WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Rep. Henry Waxman unseated fellow veteran Democratic lawmaker John Dingell on Thursday to become chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

The 255-House Democratic conference voted 137 to 122 to accept the recommendation of its steering committee and agreed to replace Dingell, 82, a long-time friend of the U.S. auto industry, with Waxman, a 69-year-old Californian anxious to ease global warming, a top concern of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

As of right now, Obama has 63 “pledged” delegates, to 48 for Clinton and 26 for John Edwards. On February 5th, 1688 further pledged delegates will be chosen, from 22 states, American Samoa, and Democrats abroad. Of those 1688 delegates, 1096 will be allocated on a congressional-district-level basis. And, as the New York Times reports today, the allocation rules are such that, where a particular district has an even number of delegates, they are likely to be split evenly between Clinton and Obama, except in those rare districts where one of those candidates fails to secure 30 percent of the vote. Therefore, the candidates are aiming their focus on those districts that have an odd number of delegates (e.g., one or three), in hopes that in those particular districts they will gain a one-delegate advantage over the other candidate!

I highly recommend that you read the whole article on Balikination here.

The study of international politics often leaves little reason to have faith in international norms and principles ”international norms and principles like the Declaration of Human Rights and the Kyoto Protocol which have a relatively weak ability to coerce signatory countries to uphold their agreements and to create real costs for nonsignatory countries to remain outside the bandwagon of signatory states. Privacy principles, established under the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) in 1980, fail to be upheld in the modern-day, by the governments of member countries because the OECD guidelines, while well-meaning, are constructed too broadly and vaguely for there to be a clear demarcation between violating those principles and carrying out those principles while bearing other national interests in mind. And even if someone, like Human Rights Watch, could decry that a country conducting internet surveillance on its citizens was violating the OECD Privacy Guidelines, what would come of it? There exists no organ to enforce compliance with international standards like the OECD Privacy Principles.

Added to the problem of enforcement is the amorphous and quickly changing scope of cyber law, where privacy acts and precedents in communications and electronics regulations can be either ignored, discarded, or blurred because the internet is the new frontier of communications and technology, where new challenges and opportunities to interpret ”or misinterpret ”the law and prior norms abounds.

In light of all of international governance’s prior failures, I do acknowledge that in the absence of real enforcement mechanisms, the simple act of signing onto an international agreement may create reputational costs in an iterated game theory scenario that would induce a country to comply with norms and standards:

For example, if Country A were to default from an international standard that a group of other countries adhered to, Country A could be blackballed out of important trading deals that are important to its economy. Thus, there would be a strong economic incentive to stick with the agreement. This is generally how the World Trade Organization (WTO) is supposed to work. And in general, this method of using economic incentives to induce good behavior ”or democratization ”has been painted in the West as a success of neoliberalism.

But despite the iota of faith in international law that I have, I think that the strength and potential in neoliberalism lies not within the construct of international laws developed by state governments banding together in economic arrangements like the OECD or the WTO. The new frontier for international governance and the creation of new norms for good behavior, in my opinion, lies within multinational corporations. Multinational corporations span more publics than can traditional state governments and can infiltrate many more close-off societies than well-meaning non-profit humanitarian agencies that are barred access by authoritarian governments fearful of the private agendas that humanitarian agencies bring with them through the pervasive arm of market forces.

One project that I think holds particular promise is the principles project being developed under the advice of the Berkman Center of Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. By the end of 2007, several large corporations with stakes in cyber law and internet governance, including Google, Microsoft, Vodafone, and Yahoo! met with groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights in China, and Reporters Without Borders to discuss how to draft a framework intended to adjudicate the two interests that have been traditionally opposed ”generating profit and adhering to human rights.

The project is intended to follow the footsteps of Leon Sullivan, one of the fathers of the concept of corporate social responsibility who published the Sullivan Principles in 1977 to ensure nondiscrimination and the protection of human rights by companies.

Following the publication of the Sullivan Principles, the world saw a rise of corporations rising to the challenge of adopting the Sullivan Principles in the attempt to more clearly define their responsibilities to their stakeholders and their workers, and as companies bandwagoned to adopt these principles, it became a reputational cost for those companies that did not adopt the principles to be seen as legitimate by their shareholders.

