Democracy of One

I love the Australian Parliament. No really. I mean, how great is it when the entire future of environmental political economy in Australia comes down to one man who hates pubs and lesbians - I mean, what would Jesus do when the fundament of the Australian economy is put into his sweaty hands? Say G'day to Obama and co., of course! From The Australian:

[Fielding] told The Australian he came to Washington to hear both sides of the climate change debate -- today's conference was just one in a series of meetings he was holding with advocates on both sides of the issue. "I've paid for this out of my own money," Senator Fielding said. "This issue is too important to Australians not to look at the debate first-hand in Washington. In the end I will draw my own conclusions."

Senator Fielding says tomorrow he is scheduled to meet Obama administration environmental specialists in the White House. President Barack Obama campaigned on green jobs and greenhouse gas emission cuts.

"To get to the bottom of it I have to talk to both sides," Senator Fielding said.

Umm, OK, cool. I guess being there makes it extra-scientific for him. I mean, a copy of the Skeptical Environmentalist and An Inconvenient Truth and some half-decent reasoning skills wouldn't have been good enough to improve/fuck up the entire Australian nation. Hey, neither one of them are right! You just have to choose who you think is more wrong. But hey, what would Jesus do? Probably block my website at an ISP level.

But in Australia, the government has to reason with just one person at times since they hold the balance of power in the Senate. They do have the power to force their own agenda and play the hero. If they don't, they'd risk sending everyone back to the polls (and I mean everyone - voting is compulsory in Australia at all levels) and piss the electorate off even more. Kinda makes me wish we had a filibuster.