse, advocate or promote any political candidate.

Illinois and 21 other states vote on Tuesday. If you're registered to vote, go and vote (especially those of you in Evanston Ward 1 Precinct 6 (Parkes Hall), where the nice people at the county clerk's office informed me this morning that I'll be hanging out all day). If you're not registered, do something to support a candidate or tell people to vote.

Bye Bye Freddy...

Apparently, Fred Thompson has officially dropped out of the race. Pictured above with his much-much-much-younger wife, apparently running for president interfered with his nap schedule.

So what does this mean? Where will Thompson's whopping 8 delegates go? That remains to be seen, but it's likely that his support among conservatives, particularly religious conservatives, should benefit Huckabee. It's a bad time to be a squirrel, in other words.

Mike Huckabee's down home dorm cooking

So, since stupid things like "real life" and "classes" and "quantum mechanics" have made it so that we haven't been able to post much in the last week, I thought I'd share some news from campaignlandia, where the next stops are Nevada and South Carolina. Both parties vote in Nevada, starting tomorrow around noon, and the Republican votes from SC will start coming in sometime tomorrow evening. In other words, since it's going to be a balmy 7 degrees fahrenheit tomorrow (or -13 C, if you prefer), it'd be a perfect day to stay inside and watch politics on tv while not freezing to death.

South Carolina, in fact, is where the most interesting news is coming from. Our good friend Mike Huckabee, eager to prove his southern folksiness, gives us this valuable tidbit:

When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper - because that was the
only thing they would let us use in the dorm - and we would fry squirrels in a
popcorn popper in the dorm room.

So yeah. Obviously, there's a whole aspect of dorm cooking that I've never experienced. Next time I'm hungry in the middle of the night, I'll just go out and find a squirrel. There's no way this could possibly go wrong.

Things I learned today...

1) Don't trust polls. Most polls of New Hampshire had Barack Obama up around 8 points on Hillary Clinton, but Hillary pulled out a victory.

2) Throwing a tennis ball around relieves stress and anger.

3) Tennis balls bounce off of walls and ceilings and can damage alarm clocks and sensitive regions of the human anatomy.

4) I don't feel like talking about New Hampshire.

My visit to the Larry Craig bathroom

You might remember that back in June, little-known Republican Idaho Senator Larry Craig brought his wide stance to a restroom at the Minneapolis International Airport, and promptly got caught soliciting sex from an undercover police officer.

Since, by chance, my flight back to Northwestern went through that same Minneapolis International Airport earlier today, I'm proud to bring you the following pictures:


On the outside, it looks like any other airport bathroom. In fact, I've probably walked past it a hundred times and not known it was a hotspot for anonymous sex.


But inside, precautions have been taken. This is the actual toilet in the stall--the second from the right--that Larry Craig sat in. Unfortunately, some tourist-hating people covered it in plastic. But the toilet the cop that busted him sat on is still open and completely usable.

The best part is that later this year, the Republican National Convention is in Minneapolis/St. Paul. And all the delegates will have to walk by this bathroom on their way out. Irony is fun.

I-O-W-A

Up here in Minnesota, we like to make fun of of our neighbors to the south. For example: why do shoes in Iowa say TGIF on them? To remind them that toes go in first!

So, naturally, it's totally confusing that Iowa gets a large amount of say in choosing our president. Not that its 95% white, predominantly rural population isn't representative of the country as a whole or anything. Nope. In fact, Iowa has a great foundation in education. I learned that from their state quarter. That's right. They don't have anything famous in their state to brag about except their schools. As someone who took many an Iowa Test of Basic Skills when I was younger, I'm not convinced that's something to brag about. But Iowa has also produced such celebrities as Herbert Hoover, so we can also blame them for the Great Depression.

Despite this, a tiny tiny segment of Iowa's population will get to skip the Orange Bowl tonight to begin the official 2008 presidential election process. It's a dead heat between Clinton, Edwards and Obama on the democratic side and between our favoritest former governors Romney and Huckabee for the republicans. The latest polls show Obama and the Huckster with sliiiight leads, but it's going to be a close one tonight.

I'll be probably checking in/updating later on today. Leave comments if you're sitting around watching it on TV tonight (like I'll probably be doing, fun fun fun).

The War on Christmas (and Children!)

