TORONTO, June 26 /CNW/ – Like the perpetual little brother, Canadians have always lived in the shadow of our American neighbours. But it turns out that while America was out conquering the world, Canada has been quietly working away at building better lives. Now we’re the ones on top: Compared to the U.S., we work less, live longer, enjoy better health and have more sex – and believe it or not, we’re now wealthier.

Read the whole article here.

No surprises here: Set up an equation. One one side, take the gross income of a typical Canadian household, and subtract from that taxes at all levels, federal, provincial, and local.

On the other side, take a typical American’s household, assuming he is employed, and subtract from income not only federal and state taxes, but also health care and education costs, including student loans.

Who is better off? I’ve not seen any studies, but the article above is evidence, at least, that Canadians are better off than Americans.

Conservatives, previously silent about President Obama’s executive orders claiming the right to arrest, detain and assassinate American citizens without due process, are up in arms today about the latest executive order. The president has invoked medieval droit du seigneur, or right of first night with a maiden, for any marriage happening within forty-nine states, except Idaho.

Bill Kristol, founder and editor to the Weekly Standard, denounced the move. “This president has surely gotten upper tier in terms of power grabbing,” said Kristol. While he said that he understood the lack of interest in Idahoan maidens, he also suggested that if the president is going to exercise the right, he ought to be democratic about it and include all states.

Democrats were more circumspect. Edward Gresser, head of the Democratic Leadership Council, mentioned to supporters in a weekly newsletter that the President would probably not use the right to excess, and anyway would surely use protection.

Democrats overwhelmingly support the president on this matter. In an overnight Gallup poll, 77% of Democrats expressed “go-for-it-man” approval, while an additional 16% expressed mild envy. 4% expressed uncertainty about anything involving the French, but said that they would vote for the president in November anyway. 1% disapproved but felt the president might be “overdue” and said that they would vote for the president in November anyway, as Romney could not be trusted. 1% had no opinion but said that they would vote for the president in November anyway. The remaining 1%, said Gallup, is a rounding error, but that it too would vote for the president in November.

It was not clear at time of this writing how the president would interpret droit du seigneur in light of his recent statement in support of gay marriage.

If you are given a choice, you believe you’ve acted freely. This is one of the darkest of all psychological secrets. This idea of having a two-party system is much like having fifty-two cards using the same three cards.

I transcribed the above quote, by Teller (of Penn and Teller), from a podcast called “Stuff to Blow Your mind.” Oddly enough, despite the name, the podcast is indeed interesting. The one I listened to is about the art of magicology, which is almost entirely based on psychological manipulation of audiences.

It reminded me of the 2000 election where we were given a “choice” of Gore or Bush, with a real choice, Nader. Democrats screamed bloody murder. Why? It probably had to do with the darkest of all secrets, that by limiting us to two (virtually identical) choices, we imagine we are acting freely.

That, then, is the purpose of elections, and why we even have them. I suggest to the reader that if you want to understand our choice in the 2012 election, do not look for differences between Obama and Romney. Look for similarities. It is far more illuminating.

Wikileaks has gotten hold of maybe a quarter million internal communications of the Syrian Assad government. The communications will be released over the coming months by the organization, and its spokesperson has emphasized that none of the actors on that stage are telling us the truth. The first batch is about an Italian firm that sold high-security communications equipment for use by the Syrian police.

This, from Jim Maceda of NBC news:

However, this release is striking in its broader, more neutral approach, without the trenchant ideology or politics associated with previous data sets.

Translation: It’s about one of our official enemies, and not about the United States government or its corporations. That makes it “neutral” and free of “ideology.”
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