How President Obama got His Groove Back

There aren't many occasions in which the President is in on the joke - but at this Saturday's White House Correspondence Dinner, President Obama gave a speech that will go down in the annals of White House history. He totally roasted his Republican rivals - especially loud-mouthed Donald Trump, who was squirming in the audience as he found himself the butt of several pointed (and accurate) punchlines.

Check it out here:



Obama turned up the heat on Trump even more the following evening - interrupting the last 15 minutes of Trump's top-rated "Celebrity Apprentice" to make a little announcement to the American public: The tumultuous news that Osama Bin Laden - mastermind of 9/11 and America's bogeyman for the past decade - had been shot and killed in Pakistan by an elite Navy SEALs unit.



President Obama was the first to admit that the "honeymoon" period was over when it came to his presidency - but this weekend was a hint that maybe "Barry" has rediscovered his mojo; and the Republicans could be in for a shellacking in 2012.

Mind you, if they ultimately decide to play the "Trump" card, they deserve nothing less.

Obama's Falkland Fantasy

If British Prime Minister David Cameron attended a diplomatic function in Mexico City and validated claims that California and Arizona were actually Mexican sovereign territory (as many Mexicans believe) then the diplomatic fallout would be incendiary.

Yet Hillary Clinton and other members of the Obama Administration have been saying exactly the same sort of thing about sovereign British territory recently – validating claims that the Falkland Islands are Argentinean territory, and using the Argentinean term ‘Malvinas’ to describe them.

From a basis of my own petty prejudices, this is probably the most shocking thing the Obama administration has done so far. It’s so ridiculously insulting I’m surprised there aren’t headlines in The Sun about it. It How dare they!

A lot of people aren’t familiar with the Falkland Islands, and so might actually be wondering who ‘owns’ them. Well, it’s Britain – there’s simply no debate about that. Here’s a brief history lesson:

In 1592, English explorer John Davis landed on a series of uninhabited islands off the coast of South America. They were claimed as British territory and later named for Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland. The English later established Port Egmont on Saunders Island. In 1770, Spain unceremoniously booted the British out and lay claim to the islands as part of their Buenos Aires colonial administration; but the Brits returned in 1771.

What happened next established the current sovereignty controversy. In 1774, because resources were needed to fight the American Revolutionary War, the British withdrew from the Falkland Islands – leaving a plaque to remind any future visitors that the islands were British property. The Spanish followed suit in 1811, leaving the islands unoccupied for almost a decade.

In 1820, Argentinean privateers landed on the islands and decided that they were theirs (ignoring the Spanish and British ‘We Were Here First’ plaques.) They established a small penal colony there, until United States warships unceremoniously obliterated it in a squabble over seal-hunting rights. The few Argentineans who remained had barely combobulated themselves before the British Royal Navy arrived in force and announced that they were reasserting their claims to the islands (presumably with the line: “Look, it’s ours. We’ve got a plaque and everything.”

But the Brits were very gentlemanly about it and allowed the Argentinean settlers to remain, as long as they didn’t interfere with Britain’s rule there.

This is a promise they kept until 1945. When signing the UN Charter, Argentina surprised everybody by demanding the right to sovereignty of the islands.

But just like they were over a century earlier, the British were gentlemanly about it – agreeing to hand over the islands if the residents there voted to become part of Argentina. The residents, being largely British colonists, declined Argentina’s offer and voted to remain part of Britain.

In the 1960s, the Argentineans demanded that the islands be handed over to them again. Talks between Britain and Argentina took place, but the end result was the same: The residents of the Falkland Islands voted to remain part of Britain.

In 1982, the Argentineans decided, in the signature style of South Americans nations, that diplomacy was overrated. Instead of demanding another vote, they simply invaded the islands and put up a flag (flags beat plaques, you see.)

What followed was one of the shortest, most masterful military campaigns in modern history – in which a British expeditionary force sailed to the Falkland Islands and – to use an American term – kicked the Argentinean's asses. The Argentineans might have believed that flags beat plaques, but it turned out that Harrier Jump Jets trumped them both.

Since then, the Argentineans have been snotty little brats about the islands. They included their claim to the ‘islas Malvinas’ in their own constitution, and continue to periodically demand that Britain surrender them. In 2009, in one of the few recorded instances of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown utilizing his spine, he bluntly told Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez that “there would be no talks over the future sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.”

As far as the governments of the UK and of the Falkland Islands are concerned, there is no issue to resolve. The Falkland Islanders themselves are almost entirely British and maintain their allegiance to the United Kingdom.

And that’s the crux of the issue, really.

Unlike most territorial disputes, there really is no ‘issue’ with Britain’s claim to the Falklands. We discovered them first. We lived there first. The vast majority of the island’s population are British, and they want to remain part of Britain. Even the example I gave earlier – about Mexico claiming Arizona and California – isn’t a fair comparison because there was at least an actual war in which America took those territories by force. Until the Falkland’s War in 1982, the only military hostility in the Falkland Islands had been American – when they bombarded the Argentinean penal colony.

There is simply no justifiable reason for the Argentineans to lay claim to the island – except for that fact that they want them.

So for Hillary Clinton to coolly validate Argentina’s ridiculous and insulting ‘claim’ to the territories is mind-boggling. It’s a complete slap in the face to Great Britain. Here we are – America’s staunchest ally, with whom we’re fighting shoulder to shoulder in Iraq and Afghanistan – and Hillary Clinton’s blithely handing away our territories like it’s nothing.

It really is a shameful precedent for the Obama administration to have set and, as you can probably tell from the tone of this post, my nose is thoroughly out of joint about it.

