After two stolen elections by Bush-Cheney, an election of Grandpa John "Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain and his sorority president sidekick -- whether honest or blatantly stolen and tolerated -- would have said something hugely depressing and debilitating about the American people. But arguably it could have saved a great many lives around the world. Here's how.

Premise number 1: Presidents will fight as many and as large wars as they possibly can. Presidents have always loved wars, which they have used to seize greater powers and strip away civil liberties. As the military industrial presidential complex has grown, so has the financial and institutional pressure for wars. President Obama is expanding the U.S. empire of bases, escalating wars, and toying with possible new wars to the extent that he has the weapons, troops, and mercenaries available to do it with. No more, no less. McCain-Palin, left to their own devices, would have done very nearly the same thing. Therefore, any major change in war policy effected by the 2008 presidential election would have had to be indirect.

Contradictions on the Horizon

You see them as you fly in. 'Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen, Lovely Ol' Girl of the Sea,' as Danny Kaye's Hans Christian Anderson character once sang in the '50's movie, embodies in its skyline the contrasts and contradictions facing us all in the inevitable transition to a post-carbon future. A scan across the harbor's horizon reveals a phalanx of giant wind-generators spinning ponderously in the ocean breeze, flanked by an array of coal- and gas-fired power plants discharging plumes of carbon into the lowering overcast. Just visible to the east across the narrow strip of ocean that separates Denmark from Sweden you can make out the inactive cooling tower of Barsebek nuclear power plant, shut down as a result of public pressure generated by anti-nuclear NGO's in both countries.

Does the United States Constitution allow Congress to force people to purchase a product (health insurance) from a private corporation, and fine them or tax them if they refuse? The answer is a matter of debate, but there is little dispute that such an act of Congress would be unprecedented.

Sheldon Laskin, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Baltimore Law School who has argued that the Constitution forbids such a move, describes the new and dangerous can of worms it would open up:

Outlandish? Consider this: Many Supreme Court observers expect a ruling, quite possibly on January 12, 2010, in the case of Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission that would lift all limits on corporate funding of elections, meaning that national and international corporations could swamp the election system with so much money that any influence from actual citizens would be utterly negated. If you were a corporation and you owned the legislature, and laws were being passed requiring people to purchase products, and you owed it to your shareholders to maximize profits, what would you feel compelled to do? Exactly.