If you're not aware, Christmas is coming. Next week, in fact. This wonderful time of year is significant to many people in many different ways. For example, being close to Christmas means it's a really really bad time for your younger brother to overload the washing machine, causing it to short out, which leads to the whole house shorting out and not being able to be fixed from the fuse box, which also leads to a complete power outage that means that gas is flowing into the furnace without the furnace being on, which leads to people smelling gas, which leads to a half an hour of freezing to death waiting for the power and gas company repairmen to get there to fix the damn thing while all you wanted to do was make lemon poppyseed muffins. Not that that's what I did last night.

But this holiday season is also a time when we get reminded of the most important battlefront in today's biggest cultural conflict: The War on Christmas.

It's a big deal. Just ask our friend Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: See, I think it's all part of the secular progressive agenda --

GIBSON: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: -- to get Christianity and spirituality and Judaism out of the public square. Because if you look at what happened in Western Europe and Canada, if you can get religion out, then you can pass secular progressive programs like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage, because the objection to those things is religious- based, usually.

So yeah. Bill is talking here with John Gibson, author of a book called The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.

Essentially, then, this War on Christmas is being blamed entirely on the "Secular Progressives" and "Liberals" who don't believe in Jesus and want to force everyone to get abortions at their gay weddings. It's clearly the most pressing issue facing the good Christian people of America today. And you can count on our Republican presidential candidates to way in. Guess who said this:

This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.

Mike Huckabee? Duncan Hunter? Fred Thompson? Rudy? Mitt? Nope. It was none other than the libertarian sensation Ron Paul, who most of his supporters claim is totally the best candidate EVER but in reality is batshit insane. I know because google told me so.

Other candidates, though, are using this War to help shore up their support. Mike Huckabee, for example (who also may be totally insane) recently released an ad where he more or less apologizes to Iowa for all the political ads, and wishes them all a Merry Christmas where they can celebrate Jesus' birth.

So the War on Christmas continues. Huckabee and his companions on the right have a convenient bogeyman to rail against--the eternal evil godless commie/liberal. It's surprising, then, that these prominent conservatives, Bill O'Reilly included, haven't dug deeper to get at the true causes of the War, because may involve another favorite target--Hollywood--and threaten something that the right holds dear--our children. (except when they're poor and need health care, of course)

Now, it's hard to assign this raging war to any one particular cause--in fact, it seems to be the result of a gradual degradation of "traditional American values" and a decrease over several decades of the willingness of Americans to offend people that celebrate the winter solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Festivus. This increase in tolerance, then, seems to be part of the problem.

On the other hand, we have a pretty good idea of when this whole decline began. In fact, this timeframe comes from none other than Bill O'Reilly's November 15, 2005 show:

But you know, look, the bottom line on this is 30 years ago in this country, unheard of. We would not be having this conversation.

SMITH: Absolutely right.

O'REILLY: Every store in the United States was going "Merry Christmas," "Happy Holidays" "Happy Hanukkah. We hope everybody is happy.

SMITH: This is my -- this is my...

O'REILLY: I'm getting the last word here. It's my show.

Now there is an anti-Christian bias in this country.

Thirty years before 2005, then, is when this whole thing started. In other words, 1975 was when the evil liberals and secular progressives---including enemies like Representative John Dingell. (click on his name, he's awesome)

1975. Year of Watergate Convictions, Vietnam stuff, Bohemian Rhapsody, Bill marrying Hillary and the death of Francisco Franco (who is still dead). But it was also the year that one of America's most iconic entertainment figures came out and said the following:

I hate Christmas.

There it was. A beloved children's figure coming out and declaring war on Christmas, Christianity and the whole world. But it didn't stop there. Oh no, he went on to say:

Here comes Santa, girls and boys!
So who needs that big red noise?
I’ll tell him where to leave his toys.
I hate Christmas.

Horrible, despicable trash. But it continues:

Beaming faces everywhere.
Happiness is in the air.
I’m telling you, it isn’t fair!
I hate Christmas!

People loaded with good will,
Giving presents. What a thrill!
That slushy nonsense makes me ill.
I hate Christmas!

...

Christmas carols to be sung.
Decorations to be hung.
Oh, yeah? Well, I stick out my tongue!
I hate Christmas!

Christmas bells play loud and strong.
Hurts my ears, all that ding-dong.
Besides, it goes on much too long!
I hate Christmas!

This horrible anti-Christmas message was beamed into homes across America, showing an entire generation of young children that it was ok, and in fact cool, to hate Christmas. It's no wonder that now, when these children have grown up, we are faced with a divided nation.

