Some men see things as they are and say, “Why?” I dream of things that never were and say, “Why not?”

-– George Bernard Shaw

It is easy to be apathetically indifferent. The world has its problems, sure, but hey, life is short and one should take care of oneself first, no? Yet the danger is that there are a *lot* of issues on which the silent majority is not sufficiently aware to care one way or another, and a small but outspoken minority gets to drive their agenda, because the other people who know the first group is wrong find it too uncouth to engage them in debate. To spread the word to the masses. To do something.

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For the first time since the 1950s, Labour has lost in a Scottish election.

If the result stands, the Scottish Nationalists will form the next government, with a long-term aim of secession from the United Kingdom. Canadians will be familiar with this, the SNP being quite similar to Parti Québécois in its separatism and economic policies.

As a romantic nationalist at heart, this makes for very good news. If a new constitutional settlement is reached with the rest of the United Kingdom (presumably keeping Scotland in the EU in any case), it'll be a model of how a nation can protect its cultural identity without xenophobia or economic meltdown.

As reported by AP (via Huffington Post), Al Gore's signature drive is getting close to its 300k target.

If you´re a concerned American citizen, help him reach the target, and do sign and forward this on. Thanks.

Can you tell which is real and which is not?

Bush: Afghanistan and Iraq were great success stories and beacons of democracy

Bush: Senators too focused on fact, ignoring big picture

The Thai military launched a coup against the caretaker government of Thaksin Shinawatra a few hours ago (Tuesday evening, Bangkok time). This is rather sad - I am among those that had high hopes when the 2001 election was held under the new constitution - it produced a stable government, under Thaksin, who unfortunately then proceeded to start undermining rule of law, to the point that the main opposition party, the Democrats, boycotted the 2006 election. The election results were anulled, the re-run held off indefinitely after the politicized Election Commission was forced to resign.

A coup by the military, or a counter-coup (there were rumours, of uncertain credibility, that Thaksin planned to overthrow the monarchy)? It reminds me of the confusion surrounding the (counter-)coup that put Gen. Soeharto in power in Indonesia in 1965.

It's interesting to compare two SE Asian countries with traditionally unstable politics:

The Philippines: last successful coup: 2001, previous successful coup: 1986
Thailand: last successful coup: 2006, previous successful coup: 1992

Update (2006-09-20 03:17 PM EDT)
(From my comment over at The Head Heeb)

A comparison can be made with the abortive coup in Venezuela, aimed at overthrowing Hugo Chavez. In both cases a populist leader despised by the urban middle classes gained power through electoral means, slowly strengthening his position, with democratic attempts to unseat him failing.

A coup led by an army faction toppled both leaders; in Chavez's case he came back. The plausible involvement of US intelligence in his short-lived overthrow certainly played into his favour, while in Thailand's case the appearance of tacit support by the king (it's interesting that he has not made any public appearance; we only have the military's claim that they have royal support) favours the coup leaders.