Gordon Wood, Professor of History at Brown university questions the viability of installing regieme change in the Middle East citing that the Islamic culture is a long way away from accepting key liberal democratic fundamentals such as the separation of religion and state.
He draws parallels between the 17th century strife between Catholics and Protestants in Europe (historically acknowledged as the 30 years war) and Iraq’s current Sunni-Shia unrest to illustrate just how far Iraq has to go before it can be capable of supporting democracy.
When he was running for the presidency, one of Obama’s campaign pledges was to bring real healthcare reform. This is on the whole unremarkable. The Democrats are all about healthcare reform. There wasn’t one candidate running for the Democratic nomination that didn’t have a similar pledge.
Obama if anything was trying to turn the page on the healthcare topic during the primaries. He was often clumsy on the topic and far less convincing than Hillary who went onto adopt it as her main campaign theme. Now Obama actually looks to be championing a healthcare package that resembles more Hillary’s primary plan which includes the mandates that he once mocked.
Obama was more about what he often referred to as ‘changing the way Washington works’. He saw his main selling point as having a unique ability to bring together Democrats, Republicans and Independents in a way that Hillary did not. He would sometimes placate this assertion by throwing in the example of ”Hillarycare’, the much derided attempt at healthcare reform that the Clinton administration tried to unsuccessfully get Congress to pass.
Since arriving at the White House, Obama has been repeatedly critiscized for being too ‘hands off’ when it came to legislation. He let Congress draft the stimulus bill which resulted in it being packed with lots of self serving pork and pet projects. Now he is letting congress draft the healthcare reform bill and moreover deferring to Congress’ whims on what can and cannot be included (most noteably the ‘public option’).
A lot of dismay comes from Obama’s traditional base as the Democrats have overwhelming majorities in both houses of congress and could pass the bill without a single Republican vote. So why don’t they? And if he were to orchestrate such a move would Obama not be going back on his core pledge of bringing everyone together in the legislative process?
Obama fundamentally believes that if something is to pass through congress and have any long term credibility (i.e. not merely waiting to be repeled by the next Republican administration) then it must emerge from Congress and it must be bipartisan. On this score he has been true to his pledge as Obama the candidate.
Bill Clinton, John Mccain, Larry Craig, David Vitter, John Ensign, Mark Stanford, John Edwards, Elliott Spitzer, are just some names in a long list of US politicians who have come under much pressure to resign following revelation of extramarital affairs.
Admittedly the pressure to resign in each case was aggravated further due to the context under which the infidelity took place:
Bill Clinton -> indiscretions perpetuated in the Oval Office
John Mccain -> wife was heavily impaired at the time
Larry Craig -> homosexual indiscretions in public places
David Vitter -> prostitute involved
John Ensign -> past pious criticism of Clinton’s above indiscretions
Mark Sanford -> neglecting office responisbilities by flying off to Argentina in pursuit of affair
John Edwards -> indiscretion while running for presidency
Elliot Spitzer -> prostitute involved
Only Spitzer did actually resign from office. The others will either never be able to credibly run for public office again or will be ruthlessly attacked by opponents for their extra marital indiscretions.
So what of infidelity in British politics? There’s not all that much to go on that comes to mind. They somehow manage to keep it all under wraps until the people concerned are long past their sell by dates and its time for publishing memoirs.
Even if something does spill out such as in the case of the rising Conservative party prospective member of parliament Zac Goldsmith, will the British voter look unfavourably upon him on this account? No. I think it’s something to do with the growing tradition of declining religious idealism and growing disgruntled realism in British society.
The Force India team stunningly qualified in pole position for the Belgian Formula 1 (F1) Grand Prix yesterday. Remarkable as the team generally qualifies at the other end of the starting grid and has yet to score any championship points. So was this just a fluke or is the qualifying grid really up for grabs for any team.
Although Force India qualified on pole, adjusting for the amount of fuel they were carrying would actually render them fourth on the grid. Fourth is still really good for a team like Force India, however it does demonstrate the ability of teams to distort their grid placings in relation to their actual performance by running relatively low fuel in qualifying.
This strategy of low fuelling cars in qualifying does hamper the team in its actual race efforts as the car will have to pit earlier. But does the race really matter for a team like Force India? Obviously they will want to do well, but irrespective of what happens on race day, this weekend will be seen as a resounding success for them.
By qualifying on pole the team has grabbed the media spotlight for an entire day gaining more coverage in that one single 24 hour slot than it has probably amassed for the entirity of the season so far. And isn’t that what F1 is ultimately about? A parade of sponsors all looking to maximise media exposure? This isn’t meant to be necessarily a slight on F1 as there are plenty of other ’sports’ that are just the same (take pro road race cycling e.g.).
What if teams did decide that they probably don’t have a car that can place on the podium (or that chances are too hit and miss) so will forefit the race and exteremly low fuel their cars in qualifying in an attempt to seal the pole and win the day? What would that mean for the qualifying grid and race dynamics?
Most of the gargantuan $700bn economic stimulus passed by US Congress earlier this year is yet to actually feed into the economy. The stimulus was sold as a necessary emergency measure to jolt the crashing economy back into drive. Following the US economy’s 1% shrink in Q2, it is set to finally grow again in Q3, despite the fact that the bulk of the stimulus is yet to hit.
A lot of China’s rampant economic rebound has been attributed to a quicker dissemination of its stimulus funds into the Chinese economy. Does this mean that the US GDP will similarly get a huge extra push when the US stimulus finally hits? Strong GDP figures by the time of the Mid Term elections (Nov 2010) would certainly reflect well on the Democrats running Congress.
The fact that the US economy appears to have steered itself back into growth without the aid of bulk of the stimulus could suggest that there was never any real need to pass such a huge stimulus in the first place.
This can be countered on two points. The mere passage of such a gargantuan stimulus sent a clear message to the markets that the government was serious on muscling in to stabilise the economy which could have provided some immediate assurances to the market itself.
The second point is to do with what the stimulus spending will be used for – building overdue roads, bridges, laying broadband lines and paying for teachers. If you agree with the administration’s line on infrastructural spending, these investments will have a long term multiplicator effect by way of the returns from all the businesses running on this infrastructure.
The kingdom of Qatar is oil rich. It looks to invest its weatlh
through its sovereign wealth fund ‘Qatar Investment Authority’ (QIA) which
has amassed a diverse portfolio of investments ranging from football teams to property. One of these properties is the Chelsea Barracks complex,
an old piece of land in the center of london (which i look onto
from my flat window). QIA’s original plans for the
barracks faced spirited resistance from the local community and eventually
killed off by unilateral intervention from Prince Charles on the grounds of the planned architecture ill fitting the locality.
QIA went back to the drawing board and now is in the process
of putting together new plans. As one of the residents of the local community
I have been approached to take part in a consultation process for
the development of the new plans.
On the positive side it is good to see big corporations looking out for the wider stakeholders. It is however still to be seen whether this is more window dressing or whether they’re genuinely receptive of community input. It was after all the input of one Royal that proved decisive first time around.
