It’s time for another episode of ‘The Objectively Game’. For those of you not familiar with the rules… well I guess you’re not a Republican. The idea is to take some tangential element of an event, subtly (or not) twist it, then point out that your target is objectively pro-{something you don’t like}.

This time we look at the news that Prince Harry is serving in Afghanistan, although now he isn’t because the news has been leaked. The story had been kept secret for 10 weeks by the media to allow the Prince to serve without endangering himself or his soldiers (except in the normal sense of being in a war zone, of course). Now I’m not generally in favour of ‘nod and a wink’ agreements between the press and, well, pretty much anyone, but in this case you’ve got a young man wanting to do something honourable with a minimum of fuss, so I don’t see the harm.

Here’s where the game starts. Not only do I not see the harm, but it’s actually a good thing because it shares the risk of being in Afghanistan across one more person. Exposing the news, therefore, deprives the Army of the use of one officer, an exhaustible (in both senses) resource. And so, by revealing the news The Drudge Report* has weakened our Army, proving that it/he is objectively pro-Al Qaida.

(*Not that Drudge was in any way bound by the voluntary agreement, except perhaps by common decency)

Captain’s Quarters has a post about Cuba, specifically the treatment of political prisoners there. Just to remove any doubt before I start, let me quote a little of the final paragraph with approval:

We can differ on how best to improve the lot of the Cuban people and prepare for the post-Castro era, but let no one be fooled into thinking that the ruling junta is anything other than a brutal, oppressive, and inhumane regime.

What he’s talking about is this quoted material:

Four dissidents freed this week after five years in inhumane conditions in a Cuban prison have revealed the dark side of Fidel Castro’s regime.

The four – José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, Omar Pernet Hernández, Alejandro González and Pedro Pablo Álvarez – described regular beatings, humiliation and arbitrary punishment with long periods of solitary confinement in cramped cells with cement beds.

Mr Castillo, 50, a journalist who wrote articles critical of the regime, told The Sunday Telegraph: “It was terrible. It was like being in a desert in which sometimes there is no water, there is no food, you are tortured and you are abused.

“This was not torture in the textbook way with electric prods, but it was cruel and degrading. They would beat you for no reason even when you were in hospital.

“At other times they would search you for no reason, stripping you bare and humiliating you. There was one particular commander at a jail in Santa Clara who seemed to take delight in handing out beatings to the prisoners.”

If I look back on the last 8 years and find one thing that saddens me more than anything else, it might just be this: When I moved to America such barbarism would have been disgusting; now it’s only the target of the barbarism that we can legitimately rail against.

I was listening to an interview with Clive James today where he asserted that where you have gross inequalities in income, such that a single family can purchase a politician, you no longer have a true democracy. I was reminded of this idea again on reading this story of a Texan billionaire and major Bush donor who was at risk of losing some of his property to the proposed border fence. But don’t worry, the latest plans show the fence ending at his boundary. That’s handy.

Here’s a story that’s bubbling under at the moment. As I check this morning Obama has 986 delegates to Clinton’s 924. But Clinton leads, because she has more superdelegates than Obama. Superdelegates are a collection of prominent Democrats such as governors, members of Congress, and party leaders and former leaders. They have no accountability beyond the promises they make and get made in return.

That should already sound undemocratic, because it is. In the past that hasn’t really mattered, because one candidate is so far ahead that the superdelegates are just the icing on the cake. This year, however, both candidates are acceptable to the majority of Democrats, and so are splitting the vote. The majority of Democratic primaries split their delegates according to the relative result, rather than ‘winner takes all’, which means that this tie is likely to continue in the absence of some shock. That means that the superdelegates will actually choose the candidate. And right now it appears they know better than the electorate. Now that’s undemocratic.