Upon arriving at work the other day, I noticed that the Kuwaiti flag was at half-mast. Since I hadn't been bothering to read the local news, I asked my co-workers what was up, and learned that the crown prince had died. This was also presumably the answer to my unasked question of why two of the local radio stations had been playing the exact same Arabic monologue on the way into work, and why a third was only playing mournful music. I hear that the stores are all closed for a three-day mourning period, too, but as I don't really need anything at the moment, I haven't gone to check this out for myself. I probably shouldn't take my co-worker's word for it, as he was also telling me that the crown prince was the current emir, when I just read online obviously everyone knows that he was only the emir for nine days, before being replaced for health reasons.

It's a good thing the prince wasn't the current emir, as the current emir recently dissolved the Parliament, and since I think he has to ratify the results of the elections before they're valid, that could be a mess. The elections are confusing enough as it is, anyway:

[I]n addition to the differences among the parties - which are officially outlawed - the situation is complicated by divisions among tribal groups, between Sunnis (two thirds of the population) and Shiites, between the city inhabitants and the Bedouins, and above all among the different branches of the Al-Sabah family, which has been in power for 250 years in the emirate and secures for its members the post of prime minister and the key ministries of each government. The disagreement within this family - and therefore among the groups of parliamentarians loyal to its various branches - are seen as the real origin of the political crisis. [source]

Currently escalating political crisis notwithstanding, I think the Kuwaitis have hit upon one excellent idea: outlawing the political parties. I'm not really sure what the political parties in the States do, aside from giving people a chance to "vote party lines" without thinking or having to pay any attention to what's going on. I say we should get rid of them.

Now, it's possible that rather than forcing people to pay attention to current events, this would instead just add randomness to the elections -- but at least that'd be a change, and it still might not be worse. We can always reinstitute the parties if it doesn't work out, after all. At least, theoretically. Some of the politicians are pretty old, and it's questionable how alert they still are; it's possible that if we dissolved the parties, and then re-formed them, not all of the Congressmen would remember which side they'd come from. I suppose they have aides to avoid this sort of embarrassment, though. Maybe we should abolish the aides, while we're at it. If you can't handle the politics on your own, it's time to retire!

I suspect this would just cause the entire system to dissolve into chaos. Again, though, I'm not at all certain that this would be a bad change.

Mood of the Moment: discordant
Auditory Hallucination: Flogging Molly -- What's Left of the Flag