You'll remember our earlier discussion about Hillary's dubious religious connections with a fascist-loving semi-Christian cult called The Family. Isn't it odd, then, that when she slated Obama today she used this sentence: "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend"? Where the hell are the US media on this?
International: March 2008 Archives
You'll remember our earlier discussion about Hillary's dubious religious connections with a fascist-loving semi-Christian cult called The Family. Isn't it odd, then, that when she slated Obama today she used this sentence: "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend"? Where the hell are the US media on this?
I am an election junkie. Being Green gives me a lot of parties elsewhere to cheer on, so well done the Canadian Greens. Four byelections last week, and they scored up to 13.5%, which is excellent for first-past-the-post elections (for a comparison, the indomitable Dr Bartos got a respectable 12% in Glasgow Kelvin last time). This is the sort of headline I like.I don't have a lot of time for organised religion, and American politics has been damaged by religion almost as much as it has by corporate control. I therefore find Obama's connection with this preacher offputting on several levels. However, here's something way nastier. Check out Hillary's religious friends. If I were Obama, I'd raise this and damn the consequences.
And so the unravelling of the latest financial bubble gathers pace. Here and in the States failing financial institutions have been backed with taxpayers' money.
I quite understand the decision to make sure depositors don't lose out: you should know that if you put your money into a bank account it won't disappear. However, bailing out risk-taking investors with our money? That's just wrong.
If the value of your investments effectively can't go down, you shouldn't get benefits based on that supposed risk. And the free-marketeers ought to be agreeing, because they invented the phrase "moral hazard". That hazard doesn't just apply to business people, it applies to the politicians who bale them out too.
I quite understand the decision to make sure depositors don't lose out: you should know that if you put your money into a bank account it won't disappear. However, bailing out risk-taking investors with our money? That's just wrong.
If the value of your investments effectively can't go down, you shouldn't get benefits based on that supposed risk. And the free-marketeers ought to be agreeing, because they invented the phrase "moral hazard". That hazard doesn't just apply to business people, it applies to the politicians who bale them out too.
As you'll know, the Scotsman got tangled up in the US election last week. Gerri Peev did an interview with Samantha Power, until then an Obama aide. Outcome: resignation. You can't call an internal rival a monster, even when she does monstrous things like claim McCain is more qualified for the presidency than Obama.
So then some lowlife invited Gerri onto his TV show over there.
People often talk about how ill-informed and apathetic the Americans are. In some circles it's the last acceptable stereotype.
The interest in this year's convoluted and never-ending nomination process seems to have nailed the apathetic side of that, so here's an interview which shows what a well-informed citizen looks like.
The left candidate backing "public private partnership", eh, though? One assumption is still true: the central ground of American politics is still significantly to the right of the European centre.
Along with Jeff (formerly SNP Tactical Voting) and Malc (formerly In The Burgh), I now co-edit Better Nation, a group blog. Stuff will still appear here, but more will be there.
Subscribe to this blog's RSS/Atom feed
I also intermittently blog on the Scotsman's otherwise excellent Steamie.
If you want a stream of pointless and largely political observations I'm on Twitter too.