How much does 'Private' medical care cost the taxpayer?

The Economist blew me out of the water today with their analysis of the American Health Care system. In acknowledging it's strong points (like excellent cancer recovery rates) it exposed something I think most Republicans would find surprising.

Compared to other countries - including countries with entirely 'socialized' medicine like Great Britain - the American tax-payer pays just as much to treat people (and sometimes more.)

The American tax payer is already funding a public-medical system that exceeds the British NHS

For example, the average health care costs of an American individual are $7,000 dollars per year. Of that, private health insurance and out-of-pocket expenses cover just $4,000 of it. The rest is picked up by the tax-payer.

Compare that to Great Britain, where our (admittedly inferior) health care system spends just $3,000 a year on each individual (with people picking up about $500 out-of-pocket.)

What does that mean?

It means that the tax-payer burden of providing 'free' health care to every individual in Great Britain is actually LESS than the cost of providing 'privately funded' health care in America. What's even worse, is that on top of the American tax-payer paying more than enough to fund a system like the NHS, they're then asked to pay $4,000 on top.

They're basically paying for health care twice. And as good as the American health care system is, it's not that good.

I've argued before that 'socialized medicine' and universal health care already exist in America - but I can see that I grossly underestimated the problem. We, the health care consumer, are being fleeced - and Republicans who demonize so-called 'socialized health care' are unaware that they've been contributing to it for years now.

Les grenouilles: "Pas ces soir, Queen Elizabeth!"

June 6th is marked indelibly in most British schoolboy's memories - it's when 'D-Day' occurred.

'D-Day' took place in the final year of World War II; an invasion of Nazi-occupied France by Allied troops, which resulted in the eventual collapse of the German war machine.

As far as military operations go, it was mind-boggling. Over 160,000 troops landed on French soil that day, while over 5,000 ships provided transportation, support and offensive fire. It was a hard fought conflict - the Allies were outnumbered two-to-one - but D-Day saw them establish a toe-hold on the continent without which, the war could have continued indefinitely.

2009 is the 65th anniversary of D-Day and, as befits such an historic date, will be marked by solemn services of remembrance. French President Nicholas Sarkozy has invited President Obama to a commemoration at Colleville-sur-Mer, site of the American military cemetery.

However, one very important person has been pointedly left off the guest list for this important occasion - Queen Elizabeth II.

The Queen - who, unlike Sarkozy or Obama, actually served in the military during World War II (the only living Head of State to have done so) - didn't even receive an invitation.

She was deliberately left off the guest list because, in the words of French spokesman Luc Chatel, "the June 6 celebration is foremost a Franco-American celebration."

Understandably, the British are upset about this. The Daily Mail ran the headline: "A diminutive egomaniac, the stain of Nazi collaboration and why the French can't forgive us for saving them in the War."

...and as much as I hate to jump in on the nationalistic zealotry, I have to admit that they do have a point. This whole situation makes me as angry as when an American sneers "You Brits would be speakin' German if it wasn't for America."

Let's just quickly examine the facts:

For a start, Britain contributed over 60,000 troops to the Normandy invasion - over 40% of all soldiers entering battle. Considering nearly half of the Allied forces were made up of British soldiers, it seems totally incomprehensible that France would blindly ignore our contribution to their liberation.

Secondly, Britain contributed more than just men. It's not jingoistic pride that inspires me to write this - just cold, hard historical fact - but without Britain, more than any other contributing nation involved in World War II, the Nazis would have won.

They'd have conquered Europe (in fact by 1940, aside from the UK, they already had) and without the UK as a final fortress to stage from, all of America's might, wealth and power would have been useless in trying to reclaim that territory.

The Nazi regime would have ruled Europe, the Jewish people would have been ruthlessly eradicated and the world as we know it would have been hurled into a darkness from which it might never have escaped.

Why was the role Britain played so important?

Well, just look at the dates. 'World War II' started either in 1938 (after the Germans annexed Austria) or 1939 (when they invaded Poland) depending on your timeline. In any event, American troops didn't touch European soil until 1942 - and didn't see action against the Nazis until 1943.

During at least three years of the war - during which every other country in Europe was occupied by, or in cahoots with, the Germans, Britain stood alone in defying them.

If Britain had fallen, there'd have been no air-base from which to bombard Germany. There'd have been no staging post from which to plan an invasion. There'd have been nothing, except a Nazi stronghold separated from their American enemy by 3,000 miles of cold, inhospitable ocean.

Don't get me wrong - without America's sheer strength, it would have been impossible to eventually eliminate the German war machine. The United States delivered the killing blow that ended the war once and for all.

But without Britain supplying the leverage - holding firm in the face of impossible odds - the Americans would never have had the opportunity to end the conflict in the first place.

So Sarkozy's decision to snub Queen Elizabeth - and, by extension, ignore Britain's contribution to D-Day - is rude, ungrateful and an insult to the 2,700 Brits who become casualties that day.

Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama

In the lead-up to the election, the conservative opponents of Barack Obama threw countless questions at him - questions regarding his birth, his upbringing, his religion and his relationships.

They demanded answers to these questions, seemingly unaware that these answers were already sitting on a shelf in their local Barnes and Noble - in the form of Barack Obama's first book, Dreams from my Father.

Written in 1995, when Obama had just been elected president of the Harvard Law Review (and his political career wasn't even conceived of) Dreams from my Father is a spectacularly candid biography that earnestly and honestly examines many of the perceived 'issues' people had with the idea of electing Obama.

The book is an education - an education all those political pundits should have availed themselves of.

