COMMENT: Obama supports same-sex marriage

It's something that few thought they'd hear from an American President, and particularly not one who is known for being involved in a fairly evangelical church, but Obama coming out in support of same-sex marriage is a great day for human rights in the USA.

24 hours earlier, North Carolina had voted 61%-39% against same-sex marriage and enforcing a constitutional ban on gay weddings, which made it all the more important that Obama made his position clear.

In the last few days, Joe Biden, the otherwise invisible Vice President had said he was in favour of same-sex marriage but pointed out that it was his personal opinion and not necessarily shared by the President. At that point the Obama repeated his position on the subject as "evolving" - which has been his official position since 2010.

I dread what the backlash will be. The right-wing press has already started to attack Obama. Fox News said his decision was anti-marriage.

The problem is that the churches have too much influence on American society - brainwashing millions with hatred and bigotry, but Obama is right. It is time to embrace the gay community and give them equality. Not allowing gay marriage is an untenable position in 2012.

I'm not an Obama fan but, given a choice of him or Romney, an right wing extremist, science denier and religious bigot, I hope that the President hasn't destroyed his re-election. Maybe remaining neutral until he was safely back in the White House would have been more sensible?

COMMENT: In exactly one year the U.S. President will be sworn in

Yes, exactly one year today, the President of the United States of America will be sworn in at his inauguration ceremony.

Americans have a choice between right wing, religious lunatics, though the Republicans are still sorting out which lunatic they want.

Increasingly it looks like Newt Gingrich will be the candidate of the GOP who will attempt to depose Barack Obama, who hasn't had the best first three years in power, and has certainly lived up (or down) to many people's fears that he was more about style than substance.

Increasingly, in the UK, we have a similarly narrow choice of party - right wing, capitalist and, sadly, of faith.

It is time both the US and UK looked beyond the gormless, extremist numpties and voted on principle rather than habit. It is time to accept that capitalism has failed too may times and needs to be replaced as the economic system that controls world finances. It is time to realise that those "of faith" cannot be trusted to behave sanely - after all, they believe there are invisible superbeings for which there is absolutely no evidence. And it is time we rejected politicians who have warmongering attitudes.

It makes no difference whether, in twelve months time, it's Obama or Gingrich being sworn in. Or, for that matter, any other moron the Republican Party puts up. All if them are equally ridiculous, all of them are equally stupid and all of them will be dangerous with their finger on the nuclear button.
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2011's major news stories - in Lego

I love this:

Click here to see all the major events of the past year recreated in Lego!

A Christmas tree, made entirely from Lego, at St. Pancras station

COMMENT: Cutting diplomatic links with Iran

Things have been hitting-up with regard to the West's relationship with Iran (well, now that Iraq and Libya are "solved", Obama needs a new war to help his election campaign). The West keep saying that Iran shouldn't be developing nuclear weapons while Iran point out the hypocrisy of the nuclear powers telling them they can't join the gang!

Earlier this week, the British Embassy in Tehran was attacked and taken over. The UK government's response was to withdraw all from the embassy and order all Iranian diplomats out of London. Diplomatic links are cut.

At a time of trouble and disagreement isn't that the worst and most idiotic thing to do? When there is disagreement that is the time when diplomats should be doing their job: talking, negotiating, working out a peace, keeping the peace.

Cutting diplomatic ties is like taking your ball home and ending the game. Worse, it's more akin to preparing for war. And what will this war achieve? Nothing.

Sure, there will be Americans who see it as an heroic struggle against the Iranians and, I'm sure, it will bolster Obama's presidency (and his lack of substance continues to be exposed - he, more than anyone, needs another war if he is to win a second term in the White House).

Cameron, the British PM, probably hopes it will be his Falklands - Thatcher, deeply unpopular after cuts, riots and rising unemployment sent forces to re-capture a few bits of rock we'd been trying to get rid of for decades in the early '80s and, therefore, romped to a second election victory in 1983. And, of course, another big war would be just what Cameron's mates in the Arms industry want (he's recently been campaigning to end the treaty that banned cluster bombs).