On top of all this, this horrible horrible propaganda is still dragged out every Christmastime and shown to children around the world. This screed, straight from the trash can of American popular culture, is clearly responsible for the entire War on Christmas that we are now faced with. If Bill O'Reilly and other conservatives really want to win this War, they have to fight the battle at the source: the evil insidious forces that are corrupting our children.

Oscar the Grouch, you've got a lot to answer for.

Random stuff and a rant about renewable energy.

Before this somewhat lengthy bit of procrastination (not that I don't find the works of Fanon and De Beauvoir fascinating, but they aren't nearly as fun as Michelson and Morley) officially starts, has anyone else had problems accessing the blog? For some reason it hasn't loaded for me twice in the past few days. Strange.

To update on my long-winded election posts, Kevin Rudd has been officially sworn in and is starting to govern. Anson Chan won the Hong Kong Island by-election, which is pretty awesome. We'll see if she can hold on to the seat in the full elections in 2008 (which you'll get to hear plenty about, trust me). Also, sorry that the videos regarding Anson Chan aren't nearly as entertaining (but are much nicer) than the Kevin Rudd ones. To replace the Daily Show and Colbert while they've been on strike, I've started watching back episodes of The Chaser's War on Everything, which is like an Australian version of those shows combined with ridiculous stunts and what life would be like as a musical, which explains much of what I've been linking too.

BUT ANYWAYS. Our friends in the House of Representatives passed their energy bill today. From our ever-confident media at Forbes:

The House measure has four main components. First, it increases vehicle fuel efficiency to a fleetwide average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, up from the current level of 25 mpg. Second, it dramatically boosts production of ethanol and other biofuels, which the president has encouraged. Third, it requires utilities to obtain at least 15% of their electricity from renewable resources, such as wind and solar power. Finally, it includes a $21 billion tax package providing incentives for renewable energy production, paid for largely by taxes on Big Oil.

So, fuel efficiency standard, check. Ethanol/Biofuels--not great, until we perfect cellulosic ethanol, but I'll take it. Could be a lot worse. Then there's taxes on Oil Companies. Sweet.

But the part that I'm happiest about is the 15% Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). Essentially, this would require all electric utilities to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources by the year 2020. If you produce more than 15%, you can sell the credit for the excess amount to utilities that produce less than 15%. This creates a market-based incentive to increase production of energy from renewable sources.

Except guess what? For all their love of the free market and all that, Republicans aren't liking it:

Many Senate Republicans--especially in the Southeast where wind power is scarce--aren't comfortable with the "renewable portfolio standard" mandating utilities provide a minimum amount of clean energy production. They're not trying to be anti-green; they simply fear a mandate will raise electricity rates on their constituents and allies in the corporate world.

Ok, so there might be some reasoning here. Unfortunately, they must not have heard from the Union of Concerned Scientists, who told us back in 2001 that

Because an RPS creates a more diverse and competitive market for energy supply,these market forces would reduce natural gas prices and bills.

Diversifying the electricity mix with renewable energy also helps stabilize electricity prices by easing pressure on natural gas prices and supplies. Under a 20% RPS, average consumer natural gas prices are 3% lower than business as usual in 2010 and 9% lower in 2020. These lower prices would save gas consumers $10 billion per year by 2020.

With ongoing natural gas savings after 2020, an RPS would likely produce net savings for consumers.

Now, granted, this talks about a 20% RPS. But a 15% RPS is almost as good, and would still save billions of dollars on natural gas. So that objection isn't as bad as the republicans think it would be.

Still, Bush has said he'll veto the energy bill as it stands now:

the bill contains several highly objectionable provisions that would impose higher costs on American taxpayers, electricity consumers, and businesses. Specifically, the bill raises taxes in a way that will increase energy costs facing consumers. It would also impose a national renewable electricity standard that would ignore the specific energy and economic needs of individual States. If H.R. 6 were presented to the President in its current form, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

Oh, here's a new objection. The needs of the States won't be met. That'd be really damning if they were being met in the present system. From Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, in 2006:

Many RPS programs remain in very early stages of implementation, and many states are facing serious implementation challenges. How should renewable energy be defined? How should individual states deal with intra-state and inter-state transmission capacity, an issue that calls for greater inter-state collaboration in policy development?
...
These states are also, however, pushing up against the limits of what states can do without federal support and coordination. Engagement between state and federal policy makers on this issue has been surprisingly limited, and is overdue.

