As many of you are aware, I oppose capital punishment primarily on religious and moral grounds and would like to see it inded in the United States and around the world. I am willing to make some exceptions, however, for political figures.

Whether Saddam Hussein should or should not have been put to death really isn't my call. But in the broader argument of putting to death deposed dictators or other political or religious leaders, I find myself open to the argument that their continued life poses a threat to lives elsewhere. A deposed dictator even in prison can cause more death by inciting rebellion against the new government in order to restore him to power. If he's not alive, his power cannot be restored, and most dictators are careful not to have someone that can fill easily into their shoes (lest that person get ideas).

Let's take Fidel Castro, for instance, and say that he had been replaced by a democratic, anti-Castro, regime. Leaving him alive would leave open the possibility of his return. It would hurt the stability of the new government and could result in a(n another) civil war. There are a lot of people that would be willing to go to war to restore Fidel Castro to power but would be less enthusiastic or daring to put Raul Castro in place (though Raul is a political leader as well and his execution could also be justified). As such, Castro's continued life poses a threat to other life.

My opposition to capital punishment relies on a system in which we can be assured that the convicted pose no more threat to society. In fact, a true life without possibility of parole would be a prerequisite before I would even support doing away with capital punishment for murder. Society must be able to defend itself and any preference for the preservation of guilty life must take a back seat to that.

From a Washington Post editorial:

It's hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy. Earlier this year it elected another socialist president, Michelle Bachelet, who suffered persecution during the Pinochet years.

Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.

By way of contrast, Fidel Castro -- Mr. Pinochet's nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond -- will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death. Mr. Castro also killed and exiled thousands. But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization. To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote.

The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet's coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

The Canadian Prime Minister has recognized Quebec as a "nation within a nation". In my mind Quebec should either become independent or be a province and that solutions like this don't really solve anything. Does anyone really think that this will convince Quebecois that they don't want to run themselves? Notably, however, nobody asked me.

Also, polls in both Scotland and English suggest that the people of both think that they should be independent and not part of a United Kingdom. I don't begrudge them their opinion, but wouldn't that leave Northern Ireland somewhat screwed? Is the peace they've found over there in the last few years stable enough to survive a transition like this?

Lastly, I read recently an article about how call centers in The Philippines are having difficulty finding English-language calltechs because of an ill-advised decision to shift away from English and more towards their historic language of Tagalog. I may be in for sensitivity training or a history lesson, but my tentative thoughts on the Philippines and Cuba is that we made a mistake leaving them with their sovereignty and that they would both be a lot better off if we had been more, rather than less, imperialistic. Maybe I'm reading too much Orrin Judd lately.

Part of me thinks that the Guadalupe-Hildalgo treaty was a mistake and we left too much of Mexico to the Mexicans, but if we'd taken over substantial parts south of the current border the Civil War quite possibly would have had a very different ending.

An survey by the Institute of Health and Community Studies of Bournemouth University in Britain has yielded some interesting results:

"The good news and, perhaps, unexpected is that the 2005 youngsters have less problematic behaviour than the 1985 cohort and even with the problematic behaviour, drugs, drink and sex, this is still a minority activity," said Prof Pritchard.

"The bad news, however, is that 20 years ago boys drugged, drank, smoked, truanted, stole, vandalised and fought more than girls. Today it is very different. Girls now significantly smoke and binge-drink more than boys.

"They truant, steal and fight at similar rates to boys but have started under-aged sex earlier than boys with 17% of lads in Year 11 having their First-Sexual-Intercourse (FSI) whereas 31% of Year 11 girls have had their FSI, indicating they are going with older boys."

Pritchard blames the Spice Girls. Silly as that may sound at first, he may have a point. There certainly is a push in some entertainment circles for "girl power." One of the things that I've found most interesting about Nashville country music - which generally serves a more conservative audience -- is that you have "girl power" acts like the Dixie Chicks and SheDaisy and Jo Dee Messina while the guys spend most of their time moping about their sad relationship with their drunken father and a broken heart.

But encouragingly, the issue is as much improvement in the self-reported behavior of boys than the deterioriation of girls' behavior. Of course, "self-reported" is the key word here. But even if the difference completely falls on girls' willingness to discuss their misdeeds and boys increasing unwillingness to do so, that could be significant in itself. The stereotype has historically been that boys's bad behavior is tolerated while girls are expected to be considerably more obedient and well-behaved. It could be that in Britain right now it's the boys that feel more compelled to downplay their indiscretions and girls to brag about them. That in and of itself would be quite the reversal.

I wonder what a similar study in the US would say, if anything.

