It’s loathsome and it comes around once every four years. No, I’m not talking about the Olympics. I’m on about American politics. A lot of people get themselves really jazzed with American politics. I mean, I get it — the President of the USA is an important person, so it’s good to keep up with events. But some people actually seem to enjoy it. Are they sadists? For the past two weeks my favourite radio programme Up All Night has been hijacked by these American politicos talking enormous amounts of horsey-poo. Dr Karl’s excellent science podcast was this week unbearably difficult to listen to because presenter Rhod Sharp was sitting there in Denver surrounded by lots of people cheering. (To add insult to injury, the podcast was less than half the length...

this was on my myspace bulletin thingy, from zombie logicThese are the books Sarah Palin tried to removed from the Wasila library, stopped only by the courage of that town's librarian. Read it and weep, or better, read it and go work for Obama.From me, this canbe googled pretty easily> A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess> A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle> Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden> As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner> Blubber by Judy Blume> Brave New World by Aldous Huxley> Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson> Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer> Carrie by Stephen King> Catch-22 by Joseph Heller> Christine by Stephen King> Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau> Cujo by Stephen King> Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen> Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite>...

Didn't she do well? Well, erm, that rather depends who you ask. Responses to Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican convention have ranged from the rapturous to the distinctly underwhelmed. In pure performance terms, I was quite impressed. She showed more of the spark that was so much in evidence when she was first unveiled last week, before the rumours and the revelations took off some of her early shine. She looked to me like a star in the making - not quite there yet, still a bit of an amateur (but wasn't that the point?) but entirely worthy of her place on the podium. This is politician as supermom.Some of Sarah Palin's views unsettle me. Whether or not she is actually a Creationist, she is certainly at home among the kind of brutish stupidity that makes Creationism possible,...

The New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, has written a brilliant piece about Sarah Palin: "reality, in all its messy, crazy, funky glory, has flooded the party, in the comely, crackling form of Sarah Palin. Unable to stop the onslaught of wild soap opera storylines erupting from the Palin family and the Alaska wilderness, McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt offered caterwauling reporters...

Permanently drunk, pill-popping, sharp-tongued floozy Karen Walker appears to be running for US Vice President. Electors are expecting tax breaks on uppers, downers and vodka. Her opinion on the South Ossetia conflict is not known. Subscribe in a...

Latest Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide...

It's difficult to bear in mind that life and politics back in England is just as shallow, stupid and shitty as it is here, especially during the Republican National Convention week. So, in the middle of all the blather and bluster it's refreshing to see people commemorating one of the most significant examples of people power in the 20th century: The Battle of Cable Street. On October the 12th is an anti-fascist historical walk around the east-end of London; I wish I could just hop on a bus and attend. On one of the sites linking to the walk, someone posted an excellent YouTube clip of a newsreel with footage of the actual battle. I've never seen film of it before and it blew me away. Have a...

Last night, the Alaskan governor Sarah Palin, gave a good account of herself in her new role as Republican vice-presidential candidate. There is no doubt that she is a strong right-wing conservative; and she has been embarrassed -though not as much as liberal critics might wish - by revelations about her family. But she showed last night in a well constructed speech, and in a particularly clever jibe about Obama's experience as a 'community organiser', that she is no slouch when it comes to gentle but devastating putdowns:Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a...

Sarah Palin that is. I can't cope with creationism in schools and all that stuff,you have to be American I guess to get that. But the sneering at her from comfortable Democrats, the sort that in the UK would read the Guardian, makes me feel ill, whatever she might have done. And the following from Nick Cohen is right on the money.THE SNIGGERS about Sarah Palin from well-heeled Democrats can be heard from across the Atlantic. A working-class woman, with one unmarried child pregnant, another child , a third fighting in Iraq and a husband who is a union man, is a preposterous figure to them. They should be careful. They come from a political class where sex is safe and lives orderly. Most Americans don’t, and Palin’s family troubles will seem normal to many voters.Wisely, Obama is...

