That Thing Too Embarrassed to Show its own Face is Democracy

Big news from the United States.  Mike the Headless Chicken has thrown his hat into the ring as a candidate for the 2012 presidential election.  It remains to be seen what exactly will differentiate him from the headless chickens already in the race.  Nevertheless this remains the most significant political news to come out of America since Cthulhu ran for president under the slogan "Why Settle for the Lesser Evil?"

It must be conceded there are a few stumbling blocks to Mike's campaign.  Firstly; he's dead, although to be fair that didn't stop Reagan winning a second term.  Secondly; he's a chicken but since he can produce evidence that he was born in the United States that shouldn't be a problem.  Perhaps his biggest difficulty will be mobilising nationwide support.  He's popular locally (there's a statue to him in his home town) but Rudy Giuliani proved how difficult it is to translate local support into a genuine broad based movement.  Still, I can't wait for the candidate debates.  Democracy can only be the winner.

To see a place where democracy is a loser you only have to travel to Greece.  The Greeks have just had an election the only tangible results of which were terror on the financial markets and a stern injunction from their president to do it again and get it right this time.  The Greeks voted for a kaleidoscope of parties from the lunar right to the nut case left with the only consistent theme being that the mainstream parties should be hung upside down and bastinadoed until their feet fell off.  Not surprisingly no party could cobble together a coalition and the Greeks are going to have to go through the whole tedious process again in a few weeks.

The response to this has been panic across Europe as policy makers realise that the prospects of Greece paying its bills, not defaulting and staying in the euro are diminishing by the hour.  All in all Greece hasn't had this sort of impact on the world since the days of Alexander the Great.  Personally I don't have much sympathy for the Europeans; they are in the position of owners of a family company who suddenly realise that their idiot cousin has blown all of the company's money on coke and hookers.  My lack of sympathy derives from the fact that the people currently throwing up their hands in horror were the ones who promoted the idiot cousin to the board in the first place.  Although if the Greeks really had spent all that money on coke and hookers its arguable that their economy would likely be in better shape.