I think that developing web principles is a step in the right direction for the amorphous state of internet governance. If enough major internet corporations go on board to adhere to principles that prohibit corporate complicity with internet censorship, deciding not to do business with closed information societies in China and other countries, it becomes clear that in the end, state governments will be the ones to buckle. Governments will not be able to afford the economic costs of having inferior technology and communications networks, and they will have to make significant concessions to the corporate ideologies of the companies providing technology and communications services.

This is the new frontier of internet governance ”governance by major corporations. But this is not a hegemonic rule of the Googles and the Microsofts, but governance scheme largely tempered by the democratic-minded markets which they serve. Most of the impetus for creating a principles framework came from the public backlash from stakeholders to Yahoo!’s and Google’s efforts to censor the internet in China. As human rights remains a significant concern for many stakeholders, it is clear that the market forces of neoliberalism will continue to give economic incentives for companies to adopt more socially responsible means of conducting business.

I was hoping for some great inspiration to write from seeing as I’ve just returned from the National Constitution Center the place that we’re holding the event tomorrow, but in reality I just remain incredibly exhausted from an already long day of work.

I could talk some more Basketball, but I think last night speaks for itself, rallying to win in the second half, and Maurice Rice showing Dicky V. how we can fight, scrap, and get it done to win the game.

Then again, I haven’t really talked politics in a while either, which probably would be important to say I suppose since this is a politics based site.

So here we go, my political insight. During the State of the Union, was I the only one who heard that Bush wanted the Congress to pass the line-item veto. I understand that governors have this power, that’s why Clinton wanted it, and assumingly why Bush also wants it, but it was only a few years ago that the Supreme Court called it unconstitutional, mind you with Rehnquist siding with the majority to make it 6-3.

I don’t necessarily think that with regard to Court composition he’s gotten backers of that power, but then again Bush never really did care about the Constitution in the first place.

As I see it, only three things can occur in the territories. Their can be a civil war, the two parties can form a coalition government, or hamas can take power (which they legitamitely won). In each of these situations, the Isaeli election most be considered. If their is a civil war, Israel will have an urban civil war on its’ border. If their is a coalition, Hamas will have power (legitamacy), and Israel will have a government that espouses its’ destruction on its border. If Hamas controls the entire governments, then it will be the same as the previous arguement, and perhaps even stronger.

In all three of these situations, I feel Israel will move to the right in the general elections. I do not pretend to be an expert in israeli electoral politics, but when a nation has a newly created enemy on its border, it seems to me that the country will move to the right, and elect a party such as likud.

Likud, and other conservative Israeli parties are great friends of the american military-industrial complex. In doing so, they will buy american arms, and because of how entrenched congress is with AIPAC, it is likely that the israeli’s will get an export licence for their arms. So, what is the gist of this? Buy defense stocks.

This raises the question: Given how reasonable this argument seems to be (i.e., “Abortion should be quick, accessible and rare”), and how much of the American public agrees with it….why are there such vicious sides taken in the abortion argument? Nearly everyone agrees that abortion is sometimes the best of bad options. Nearly everyone agrees that abortion is never an enjoyable or desirable outcome. Nearly everyone agrees that we should be doing more for sexual education and pregnancy prevention. Why, then, do we appear to be so far from a consensus?

The answer, I think, lies in the inevitable specialization of a two-party political system. As we come to identify with a particular side, we adopt that side’s positions. Over time, we forget the nuanced distinctions between ‘our’ position and ‘theirs’, and we know simply that ours is right and theirs is wrong. Once the nuances are gone, we slowly boil the opposing argument down to a sound byte: “Pro-choice” or “pro-life”, for example. And because of market specialization–because Democrats have blue news sources and Republicans red ones, and likewise for the political persuasions of friends, family, and neighbors–we never hear the heartfelt, complex and (all too often) shockingly similar arguments from the other side.

The irony is, of course, that I’m posting this on a blog dedicated to Democrats. The message must be that if you’re reading this, you should find a conservative to post on our other topics. If you’re a conservative, post us your favorite blogs, and please–please!–leave your opinions here for us to read.

The two-party system suffocates in its own design if we do not exchange ideas. Let’s not let that happen.