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Random commentary:
1) I'm glad I'm not American.
I think America's biggest problem - now, if not before - is partisanship. It's been a problem for at least ten years, though.
The debate over health care reform is terrifying. People are carrying automatic weapons in crowded places - a lot of the horror I've seen expressed is that they're doing this at presidential events, whereas I'm kind of horrified they're doing it at all. How many killing sprees and mass shootings and the like is it going to take before America actually works out that letting people have automatic rifles and just carry them around is a really bad idea?
Gun control isn't the point, though.
It's more the way that any important issue - or trivial issue - seems, in America, to get torn apart by fierce ideological divides, where real discussion is less important than soundbites and hyperbole.
And even more than that, it's the way some things are politicised that really, really shouldn't be.
The electoral process in America is subject to partisanship. In the 2000 Florida presidential election debacle, it was really really noticable, but it's all over the damn place, and the American approach to neutrality seems usually to be "bipartisan".
In Australia, the idea that partisanship should have ANY place in things like electoral process is anathema. The Australian Electoral Commission is deeply dedicated to avoiding any kind of political bias whatsoever. A friend of mine has worked elections as an AEC volunteer, and come away from the experience actively happy with the strict neutrality and accuracy of the process. The closest we get to partisan involvement is that I think - but I'm not sure - the parties are allowed to send scrutineers. As in, people who watch but aren't allowed to touch or do anything whatsoever involving the ballots beyond looking at them.
Oddly, it seems that by fetishising democracy less, we end up with more of it.
I'm also deeply glad that the flaw with our health care system is generally about "inefficiency" and "underpaid nurses" not "millions of people not having access to it at all".
Right now, the Daily Show has up the full unedited version of an interview between Jon Stewart and Betsy McCaughey, the originator, allegedly, of the "death panels" thing - who, with coy smiles and insistent rhetoric, keeps arguing patently false things despite Jon Stewart quoting from the bill in question to point out where she's wrong. They had it in front of them.
She tried hard to derail things - getting seriously ad hominem pointing out that Jon Stewart is "so rich" he can take care of anyone in his family who needs care.
However, Jon Stewart's reaction was (I'm quoting from memory): That's absolutely right, and that's why I don't mind being taxed more to pay for care of people who can't afford it. In fact, I welcome it, as a way of giving back to the country that's allowed me to come this far.
McCaughey gave a very fake smile and switched tacks to how right that was, because that was just not a line that was going to work for her. Jon Stewart is rich, apparently - but he is still a fierce advocate for taxing the rich to help the poor, because he's not an asshole.
2) The Ashes
So, Ponting becomes the first Australian captain in 119 years to lose the Ashes twice in England.
Congratulations, Ricky, this is exactly the mark on cricketing history you deserved to leave.
Actually, that's unfair. He shouldn't have been put in this position, because he should never have been given the captaincy at all.
Yes, he started out with a winning record, but Steve Waugh and circumstance handed him a team that could win if the captain just went to sleep on the boundary and let them play with ten men. Give him a team that, in terms of ability, is still actually somewhat better than England's, and he loses. Badly.
On the bright side? England is suffering worse from the credit crunch and swine flu and all that than Australia is. (Our banks, for example, stayed solvent.) As well as general British malaise. Winning the Ashes will perhaps make people happier for a while.
And, you know, the craptitude of Ponting's captaincy is shown again.
On the down side, we lost the Ashes, and as an Australian, I am never actually totally okay with that. (More than that, an Australian born in 1980. Ponting's two losses are the only times we've lost the Ashes that I can really remember.)
3) Alcohol
On Women, Alcohol, and Anti-Feminism
Me, I'm tee-total these days. Essentially allergic to alcohol - not exactly, but you could call it that - and never want alcohol except when I'm at my most depressed, most broken. Only ever really drank due to social pressure, really, except when I was self-medicating for depression with a bottle of vodka hidden in my bedroom. (Which I bought legally, mind you.)
Alcohol more-or-less falls into the same category as gambling for me: I think it should be legal, but heavily discouraged, and the bars and casinos that actively encourage abuse and addiction should be shut down. (I am more generally disapproving of gambling.)
I feel mildly sad that I can't, say, go to the UK and tour a whiskey distillery and try the samples - I think that would be really interesting, I just also think it would be really bad for me. And I can never try an authentic steak tartare. But I feel the same way about things that would involve eating gluten for experimental purposes, so.
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