Dive into the archives.
- True web-savvy politicking
Sean Tevis, an Information Architect running for Kansas State Representative, takes the whole “Politics 2.0” scene to the extreme by introducing himself in the form of an homage to webgeek comic xkcd. This guy is sure to steal all of Ron Paul’s followers. However, how much of the long tail resides in Kansas? [...]
- “Adult supervision” for Foreign Affairs
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper shuffled his cabinet today, replacing his fallen foreign minister with David Emerson. Emerson is a well-experienced manager who is looked upon favourably by analysts and others. Former foreign minister John Manley was quoted as saying, “He’s been a very steady performer. He will bring adult supervision to the Department of [...]
- The democratic nominee debate in historical context
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858
Brilliant.
- Voter typology
As mentioned yesterday I have been contemplating democracy and the reconciliation of disparate political priorities. The purpose of my intellectual inquiry is to better understand democracy and its political processes.
Policymaking in a democracy is a complex process of debate, competing interests and political horse-trading. Elected officials are representative of voter interests, ideologies or political priorities. [...]
- The Japan-Malaysia Party Politics Parallel
Both Malaysia and Japan are democratic states. Yet both have seen a majority party in control of all branches of government for many decades. In Japan, it’s the Liberal Democratic Party, while in Malaysia, it’s the Barisan Nasional (National Front). Elections a few years ago in both countries rewarded both – [...]
- The Character of Japan
Which of the following statements comes closest to describing how you feel, on the whole, about the people who live in Japan?
The Japanese people will always want to go to war to make themselves as powerful as possible – 35%
The Japanese people may not like war, but they have shown that they are too easily [...]
- Why care about presidential faith?
Religious faith is a big issue for the current US primary. I assume this has been ignited by Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. This is common for elections involving non-Protestant candidates — JFK’s Catholicism was also controversial during the 1960 presidential election.
For some, faith is solid evidence of moral standing. For these “values voters” candidates must flaunt [...]
- Ditto
From Roy at MF:
This is already a week old, but did anyone notice that the very same day US Congressman Mike Honda (D, California) issued yet another call for Japan to issue a more concrete apology to former comfort women, New Jersey became the first Northern state in the United States to issue a formal [...]
- A peek into America’s Latino future
Latin America has often been pointed out as a blindspot for America. The booming latinization of America’s population (both immigrant and domestic) and media has drawn the attention of pundits every year since the 1990s.
This year, the year of the US presidential election, we could get a better idea of what an American Latino future [...]
- The phenomenon of the “flip-flop”
The derogative (ie. political) “flip-flop” is an inconsistent phenomenon of modern day culture. Only in politics (and religion) is it considered a virtue not to change one’s mind despite evidence to the contrary. Watching the political goings-on in US these days it amazes me how the electorate attaches such great importance to the fossilization of [...]