As many of you know, the Canadians elected a new Prime Minister last week. The victorious Conservative Party is a somewhat recently combination of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party (who were allied with the Democratic Representative Caucus, a group that left both the PCs and then the Alliance). The Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance itself was formed when disgruntled PCs and the Reform Party came together a few cycles back (as side note: their original name was going to be the Canadian Reform Alliance Party until someone looked at the initials). That's about how fractured the Canadian conservatives have been since being decimated in the early nineties by the Liberal Party that has held power ever since.

Of course, as many of you know, even their conservatives are either comparable to our Democrats are a bit to the left of them. Even so, one of the liabilities that the Canadian conservatives have to shake off is supporting their becoming too much like us. Canada is remarkably comfortable in its relative liberalism in many ways as a distinction against its southern neighbor. So the election of Stephen Harpor, the incoming Conservative Canadian Prime Minister, is a surprise in many regards.

What is perhaps more of a surprise is not only did they win nationally, but they also made a respectable showing in Quebec, where the party or its predecessor parties have barely been a blip on the radar:

In the dying days of the campaign, as the Conservatives' climb in Quebec became undeniable, a mystified Bloc Quebecois tried one, final shot. A full-page advertisement appeared in newspapers in eastern Quebec, declaring in huge print, "We will not let Calgary decide for Quebec." A black Stetson sat atop the word 'Calgary'. The message was clear: Beware Stephen Harper's Conservative cowboys.

Jacques Gourde, who raises beef cattle on his hay farm in Saint-Narcisse, about 40 kilometres south of Quebec City, was not amused. "You could say I'm a Quebec cowboy," said the Conservative who won the riding of Lotbiniere-Chutes-de-la-Chaudiere by more than 12,000 votes over the Bloc incumbent.

"I think that advertisement did more damage than good."

Election results tend to support his position: In the area targeted by the ad, the Conservatives won eight seats.

Both the Liberals and the Bloc tried to demonize the Tories, insisting the party's small-c conservatism was anathema to modern Quebec. "Mr. Harper's positions go against values that Quebecers defend," Paul Martin said. On election day, voters decided differently, giving the Tories 25% of the votes in Quebec compared with 21% for the Liberals. At 42%, the Bloc remained the most popular party, but well below their 50% target.

The Bloc is Quebec's homegrown nationalist party.

Several years ago, when Liberal Prime Minister Chrieten won his last term as the top dog, I happened to run across a Canadian Prime Ministerial debate on C-Span. What I found surprising was that the Bloc's leader, Gilles Duceppe, came across as more of a Republican than anything and more conservative anyone else on the stage besides Alliance Party nominee Stockwell Day (including Progressive Conservative Joe Clark, who came off like one of those northeastern Republicans that mostly sound like Democrats).

Duceppe was mostly concerned with crime. He was the only one on the stage that even made mention of traditional values. Federalism (or the Canadian equivalent) was unsurprisingly important to him. His economic program sounded pretty aggressive and populist, but outside that (and disregarding the multiculturalism that comes with representing the only French-speaking province in a generally English-speaking country) he sounded like a moderate Republican or conservative Democrat (with a French accent).

But from what I understand the Bloc almost always aligns with the Liberals. And the voters in Quebec see themselves as having more in common with (lowercase-L) liberals than (lowercase-C) conservatives. Majority politics is and will always be interesting for the alliances it creates. In the US it's the Free Marketeers with Religious Right and the urban seculars with generally religious minorities. Future generations will probably look at that as strangely as we do of the Democratic Party simultaneously housing JFK and George Wallace.

"We don’t care where people come from; we don’t mind what religion they’ve got or what their particular view of the world is. But if you want to be in Australia, if you want to raise your children in Australia, we fully expect those children to be taught and to accept Australian values and beliefs. We want them to understand our history and our culture, the extent to which we believe in mateship and giving another person a hand up and a fair go. And basically, if people don’t want to be Australians and they don’t want to live by Australian values and understand them, well basically they can clear off." -Australian Education Minister Brendan Nelson

While the Pop vs. Soda (vs. Coke) rages on in the states, I discovered an interesting thing about Colombia. Apparently, Colombians call soft drinks "water" and water "pure water" (or their Spanish equivalents).

Norway holds the honor, at least according to the United Nations Development Program. The US scored eighth, which came as a bit of a surprise. I would have expected France (#16) and other countries to score ahead of us because the deck is usually stacked against the US in these sorts of studies. Not maliciously, necessarily, but their priorities are not ours.

It brings forth some interesting questions, though. For instance, why did Scandanavia do so much better than Western Europe? If increased socialism is the answer according to their criteria, why did more socialistic France score lower than the US?

Canada may be adding an 11th province.