So...the states aren't doing so well either, are they. Darn. Looks like they can't use that argument.

It's almost as if the RPS was a good idea...but no, that can't be. Right? There's no way we'd be able to come up with one policy that'd be really good for the economy and renewable energy. So we should just give up. Benjamin Sovacool, a Post Doc at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, disagrees in 2006:

For too long, the pursuit of a ‘‘silver bullet’’ national renewable energy strategy, embraced by all and burdensome to none, has kept the capacity of renewable generation ludicrously below its potential.The debate over a national RPS remains contentious even though many of the issues have been resolved by empirical data or can be avoided by structuring the program in a smart way.
...
A national RPS program is not like finding a life partner; it’s okay to settle on less than perfection.

Policymakers need not love every aspect of the program to acknowledge that its adoption
would benefit our nation’s electricity markets and make substantial progress toward a more
coherent and secure national energy strategy.

So wait, this is a good idea? We passed something good! Hooray. We love renewable energy.

I can't wait for Bush to veto this. It'll be fun to add "helping renewable energy" to "giving health care to poor kids" and "ending the Iraq war" on the veto list.


To conclude: Renewable Energy Good. Republicans illogical. Anson Chan Good. Kevin Rudd: apparently enjoys strip clubs, but a good leader. Procrastination good. Humor when procrastinating: hard to find, but we'll see. Recycling last year's debate evidence good.

Have fun/good luck with finals! (I just finished midterms yesterday, so it's finals season. Oh joy).

我愛香港及叉烧包

Today we get to talk about an election that I'm sure everyone is just as excited about as I am: the Hong Kong Island Geographical Constituency By-Election! I know you're all excited, so I'll get right into the substance after this unnecessary picture of the Hong Kong skyline and a junk.


Let's POP (Power Of People)
Background

The biggest issue in the past 15 years or so in Hong Kong has been Universal Suffrage. Articles 45 and 68 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, essentially the mini-constitution, require that eventually the Chief Executive and Legislative Council be elected on the basis of Universal Suffrage for all Permanent Residents (who are people who have lived in HK for at least 7 years and taken it as their place of permanent residency. If you lived there for 6 years, 11 months and 1 week, you get a very politely worded letter from the immigration department telling you that you are not eligible. Not that I'm bitter.). What the Basic Law doesn't provide is an actual timetable as to when this Universal Suffrage thing is supposed to happen, and that's where a lot of the debate comes in. You've got people--the pro-democracy camp--advocating for it as soon as possible. On the other hand, there's our friends in the central government in Beijing, who are mortally afraid that Universal Suffrage might produce a leader who--gasp--doesn't agree with them on everything, or, even worse, a call for actual democracy in China itself. The biggest issue in this, and just about every other election in Hong Kong, will therefore be a candidate's stance on the issue of democracy.

This issue is so big, in fact, that even on the 10th anniversary of the handover, thousands of people turned out to protest for Universal Suffrage. True to form, the Beijing Government pretended it didn't happen and good old Hu Jintao skipped town before the marchers got in his way. If you scroll about halfway down the page on that article, you'll find some random crazy American making fun of Hu for that.

Half of the seats in Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo) are directly elected from Geographical Constituencies (the other half come from Functional Constituencies, and represent various professional and trade groups). There are 5 of these Geographical Constituencies--Hong Kong Island, East and West Kowloon and East and West New Territories and each has a set number of seats. The seats are given out based on a proportional representation scheme based on party lists. It's a fairly complicated procedure that a) ensures that Pro-Beijing Parties aren't shut out of LegCo and b) leads to a lot of tactical voting plans that go wrong on Election Day. Hong Kong Island has 6 seats. In the last election, 3 seats went to the pro-Democracy camp (they could have gotten 4 if they hadn't screwed up telling their supporters who to vote for on election day), 1 seat went to the LegCo President, Rita Fan, and two seats went to the Pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, or DAB.

The Incumbent
Ma Lik

Actually, this is a by-election, so there is no incumbent. Still, I thought it'd be worthwhile to review what Ma Lik was up to back when he was sitting in this seat. Ma was one of the two DAB people to get a seat. Back in May, he made headlines by claiming that there was no massacre in Tienanmen Square, and that it was wrong to believe what the gweilos (literally, "white ghost", but it means white people) had to say about that whole deal. Also, he said that since so many people in Hong Kong believe that there were people killed in Tienanmen, that proves that the territory won't be ready for universal suffrage until 2022.

