If McCain wins the US Presidential election this Blog post will constitute heresy and I will be on the run from the pitchfork wielding crowd. But right now everything is still up for grab and the first report giving McCain a lead over Obama has come in which is why I begin thinking 'what is it with us'? Why, as a species, do we crave certainty to the degree that we are willing to put up with 'the devil we know' rather than seize the moment and get a sense of real hope and real change?

It kinda leads you to ask some deep questions about religion. We'll forego the Earth-mother/male-dominance question on the deity's sex and will, for a moment, focus on the other issue that's been hot on the Presidential election trail this year: age. It might seem a little oxymoronic but change, hope and youth tend to go together like home and apple pie, bacon and eggs and curry and beer (OK, that's a Brit hangover from our post-imperial days).

I speak for myself when I write that when I look towards God I really want him to be dynamic, full of ebergy, power and kick-ass attitude. The kind of God that looks at my enemies and says 'I got some thunderbolts, let's go and get them' and looks at the natural disasters of the past and promises 'never again, just gotta do something about that', but I seem to be on a minority here. The kinda...

James Bond's family motto (from the eponymous film) is probably the least auspicious title for a post on the US election but there is a good reason for this. Less than ten years ago we all dared to look towards Christmas and the biggest party of the century because as all four figures changed in the annual calendar we hoped, yep hoped, that something bright, shiny and new would come of it. A fresh new century that would somehow allow us to spring into the future with a clean slate.

9/11 (and the conspiracy theories that have grown around it) put the first nail in the coffin of that notion. The lies surrounding the Iraq war and the reasons why it had to happen added the rest. So, why is the US election so important? We are in the grip of what may turn out to be a global recession, oil is running out and the word security amidst some of the most hi-tech surveillance methods employed by so-called democratic governments, has never been more than a misnomer.The 21st century has turned out to be a place where the challenges are bigger, slicker, bolder and more dangerous and the solutions are, so far, thin on the ground.

The reason why so much hangs on the balance right now is that the choice of mullet-wearing, gun-totting, lumberjack-shirted guys (and their girls) has the power to decide the fate of our world. The US election right now is not between McCain and...