EVERYONE HERE'S GOING TO BE VERY GLAD WHEN MAGDA PATRICIA ZAPATA (GONZALEZ) GETS BACK TO LA CdP!
Seres Sombra and Carlton have got my mind spinning on issues of a very much non-sexual nature. According to the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2008 here are your "wealthiest" countries in terms of GDP (redaction of #1 next to Big Sammy was an ironically fortunate html goof, not an intentional bit of cleverness on my part):
 United States | 14,330,000 | |
| 2 |  Japan | 4,844,000 |
| 3 |  People's Republic of China | 4,222,000 |
| 4 |  Germany | 3,818,000 |
| 5 |  France | 2,978,000 |
| 6 |  United Kingdom | 2,787,000 |
| 7 |  Italy | 2,399,000 |
| 8 |  Russia | 1,757,000 |
| 9 |  Spain | 1,683,000 |
| 10 |  Brazil | 1,665,000 |
| 11 |  Canada | 1,564,000 |
| 12 |  India | 1,237,000 |
| 13 |  Mexico | 1,143,000 |
| 14 |  Australia | 1,069,000 |
| 15 |  Netherlands | 909,500 |
| 16 |  South Korea | 857,500 |
| 17 |  Turkey | 798,900 |
| 18 |  Poland | 567,400 |
| 19 |  Belgium | 530,600 |
| 20 |  Sweden | 512,900 |
| 21 |  Indonesia | 510,800 |
| 22 |  Switzerland | 492,600 |
| 23 |  Norway | 481,100 |
| 24 |  Saudi Arabia | 467,700 |
| 25 |  Austria | 432,400 |
| 26 |  Taiwan | 401,600 |
| 27 |  Iran | 382,300 |
| 28 |  Greece | 373,500 |
| 29 |  Denmark | 369,600 |
| 30 |  Argentina | 338,700 |
| 31 |  Venezuela | 331,800 |
| 32 |  South Africa | 300,400 |
| 33 |  Finland | 287,600 |
| 34 |  Ireland | 285,000 |
| 35 |  Thailand | 272,100 |
| 36 |  United Arab Emirates | 270,000 |
| 37 |  Portugal | 255,500 |
| 38 |  Colombia | 249,800 |
| — |  Hong Kong | 223,800 |
| 39 |  Nigeria | 220,300 |
| 40 |  Czech Republic | 217,200 |
| 41 |  Malaysia | 214,700 |
| 42 |  Romania | 213,900 |
| 43 |  Ukraine | 198,000 |
| 44 |  Israel | 188,700 |
| 45 |  Chile | 181,500 |
| 46 |  Philippines | 172,300 |
| 47 |  Algeria | 171,300 |
| 48 |  Hungary | 164,300 |
| 49 |  Pakistan | 160,900 |
| 50 |  Kuwait | 159,700 |
| 51 |  Egypt | 158,300 |
| 52 |  Singapore | 154,500 |
| 53 |  Kazakhstan | 141,200 |
| 54 |  New Zealand | 135,700 |
| 55 |  Peru | 131,400 |
| 56 |  Qatar | 116,900 |
| 57 |  Libya | 108,500 |
| 58 |  Slovakia | 100,600 |
| 59 |  Angola | 95,950 |
| 60 |  Iraq | 93,800 |
Seres Carl and Sombra had been considering Obama v Bush, so I'm going to stick with only self-governing nations here in my flight of fancy.
Let's be VERY generous and allow Big Sammy to keep its place, with its Constitution and often orderly transition of government making up for its imperialism abroad and police state at home.
I cannot be so generous with: the PRC, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran, Thailand, the UAE, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Malaysia, Pakistan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Egypt, Singapore, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Libya, Angola or Iraq. Algeria's a close question, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, not that it figures into what will follow in any way.
There are better and worse of the remaining 40, but all could be considered more or less self-governing nations.