Y’know as in Munsoned from Kingpin. Those familiar with Andy Kershaw might find this interview interesting, sadly there is plenty of evidence that while he is deep in the hole, he has no intention of dropping the spade (probably a bottle shaped spade). And the only Palin worth talking about- With all the talk about Senator John McCain’s surprise choice of presidential running-mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, still dominating the news, the first reaction among most British readers when perusing the headlines is: “What on earth has happened to dear old Michael?” So it seems only pertinent to ask whether the former Monty Python star and potentially the second-most powerful person in the free the world are in any way connected. Michael was out when I called...

The Christianists are to be feared more than the Islamists because they have more power and have greater legitimacy conferred upon them. Sarah "hahahahaha - what a joke" Palin's preacher comes out with some deaply troubling statements. Take this for example:What you see in a terrorist — that’s called the invisible enemy. There has always been an invisible enemy. What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what’s going on in this unseen world called the spirit world. … We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. … Jesus called us to die. You’re worried about getting...

The US Presidential race just gets wackier and wackier. Now it transpires that Republican hopeful John McCain has selected former Monty Python star Michael Palin (above) as his running mate. When I first saw the newspaper headlines: 'McCain opts for Palin', I was somewhat surprised. I didn't know that Palin even possessed an American passport (I suppose he must have picked one up during his around the world travels). But on reflection, I suppose the choice makes perfect sense. McCain has clearly chosen Palin for four reasons: 1. he's trying desperately to get the all-important lumberjack vote; 2. he's after the support of die-hard Monty Python fans, 3. Palin is an expert on 'New Europe' haven't recently travelled there for his new BBC series. He'll be able to explain to McCain the...

Broadly categorised. Thanks to the sites linked here, especially the fantastic Jed Report. I’ve tried to limit it to stuff I think matters and provide sources where possible. Let me know if I’ve missed anything, or when he does some future dumb shit, and I’ll add it. Ignorance and/or Age He talks about “Czecholsovakia” and “the Iraq-Pakistan border” as if they’re real places, while running on foreign policy experience. He can’t use the Internet. (See above link.) Thinks America was founded as a Christian nation. Cannot work long days. Lies Changes the sports team in his POW story to match local support. “Cross in the sand” story stolen from a book. Cheats in debates. Took press with him to monitor Hurricane Gustav after...

Yowzers! The mainstream media's meltdown over the Sarah Palin candidacy for the Vice Presidency is truly astounding to behold. Have these people no sense of how transparently biased, dishonest and petty they sound? Jim Lindgren quotes an exhaustive rebuttal of the charge that there was insufficient vetting (from National Review), and says: To say that the press is doing the Democrats’ work...

It seems that she is hated by Alaskan Republicans (the story about her child being her daughter’s originated with Alaskan Republicans). She’s stood up to the oil interests in Alaska (prompting speculation that this is an attempt to move her on so they can get their way), which I think she deserves some respect for. I rather...

yes I actually think i've fixed it this...

Employment is falling, inflation rising, the pound collapsing, business confidence evaporating, the union’s striking and the banks busting. It’s so bad that the average price of a house in London has plummeted to £300,000. Three hundred thousand pounds! Think of that. And when you have thought about it you will realise that £300,000 is still way beyond the means of vast numbers of Londoners. You would still need an income – or joint income – of around £100,000 before you could think of taking out a sensible mortgage on an ordinary London home. If you can find a finance house to lend you the money, you will then find that, contrary to what you’ve read in the papers, the cost housing has not come down. Mortgage rates are far higher than a year ago. Deposits are larger...