Dreams from my Father is practically unique in the history of American politics. Sure, plenty of presidential candidates had written books. No less than 16 of the candidates in the 2008 Republican and Democratic primaries had political manifestos on the bookshelves of Borders and Amazon.

However, Dreams from my Father was written before Obama considered running for senator or president. That makes it uniquely free of snake-oil and slickness.

The Obama we read about in Dreams from my Father is a sharply introspective man, desperate to make sense of the confusing place he finds himself growing up in cross-cultural America.

Born of a black African and a white American, Obama describes being balanced on the knife-edge between black and white American culture.

As Obama grows up, as described in the first part of Dreams from my Father, he gravitates towards the African American community, but feels unable to integrate with them fully because he lacked the experience of growing up as a black American (he was raised by his white mother in Hawaii and Indonesia.)

He's also apprehensive of the more militant blacks he meets, who condemn white culture as the reason for their plight. This is jarring for him, as Obama's white grandparents set a great example of how tolerant and liberal white, mid-Western Americans can be.

The second part of the book explores his move to Chicago. In attempting to make a positive difference to the lives of impoverished blacks, Obama finds it difficult to swallow the liberal assumption that black poverty is reinforced by institutionalized racism.

The reality of the situation - that poverty in the inner city is at least partially perpetuated by the very people it affects - is a realization that Obama certainly didn't feel comfortable discussing with the community he was helping to 'organize.'

As the second section of the book ends, with Obama winning a place at Harvard and giving up his position as community organizer, it's clear he's become frustrated by the fact that the answers he seeks aren't black and white. Much like himself, they're a mixture of the two.

The final section of Dream from my Father is more personal, as Obama travels to his father's birthplace, Kenya, to meet his African family.

Travelling to the 'old country,' he admits that he hoped to find the answers he was seeking by embracing his African heritage. However, like everything else he describes in his book, it's not quite as simple as that.

Despite being welcomed and embraced by his enormous family, Obama's still left as the outsider. While he doesn't feel the alienation of being black in Africa, he's still on the outside, looking in, because in Kenya he's an 'American' rather than a native.

If the message of Dreams from my Father is anything, it's that there are no clear, easy and straightforward answers to anything.

During the years he described in his biography, Obama tried to embrace many different lives in order to find his 'place' in America. Ultimately, all of them came up short. Obama's American experience was not one of being 'black' or 'white' or even 'brown'. He was all of those things, yet simultaneously not 'enough' of any of them.

Even fourteen years ago, when he hadn't had the experience earned in the State or Federal Senate, it was apparent that Barack Obama was a wise, rational man who rejected polarizing ideology or blithe answers that inadequately answered life's more difficult questions.

It's that mentality, so beautifully outlined in Dreams from my Father, that make me even more confident that America's made the right choice in electing him president.

Obama to cut farm subsidies?

I grew up on a farm during the final days of the British farming industry.

In many ways, my parent's farm was a 'pet' farm. We farmed a small herd of Dexter cows (a rare breed unafflicted by BSE) and Wensleydale sheep (enormous sheep with Rastafarian wool.)

My parents received subsidies from the British government for farming these animals, but in general, we produced only enough meat for ourselves and to trade for the cost of slaughtering our animals. In short, we contributed very little to the British farming industry.

But it was a nice life. We raised happy animals and helped continue two rare breeds. If it wasn't for the farming subsidy, this wouldn't have been possible.

The same situation exists in America, where farmers are given subsidies to offset the fact that farming is pretty much a non-profit pursuit. These subsidies help keep the American farming industry going, but do warp the market dynamic. Milk and cheese, for example, are a protected market and the prices you pay in America are vastly inflated compared to abroad.

Now Obama is threatening to end the subsidies for farmers. Is this a good or a bad thing?

Well, part of me thinks it'll be a good thing. Despite being raised on a farm and sympathizing deeply with farmers, the fact is that America can't afford to continue operating a non-profit industry. American agriculture is geared more towards earning government subsidies than running profitably. That's why thousands of farmers have diverted their corn crop from corn flakes and turned it towards the production of subsidy-heavy ethanol.

This is great for farmers, but bad for the rest of us. Ethanol, for example, would be a cost-effective alternative to gasoline, were it not for the fact that government tariffs on imported ethanol and sugar have driven the price up far in excess of petrol.

The fact is, subsidies totally warp and manipulate the free market system - the one that's meant to keep prices down. If we didn't have them, American farmers would face a brutal period of readjustment, having to totally alter their business dynamic to remain competitive. It's sort of economic Darwinism. The Republicans are all for it (ironic, really, since they don't believe in real Darwinism.)

But that would mean, ultimately, that American consumers would reap the benefits. Cheaper food, from foreign sources.

However, on the other hand, it would temporarily (or permanently) devastate the economy of the American midwest. America is a glorious country in which agriculture remains one of the most important industries. Entire states are comprised of nothing but farmland and fields. If they didn't survive, it would be a tragedy.

Not to mention, I think there's something to be said for countries being able to feed themselves from domestic sources. Less than seventy years ago, Britain was isolated during World War II and the British farming industry was all that kept the country from starvation. If Hitler was resurrected today, the skeletal remains of British agriculture would drive the country to starvation in a matter of weeks.

So America's vast farming industry is, to a certain extent, a testament to the continued independent spirit of the United States. As long as the farming industry survives in America, so does a little bit of the American spirit.

And 'industry' is a very important word. For generations, America has had the largest economy in the world, supported mainly by America's industrial roots. Now, like the economies of Europe, America is turning towards a service-based economy. Maintaining a 'real' industry like farming goes some way to addressing that shortfall.

