Various Responsible Media Centrists have already started bloviating about how Barack Obama should decline to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, under normal circumstances, this idea could be dismissed as the usual round of said media centrists advancing an idea because it is contrarian and therefore Very Serious, and really, we all know that’s the reason they’re advancing it; not from any genuine thought or concern, but because it is ostensibly a little bit shocking to suggest (and because, let us be honest, there is a certain stripe of media outlet that rather enjoys portraying the President as being unfit to receive the honor).

However, here’s the thing: he should decline to accept it.

The reason is simple: he has already gained all the political advantage of winning the award. Were he to decline now, he would still possess whatever moral authority winning the Nobel Peace Prize conveys at this point; it is impossible for him to unmake the Nobel committee’s decision. They can’t take that away from him, even if he gives it away. But if he declines to accept it, he appears humble, which earns him even more credibility (and at this point, worldwide, he has a lot of it). He can make a speech about how he doesn’t deserve this award when Timmy Who Campaigns Against Landmines or Joan The AIDS Researcher actually deserves it more than him, and give Timmy or Joan or whoever a major spike in credibility for their cause.

The math is simple: he gets more juice out of refusing the award than he does by accepting it. And while it might be nice to have a Nobel on the mantle to show to the grandkids one day, realistically if he can get more diplomatic stroke through refusal, that’s the wisest course of action.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

I’ve also done another of those “hey look at these comments” posts , this time about David Miller announcing he won’t run for a third term as Mayor of Toronto.

And if you haven’t read this Leonard Pierce special, you should.

So the Tories up here in the Theoretically Frozen North have managed to stave off an election once again, and what irks me is that they did exactly what they pilloried the Liberals and NDP for doing last year: namely, they got the Bloc on their side with governmental concessions. Somehow I doubt the screaming harpy chorus that cried out “cooperation with the Bloc is treason” when Stephane Dion suggested that maybe the parties which received the support of a majority of Canadian voters should run things will find their indignation quite so stoked.

People complain about the American media all the time, and with good reason, but the Canadian media has its own set of quirks that can really be annoying. One of them is the conceit that governing in Canada’s seemingly permanent minority government environment is difficult, and it simply isn’t. The Harper government figured out the two-part secret of how to do it a long time ago: run policy through the Prime Minister’s office and administrative channels of the government rather than legislating through Parliament, and bribe the Bloc whenever things get dicey.1 The fact that the Harper Tories have figured out this relatively simple equation and the Canadian media by and large has not is depressing; the fact that the Harperites could figure it out and then be basically dogshit at the actual job of governance, moreso.

Still, we’re most likely stuck with the useless assholes for another couple of years until the Liberals realize that Michael Ignatieff was a huge, huge mistake. (For American readers: Michael Ignatieff is kind of like Evan Bayh, except you want to punch him in the face even more.)

1. You can bribe other parties, but frankly it’s simplest to bribe the Bloc: you just find something the Quebec government wants, and give it to them. That’s the power regional parties bring to the table. [↩]

That’s what the gasping throes of modern conservatism has left in the tank. That’s what they’ve got. Twenty years.

Don’t be afraid by Michelle Malkin claiming two million people showed up: the police estimates are thirty thousand plus. (Besides, we already know what two million people on the Mall looks like.)

In twenty years, the majority of these stupid old white people – and it’s mostly stupid old white people, and where it isn’t all three it’s just about always two out of three – will be dead or senile (or more senile than they are now). The kids aren’t voting Republican, and they’re not voting Republican in massive numbers because it turns out the kids, while not perfect, generally disapprove of instititional racism, homophobia and sexism.

It’s the last gasp of insanity. So chill, everybody. The next couple of years might suck, but even in the worst case scenario there is simply no chance in hell that a Republican is elected President in 2012. No. Chance. In. Hell. If anybody wants to bet me money on this I will take any wager.

continue reading "STAB AT RELEVANCE PART THREE: THE STABBENOSITY"

In Andrew’s Michelle Bachman post, Andre started a discussion about what rich get out of taxation versus poor people, and concludes:

I’m simply arguing that it is a difficult proposition to prove, one way or another, who the greatest beneficiary is of that system.

Here’s the thing, though: it really isn’t difficult at all.

Wealth is grown only on the back of talent. Your average rich person in the United States is rich because he or she owns a company that generates value through the effort of hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people: those people are able to generate value because they were educated by a system primarily public, kept healthy to generate that value through public expenditures on food regulation and water safety (and, anywhere but the United States, healthcare as well), kept alive through public expenditures on policing and fire safety and emergency workers and national defense, able to travel to their place of work to generate value by highways and transportation networks maintained by public funds, and able to have their value quantified by a uniform system of weights and measures and standards applied by public institutions.