Sarah Palin: a loveable woman, but an appalling candidate | Alice Miles - Times Online Call that a woman? A gun-toting, vehement anti-abortionist with the hide of a grizzly bear draped over her sofa, who was so aggressive on the basketball court that she was nicknamed Sarah Barracuda? She makes Barack Obama look like a girl.... ...So sick are we in Britain, with our centre left-centre right politicians of the centre, not one daring to have a view out of line with the very thin consensus that passes for acceptable opinion here, that we stand stunned by a woman who opposes abortion and shoots moose; who believes in creationism and drilling for oil in the Arctic wildlife refuge; who supports the aerial shooting of wolves and opposes same-sex marriage; who says to hell with the kids and...

I recommend a great book today called The White Trash Mom Handbook. It's written by blogger Michelle Lamar and is not your traditional parenting guide. Tips like how to fake bake sales and dealing with the Muffia is included!She even included my blog in her fave web sites section and I didn't even have to pay her!Read my review here!Buy it and laugh! Go to Amazon.******Another writing gig I have added on is contributor to the new Blissfully Domestic. I will be writing weekly for their Blissful Buzz column.PLUS I am busy working on my new site called Mogul Baby. It's not launched yet so stay tuned.*****Today's celebrity fashion faux pas: What is Christina Aguilera wearing?! Since she's already pulling the dress down, it's obvious her garb is too short. Also, put those boobs away! If there...

Reports out today seem to suggest that a man's reluctance to marry, or settle down with a single woman, may be down to a 'genetic flaw'.Interesting though that the evidence seems to be based around a hormone which affects voles' abilities to remain monogamous.Surely then that makes voles the original 'love rat' then? ;-)Anyway, it seems that relationships are in the spotlight in politics at the moment following news in America that John McCain's Vice Presidential running-mate's daughter is expecting a child outside of wedlock.Yes, you did hear that right. The daughter of the deputy of a potential President is pregnant and people are therefore questioning whether McCain and his V-P can do their jobs properly if elected?It's madness.I for one have never been particular interested in the...

From TPM today: It’s starting to look like John McCain’s historic selection of Sarah Palin hasn’t done him any favors in the polls. Here’s this morning’s Rasmussen tracking poll: Obama 51%, McCain 45%, outside of the ±2% margin of error. Obama was up 49%-46% yesterday, suggesting that Palin’s scandals may have helped him to double his lead in just one day of sampling. And the new Hotline/Diageo poll has Obama up 48%-39%, compared to a 44%-40% lead from just one week ago. Whoop whoop!! I’m trying to write some articles on Obama but keep getting...

John McCain is in trouble already for picking Sarah Palin. Let’s ignore for a minute the staggering hypocrisy of the left wing media in the States; if they went after Obama’s kids they would be crucified. Can you imagine how they would have reacted if Chelsea Clinton was up the duff* and attacked by Republicans – gone batshit would be the understatement of the year. Furthermore it is seen as rather bad form to go after single mothers, that’s chapter one, verse one of the left wing handbook. I guess the “Liberal” MSM don’t advocate freedom for women if they’re on the right; just on the left.The “liberal” main stream media firstly went after Sarah Palin accusing her youngest daughter of actually being her daughters child, now the maths doesn’t add up because Palin’s...

Apparently, and this shouldn’t surprise anyone, Sarah Palin was vetted for only 24hrs. The GOP, which should be having a good ol’ knees up in St. Paul, is in crisis-mode, as a series of disclosures and rumours threaten to destabilise McCain’s Veep-choice. Is this really evidence of the sort of competency a McCain administration...

Just so you know, according to Kuro5hin, the unpleasant rumours about Palin's family started life as a troll on...

Atheist Revolution has plenty of reasons why US secularists should be worried about McCain's VP pick: Who is Sarah Palin? She has connections to dominionist groups, including Joel's Army. She believes creationism should be taught in schools.She believes religious leaders should be able to endorse political candidates.She strongly opposes reproductive freedom for women and wants to ban...

Sarah Palin, the running mate to the Republican US candidate John McCain, has a seventeen year old daughter who is pregnant! So what, who cares?More worrying are her Christian values, her gun totting ways, [grizzly bears allegedly], her anti-abortion point of view and her support for teaching creationism alongside evolution in science classes at state schools.As Obama says, ‘kids should be out-of-bounds’ when it comes to political posturing, and with all the ammunition he has to throw at Palin he will never need give the kids [all of them] a second...