Obama's suggestion about eliminating subsidies does mean one thing, though. The Democrats are traditionally the party of subsidies and protectionism. The fact that Obama's bucking the trend might indicate that things really have changed in Washington - and whatever that means for American farmers, ultimately change is exactly what we voted for.

A snobby Eurotrash rant about America and electricty...

Wifey called me at work and warned me that rolling brownouts were hitting the state.

That meant absolutely nothing to me - so she explained.

Brownouts, apparently, are like electrical blackouts. All your lights dim, your blender slows and your toaster oven doesn't cook bagels so quickly. It's not quite like a blackout - when you lose power altogether - but a brownout basically means your house isn't getting all the electricity it needs to run everything. It happens all the time in America.

This, to me, is an entirely new experience.

Sure, I remember power cuts when I was growing up in England. But that was back in the eighties. For the last twenty years, they've been practically unheard of. All the cables are underground and England's pretty sorted as far as the power is concerned (because it's all privatised, but that's a rant for another day.)

In America, however, things are different (they're also privatised, but that's another rant for another other day.)

First off, the power grid is pretty suspect even in the best of times. Whenever Wifey plugs in the hair dryer, for example, the lights dim like that scene in The Green Mile when the electric chair was switched on. Lights dimming is not a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Then there are the plugs... In England, we have chunky three-pronged electrical sockets that have a comforting 'click' when they slide into the wall socket. Here in America, because we require twelve appliances plugged in at the same time, as opposed to just one, there's a much sketchier system of two-pronged plugs that look about as robust as something you'd use to plug in an electric train set. What's worse, they actually spark and sizzle when you plug something in.

These sketchy sockets are used to power long daisy-chains of dollar store surge protectors, which mean you end up running long lines of rickety wiring that would have British Fire and Safety screaming in terror.

The average American house generally has wiring that you wouldn't recommend fiddling with unless you had valid life insurance and rubber soled shoes.

Now all the power to our homes comes from power lines, strung along the road on Telegraph poles. These are deliciously precarious things and strong rain storms, lightening or drunk drivers can knock out power to a block simply by pushing one of the poles over. The electric company tries to put a redundancy in to prevent this sort of thing by coiling lots of 'slack' at the top of each pole, so if one falls down, enough cable slacks out to prevent the electric cable snapping.

But it's not an exact science and it looks really crappy and badly strung together. At best, all that cable looks really messy and untidy. At worst, the damn thing snaps whenever a pole gets knocked over and that leads us onto the next thing that happens in America, but not so much in England.

Death by puddles.

Because New Jersey drivers simply aren't very good at driving, they're always driving into telegraph poles and knocking people's power out. Then, hopping cheerfully (or drunkenly) out of their cars, they exacerbate the situation by getting zapped by the fallen power cable.

The problem with all these above-ground cables and telegraph poles is the shitload of live high-voltage wiring that gets knocked over when people drive into them (or the wind blows them over.) If it's been raining, people jump out of their car into a puddle and then become human conductors of thousands of volts of electricity.

This is where the famous America motto (which I cynically thought was invented by Drive-Thru MacDonald's promoters) 'Never get out of the car.' If you crash into a pole, stay in the safety of your SUV until the cops arrive and give you the all clear.

So basically, American houses are badly wired and the electrical grid is strung together by a bunch of incompetents who only got the job because they submitted the lowest tender. If you want to get an impression of just how pathetic the American electric infrastructure is, remember that the three day electrical blackout in 2003 was caused by a single branch falling on a single transformer in Canada.

God help us if al-Qaida ever get their shit together and attack us with lengths of wood. We'd be plunged back into the dark ages overnight.

But ignoring the badly wired American houses and the badly wired American power grid, there's one more crowning achievement in the inadequacies of America's energy incompetence.

There's not enough power to go around.

Considering America is the biggest energy consumer in the world, you might be surprised by this - but it's true. Union heavies promoting inefficient coal power plants, combined with environmental idiots keeping America's nuclear industry four decades behind the rest of the world, has resulted in a nation that can't even supply it's own appetite for waffle irons, air conditioners and electric curling irons.

In the height of summer, when we sweaty Yanks turn on our air conditioners, the power grid suddenly sucks up a whole lot more juice and there's not enough to go around - so we end up getting rolling 'brownouts' as our energy gets thinned out worse than American beer.

It boggles the mind.

I mean, this is America. The greatest nation in the world. It seems remarkable that we can't even supply our own energy without making an (expensive) pig's ear of it.

But where do the problems lie?

Well, let's start at the top and work our way down, shall we?

There's not enough electricity to go around...

As much as I dislike his snotty attitude, Barack Obama's got a point. Our current energy crisis is caused, at least in part, by the fact that we consume an incredible amount of energy. Wifey and I are following the pediatrician's advice and keeping our 650 square feet apartment air-conditioned to a tolerable 76 degrees - and that takes the work of three different air conditioners and four ceiling fans. Our neighbours have bigger houses and chill them to an icy 68 degrees.

The quickest and easiest way to eliminate brownouts would be to ration ourselves and stop consuming so much electricity. If we used less, we'd need less and there'd be more to go around.

The other option is to make more electricity. You'd think this would be the most logical idea and power companies would jump at the opportunity. But the problem is - they can't.

The environmental lobby has protested the building of any new nuclear power stations for thirty years (despite them having provided cheap, clean and safe power for countries like France for decades.) Besides, considering Americans are scared of talcum powder and plastic bottles, you can hardly expect them to line up and volunteer for them to have a big, scary nuclear power station built on their doorstep.