Also, Cameron has been sidelined in Europe and has lost a platform where he might have been able to be seen as statesmanlike. He wants, very much as Blair did with GWB, to radiate in the glow that is emanating from Obama. Obama is, now, one of his only international friends left.

After the "dodgy dossier" and the lack of WMD in Iraq, should we take Iran's claims, and the West's concerns, with a pinch of salt?

So, what if Iran IS on the verge of having nuclear weapons? What if they actually already have them? Should I bother buying any Christmas presents or will the world have come to an end in the next few weeks?

Hopefully, that's unlikely, but, and there is no doubt, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President is both unstable and unpredictable. Is that the sort of man who should be let loose like this?

Cutting diplomatic links is a truly idiotic thing to do with any nation - but particularly any nation that could be considered a "rogue state". It is political posturing on a level to which the likes of the unions normally only ever sink. It is dangerous and Cameron is gambling on what might happen next.

Grown-ups discuss their problems. Grown-ups negotiate and compromise. This week Cameron, yet again, has shown himself to be a schoolboy in short trousers when it comes to the world stage.

48 years ago today - the assassination of JFK

48 years ago today, at 12.30 pm on the 22nd November 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America, was assassinated as his motorcade drove through Dallas, Texas.



Today, nearly half a century later, we're still unsure as to who pulled the trigger. Sure, the Warren ommission found that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to shoot JFK and Jack Ruby acted alone to kill Lee Harvey Oswald but, as the years have passed, more and more conspiracy theories and potential cover-ups leave us with a situation where it is thought 80% of Americans believe that there was more to it than a lone gunman shooting their President.

Will we ever know the truth? It seems very unlikely now. Most of the main players are now long gone and all the theories seem inconclusive at best and some, well, just crackpot.

What is worth contemplating is what sort of world we might have now had Kennedy lived.

He would, quite likely, have won the 1964 Presidential election, defeating Nixon who might not have ever become President. It's possible that the fall of communism in Eastern Europe might have been sooner than the late 80s/early 90s. If no Nixon, then, possibly, no Reagan and the arms race that threatened the future of the whole world.

Kennedy had his faults as a human being, as do we all, but there is no denying news an inspirational figure, perhaps on a scale not seen until Barrack Obama's election to the White House. Had JFK lived on November 22nd 1963 the is no doubt the world would be a very different place today in 2011.

OPINION: One Year to go... will Obama get re-elected?

We're just 12 months from the next election for US President. Has Barrack Obama done enough for the American people to give him a second term?

I think it's fair to say that I've been disappointed by Obama, he's been style over substance from the word go. Then again, I guess I've been disappointed by just about every American President. The difference between UK and US politics means that we in the UK have a choice of two centre-right parties (plus a barnacle that, last time round, found something to stick to). In the US they have a right-wing party (the Democrats) and an extreme right-wing party (GOP). The choice is limited, but, then, the parties on offer only represent the views of America.

To me, I'm sorry to say, Obama was elected BECAUSE he was black, rather than anything else he said or had done. On the campaign trail, he never promised much, and he's lived up to that promise well.

Obama has had some success: with Healthcare reform; the killing of Osama bin Laden; the killing of Colonel Gadaffi. There's a worrying theme growing there. With attention spans short I think the leaders of any rogue states would be best not annoying the Prez until after the election, it could just be an electorally positive act for him to complete his hat trick.

But he's failed on so many levels. Surely, Obama is, perhaps, the most disappointing Presidents since at least Ford?

To me, his saving grace is the opposition being put up against him by the Republicans. They're all nutters - most put the Bible before science, most would probably bomb the hell out of the whole of the Middle East (except, of course, Israel) if it meant they'd get a vote, and all are stupendously wealthy and have no idea about the real, ordinary person.

Yes, Obama is also a "believer" - at a dangerously evangelical church - but his idiocy is nothing compared to the "faith" of the morons being put forward by the GOP.

So what will happen next November? It's probably too early to tell, one major event, one significant cock up, one more Axis of Evil's leader's head on a pole and things could change.

If I had to guess, I'd predict Obama will narrowly get a second term but, by 2014, be a lame duck President unable to do anything.

Mind you, he's done little so far.