This is ruddy outrageous!And no, we don't mean the damned poxy picture....

and now for a Redstate Update…....

Unbelievable!!!! Sarah Palin, vice-presidential running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, and her husband have announced their 17-year-old daughter is pregnant!!!!! WTF! And it’s all the more ironic because Sarah Palin is known to be a proponent of abstinence-only sex education. But lovely Bristol obviously wasn’t following her values! Oh no – not a chance – because...

New Orleans, LA Local News, Breaking News, Sports & Weather - NOLA.com How New Orleans-based Times Picayune deals with online updates of Hurricane Gustav (tags: newspapers) Podnosh Blog » Archive » Seth Godin’s First Law of mass media: Organizations will work tirelessly to de-personalize every communication medium they encounter. (tags: social) Free Daily Newspapers Information Sheet The year 2008 has shown an all-time low in circulation growth for free dailies worldwide. (tags: newspapers) Media Nation: Cape Cod blogger is sued for libel A Cape Cod blogger who criticized a group of Barnstable residents for filing a lawsuit aimed at stopping a dredging project in Barnstable Harbor has himself been sued — for libel. (tags: blogging law)...

Heresy Corner points us to the blog of Andrew Halcro.Halcro is a radio talk-show host and former Republican member of the Alaska State House who was an Independent gubernatorial candidate against Palin in the 2006 election. It looks like the place to go for informed comment on her politics - which are a lot more important than her family life.Alaska Pride is worth a visit...

Confused? You bet I am. By choosing the inexperienced Sarah Palin as his running mate, did John McCain... 1. Undermine a central argument of his own campaign - namely, that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to be president? 2. Or, by provoking the Democrats into a response focusing on Palin's inexperience, cunningly lure them into shooting themselves in the...

(I’m starting to get US election fever.)John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as running mate is intended to promote a blend of ‘experience and youth’. But looking at Palin’s brief career (18 months as Governor of a state with a quarter the population of Chicago) and then pictures of the two of them together, there’s a danger that it will come across as ‘decrepitude and inexperience’.Barack Obama chose veteran Senator Joe Biden as his running mate – the adjective commonly used about him is ‘scrappy’. The man relishes a good poltical fight in a way that Obama appears not to.I’ve heard it said that Biden simply won’t be able to use his standard knockabout approach against a much younger woman in the VP debates. Setting aside that this is pretty patronising to Palin,...

Well it hasn't taken long there is a Facebook group started for those who have more experience than Sarah Palin, John McCains running mate for Vice President. Whether that is being 6 years a counillors, one of which Mayor of a poulation that at the time had less than 6,000 people and 18 months as governor of the only US state with two international borders (one of them maritime with...

Sarah Palin is a...

Forget about Barack Obama and John McCain for a moment. Politics will really hit the gutter in the US general election on 4 November in the form of Proposition R on the San Francisco ballot. The proposition, launched earlier this year by the 'Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco', has now been officially certified by the San Francisco Department of Elections, after obtaining almost double the number of signatories from voters needed to qualify for the ballot.If passed, Proposition R will rename the city’s Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant as the George W Bush Sewage Plant. The new name would be adopted on 20 January 2009 at the same time that the new president is sworn in. Win or lose, supporters are planning a synchronised flush of San Francisco toilets to mark the...

The first African-American Democratic Presidential nominee The oldest man to run for a first term in the White House The first woman Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Err… The most boring Vice-Presidential nominee? I don’t want to sound like Rush Limbaugh, but how did the middle-aged white man become the minority in US presidential......

This just came up in a discussion in the office. You read it here first.Sarah Palin claims to be a christian. If that's the case then why are at least two of her children (Willow and Piper - I'm researching the others) named after teenage witches? I reckon she has wiccan sympathies.Does anyone else have any evidence to add?Mind you, this makes me somewhat conflicted. I'd far rather have a wiccan as VP than an evangelical christian who supports the teaching of creationism in science classes and denies anthropogenic climate...