The level of income inequality between the poorest and richest is the greatest it ever has been in human history. On the one hand, that kind of sucks; on the other hand, it’s amazing. There’s a reason that feudal lords in the Middle Ages weren’t as comparatively rich as modern tycoons, and it’s not because of technology: it’s because they don’t have to spend money on keeping people alive and healthy and generating value and furthermore able to generate the best possible value, because the government does that for them, and frankly does it better than individuals could anyway.

Without public investment, Bill Gates would never have been able to build Microsoft; he would have had to expend vast sums on apprenticeships, wall off his factories to stop banditry, and convince everybody else to use not only his operating code but the mathematics it was based upon. Microsoft would never have gotten beyond being a niche product in a portion of the country, one of a thousand such businesses: we know this because society already went through a period just like what this fantasy-Microsoft would have undergone.

And that’s why the rich get more out of the public system of taxation than the poor do. The rich get everything the poor do (and, as others have pointed out, depending on how funds are collected and allocated, they can often get more than the poor do), but on top of that they also get more opportunity to get richer, just by nature of the stability of public systems.

I almost fell out of my chair yesterday when I read that, while addressing a “free  market think tank,” US Representative and Joker impersonator Michele Bachmann said something I agreed with. Fortunately, she reverted to form, finishing the almost reasonable sentence with talk about becoming blood brothers, before really making with the crazy. My shaken worldview was restored by passages like:

‘“This is slavery,” Bachmann said after claiming many Americans pay half their income to taxes. “It’s nothing more than slavery.”’

I’ve got to think the scenario she describes is at least in the area of 50% more than slavery. But hey, she’s only a member of the United States congress. I suppose I shouldn’t expect too much from a woman who’s waiting for a call from God to tell her whether or not she should run for President.

-Foley

1.) The Liberal Democratic Party in Japan has been ousted in the most recent election. The LDP has been in power almost continuously since 1955 – and really, longer than that, since the Liberal Democratic party formed out of the Liberal and Democratic parties making their unofficial collusion/cooperation in running the country official, so basically it’s been one party in charge of Japan since World War II with a couple of hiccups. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens, because Japan honestly has about zero experience with electoral change of this sort; the bureaucracy in Japan has become almost totally divorced from the consequences of elections because, well, there have never really been any consequences of elections. I honestly have no idea if the DJP’s victory will bring change to the Japanese bureaucratic system or if it’s just your classic walking-against-the-tide scenario.

2.) In the wake of the Pirate Party having success in Sweden, apparently some Canadians have decided we need one too. Apparently nobody in the Pirate Party has bothered to examine the Marijuana Party’s success as a one-issue fringe party, or understands how first-past-the-post parliamentary systems differ from proportional-representation parliamentary systems. But I bet they will have bitching LAN parties!

A long time ago, P.J. O’Rourke wrote in Parliament of Whores (probably the best book he ever wrote, and it’s been mostly downhill, albeit gradually, for him ever since) that “you can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.” And this has, for many policymakers, been an accepted truth for a very long time.

And it looks like it might be wrong.

Parents are now able to pay tuition, and the proportion of children attending school rose to 92 percent last year. The school has used the additional revenue to buy paper, pens and ink for its printers. The rate of malnourishment among the children has plunged from 42 to 10 percent. The local police crime statistics show a decline in theft and poaching. People with AIDS are responding more effectively to treatment, now that their nutritional needs are being met more consistently. “Suddenly the children were wearing shoes,” says the teacher. A man went to see Dirk and Claudia Haarmann. Beaming from ear to ear, he asked: “Don’t you see?” They asked him what he meant. “Don’t you see? I now have trousers and a t-shirt. I am now a person.”

More people emailed about health care, mostly because of Ted Kennedy dying, and what I think is that Ted Kennedy’s death will matter not one whit in the final accounting as to whether or not health care reform passes in the United States. The Republicans trying to kill reform may have liked Kennedy personally, but they weren’t willing to compromise with him when he was alive; dead Ted Kennedy will have about as much power over them as the Dead Kennedys do. (I am told Chuck Grassley is a secret fan of Jello Biafra, but personally do not believe it.)

No, what matters in the final accounting is how Democrats support health care reform. By this point, the antics of conservative Democrats have grown remarkable, and it’s only really the traditions of American politics that keep Ben Nelson in his party. Which of course begs the question:

Why don’t they just kick him out?

Or, at the very least, threaten to. Let’s be clear: in any Parliamentary-style system anywhere else in the world, an MP behaving as contra-party as Nelson has – with Kent Conrad and Mary Landrieu not far behind – would be turfed, and turfed quickly. Granted, American political parties aren’t quite as heirarchical or organized and a degree of freedom is expected – but all that is required of conservative Democrats, for the most part, is that they not filibuster health care reform. They can vote against it all they like (well, to the tune of nine votes).

That Nelson in particular is flirting with it should trigger those threats. Yes, if Ben Nelson gets kicked out of the Democratic party that is one less vote for any Democratic majority, to be sure. But when the majority is in the high fifties without him, Ben Nelson’s sole value to the Democratic agenda he opposes is that he not filibuster; his vote is effectively worthless.