Unfortunately for the DAB and the Ma family, Ma Lik passed away on August 8. He was 55.

(I'm pretty sure it'd be insensitive if I were to write anything here that implied that karma's a bitch).

The Pro-Democracy Candidate
Anson Chan

Way back under the Brits and the first Tung Chee Hwa administration, Anson Chan was the Chief Secretary, which essentially made her Hong Kong's #2 government official. From what I can find, she did an exceptionally good job. Chris Patten, the last British Governor of Hong Kong, has nothing but good things to say about her in his book. In 2001, she officially retired from government and wasn't active in politics for a few years, except to receive an honorary Damehood from Queen Elizabeth II. However, she soon became increasingly involved with the push for Universal Suffrage and has made it one of her key campaign proposals.

The Pro-Beijing Candidate
Regina Ip

Once upon a time, Regina Ip was the Secretary for Security and government's lead cheerleader on implementing Article 23 of the Basic Law, which required that Hong Kong pass laws against sedition, subversion and treason to protect the People's Republic of China. Understandably, people in Hong Kong were a teensy bit worried about the idea that these laws might prevent them from criticizing the Beijing Government and weren't too happy with this proposal. Because the Chinese Government doesn't have the best track record with handling criticism, the fear was that implementing Article 23 would destroy the freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and that didn't go over too well. A few days before 500,000 people took to the streets protesting, Ip resigned in disgrace.

Well, guess what? She's back! She went off to Stanford and got a Masters degree (her thesis was about Hong Kong. Lazy.). Most importantly though, is that she apparently changed her hairstyle. That should solve everything.

Ip claims to support moving towards universal suffrage, but also has a record of making comments about the fact that Hitler was elected through a democratic election. So...it's probably a safe bet that she's of the "Universal Suffrage, but not right now" school of thinking.

Other Candidates
I'd totally be running if I were eligible

There are 6 other candidates on the ballot, but none of them are particularly interesting. The candidate that could really shake up the race, Roger Chan Yuet Tung, was unable to raise enough money to declare himself a candidate. Chan, 51, is a restaurant worker. While that normally wouldn't be a useful jumping off point for a political career, he did achieve some degree of fame and notoriety when a video of him yelling at someone else on a bus was posted on YouTube and became a big internet meme in Hong Kong. Now known as the Bus Uncle, Chan at least would have lent some unpredictability to the debates and the campaign, and maybe would have threatened either Chan or Ip's mothers (watch the video and you'll understand). Half of what makes Hong Kong politics fun to watch is the characters involved, and since Leung Kwok Hung (the only HK politician cool enough to be in my facebook picture) is already in LegCo and therefore ineligible to run, there won't be anybody to interrupt the proceedings with chanted slogans or wear Che Guevara T-shirts.


The Outlook
It's actually hard to see anything because of all the pollution

November 28th's South China Morning Post gives a pretty good review of where things stand right now. Unfortunately, it's not available for me to link unless you pay (and I'm reading it through LexisNexis) so I'll pass on the relevant information. Essentially, Anson Chan is leading in every poll that's been done, but there's no guarantee that she'll be able to translate that to a victory. As many as 1/3 of those polled remain undecided, and there was a bit of backlash against the pro-Democracy camp in the local elections about a week and a half ago. Also, if Chan's supporters don't show up and vote because they assume she'll win anyway, it'll be an uphill battle. As one member of her campaign team said, "If the voter turnout is under 40 per cent, as in the last district council elections, Anson is going to lose".

Regina Ip, on the other hand, doesn't care what the polls say. She's holding a rally across the street from the LegCo building tonight and hoping for the best.

At this point, the most likely outcome is a victory for Chan, but nothing is guaranteed.

What makes this election more important is the fact that it represents a preview of next year's election where every single LegCo seat is up for grabs. Essentially, this gives both sides an indication of where the public stands on the democracy issue ten years after the handover. As such, it should be an interesting and fun process to watch unfold.

Advance, Australia Fair

So, this week, I thought it'd be fun to look at politics and elections that aren't getting too much attention here in the States. It's interesting (and maybe even educational) to look at what other countries are doing democracy-wise and see how it compares to our own system. Tomorrow I'll look at Sunday's by-election in the Hong Kong Island Geographical Constituency. Sunday is also election day in Russia, so we'll see what's going on there and what happened in some smaller countries like Poland, Romania and Croatia. But to begin, there's last week's parliamentary election in the land down under.