Look, I'm already a little in love with Sarah Palin, but Cindy McCain is just talking seven shades of shit in this little clip:(h/t: Andrew...

Politics A Sarah Palin pregnancy story/rumour is all over the internet. After an initial flurry of excitement all I’ll say is that based on photographs alone, I’m not sure. Oh and that I’ve bothered to check flickr and found this set of pictures:Whole Truth Campaign Taken on 26th February 2008, according to the camera’s date stamp, a week before it was announced. They were posted to flickr on 1st March. Here’s one of them. I can’t tell either way to be honest, due to lighting and...

That’s Iain Dale’s rather improbable analysis, over a series of increasingly aerated posts this weekend, based on the fact that, erm, a lot of people on the left are talking about her surprise nomination in its immediate aftermath. Who’dathunkit? The most surprising political event in months has happened and people are actually talking about it? They must be pooing themselves! More hilarious is Iain’s transformation into a feminist, citing Peter Hitchens as a fellow traveller. According to Iain and Peter, the left hates women because the left like anti-women policies such as abortion. Genius analysis there. Suddenly, the brains behind “it’s DD for me!” has become super-concerned about how sexist the coverage of Sarah Palin is in the sunday...

ANORAK remembers when the Guardian tried to influence voters in the US or A who were too darn stooped to work out that George Bush was going to kill them all with his weather machine. Operation Clark County would see Guardian readers instruct those colonial picaninnies, rednecks, white trash, gangbangers and creationists that John Kerry should be president and not George Bush. As Jonathan Freedland put it: If everyone in the world will be affected by this election, shouldn’t everyone in the world have a vote? Guardian readers were to write to Americans living in Clark County, Ohio, and swing the swing state for swinging John Kerry, President of Planet Earth. There was advice: And in choosing your arguments, keep in mind the real risk of alienating your reader by coming across as...

If...you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat from the presidency?No, not an envious Democrat in the Barack Obama camp, but no less than David Frum, former speech writer to President George Dubya Bush, commenting on John McCain's surprise choice as running mate for the White House (from today's Sunday Times).As the less-than-impressed Frum and other senior Republicans have pointed out, having an relative unknown as VP candidate rather undermines the Republican's own campaign slogan: ‘Country First’. Few outside Alaska knew Sarah Palin before McCain unveiled her on Friday - including it seems Mr McCain himself!McCain reportedly met the former beauty queen just once before choosing her as his candidate for Vice-President, in what is...

While the selection of a huntin' shootin' fishin' Alaskan mom is a "good thing" in its own right, McCain's choice of running mate is even more welcome when you consider what could have been.According to IHT, and doubtless many other journals, right until the last minute, McCain wanted to appoint his good friend Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat turned independent.What blew Lieberman out of the water, apparently, was outrage from Christian conservatives over the possibility that the independent Senator was a supporter of abortion rights. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, is a convinced anti-abortionist and is beloved by the party's religious base. Add to that the virtue that she does not come off as shrill, and this cemented the deal.However, while abortion plays big on...

In the modern world a woman is expected to be simply everything.A beauty queen"Rush Limbaugh... exulted, “We’re the ones with a babe on the ticket”"Alternatively some think "Sarah Palin is to the movement for women's equality what Clarence Thomas is to civil rights. She's an extremist and an enemy to the cause that has been fought on her behalf."A jockPalin (number 22) "earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play. She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds. Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games." *She even named her first born Track.An NRA gun enthusiast"We hunt as much as we can, and I'm proud to say...

Vote for John McCain or...