Here's your list of all List of current heads of state and government These are the heads-of-government of self-governing "monarchies" or states in which the head-of-government is more powerful than the head-of-state among the top 40 in GDP
Australia: PM Kevin Rudd
Belgium: PM Herman Van Rampuy
Canada: PM Stephen Harper
Denmark: PM Lars Lakka Rasmussen
Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel
India: Prahtiba Patil is Head-Of-State/Manmohan Singh is Head-Of-Government (toss-up)
Israel: PM Binyamin Netanyahu
Japan: PM Taro Aso
Netherlands: PM Jan Peter Balkenende
New Zealand: PM John Key
Norway: PM Jens Stoltenberg
Spain: PM Jose Luis Rodriguez (Zapatero)
United Kingdom: PM Gordon Brown
Everwhere else, as advertised.
[We note with some regret that while President Alan Garcia is the defacto and dejure leader of Peru, PM Yehude Simon lost his power struggle with Garcia and his resignation offered in protest of the government/Texaco massacre of the indigenous tribespeople of the Amazon region, was accepted.]
From what I can gather: the three world leaders with the highest favorability ratings within their countries are: President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, and President Barack Obama of the USA, in that order.
[The most popular political figure in the world as of this morning was US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and, it gives me a good deal of pleasure to note that her favoribility rating with men at 61% exceeds that with women at 55%. It has been my contention for a while now that American men are the "secret" progressive cohort in Big Sammy because of the odd contours of the Obama government as opposed to the Obama candidacy...
...President Obama ought to consider one other perhaps surprising (not to me) country and position on the list: Colombia at #33 of the self-governing capitalist countries and #38 overall. Given that nearly 1/3 of the Colombian GDP is underground and therefore not reflected in official GDP figures, it is a testament to intelligence and productivity of the Colombian workforce, and of course the recognition of the importance to any economy of a vibrant LGBTQ business sector. Kudos to Minister Of Finance A. Carrasquilla Barrera and President Alvaro Uribe for recognizing, celebrating and encouraging the development of the LGBTQ economic sector despite Conservative Party norms of past administrations. This is a *nudge-nudge, wink-wink*, to my half-dozen occasional readers and the four of that half-dozen who are economically savvy. The word you're looking for is "cohete," Spanish for "rocket," which is what Colombia will be economically when Plan Colombia is scrapped by a more enlightened US President than the prudish meanie who sits in the Oval Office today.]
Nevertheless, I would be more -- most! -- curious to see how Bachelet, Obama and Rudd track against one another going forward, given the massive geographical distance amongst their nations, their differences in style, governing and economic philosophies, especially considering that all three are widely regarded by the world's press to have been "the peoples' candidates".
El Espiritu De La Escalera
It's no secret to the senior staff here at THE PITCHFORK or to my 6 occasional readers the identity of my favorite U.S. Senator. For those who like fun and games -- I sure do! -- I'll give everybody my top ten minus the person in question with their Lewis, Poole & Rosenthal "ideology" rating as of December 31, 2008. The professors use a minus sign before "left-wingers" so as to place them to the left on the number line:
- 2 Bernie Sanders (I-VT-.737)
- 3 Russ Feingold (D-WI-1.093),
- 4 Tom Harkin (D-IA-.578),
- 5 Jack Reed (D-RI-.552),
- 6 Barbara Boxer (D-CA-.666)
- 7 Sherrod Brown (D-OH-.614)
- 8 Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ-586)
- 9 Carl Levin (D-MI-.504)
- 10 Patrick Leahy (D-VT-.490)
Here's something from the man's office today putting into words what a lot of us have been thinking with President Obama's strong choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the SCOTUS seat vacated by David Souter. The use of the Sotomayor selection as yet another ethnic "theme" instead of the clear choice of the person I felt was best qualified and most experienced of the top 5 by ABA & Nate Silver ratinsg and on the short-list contributed to making what should have been an adroit selection of the strong jurist who ALSO brought diversity into the insulting clown show we've even had to endure here in Panama.
Digby of Hullabaloo quotes an excerpt of the adroit way my favorite Senator (LPW rating-0.531) puts paid to bullshit that should have been a side issue all along and deals with Republican hypocrisy on the subject of ethnicity and self-identification perfectly. Click that link for the whole statement.
And listen to the fine Senator's words on the subject to open the hearings:
With apologies to F. Scott Fitzgerald. If Big Sammy were a REAL COUNTRY the Whitehouse/White House puns would have gotten tedious by now.
