Kill the judges first

As Homer Simpson once said, anyone in the great United States could end up Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. You'd reckon that Homer's chosen candidate, his son Bart, could have made a better go of the swearing in than the actual chud in the robes, John Roberts.

Snowy off the trams would have been more reliable.

Republican appointed judicial incompetence aside; I thought Obama's inauguration went well. The speech was good. Loads of people claimed it had no 'hair on the back of the neck' moment. I'm presuming these people have well-shaven necks, because the bits where he re-affirmed his promise to withdraw from Iraq, committed himself to renewable energy and actually even vaguely hinted at introducing a notion of progressive re-distribution in the US certainly got me going.

Yes, he'll disappoint in some areas. Given he's appointed the war criminal apologist Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, I can't see Israel getting short shrift. And realpolitik in matters as yet unknown will surely occur. But I can't yet bring myself to side with the cynical view that Obama is just another puppet in the perpetual balancing act that is the US elites managing robber capitalism; that just when their people, their people being the world now, are at the point of rebelling against their economic slavery, the elites re-calibrate the scale by inserting a totally controlled candidate that says a lot, and does just enough, to maintain the inequitable system without upsetting its fundamentals. If that is true, then we are well and truly fucked.

I believe Obama has the potential to be different. However I also believe Jack Ziebell might be the missing midfield class North needs to take the flag this year. Both have an equally challenging task ahead of them.

(Oh sweet Jesus I've just re-read what I've written above. I won't delete it. We all deserve the opportunity to go bull goose looney sometimes. Given the US and the UK are about to go bankrupt, and probably take the rest of the world down with them - albeit only for about a decade or so, the last Depression didn't kill our great-grandparents, just really, really pissed them off - I think I deserve that.)

God, if you're listening, if you're one of us, just a slob like one of us - here's a deal, a la The Diamond As Big As The Ritz: let either Obama or Ziebell be successful. I don't care which.