Owner: A Swift Blow to the Head: Alex Goodall's Blog URL:http://blog.dralexgoodall.com Join Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:00:56 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Politics, History, Opinion. A view of the Americas from the other side of the pond. Site statistics:Click here
"Ok, I'm calling it. Time of death: 2.45am." 2008-10-03 19:04:05 It turns out that if your expectations are low enough, anything can turn out to be a good performance. After two weeks of attacking Sarah Palin as only marginally higher up the evolutionary scale than a wombat, certain conservatives (who shall remain unnamed) were delighted to discover in the debate last night that she is fairly likeable, can make a point about one in ten times, and can remember t Read more:death
Pork and penury 2008-10-02 16:33:16 Thanks to good old Wikipedia, I am now able to report the additional components of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act which presumably helped its safe passage through the Senate following its far more troubled defeat in the House on Monday. These include credit and tax extensions for the following items (I quote):
"Certain wooden arrows designed for use by children" (Sec 503)
Wool Research
Reasons to stay awake 2008-10-02 16:02:24 Unfortunately, McCain's continuing slide in the polls is rapidly turning this evening's debate into a non-event. Pollster.com has shifted Pennsylvania into the Obama camp and Missouri into a toss-up. The seven point margin Obama has opened nationally will really take some shifting: it's larger than any difference between the two candidates this year, and has been built upon a steady and pronounced Read more:Reasons
A Decade Under Chávez 2008-10-01 16:35:49 Just over a fortnight ago, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a 230-page report entitled, ‘A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela.’ It immediately shot to the headlines as the Chávez regime responded to criticisms contained within it by expelling two members of the organization from Venezuela. As Human Rights Watch astutely
The real competition this election 2008-10-01 13:58:05 One of the few groups likely to regret the passing of George W. Bush from office are the world’s satirists. Until a few weeks ago, they could be found gently (and sorrowfully) ribbing each other over a beer in a shady bar on the lower east side, wondering what they would be able to do without the lame duck president's never-ending supply of malapropisms, idiocies, errors, faux-pas, and nauseatin Read more:competition
Bailout defeat hits home 2008-10-01 13:27:11 The consequences of the bailout failure are being felt across the country. This is painful medicine. Hopefully, it will convince people that more is needed than just the assumption of toxic debts.Amonst many other pundits, Open House argues that now is not the time for punishment of bankers, and that we need to focus on reviving confidence in the banking system. This plays into a widespread assump
Defeat has a hundred paternity suits 2008-10-01 08:51:28 The old adage, "Victory has a hundred fathers, defeat is an orphan" reveals only half the truth. The fall out from the bailout defeat the other day is proving that, orphan or not, defeat can produce a hundred paternity suits, put forth by individuals trying to distance themselves from the unwanted delivery sitting on their doorstep.Amongst the more ridiculous claims, Peter Baker in the New York Ti
The Loyal Opposition 2008-09-30 17:52:34 The last twenty four hours have seen a dramatic movement in the policies of the British conservative party, currently in the middle of its annual conference. Witnessing the dramatic collapse of the bailout plan in Washington, the party has abandoned its formerly critical position toward the government and ostentatiously adopted the role of loyal opposition. This is all the more surprising because Read more:Opposition
Paying the piper 2008-09-29 16:04:33 Of course, the last few months of a presidency are the worst time for an administration to get anything out of Congress, anyway. Even in promising situations, the conflict of interest between a president on his way out the door and congresspersons seeking re-election produces difficult tensions to resolve. It’s one of the reasons why so many presidents like to focus on foreign policy issues as t
The debate changes nothing 2008-09-28 07:10:54 The debate last night did little to change the basic dynamics of this election. Liberal bloggers are suggesting Obama may have benefited from the appearance of poise in comparison to a crotchety, teeth-clenching, patronising McCain. But I personally scored it marginally in McCain's favour, since he was clearer and more to the point, and I imagine his core messages on cutting spending and defending Read more:changes
Republican fragmentation 2008-09-26 10:45:33 The bailout negotiations continue to defy straightforward predictions. Meanwhile, their political significance for the election is if anything even more hard to read than it was thirty-six hours ago.
Once the initial ‘Pearl Harbor’ moment last week passed by, however, one thing did come clearly into relief. Political divisions have now emerged in the Republican
party based on conflicting inte
Democrats trying to call McCain's bluff 2008-09-25 08:25:29 Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer press release:"We are pleased to report we are making bipartisan progress on a rescue proposal for our financial markets. During these discussions, we have received significant cooperation and constructive feedback from the other side of the aisle -- with one notable exception. Apart from his unproductive criticisms made from afar, we have heard nothing from Senator Mc Read more:bluff
, Democrats
, McCain
The race for the microphone 2008-09-25 07:51:37 The dramatic events of the past twenty-four hours have witnessed a fascinating, and complex, interplay between power and politics – with both sides in the election fight effectively accusing the other of playing partisan games with a moment of national emergency.In the previous week, we had seen events turn markedly against Senator McCain and the Republicans in their campaign for high office. Wh Read more:microphone
Is McCain going to tank? 2008-09-24 07:08:48 Pollster.com has changed Wisconsin and Michigan from tossups to leaning Obama states, and North Carolina and Florida from leaning McCain
to toss up.The question arises: with the rapid demise of the Palin bounce and the dramatic rise of the economy to overtake all other issues in this election, is the Republican campaign finally going to tank? McCain's biggest blunders have been on his inability to
History is sexy 2008-09-24 06:07:02 That's right: you thought you were signing up for a life of dust and bookshelves, but Andrew Marr is here to inform you otherwise. Move over Paris Hilton: History
is now officially sexy.Ahem. Yeah, right.