I'll have more to say about "ideology" in the U.S. Congress this week possibly, and why I believe Dick Durbin's -0.590 and Ted Kennedy's -0.565 have a lot of air in them, while John Tester at -0.365 and Jim Webb at -0.355 are probably top 10 material but for flaws in the Lewis, Poole and Rosenthal methodology I haven't quite nailed down yet. Similarly, I think but for their odd way of handling libertarians issues, LPW would show a big upgrade in the loco-est of the loco, Jim DeMint (R-SC+0.864), when the 111th ratings are in. Expect DeMint to approach humanity and Mark Warner (D-VA+don't ask!) to continue to approach Unfriendly Fascism, proving once again how valuable real Republican moderates such as Cochran, Collins and Snowe are to a republic.
Democrats, of course, are like the New York Mets. They think of ever more creative ways of breaking your heart but that's occasionally part of the fun which is why I make Sheldon Whitehouse my main man. Too damned easy to go with the Independent Socialist Bernie Sanders or the Left-Libertarian Russ Feingold. I'll let Whitehouse surprise me by buckling rather than by continuing to be strong.
Kelso's Nuts love you Social Bookmark [HOME] اجرة الخطيئة هي الموت.
3 Comments:
Ser Kelso,
One has to admit that the Democrats have a spectrum of ideology while thin [We would say it goes from ultraviolet into the visible and ends somewhere around the blue-green terminator] it does exist. The Republicans are virtually monochrome [infrared just crossing into the visible red zone]. Your index listing and ideology hint made Us think deeply about what those people in that builing really do and what politics really means for society in the end.
ETDA PAIN MISMA:
If you use the Lewis, Poole and Rosenthal ratings, which I believe to be the most objective out there*, you can fit the entire Republican caucus with plenty of room to spare in the size of the ideological interval between RUSS FEINGOLD and MARK WARNER. The Republicans have nobody as far "left" on their scale as Feingold, while there are about 10 Republicans equal or left of Mark Warner.
I still prefer being unaffiliated either there or here. "Monochrome," though, is a characteristic of the upper House of Congress. We are still as always talking mostly about "old men grinding axes," not about too much of significance.
There have been still only been 3 Black Senators since Reconstruction (Brooke-R, Moseley-Braun-D, and Burris-D), and two Latinos (Menendez-D, Martinez-R).
[Laxalt-R and Sununu-R are of Spanish Basque heritage if I'm not mistaken.]
Women are still underrepresented by half. There has never been a Muslim senator; Keith Ellison is the first Muslim Representative (Moffatt was a Christian). Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark remains the only self-identified atheist in Congress, although he is a cultural Jew and I'll bet 1/2 or more of the Senate's current Jewish population is agnostic, atheist, humanist or secular and only puts the religion on for show.
If you can find a qualitative difference in worldview between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, I'd sure like to know what it is. Each grinds his party's axe, McConnell with gusto, Reid out of necessity. Should Reid lose to Porter in November 2010, the country via the Democratic Party gets the WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOME: Majority Leader Dick Durbin, setting in stone probably for my lifetime an unstoppable FRIENDLY FASCISM wearing (heh-heh) "unimpeachable" progressive colors.
I know what they're doing in the House Of Representatives -- they're each representing their Congressional district, taking votes, making statements of conscience, and forming all sorts of unusual alliances to push or prevent a retrograde mainstream agenda.
I have no idea what they're doing in the Senate other than either grinding axes over trivia or having a good laugh on the taxpayers' dime.
Near as I can figure, the only important piece of legislation to present itself in that body, SANDERS-DeMINT, was shut down in the most brazen fashion possible. So much for "post-partisanship" and "doing away with the tired old politics of yesteryear."
What the fuck were Bernie Sanders and Jim DeMint DOING if NOT that?
*Ah, yes, the asterisk. LPR showed mathematically that the NATIONAL JOURNAL's claim of Barack Obama (and John Kerry in 2004) being the "most liberal person in the Senate" to be utter hogwash, with his voting record graded to be statistically identical to that of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Center-to-Center-Right of the Democratic Caucus.
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