There is something hugely fishy about McCain's Salmon-gal Sarah Palin.Iain Dale claims he's not becoming obsessed by Sarah Palin, he's really not, but the desperation of the Magna Carta tendancy of the right to find a slam dunk scandal about her has now plumbed new depths. The hitherto respected Iain Dale's Diary Blog scurrilously links to THIS offering today, which alleges that her five month old downs syndrome child is ... wait for it ... not hers, but her daughter's.While the story is very well researched and compelling - for example with news that Alaskan Airways let her fly between her waters breaking (and her remaining for around 10 hours thereafter to make a speech!) and the birth - we are OUTRAGED that former Conservative PPC and global blogging expert Dale has put the boot in so...

Sketched from the NU projectSo, this site gets lots of visitors and in addition to giving you regular doses of hand drawn nuddy pics, I occasionally have brief musical interludes to pimp bands that you would other probly not have heard of, and the politics post I do, they're kind of neat too for spreading messages.Back in 2005 when all the Katrina thing was going down in New Orleans I was glued to a website blog thing called Interdictor who was staying behind to keep a datacentre running, geeks on the front line against the elements. I dunno what's going to happen this time round, but The Interdictor Project is back, and its worth keeping an eye on if Hurricane Gustav turns out as bad as the last...

As it Hurricane Gustav bears down on New Orleans, it seems that the Big Easy is going to be struck by a very big storm again.Hurricane Katrina left the city in tatters, and three years later much of it remains beyond repair. The hurricane was in many ways the final straw for America's patience with the Bush administration. The President was praising Michael Brown, the responsible official in the FEMA, despite the fact that it was obvious that he was totally out of his depth. That Mr. Brown had no qualifications appropriate for his office saving his friendship with Mr. Bush brought home the level of patronage and cronyism in the administration of the hapless 43rd President.Now Hurricane Gustav is bearing down on the New Orleans just as the Republicans gather to nominate John McCain and his...

There are lots and lots of good attack lines on GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin - not least that she is an off-the-scale conservative - but I'm not sure it is wise to focus on mocking her for having been "mayor of a town of 9,000 " as Democrat spinners have.Surely rather a lot of American voters, particularly in rural bits of swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, and in the western states that Obama thinks he can make a breakthrough in, live in towns this size or smaller? Won't attacking the size of the place she is from reinforce a perception that the Democrats, with a ticket headed by a man from Chicago, are the party of the liberal big cities and "don't get" the values of smalltown America?I've checked out the facts from the last US census and the numbers are as follows:21% of the US...

Peter Hitchens has got it bang on in the Mail on Sunday - and it's not often I say that.Watch as the ultra-feminist sisterhood back away in horror from Sarah Palin, John McCain's new running mate.Mrs Palin is technically female, but she's enthusiastically married, hates abortion and thinks criminals should not be the only people allowed to own guns. She's everything Hillary Clinton isn't. In short, she's the wrong kind of woman.Which just goes to show that ultra-feminists are not actually interested in promoting women because they're women. They pretend they are, but really their agenda is a campaign against marriage, in favour of abortion and for every other disastrous liberal and socialist cause that ever existed. In which case, they really can't go on pretending that their opponents...

Sarah Palin’s biographical wikipedia entry was edited very heavily shortly before the announcement she was to be John McCain’s running mate was made. This is unsurprising in itself, but does lend some authority to the idea she was a late choice because other more fancied front-runners either turned down the chance to run alongside John McCain, or because the Republican campaign is highly fixated on tactically outwitting the Democrats (after Hillary, we’ll pick a woman). Palin’s personal future depends very much on just how well she adapts to the demands of the high-pressure game she is now in. It looks very much as if the McCain campaign are going to try play the man (Obama) and not the ball (what he is saying). The Arizona senator’s campaign speech this week at...

Officially it's the last day of summer but, here in London, we've had thunder, lightning and heavy rain. It's looks as if this August will turn out to have been the wettest in the UK for a century - but I still believe in global warning. Spare a moment though to think about the victims of Hurricane Gustav. As I write, it's tearing into the western-most part of the island of Cuba which I visited on holiday earlier this year [my account...