Aussie Aussie Aussie...Oi Oi Oi!
Background

Australia has a parliamentary system of government. Essentially, whoever gets a majority of the seats in both its House of Representatives and Senate gets to form the Federal Executive Council, which is essentially the cabinet and gets to boss around the Queen's governor general. There's a whole bunch of fun ways to get elected to the Senate, because Australia uses a Single Transferable Vote system and lets each state elect 12 Senators (and each territory 2).

Also, voting in parliamentary elections is mandatory in Australia. Isn't that fun?

The Incumbent
John Winston Howard

John Howard, despite the fact that no Americans have any idea what he looks like (you have to wait till about a minute or so in, but the rest is pretty good. And pretty sad.), is actually one of George W. Bush's best friends in the international arena. He was a big fan of this whole Iraq adventure. While in power, he paid off $96 Billion in Commonwealth Debt, passed a bill that made same-sex marriage illegal and focused a lot on National Security.

In essence, then, a lot from the wiki makes him sound like a good George Bush Republican brought up on Vegemite. Unfortunately, this didn't make him very popular among many Australians.

The Challenger
Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd is the head of the Labor Party, and was a Chinese Language and Chinese History major at Australian National Anniversary, so it's cool if you call him 陆克文. Rudd is big on the environment, and isn't quite as big of a fan of this Iraq mess as Howard is. Before entering politics, he served as an Australian Diplomat in Stockholm and Beijing.

Other Interesting Participants
Jolly Swagmen who camp by Billabongs

Probably the most interesting other party in the election is Senator On-Line, which would essentially put a senator in office who would vote on bills entirely based on the results of online polls. Essentially they'd have a website that would present both sides to each bill and then ask people to vote on it. Whichever side got the most would be that Senator's vote. Kind of a cool concept, but it doesn't really address the fact that there are a lot of very screwed up people on the internets.

The Results
Australia 542-5dec & 210-2dec beat Sri Lanka 246 & 410 by 96 runs

While the results weren't quite as lopsided as the margin of victory in last weeks second test above, they did come to a pretty clear result: Labor could win as many as 86 seats in the 150-seat parliament. Howard conceded the election to Rudd, who immediately pledged to make global warming a top priority.

In essence, then, the Australian election was an example of a conservative leader being thrown out after the country got fed up with the same old leadership and the war in Iraq. Sound familiar?

Obviously, it's going to take some time to see if Kevin Rudd can govern effectively, but the early indications are that he's going to be able to set the agenda for the time being. Since most of the elections we'll be looking at later on are questionably fair or balanced, it's good to see that Australians at least can rejoice that they are young and free.

UPDATE: Rudd is going to apologize to Aborigines. Not because of anything he did, but because white Australians have kind of been dicks to them. That's what happens when you turn a penal colony into a country...

(Fun Fact: it's entirely possible to write a post full of Australian cultural references without referencing Crocodile Dundee or using "g'day, mate". I'm so proud of myself.)

Hillary wants to go to Mars.

(no word yet on whether she'll ask Dennis Kucinich to take her there in his UFO)


According to the WaPo today, "Clinton Favors Future Manned Spaceflight". Good to know. Why is this even an issue? Well, the article tells us that:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made clear that he is not enamored with NASA's effort to build a new spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon and beyond.

In a position paper on education unveiled in New Hampshire, Clinton's rival advocated delaying for five years the program to build the new multibillion-dollar Constellation spacecraft and using the savings to fund a variety of education initiatives.

Ah. While I'm a huge Obama fan on many many things, I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with delaying our manned spaceflight program (because it'd be pretty awesome to work for them, and that'd be easier if they're, you know, hiring), but I can see how it makes a great deal of sense. Contrary to what other people are saying, the Constellation Program isn't exactly the be-all and end-all of space exploration. For those unfamiliar with it,

The Constellation program was proposed by Bush in 2004 as a way to return Americans to space. His plan envisions the establishment of a settlement on the moon, in part to prepare for the lengthy voyage to Mars.

The plan, which is similar to one proposed by his father when he was president, was embraced by many in the space community as a worthy successor to the shuttle and space station, which are often described as expensive underachievers. Congress has generally supported plans for a new spacecraft, although Bush has not asked for additional money to pay for it, and some believe that NASA's many successful unmanned science missions will inevitably be shortchanged to pay for Constellation.