The lumpy old coal power plants still give America the majority of it's power (and the majority of it's pollution) and any talk of shutting them down is met by angry blue collar resistance from the Mafia-like unions, who remind people that the coal industry employs millions of Americans (although if they all got retrained to work in the nuclear industry, they'd statistically live longer, healthier lives than they would working down a coal mine all day.)

Just like the environmentalists block any progress in the nuclear field, the union heavies block any progress in the coal arena. It's all blissfully, transparently corrupt - but apparently nobody's got the testicular fortitude to stand up to them (after all, it's people like this who can win or lose Swing State elections, so politicians don't want to piss them off.)

Finally, the 'acceptable' options, like wind farms and hydroelectric power, run into the most practical problems facing the energy industry. They're expensive and inefficient and although the politicians and public applaud them, these environmentally sound options are never going to get put into production because nobody's stupid enough to invest in them. Besides, people don't want bloody great wind turbines on their horizon any more than a nuclear power station.

The electricity has problems getting to us...

Ignoring the fact that we don't have enough juice to go around, the problem of actually getting it delivered to our house creates major issues.

The snarling cable. The wobbly poles. Why can't we tear them all up and put them underground, where they'll be safely out of the way and less likely to get run into or snapped by falling branches? That's what (adopt snotty Euro accent) we do in Europe.

Well, the fact is, nobody stateside wants to invest in doing that.

The electricity companies are out to make a profit. Large-scale investment in their rickety infrastructure is going to hurt their short-term profits (and they couldn't care less about the long term) so they've got no intention of getting their chequebooks out to fix the problems.

The local townships could do it. You'd think it would be a great idea - providing work for local contractors and making the whole township safer and more beautiful. But despite demanding property taxes ten-times higher than Great Britain, the local township has their hands tied by the greedy school systems and the local law-enforcement, who thuggishly demand their 'pizza de action' and leave very little money left for doing anything remotely useful. (Trust me - our local township resembles Mexico City, but all the local police officers drive about in brand new, $30,000 Dodge Chargers.)

So short of getting a shovel and a wire cutter and doing it ourselves, there's really not much hope that anywhere except the swanky suburbs of Maryland and Connecticut will get their local electric grid sorted out any time soon.

Seeing a pattern here? American politics (and business) is centred around the Short Term Gain and ignoring the Long Term Insurmountable Problems (after all, these can be left to the next Mayor/CEO.)

But it's not all glumness!

No, there is hope!

Okay, I'm not exactly sure what that hope is, where it's coming from or what it consists of, but you know I'm an enormous fan of America in general, so I didn't want to end this rant on a bum note.

Although, with the elections coming up, maybe there is hope for the future.

Barack Obama's right out. With Al Gore strong-arming him, I don't think our Democratic candidate actually has any hope of pursuing a practical solution to the energy crisis.

John McCain's a much stronger proposition. He actually understands the energy crisis and believes in climate change (meaning, unlike most idiotic Republican politicians, he's looking beyond 'drillin' fer more oil, yuck yuck.')

He's actually looking at practical solutions to the energy problem. Like building 150 more nuclear power stations (to the ire of both the lunatic left and retarded right, who want airy-fairy windfarms or more coal and oil power plants respectively.)

John McCain is enough of a maverick to resist the idiots within his own party and the more verbose villains in the environmental movement. He's practical enough to look at both the long term and short term when it comes to finding a solution to the energy crisis.

Maybe - just maybe - there's hope for us yet.

But as for our 'local' problems - like the ropey wiring and precarious telegraph poles?

Well, maybe it's time to just chalk that down as an 'American idiosyncrasy' and stop worrying about it. After all, what's a brownout every now and then?

Fingers out of my 401k, Obama!

We all hate the oil companies.

Is used to cost $20 to fill the 14 gallon tank of my old Firebird. Now, barely five years later, it's pushing $50 to fill the same-sized tank of my new one. Petrol, pushing $4 a gallon, has never been higher and it's not looking like it's going to come down any time soon.

Yet, simultaneously ExxonMobil, the world's largest privately owned oil company, has reported whopping profits of $40 BILLION. High prices? High profits? Surely the two are connected...

Barack Obama certainly thinks so - and he's promising to hit the likes of ExxonMobil with huge 'windfall profit taxes' to redistribute that disgusting profit to the like of the little guy (like me?)

The problem with this plan?

That wealth was already being redistributed to the little guy like me - plus millions of other working and middle class Americans. 98.5% of ExxonMobil stock is owned by institutional investors - much of that on behalf of regular Americans in the form of mutual funds, 401ks and retirement accounts.

I have a 401k - and ExxonMobil's profits help my monthly investment grow - so when I finally retire, I've got enough to live off (because the government has bankrupted Social Security.) So what's the point of investing my hard-earned money if Barack Obama's just going to pluck out the potential profits and give them to somebody else?

It's not just mine, either. It's millions of Americans. In many cases, the same Americans who ignorantly support Obama's cries to tax the oil companies. It's not ExxonMobil who are donating this money for Obama to redistribute - it's regular folks like you and me!

I think people are just too ignorant of the big picture... They don't realise that their relationship to 'big oil' goes beyond their twice weekly fill up (or twice daily if you drive a Hummer.)

Obama - if you want my support, get your grubby mitts [Is that politically correct? Editorial Bear] out of my 401k!

NOTE: As of today, the Republicans decided to do something useful for a change and blocked this proposal before it went anywhere. Nice to see somebody awake in the Senate!

The Social Security Money-Pit

Being brought up as a child of the Thatcher government, I've never really considered Britain a socialist country - although that's what it's labelled by many Americans.

It's Anglicised 'socialism' that's proving to be the crux of the upcoming presidential election, with both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton advocating British-style programs to care for certain American citizens, while John McCain and the Republican party continue to advocate a completely privatized system.