History seems to be repeating itself. New Orleans is being emptied to try to escape Hurricance Gustav. New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin ordered the city emptied this morning in the face of what he called "the storm of the century." http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-31-gustav-sunday_N.htm   It really is very simply, people. Vote Green, or the planet gets it... If we don't radically change direction, and soon -- if we don't take the massive measures required to preserve for ourselves a stable liveable climate -- then there really will be a new 'storm of the century' every couple of years... : Katrina, Gustav... The list will simply go on and on......

The quote "Hurricane deaths are rare in Cuba, where evacuations are well organised and begin early." is a throw-away comment within the report (Observer 31/8/2008) about the progress of Hurricane Gustave, now rampaging across the Gulf of Mexico and threatening New Orleans three years after Katrina devastated large areas. Katrina was grade 3 while Gustave looks like grade 4 at the moment. It hit Cuba's western edge destroying banana crops. This is also a tobacco growing area. The mayor of New Orleans has advised the population to "move their butts" out of the area in anticipation of extensive damage where levee repairs and reinforcements remain incomplete. This is just one example of why I find the experience of Cuba, a relatively poor country constantly threatened by the all-powerful...

They worried he’d be too black, too angry, too intellectual, too much the ‘celeb’ which the McCain campaign has tried to paint him as (which is kind of a strange line of attack, considering the country elected Republican Ronald Reagan as President and California elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor of California). In the end Barack Obama eschewed his lofty rhetoric for what had to be his first speech as leader-in-waiting, waiving his ‘change’ motif for a grounded description of what he’d do in office, and why he’s the right man for the job. And it was brilliant, it was the rarest of things - positive politics, engaging both the emotional heart and practical mind. As many have remarked since, he offered the electorate the chance to respect...

It doesn’t seem right for the US Republican Party to go ahead with its own promotional spend-fest immediately after the Democrats’ own mega-million jambouree, with New Orleans facing another hurricane, another genuinely doomsday scenario. Presidential candidate John McCain is on record as having said that “it just wouldn’t be appropriate to have a festive occasion [...]...

With the Democratic convention over, the Republican convention about to start, the race to be the next president is stepping up to gear as we enter the final two months before America votes on 4th November. Last week saw a successful Democratic convention, where the Democratic party came together and ended in Barack Obama making a powerful speech to 85,000 in Denver where he set out his vision, and demonstrated why he should be elected as the next president. It was also an historic moment - the first African-American to be nominated a presidential candidate by a major party.On Friday, the attention was focused on John McCain who surprised everyone by naming a complete unknown in Sarah Palin as his running mate. Most people hadn't heard of her prior to the announcement, and most political...

Britain’s education system will become increasingly fragmented if faith schools (a symbol above) use new powers to discriminate on religious grounds when hiring headteachers and support staff, campaigners warned yesterday. The Government says the change in the law, which comes into force on Monday, is intended to help schools choose staff who will offer “pastoral support” to pupils. The amendment to the Education and Inspections Act 2006 also allows voluntary-controlled and foundation schools to demand that a headteacher adheres to a specific faith. A campaign group called Accord, to be launched at the start of the new term on Monday, wants Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, to prevent state-funded faith schools from discriminating by selecting students and pupils...

John McCain has selected Governor Sarah Palin (Alaska) as his Vice Presidential running mate. Plain has very little experience she is in her first term as Governor (of a small state), I can only assume she (as a women and an young one at that) was picked as a call to the Clinton supporters who feel unloved by the Democrats at the moment (the PUMA...

John McCain has selected Governor Sarah Palin (Alaska) as his Vice Presidential running mate. Plain has very little experience she is in her first term as Governor (of a small state), I can only assume she (as a women and an young one at that) was picked as a call to the Clinton supporters who feel unloved by the Democrats at the moment (the PUMA...