Let's set aside the subtle bias of the article. "Some believe" that this will affect the scientific mission of NASA. Right. Let's do a little math: you have a set number of dollars that's being split into science and manned spaceflight funding. You increase the amount of money you're putting into manned spaceflight without increasing the total amount of money available. Where's that money going to come from?

For those of you who guessed "science", you'd be right! It's that amazing?

Unfortunately, some republicans can't figure that out.

The Republican National Committee also criticized Obama. Spokesman Danny Diaz said in a statement: "It is ironic that Barack Obama's plan to help our children reach for the stars is financed in part by slashing a program that helps us learn about those very same stars."

Really. We're going to learn about stars by going to Mars? And while slashing funding for scientific stuff like, I don't know, the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble's successor, or LISA, which would help us actually detect gravity waves? Wow. I love the republican way of seeing the world. Let's cut spending (and taxes!) and everything will be awesome.

So, basically, the Obama plan is to cut a bad program (but not, at this point, put more money into scientific research) for 5 years to pay for more education (which should give us many many more scientists). Hillary and the republicans want to cling to the good old days of the '60s--when the US saw spaceflight as a way of (eventually) beating the Russians, and the Federal Government was the only entity with the resources to do that.

Unfortunately, that's not what's happening now. The private sector is entirely capable of keeping the manned spaceflight alive during the 5 year wait for Constellation. Whether it's people shooting for the Ansari X Prize, or Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic or, my personal favorite, the people that want to build a Space Elevator (which would be totally totally freaking awesome. I swear. And it's doable), there's plenty of interest in the private sector that the US can survive a delay in their manned space program.

The only x factor here is China, who've been relentlessly pursuing a space program since Yang Liwei's Shenzhou V flight in late 2003. China's using spaceflight much the same way it was used in the cold war--to excite people and think the government is totally awesome. Yang got sent on a tour of the country after his flight--even stopping in Hong Kong to sing a duet with Jacky Chan (I am not making that up). If the US were to get involved in a new Space Race with China, it's not immediately obvious who would win. Obama's plan may hurt us if such a Space Race were to develop, but it's just as likely that a President Obama wouldn't be dragged into a race simply based on China's attempts at provoking the US. For the time being, the Obama plan doesn't seem to hurt any vital US interests in space, and has the added benefit of paying for an ambitious new education plan. [insert pun about Obama's policy being out of this world here]

Why Mike Huckabee Scares Me, Part 1

I've always said that Mike Huckabee strikes me as the scariest republican to run against in a general election. Today doesn't change anything.

From the New York Times, I heard about Huckabee's new ad:





Wow. Huckabee's immigration plan already is easier to understand than anything I got from the Hillary camp. I'm not going to say anything more because I'm afraid Chuck Norris will come to get me.

Global Warming is Scary.

Earlier today, our friends at the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change, aka the guys who Al Gore shared his nobel prize with) released a new report. Guess what it says?

We're screwed.

As per the Washington Post, "global warming is 'unequivocal' and...humans' actions are heading toward "abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts". That's pretty clear language. And it gets worse: the "first to suffer from global warming will be the poor, who will face faltering water supplies, damage to crops, new diseases and encroaching oceans" and "those most at risk are "the poor, young children, the elderly and the ill".

Lovely.

So not only are we screwing our planet up, we're screwing over the poor people too. And what are the governments of the world going to do about it? Go on vacation!

No, seriously. There's a major international conference next month, conveniently located on the Indonesian island of Bali. While I'm sure Bali is a very centrally located meeting point, and it's good to see countries like Indonesia helping the IPCC out, it's a little hard to deny that its black-sand (volcanic ash) beaches didn't play a role. And I'm not sure that you can pretend that people aren't going to go snorkeling in their spare time.

Now, this wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that global warming, as the IPCC portrays it, has the potential to turn large chunks of the world into really nice beaches. If the people that are supposed to be deciding on what to do about climate change are allowed to escape the rigors of northern hemisphere winter in exchange for a trip to a tropical island, isn't there a chance they might decide that this whole global warming thing isn't so bad after all? And if they figure that out, how much do you think they're going to get done?

Moral of the story: become a member of the IPCC, win nobel prize, use $$ to go on vacation to Bali in the name of international cooperation. Sounds like fun.