Wednesday-Night

The Shadow President
By JACOB HEILBRUNN
(NYT Book review) As governor of Texas, Bush hewed to a centrist course, working, as he often boasted, with the Democratic­-led State Legislature. As a candidate for the presidency, he promised more of the same. But as president, he struck out on a more radical and polarizing course, one that Barton […]

The Food issue
Farmer in Chief
(NYT Magazine) … with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to […]

8 September
 International Issues for the Campaign
Dr. Gordon Smith, The Centre for Global Studies
Canada has important foreign policy choices to make; even no policy is in fact a kind of policy. Is it too much to hope that the election in this country will include debate on the major international issues facing Canada? Probably. Is it […]

See also China, Beijing Olympics and Olympic Protest Primer
Armed Chinese police still occupy Lhasa six months after riots
The continued paramilitary presence in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, suggests that Chinese officials still fear an uprising similar to the deadly protests six months ago. The Guardian, the first Western news outlet to visit the […]

See also Banks and Wednesday-Night.com
Banking’s crisis of confidence deepens
Wall Street rebounded in spite of a worsening crisis of confidence in the global banking system, as leaders of the US Congress moved to try to salvage the Bush administration’s $700bn (£385bn) bail-out plan. A proposal to increase the ceiling for government insurance on bank deposits to […]

Credit Crisis May Delay Biofuels Development
(Reuters/Planet Ark) LONDON - A global pull-back from bank lending may dent the commercialisation of biofuel technologies to replace conventional gasoline, said the chief executive of US cellulosic ethanol firm BlueFire Ethanol. 
A credit crisis which claimed more bank victims on Monday has raised project finance costs and made ambitious targets […]

A wonderful diatribe and distinctly ‘other’ view of Larry Summers
THISDAY, Lawrence Summers, and the Future of Africa
In essence, Obaigbena and his editors, in their infinite wisdom, have concluded that two representatives of American market fundamentalism are in the most auspicious position to perorate on “the challenges of Nigeria’s policy and market environment”. If we are […]

This is certainly a contrarian view. We promise to take another look at it in a year’s time.
George Bush: The Comeback Kid
Stanley Fish
(NYT Opinion) I would like to enter these treacherous waters again and venture another prediction: within a year of the day he leaves office, and no matter who succeeds him, George W. […]

Guided as usual by the events of the week, our topics will likely be limited to the financial crisis and proposed bailout in the U.S., the elections in Canada and the U.S. and/or anything crucial that happens between now and Wednesday Night. Please see this page and/or www.wednesday-night.com for updates.
As promised previously, we again pose […]

The U.S. 2008 Presidential Election: An Evaluation
by Rodrigue Tremblay
In his quite exhaustive analysis (excerpts below), Dr. Tremblay concludes
The 2008 American presidential election is a most unusual and interesting election, and it will be studied intensively in the coming years. My preliminary assessment is that this is still a presidential election for the Democrats to […]