It's a tough sell for McCain & Co. Universal access to adequate health care is clearly the cornerstone of a 'civilised' society and whether you believe in public or private health care, it's difficult to argue that the current system isn't in need of a serious overhaul.

The other 'tough sell' is Social Security. Developed by President Roosevelt after the great depression, Social Security is a mandatory payment by working citizens into a federal fund, which supplies the retired and disabled with a pension.

Many Republicans want this abolished, leaving citizens responsible for paying into their own retirement programs. Most Democrats, on the other hand, want Social Security expanded, to cover more people and offer more benefits.

On the face of it, the Democrats have a much stronger argument. After all, if somebody's paid into Social Security for their entire life, why shouldn't they receive a pension upon retirement? And if a person becomes disabled, isn't it the government's duty to pay their costs of living?

Whatever argument the Republicans come up with to counter this proposal makes them sound callous and uncaring. However, there is one uncomfortable nugget of truth in their argument that Democrats and Liberals are increasingly wary of acknowledging.

Social Security doesn't work.

In theory, Social Security is just a government-funded pension scheme. Workers pay in 12% of their income every paycheque and that money is invested in a 'fund' which generates enough revenue (from interest and investments) to pay for that worker's retirement after thirty or forty years of payments.

It's exactly how a modern day 401k system works - except for a couple of serious issues.

The return on the invested money is considerably less. An average American investing $285,000 dollars into Social Security over the course of his life (about average for somebody earning $60,000 a year) will receive a pension of $2,200 a month upon retirement. If that same $285,000 had been invested in a private high-grade corporate bond, the monthly return could conservatively be estimated at $7,400 a month.

The interest bearing 'fund' has already been spent. Or, at least, that's what Economist Thomas Sowell suggests - arguing that the retirement pensions of the first generation of Social Security contributors is actually being paid for by the contributions of the second generation. The money that should have been in trust - developing interest to pay for future Social Security payments - has actually been borrowed in the form of Government Bonds. This causes a problem when the 'Baby Boom' generation retires and the Social Security contributions of the 'next generation' are only able to cover 75% of the expected costs.

The Money Pit

Social Security Board of Trustees issued their annual report on Tuesday which outlined this exact problem. By 2017, the income from the current Social Security payments American workers make will fall below the cost of the pensions Social Security has promised to pay out.

In short, those of us planning to retire after 2017 will either have to accept a smaller pension payment - or be prepared to pay more taxes.

And if that sounds bad enough, it gets worse. With advances in medicine and science, the demographic gap between retired Americans and working ones is increasing - meaning the diminishing Social Security investment will have to be spread across a widening group of retirees.

It's absolutely unsustainable. In fact, to pay the pensions of retiring Americans at their current rate, Social Security payments will have to be increased by 300%! That means the average working American will see an instantaneous tax increase of 12.4% - and a self-employed American will technically be required to pay an additional 24.8%.

The only other alternative is to pay out less upon retirement - further widening the disparity between private investment (through a 401k scheme) and the money you get back from a lifetime paying into Social Security.

Democrats Lose

Alarmingly, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton seem to be addressing this alarming issue. In fact, Clinton has made it very clear that she wants to expand both Social Security and Medicare.

On the surface of it, that appeals to a lot of Americans - more pension money. More health care benefits. But it will come at the cost of increasing income taxes - dramatically.

For most working Americans, Social Security is not longer a realistic plan for the future. Unless they invest more of their own money into a private 401k scheme, there will simply not be enough money in the Social Security fund to give them a livable pension.

The Alternative...

For many people - myself included - it would seem to be far more sensible and profitable to take the 12.4 percent paid into Social Security (half by you, half by your employer) and pay it directly into your 401k (where an additional 6% of my income already goes.)

That way, you can maximise the effectiveness of your investment (if the earlier example holds true) winding up with three or four times the monthly pension that you would through Social Security alone.

In addition, if you could invest 12.4% of your income privately, into a 401k that would actually give you a decent return on your money, you might not need to do what millions of Americans (including myself) do and supplement your Social Security retirement 'plan' by investing a further 6% of your income privately. That's 6% to spend elsewhere adding up to thousands of dollars a year.

...and why it's not viable

As rosy as this option sounds, it's not viable for several reasons.

Firstly, and most importantly, the inefficiencies of the current Social Security system mean that our Social Security payments are required to pay for the retiring Baby Boomers. In fact, these payments won't even add up to 73% of the promised payments the Baby Boom generation is expecting - so Social Security payments have to continue - or possibly increase - even though they're not contributing to our future retirement at all!

Secondly, what the Social Security system lacks in return-on-investment, it at least offers in stability (in theory.) Recent financial disasters like Enron and Bear Stearns show that even low-risk investment portfolios do carry some risk. In the private sector, if a lifetime's investment is wiped out overnight, there's nobody you can go running to.

• That being said, if the government's habit of dipping into the Social Security trust had been copied in a private company, the 'dippers' would be facing lengthy jail-terms, rather than reelection.)
• That additionally being said, the fact that Social Security is due to go into the red by 2017 suggests that investment in government Social Security is no safer - perhaps even less so - than putting money into a private investment portfolio.)

Thirdly, the mandatory Social Security payments make sure every American worker is investing in their retirement (even if they get terrible return on their investment.) If American workers had 12% of their income freed up in order to invest in their future... who's to say they would?

It's exactly the same problem that plagues the health care system. Almost 50 million Americans are without health insurance - ostensibly because they can't afford it. How long would it be after Social Security was privatised before millions of Americans started claiming they couldn't afford to invest in their pension schemes, either?

