Lālmohan The lives of powerful men generally conform to the hero-pattern, and the American presidential candidates for the year 2008 were no exception. John McCain’s life story of spending five years in a cell – in the underworld, in the wasteland, in the belly of the beast, in hell, however you wish to represent it […]
Category Archives: Political Comments
Barack Obama and True Power.
11-Nov-08The Village on Election Night: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/like-berlin-in.html
The moment we are in.
05-Nov-08A gift to the country from Tom Toles.
The worst-case scenario.
04-Nov-08The worst-case scenario is this: McCain wins, and then dies on election night. Palin becomes de facto president-elect; but several of the electors in the electoral college declare that they will not cast their votes for her. Complete chaos ensues, but in the end she squeaks by and has enough electors. She is a disaster […]
Abortion and the vote.
30-Oct-08About a week ago, I was alerted to a recent sermon by the Bishop of St. Louis, the purport of which was: vote for McCain or roast in hell (full text here: http://www.stlouisreview.com/article.php?id=16208). He contended that this election (like all elections, as I believe he thinks) is a referendum on abortion, and that Catholics, […]
John McCain’s Faith of My Fathers.
29-Oct-08The most striking thing about John McCain’s book Faith of My Fathers is how different it is from other political books, such as the works of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. In fact, it is not really a political book at all. There is no engagement with political issues. There is no Orwellian talk […]
Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope.
24-Oct-08Let me start this review by stating that The Audacity of Hope is not a great book. I spend a great deal of time reading old books, and I am always looking, in modern books, for the quality and depth of thought I find in the old ones. It would be delightful to find the […]
Reason concerning the Republican party.
23-Oct-08This doesn’t sum up my anger at what has become the party of government of the dumb, by the dumb, and for the rich, but it does offer reasoned, moderate analysis of why this version of the Republican party must be publicly and massively repudiated: http://www.reason.com/news/show/129599.html
What if Hillary were the nominee?
17-Oct-08Back in January, I said that if Barack Obama won the Democratic primary, he would be the next president of the United States; and if Hillary Clinton won the primary, the Republican candidate would be the next president. John McCain’s campaign (which appears to be imploding) combined with economic uncertainty and real widespread dissatisfaction […]
Amtrak – Small But Meaningful Progress on Energy Policy
21-Nov-08Grottaglie Recently I spent a little while visiting politicians’ web sites. All of them mention energy, and they all have energy policies of some sort. The Republicans promise more drilling for oil. The democrats promise a commitment to renewable energies. Most of them promise things to take place long after they leave office. “20% renewable energy […]