The Nation reporter Chris Hayes has found an AP report revealing that Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin expressed support for Patrick Buchanan during the campaign for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, although Palin denies this.Buchanan has caled homosexuality unnatural and wants to bring prayer back to American public schools. He is also opposed to feminism, and one wonders what he would think about the Republican Party having a woman VP candidate.Palin also served as his state director during his 1996 campaign for the nomination, as reported by America's MSNBC in the Youtube below:You can see here that Buchanan is an opponent of the politics of John McCain and his advisors.Some good points made about this at The Wonk Room.Thanks to popular political blog...

Well it has definetly been a memorable week in American politics, and a memorable convention for the Democrats, win or lose in Nov.We have had the Clintons giving 110% support to Barack Obama, and reminding delegates who might overwise go to the Republicans in a strop that it is important to support Senator Obama and to see a Democrat in the White House in January, and therefore to put politics before pride and anger.We have seen Senator Edward Kennedy give one of the best speeches of his life, and sadly it could be his last major speech. It goes to show that after all that has happened involving him over the years, in the last decade he has grown and matured and achived perhaps something of the stature of his late brothers.We have also seen a fantasic speech by Michelle Obama. Gutsy, yet...

What makes a good deputy? The question is of acute relevance today owing to Senator John McCain’s decision to pick Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential nominee. Her positives have already been well-rehearsed: a young, instinctive, deeply conservative female, with a son about to serve in Iraq. Her negatives have also been loudly broadcast: she...

I’d like to make it clear that I am not suggesting for one moment that because someone has the ‘right’ religion faith (or not as the case may be) they are qualified (or not) as the best political candidate.  Just as I would not go to an unqualified heart surgeon for open heart surgery just because he is a very sincere Christian with an impecable private life (boy, that would be foolhardy), ditto with my voting in any politician or president. The best person for the job is not always a Christian. While religious faith is influential, there are so many other factors to weigh in as well. Anyway, a couple of people have been asking me about John McCain’s new running mate, Sarah Palin, who is a professing Christian (but aren’t they all in America, even...

You may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but John McCain - or at least his team - have proved that an old dog has many tricks up his sleeve already. The choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate is a masterstroke. Until yesterday, I had never heard of her. In fact the two things that sprung to mind about Alaska was that is  cold and it has oil. Since then, everything I have read and seen on the TV about her makes me like her more. This is someone who took on corruption in her own party and run against the Republican Governor in a primary. She went on to win the primary and got herself elected Governor. She currently has an approval rating in her own state of around 80%. She is someone who is fearless and gets the job done. When all the Democrats do is mention that the...

Major category 3 storm on track to hit US Gulf coast three years after Hurricane...

For much of the year the focus of the American presidential race has been which barrier could soon be broken: namely, would the Democratic candidate (and thus potential next President) be female or black?Obviously Barack Obama won that particular battle and the question of whether history would be made was undeniably going to be a feature of the coming election. And now we know for certain that it will, but not in a way that guarantees Obama victory.Republican candidate John McCain has chosen a woman (Sarah Palin, current Governor of Alaska) as his running mate. This choice means that, just as when Obama was up against Hillary Clinton, this November's vote will result in a section of society which has never before been represented in the White House becoming so.But is one of these a...

My longstanding mate, Brad, over at the Crossed Pond has posted about how well his predictions on the US Presidential have been, and even though he is lowing his own trumpet he does deserve a pat on the back for what he got right.In December last year he not only predicted the nominees correctly, but he also predicted what order they would finish perfectly. In June he said that he considered Sarah Palin the best running mate for McCain, and in July he declared Biden should be the running mate of Obama.I wonder how much he could have won on that on Political...

Here from Newser are the details of the ethics investigation into Sarah Palin, which is currently ongoing: John McCain’s running mate comes to the national campaign embroiled in a scandal back home, Talking Points Memo reports. Alaska’s legislative council has appointed a special commission to investigate Gov. Sarah Palin, who’s accused of pressuring the state’s department of public safety...

Sarah Palin adds energy and sizzle to McCain...