Whether or not they can afford healthcare, they can afford to invest 12.4% of their payroll into a pension scheme - they do so already because the Social Security payments are compulsory. But if payroll taxes were abolished and somebody had the option of spending money or not, many would choose not - resulting in a sizable chunk of people descending into poverty when they hit 65.

THIS is the real Achilles heel of privatised Social Security. The fact that some people are far too bloody stupid to actually take it seriously.

So where does that leave us?

Roll the dice. Take your chances. Whichever way you look at it, the future of Social Security is very grim indeed.

Currently, Social Security is a cash-gobbling monster headed directly into debt. In less than a decade, either the Baby Boomers or the American 9-to-5'er (or both) are going to feel a firm fiscal pinch. Somebody is not going to get what they were promised - either in the size of their Social Security cheque or the amount of tax rudely hacked from their paycheque.

The reality is, Social Security no longer offers anybody a secure future. For my generation, Social Security deductions are basically just another form of income tax. We receive no benefit for them whatsoever. Unless we invest the rest of our paycheque into a 401k scheme, there is little hope of ever receiving an adequate pension from Social Security.

Social Security is already effectively privatised.

When are Hillary and Obama going to admit that?

Some Thoughts about Universal Health Care

When it comes to the ongoing debate about American health care, I'm definitely in the privatised, American camp. I've seen the British version of 'universal health care' and it's not pretty.

So far, Tina and my experiences with the American health care system have been much more positive than what we experienced in England - even if they cost more.

Our experiences

Tina's expecting a baby - so that means plenty of visits to Robert Woods Johnson Hospital for scans, checkups and advice. After the contributions of my job's health insurance package, we've been left with about $1,000 to pay out of our own pockets.

In England, the NHS would not have charged us any money. However, the treatment we've received in America has been in a beautiful, clean, well-appointed new hospital with very modern equipment. We weren't left waiting for very long and the doctors and nurses have held our hand through the entire process.

At the Royal Hampshire Infirmary, in Winchester, we had a couple of terrible experiences, being expected to wait about four hours for treatment in a dirty hospital, with old equipment and a doctor who once gave Tina a potentially life-threatening misdiagnosis (delivered in a rude and offhand manner.)

Even worse, two new mothers from Winchester recently died from the same form of streptococcal infection they'd coincidentally picked up while in the maternity ward of the Royal Hampshire Infirmary.

Clearly, private health insurance offers us (Tina and myself) a much higher standard of health care that we could receive back home

The Downside of Private Health Care

That being said, Tina and I are in the enviable situation of having a good health care package and living close to an excellent hospital.

The reason health care is such an important issue in the upcoming presidential election is because almost 50 million Americans - close to 20% of the entire US population - have no health care coverage at all.

This is because private health care is rocketing in price - and many companies, like Wal-Mart, don't offer an adequate health care package even to full time employees.

Now, even if you're a stuffy old Tory, like me, you can't help but admit that this is wrong. Adequate health care is a basic human right. That shouldn't be a political issue for either the Democrats or Republicans. It's only the best means to accomplish this goal which should be up for discussion. In theory...

In theory.

Because currently, the debate's taken a rather surreal twist and more and more conservative Republicans are railing against any notion of 'universal health care' as proposed by Barack Obama, Senator Clinton or even their own candidate, John McCain.

In fact, in his daily radio show, conservative pundit Mark Levin often claims that Obama and Clinton are pitching a 'socialised' medical system along the same lines as Britain's National Health Service - and he enjoys using the dismal state of the NHS as an example of why it would never work.

But the problem with the conservative argument (as is increasingly common with any conservative argument is that it's utter rubbish.

American 'socialism.'

Pundits love to label the likes of Hillary Clinton as a 'socialist' or 'Marxist' when they have no real concept of the term. For a Brit - at least one who's lived long enough to remember the socialist Labor party (before Tony Blair came along) - the idea of calling Obama or Clinton a socialist is completely laughable.

Neither Democratic candidate wants to introduce a nationalised health service along the lines of the NHS. Instead, the 'universal health care' they're suggesting would simply mean that everybody in America (hence 'universal') would have access to affordable medical care (hence 'health care.')

For those in poverty, that could be some kind of system like Medicare or Medicaid. For low income families, it could be some form of subsidized or Federal health insurance.

Additionally, Obama, Clinton and McCain want the consumer cost of private medical insurance to be reduced by opening up competition - meaning consumers wouldn't be limited to the health insurance package their employer offers - and could seek more competitive quotes out-of-state.

Also, big companies like Wal-Mart would be forced to do what they should have done from the very beginning - offer their full-time employees adequate health care.

Whatever happens, the intended result of universal health care would be a system in which everybody in America has access to medical treatment. And apparently the conservative Republicans loath this idea!

Why?

The major argument conservatives have against any form of universal health care is that it would be tax-payer funded. They're worried that their hard-earned income would be taxed in order to pay for the health care of low income families (read: other people. Conservatives don't like giving money for the benefit of other people.)

There is a simple and indisputable reason why this argument is idiotic. America already has a system of 'universal health care' that's funded by the tax-payer (and subsidized by the health insurance consumer.)

Federal law forbids hospitals from turning away patients. If a visitor to a hospital doesn't have health insurance - or the means to pay their bills - it's the government or hospital that eventually has to pay up for that patient's treatment.

Which means the tax payer already pays $15 billion a year towards the health care of people without insurance. What's worse, hospitals and doctors cover the expense of 'writing off' uninsured patients by charging paying customers more - which in turn dramatically hikes up health insurance premiums.

