Today's good news:

Spain's re-elected Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced a government Saturday which for the first time included more women than men and a female defence minister. —AP

Meanwhile in Singapore:

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong reshuffled his Cabinet on Saturday, as part of a process to groom the next generation of leaders for Singapore.

The most eye-catching in the slew of changes announced by PM Lee was the appointment of Mr K. Shanmugam as Law Minister and Second Minister for Home Affairs from May 1. —Straits Times

The newspaper featured pictures of twenty faces: from the PM and Minister Mentor and Senior Minister to the various Ministers. As many as five looked Indian or had Indian names; at least one had a Muslim name. None appeared Malay, and none were women.

This is both a symptom and a problem. It's a problem because it restricts the viewpoints present in discussion by Singapore's ruling group (though, arguably, not any more than one-party rule). Some Singaporeans brag about the meritocratic government recruitment system, but it's a poor excuse for meritocracy that doesn't raise up any women or many minorities.

The equivalent for the US: five women out of twenty one. Four ethnic minorities out of twenty one. For most cabinet members I've never heard anything about their religion, so I would assume all are professed Christians.

Side note: Did one second of Google on that assumption, and found the most adorable Hegelian dialog within the Radio Islam web site (that's Farrakhan):

• Jews in Bush’s Cabinet? Don’t Hold Your Breath
• USA´s Rulers -They are all Jews !

It's not quite as tasty as it looks, since the first link is a reprint from the New York Observer and the second refers to Clinton's administration. But it did lead me here, which (taken with, obviously, a very large grain of salt) suggests that there are no Jews in Bush's cabinet. I'm sure there are no Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists. I can just barely imagine one of them being a (very discreet) atheist, but I haven't heard anything. Of course I wouldn't be the first to suggest that many of them appear to actually practice Manichaeism. This is getting a bit off-topic and I'm using too many fancy words, so let's just re-iterate the positive: a majority female Spanish cabinet, and female heads of government in Argentina, Chile, Germany, and Liberia. This post should not be construed as a declaration of partisanship in the US Democratic Presidential Primary race of 2005-2008.