In March I had a chance to sit down with author and political commentator Keli Goff, read the interview on the Campus Progress Website and check out what didn’t get published below: Do you think it is useful for the political process to have votes segmented in such ways? As I mentioned before, analyzing voting blocs along various lines such as race, class or gender, can certainly be useful but what I would say is that today there is such a diversity of thought and opinion that discussing voters in these broad categories can help draw you a picture of what’s going on politically, but if you actually want to paint the picture you have to go further.

Maybe a riff on Barack Obama is your new bicycle (or at least a very interesting counterpoint), here are some things younger than John McCain. Included are—well, I won’t spoil the surprise. Just visit the site. I know it’s silly and clichéd and unoriginal for me to say this, but I love the Internet.

There’s a murder at the end of this post, so keep reading despite the boring business details. With a tip of the hat to the classic Russian-dubbed Mexican soap opera, let’s go back and review last week’s post about the aluminum court case that’s making a big sucking sound on the Tajik economy: Now, according to an excellent article in Asia Times, we learn that Rahmon has squandered more than 5% of the country’s entire GDP on legal fees against former partners in Tajikistan’s aluminum projects, as well as a Norwegian company called Hydro that handled complex commodity transactions for Tajikistan using a shell corporation in the Virgin Islands.

Let Them Eat Cake Posted by Chris, filed under Politics. Date: May 13, 2008, 12:31 pm | No Comments » 10 Apr

WPvideo 1.10 Good Lord, we need to get this man back in the “debates”. That was the only time Hillary and Obama have been forced during this election cycle to address serious issues. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my the Largest Minority for full stories, and other great content ]]

It has been reported that several senior security and opposition political officials have been arrested in Malawi on allegations of coup plot. Malawian journalist and blogger Kondwani Munthali says that the politics in Malawi is undergoing interesting developments and political temperatures have reached a boiling point. Writing from Lilongwe where he is based, he says: Finally arresting people like Retired General Joseph Chimbayo, Joseph Aironi, John Chikakwiya, Humphrey's Mvula and Kennedy Makwangwala will not solve the current political impasse.

A recent court decision in the Nebraska Supreme Court has essentially banned the practice of capital punishment within the state. The court has declared the electric chair to be unconstitutional. The court’s decision rules that the electric chair is a form of torture and thus has no place in the modern legal system. This decision, for all practice purposes, bans putting convicted criminals to death in Nebraska. The only, or only formerly legal method to carry out the sentence of death in the state was via the electric chair.

I’ve avoided commenting on this story because it covers so many bases that get me riled: politics, human rights, children, foreign aid… It’s the Burmese / Myanmaran disaster caused by Cyclone Nargis. I just need to get a lot of things off my chest and also - amazingly - tip my hat to our foreign secretary for his very public statement today that perhaps we should use military force to help those in need. Frankly, this whole story is making me more angry than sad; more helpless than I felt during the aftermath of the Boxing Day Tsunami.

This morning on Fox and Friends the pundits discussed Ron Paul being a thorn in John McCain’s side at the convention. Rep. Ron Paul is still in the GOP race and even drew 16% of the vote in the recent Pennsylvania Republican primary. Now his supporters are planning to stage a “revolt” at the Republican [...]

Because it can’t just be that more Americans want to serve in the military and/or complete the missions in Iraq/Afghanistan. Nope, it has to be the “slow economy” which is forcing these poor rubes into military service. What utter tripe.