The threat is not without value: in Nelson’s case, he loses his seniority on all his committees; Nelson is just coming into his own and in a term or two, as a Democrat, will likely chair a major committee. As a newly-minted Republican, that will likely not happen any time soon. This of course also assumes Nelson will survive re-election in 2012 as a Republican, and despite his personal popularity in his state that is not a given; the uncertainty of a potential primary and the loss of Democratic funding support can’t make things less shaky.

But what I like most about it is that it’s a move of strength. The Democratic push on health care reform has been cautious. Timid, even. If the Democratic leadership wants it – and they should – they need to show some balls, make it seem like they want it rather than just feel obligated. They need to tell their slackers where the door is, and how far they can go before it hits their ass on the way out. And “how far” should not be far at all.

Although anybody familiar with the Golden Age adventure of Superman – where he frequently took on union-busters and corporate profiteers – will be surprised, here is proof that Superman supports socialist programs and government-run health care.

Keenly aware as I am of the latest trends in the fascinating and frustrating world of political discourse in the United States, it’s dawned on me over the last week or two that I’m surrounded on all sides by Nazis.  Once you had to be a real asshole to be considered a Nazi. Now apparently trying to ensure tens of millions aren’t bankrupted when they get the flu qualifies one for hatred and vilification. Fortunately, I’m all for hating and vilifying. So below you’ll find some newly minted (by me) Nazis, helpfully separated into three general categories.

These are the modern American version of Nazis, mind you, which is to say, people of all colours, creeds, genders, political and/or religious affiliation who have pissed, are pissing, or I deem likely to piss, me off. And people I don’t like. And people I just think it’d be funny to accuse of being Nazis1.

DIRTY NAZIS

Jennifer Corbett (my eleventh grade crush.)
Your mouth said, “Stop climbing the tree in my yard so you can watch me undress, you disgusting little creep” but I know what you were really meant: “You’re just not Aryan enough for me.” Go take a crap on Der Fuhrer’s back, you Eva Braunnabe tease.

The Irish.
Bunch of potato-eating schnitzel-suckers make me want to puke with their lucky charms and arbitrarily pernicious divorce laws.

John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich.
I’ve got your kampf right here, Sandvich.

Food processors.
They slices, they dice, they siegs and they heil like the miserable krauts they are.

Trig Palin.
The apfel doesn’t fall far from the baum, Jerry.

People who post photos of their pets on blogs.
Not just daschunds either. Any dogs.

John F. Kennedy.
“Ich bin ein [eugenics-supporting Nazi].”

STINKING NAZIS

The Bassist from Hootie and the Blowfish.
He knows what he did.

Former Bill Clinton Secretary of Labour Robert Reich.
Robert Thousand Year Reich, I think you mean.

My tenth grade English teacher.
A “C”? Get lost in the forest and die horribly, Gretel.

Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM!.
Your taste for lederhosen speaks for itself, but if it didn’t your attitude towards “haters” isn’t exactly subtle.

Anyone who uses the phrase “Support the troops” as an argument supporting unnecessary and quite possibly illegal military actions that put the troops at risk.
Take a long goose-stepping march off a short cliff, you Amerika Uber Alles vermin.

The Troops.
Bunch of jackbooted thugs.

DIRTY STINKING NAZIS

Bankers.
Bunch of overpaid jackbooted thugs.

Jesus “H. stands for Hitler” Christ.
Dying so everyone would have an excuse to hate the Jews? Verrrry clever, Herr Christ. But the whole “people who don’t agree with me burning in the lake of fire for all eternity” thing is a bit of a giveaway.

The cast of Two and A Half Men.
You aren’t funny.

The girl who rear-ended my car in ’97.
The hun blitzkrieg’d my spine!

Tom Selleck’s Mustache.
Magnum PI? Try Magnum SS.

NOT NAZIS (“NOTZIS”)

Mum.

Data (My Dog.)

Wildstorm Comics Editor Scott Peterson.

Nazis.
Let’s face it, the word’s so watered down by this point that it’s lost any kind of ability to inspire the revulsion and horror appropriate when considering the monstrous acts committed in service to actual, not-just-cuz-I-say-so, honest-to-god nazi principles. A new term is needed for vile, cowardly, fascist dicks. Personally, I call them “Cheneys.”

-Foley

1. Baseless Ad Hominem Attacks: They’re fun for the whole family! [↩]

Top comment: Guys, you’re not grasping the ramifications of this! Not only was President Obama born in a foreign country, he was born IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE in which Kenya achieved independence several years earlier!

Who knows what other horrifying properties this alternate timeline has? CAN YOU PROVE IT IS NOT ONE OF THOSE UNIVERSES WHERE THE NAZIS WON WORLD WAR II? — Justin

Hey, remember when I did that thing making fun of people commenting on the Internet about a given bit of news? Torontoist asked me to do it again after the end of the Toronto city strike. So I did.