Disaster waiting to happen 2008-09-24 05:05:47 The McCain camp continue to try and keep Palin away from reporters. And yet the two fragmentary sentences overheard at her recent foray into foreign affairs prove to be quite enough to make it clear what she knows about the topic.
Read more:Disaster
Would you like fava beans with that? 2008-09-24 04:21:02 So, let's just recap:
- Presidential candidate opposed to the bulk of your party's core ideology
- Vice-presidential candidate who thinks being able to see Russia counts as foreign policy experience
- Complete absence of platform means you're forced to adopt the rivals' reform message wholesale
- Current president, of your party, takes power with no electoral mandate, produces greatest foreign po
"I'll toss it up, you hit it out the park." 2008-09-23 17:55:12 Sarah Palin's grillin' from Hannity reminds Jon Stewart of another very similar interview he'd seen recently...
Top 5 Rants Against the Rich 2008-09-23 15:37:08 In the joyous proletarian spirit of recent days (since the announcement of the bail-out), here's five good rants against the rich, as provided for our enjoyment by political commentators and bloggers of wit:
1. Christopher Hayes of The Nation circulates a curious spam message he recently received. It begins, "Dear American, I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with
Ouch - retract thy claws! 2008-09-23 11:55:36 Andrew Sullivan's one man campaign against Palin continues with enthusiasm: with a list of twelve lies. I wonder if she can spell potato correctly?
The electoral peopling of America 2008-09-23 11:40:12 This is a fascinating cinematic representation of the changing pattern of electoral
politics in US history. University of Richmond, VA has done a great job!
Read more:America
The logic of crying wolf 2008-09-23 11:18:35 Just goes to show that the eroded trust of the last eight years is a commodity that the Bush administration couldn't afford to dispense with...
From the New York Times:
While Congressional leaders in both chambers said they were confident that they could reach a quick deal, it was also clear that Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke would face rough questioning and that initial support for the bailout h Read more:crying
Get McCain some therapy 2008-09-23 07:50:09 Further to the Ohio thread, the Washington Post has gone to Scranton. Asks locals whether Biden's appeal in this region is enough to pull Obama through:"... Not that Tom Bell isn't for Obama. Of John McCain
, he says: "I think something is wrong with him. I'm telling you -- something is wrong with him. Instead of him running for office, everybody should chip in and get him some therapy." I suppose
A Post-Partisan World? Fat chance. 2008-09-23 06:15:14 Meanwhile, Julian Zelizer has some wise words about what won't be discussed in the upcoming debates.
My only disagreement is on this whole 'post-partisanship' issue. Of course it's nonsensical rhetoric for Obama and McCain to talk of post-partisan politics, and of course it won't happen. People will always suffer from politics. When Gordon Brown came to power here in the UK, he promised to build Read more:chance
, Partisan
, World
The Bezzle 2008-10-28 18:15:23 In his classic text on the origins of the great depression, The Great Crash, John Kenneth Galbraith came up with an ingenious concept he called 'the bezzle.' Basically, he argued that at any one point a certain number of people are filtering money out of the system through illicit means of embezzlement and fraud. In a time of easy money supply, rapid economic growth and widespread prosperity, peop
Log cabin logic 2008-10-27 18:10:36 There's nothing new about adopting the mythology of outsider status to get political power. American politicians have been doing it for hundreds of years, and it's been working at least since the rise of democracy in the Jacksonian era. Perhaps it's something that taps into the Jeffersonian core of American politics, the resistance to centralising power. But whatever the reason, you don't have to
USA: A nation divided by wonkery 2008-10-26 07:01:20 The Obama campaign has set up a pretty little site listing all the defamatory mailings, robocalls and push-polls the Republicans have been running against them this year. Take a look at it here.
At risk of reading this backwards, let's just ignore the robocalls themselves for a minute (plenty of time to get angry about that later). What's really interesting about this site? First, the financial r Read more:nation
Big banks, small banks 2008-10-25 12:31:26 Robert Reich argues that if a bank is too big to fail, then it's too big. Corporations should not rule our lives. The antitrust traditions of the United States should be put into practice once again to break up these colossal institutions of 'supercapitalism'.
This all sounds fairly reasonable. (Anyone who's had Microsoft's stupid Office "ribbon" foisted upon them in the past year or two knows th Read more:banks
Can we trust the polls? 2008-10-22 13:31:39 Logically, there's only two likely ways that McCain could win the election now: (1) an October surprise to end all October surprises (Amazing! It turns out Bin Laden was drawing welfare benefits for his six illegitimate children whilst living in Osama's Hyde Park residence, which had been bought for him by Tony Rezko using money raised by exploiting illegal immigrant workers); or (2) the polls are Read more:trust
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