So whether it's through tax-dollars or an increase in health insurance premiums, at the end of the day, the bad-tempered conservatives are already paying for other people's health care.

It seems stubborn and idiotic for them not to open their minds to a more efficient (i.e. cheaper) way of doing what they're already doing now.

The Simple Maths

Health insurance premiums have skyrocketed over the last few years - and one of the major reasons is because hospitals and doctors have needed to recoup their losses from treating uninsured patients.

Since about 20% of Americans have no health insurance - plus the millions of illegal immigrants and undocumented workers - the current situation works something like this:

Four people go to the hospital and have treatment that costs $300.

One of those four people has no health insurance. So to cover their costs, the hospital is forced to split that loss amongst the other three paying customers.

$300 ÷ 3 = $100 each added to their bill.

That bill ends up being $400 instead of $300. Basically, they're paying 25% more.

And it's a spiralling problem. As health insurance premiums increase, more and more people can't afford insurance, which means doctors and hospitals have to increase their costs to cover them.

That, in turn, increases insurance premiums again, which again means that more people 'drop out' of health insurance programs...

And do you see where I'm going with this?

Something needs to be done.

This situation needs to be addressed - and conservatives can't stick their head in the sand and pretend otherwise.

Currently, all three of the presidential candidates have interesting and promising solutions to the health care crisis.

Senator John McCain

John McCain's solution is within Republican party lines.

While he rejects any form of government funded or subsidized universal health care, he wants to offer a $5,000 tax rebate for families with private medical insurance (helping considerably towards the cost.)

In addition, he wants to reduce health insurance premiums by opening up competition between states. Currently, health insurance providers can operate in one state alone - meaning there are a limited number of suppliers in each state.

McCain's idea is to allow consumers to select insurance from companies based all across the United States, forcing suppliers to offer more affordable premiums.

In addition, Senator McCain wants to allow consumers to opt-out of their company's health-insurance package and take their employer's contribution elsewhere - again forcing health insurance companies to offer more competitive rates, rather than 'signing up' big businesses and forcing a big, fat premium out of every employee.

"In health care," John McCain explains, "I believe in enhancing the freedom of individuals to receive necessary and desired care."

Basically: We help those with the means to help themselves.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

Even though her opponents (like talk show host Mark Levin) accuse Hillary of being a socialist, the universal health care package she champions is very different from the National Health Service in England.

In fact, she spent [wasted - Editorial Bear] millions of dollars while her husband was in the White House investigating - and ultimately ruling out - a single-payer health care system like we have in Britain or Canada.

Clinton advocates government subsidies for low-income families, meaning that they will be able to afford health insurance.

She also wants to set up a federal health care system, which Americans can 'buy into' instead of their employer's health insurance package. This will force private health insurance companies to make their premiums more competitive and offer health care coverage to people with pre-existing conditions - people who would normally be refused private health insurance.

Because of the subsidies and the setting up of a federal health care system, Hillary Clinton's solution to America's health care crisis is the most expensive. However, with costs of $110 billion per year (in contrast, the war in Iraq costs $144 billion per year) this can be paid for by eliminating the controversial 'Bush tax cuts.')

However, it's the thought of killing this tax break which makes Hillary's plan so unpopular with the conservatives.

Clinton's election promise: "One of the goals that I will be presenting is health insurance for every child and universal health care for every American."

Senator Barack Obama

Obama similarly believes in real 'universal health care' and on the face of it, many of his ideas are similar to Hillary Clinton's.

Most importantly, the idea that every American should have access to affordable health insurance even if they have a pre-existing condition.

"I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country."

Critics of Obama have pointed out his lack of specific details when it comes to a proposed universal health care package - but it will still be rooted within the existing system of private health insurance providers (with some government intervention.)

Obama's plan will ultimately hope to reduce health care costs for all Americans, while providing low-income families or those with pre-existing conditions access to the medical care they are currently excluded from.

It's been a long time coming...

Whichever candidate ends up the White House, I'm confident that they will introduce improvements to the existing health care system and allow more people to have access to better care at a cheaper price.

One thing to note is that none of the candidates - not even Hillary Clinton - plans to eliminate the concept of private health insurance. They just want to regulate and streamline it.

Hopefully this means that the advantages of private medical insurance - driving the development of cutting-edge new technology and pharmaceuticals - will remain, while the disadvantages (the high insurance premiums and difficulty getting medical coverage for pre-existing conditions) will be addressed.

Having experienced both socialised and privatised heath care, I am convinced that the private system offers the consumer a better service. However, just like in any privatised industry, the demand to make money often threatens to overwhelm the mandate to provide a service.

I just hope that whichever presidential candidate makes it to the White House, they ensure that the patient always comes before the shareholder.

Howard Dean and Al Gore

Just tonight, I watched two interviews with former Presidential candidates.

First was Al Gore - who is an utterly charming, clever, sharp and highly capable man. I mean, he's won an Oscar and (part of) a Nobel Prize. Given that the man who beat him in the 2000 election can't even pronounce the word 'nuclear' it's kind of a sharp indictment of American society that he's not in the White House right now.



Second was Howard Dean, former presidential candidate (he lost the Democratic nomination to John Kerry) who now runs the Democratic National Committee. He again struck me as a clever, considered man who delivered sharp, quick responses to difficult questions.

Given that the Democratic nominees seem to be tied up in infighting and bitchiness - plus the fact that both front runners (Hillary and Obama) are up against discrimination regarding their sex and race, it's a real shame that neither of these two apparently capable men are throwing their hats into the ring.

I don't doubt either front-running Democratic candidate's abilities. I'm just not sure America is as ready for them as the world is.