miscellaneous blogging from Canada

I've been in Canada for a few days now, and life here is good. The only slight negative is that we're not going to get cable TV so I can't watch the NBA playoffs. I guess I could go to a sports bar, but I don't want to sit there for 2 hours and pay $6 for mediocre beer. All food and beverage is pretty expensive here actually. I'm going to my advisers' house for dinner tonight; every free meal is going to be quite helpful.

Speaking of good life, Man Beard Blog seems to have lurched back to life, at least for a day. This must be very exciting for someone.

Speaking of lurching around like a worthless jackass, this seems to be a perfect summary of what the Democratic Party is all about. The key passage:

I think its very mendacity is the secret of its success. Crucially, it claims to offer an alternative -- however half-hearted and feeble -- to the utter, absolute, complete and comprehensive lordship of plutocracy. As crucially, it actually does nothing of the kind.

It's fundamentally just a matter of algebra. This is a country designed -- very ably and successfully designed -- to be ruled by an oligarchy of wealth. Yet public consent to this arrangement requires representing it as a democracy. The gap between representation and reality requires some term to fill it up and make the equation come out right.

That's the structural need the Democratic Party fills, and that, I think, is the explanation for its longevity. We've always needed something like like that -- some democratic cloak for our oligarchic nakedness -- and presumably we always will, at least until something changes in a big way. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. Some institution must be built, and staffed with people who either don't mind the dirt, or can convince themselves it's not dirt at all.

He also comments of where Saint Obama and the Clintons fit into that scheme.

I'm starting basically a full time job this week doing some kind of research (details TBD) in the lab, so I'm not really sure what my blogging output will be. Also I'm using stolen wireless internet right now, so I don't know what my access will be at home until our own connection is installed (hopefully tomorrow).