Natural selection as it has operated in human history favors not only the clever but the murderous.

The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes on those which were best and greatest it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.

You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for.

Nixon in 1968 unlike Obama 2008 was elected as a minority president with only 43 percent of the vote. Yet in 1972 he won what in some measures was the most lopsided election in American history with 61 percent.

From tea parties to the election in Massachusetts we are witnessing the single greatest political pushback in American history.

In every election in American history both parties have their cliches. The party that has the cliches that ring true wins.

I can support co-ops if they want to do it as we've known co-ops in America for 150 years - where they serve the purposes of the consuming public whether it's health care or whether it's co-ops as we know them in the Midwest providing electricity or to sell supplies to farmer.

We've had Town Hall meetings we've witnessed election after election in which the American people have taken a position on the President's health care bill. And the bottom line is the people don't like this bill. They don't want it.

When elected officials abandon our environment and ruin our natural resources public health is endangered. I know the importance of providing a clean environment for our children I have attended more than one funeral for a child who has died from an asthma attack.

If the states and territories do not sign up to fundamental reform then my message is equally simple: we will take this reform plan to the people at the next election - along with a referendum by or at that same election to give the Australian Government all the power it needs to reform the health system.

Most of the provisions designed to fix what ails our health system don't kick in until 2014 which one wishes administration officials had noticed is two years after he has to win an election.

I think about my parents all the time especially on Sunday when I'm at Mass. My mother always said 'We do not pray to win elections. We pray for people's health we pray that God's will be done we pray that we do our best. But we do not pray to win elections.'

The president has declared that the debate over government-controlled health care is over. That will come as news to the millions of Americans who will elect Mitt Romney so we can repeal Obamacare.

Some of you read with me 40 years ago a portion of Aristotle's Ethics a selection of passages that describe his idea of happiness. You may not remember too well.

It is now possible to quantify people's levels of happiness pretty accurately by asking them by observation and by measuring electrical activity in the brain in degrees from terrible pain to sublime joy.

Apparently a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

Although my seat is a contest between Labour and the Lib Dems it could well make the difference between a Labour and a Tory government at the next election. In terms of international development this choice is a very clear one.

As the economy faces such difficulties more tough questions need to be asked about what the Tories would do if elected. Their ideology of free markets and small government needs challenging. That has to be part of our job.

In Scotland the indication is that for the Westminster elections at least Labour voters are satisfied with their government.

The Government and the Parliament even the House of Lords will consent to a large increase of electors and men who have not considered the subject fully will imagine they have gained much by the concession.

If you have a government that is elected they need to do the hard work - because if they don't they won't be around the next time the ballot box is open.

The growth of modern constitutional government compels for its successful practice the exercise of reason and considerate judgment by the individual citizens who constitute the electorate.

I was elected to come to an incredibly dysfunctional capital and make the government work better and that's what I'm doing.

The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil that there must be opposition between its various branches and between political parties for these are the only ways to temper the individual's greed for power and the electorates' desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.