2012 Presidential Election: Part I – Barack Obama

Posted on May 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

Fascinating website out there.  A clearing house for all things fun.  intrade.com

I enjoy watching this one.  A perfect example of a boom and bust.  A bubble growing and then correcting.

Note the downward path of the price of Obama Winning in 2012 starting in March of this year.  Then, the “bubble” where Obama took out Osama bin Laden.

Then the correction.

Free markets baby, the free market!

Hat Tip: Mark Perry at Carpe Diem

UPDATE:

Here is another look at the same bubble from Rasmussen:  His polling is 3 days behind due to how he computes polling.

Already back to pre-hit levels.

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Posted in Elections 2012, Politics: National

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Housing Boom and Housing Bust: Federal Loans and Foreclosures

Posted on May 11, 2011 | 14 comments

Remember when houses were worth more than they are now?  Remember when the value of a home would go up almost overnight?  You could buy one on Tuesday and sell it for a profit by Friday.

Yeah…good times.

Until the bubble hit.  And then it wasn’t such good times; in fact it was bad times.  Really bad times.

The housing bubble hit all of us in some way or another.  For many of us, our homes are worth less now than they were before; we still haven’t caught up.  And the economy?  Well, we know how THAT has played out.  So, with the the downside of such a bubble being so, well, down, the lessons we learned just a few short years ago should still be fresh.  Should still be pertinent, right?

Wrong.

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Lobby/PAC, Politics: National, States Behaving Badly

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Teacher Insurance Rates: Teachers Pay Their Own Premium

Posted on May 11, 2011 | 4 comments

North Carolina is broke.  Ba-Roe-K.

Hear it people.  We have no more money and things are gonna have to change.  And one of those things is that people who used to have the State pay for things are now going to have to pay for those things themselves!

Some will say that this is a pay cut, but I disagree.  It’s not a pay cut.  After all, it can’t be a pay cut if you didn’t count it as pay to begin with!

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Posted in Education, Health Care, Politics: North Carolina, Uncategorized

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Why Is It Okay To Shoot An Old Man In His Jammies?

Posted on May 10, 2011 | 12 comments

THIS is a great question.

After pushing the official on the fact that we obtained information that led to the death of Osama bin Laden through enhanced interrogation techniques INCLUDING waterboarding, the question was posed:

Why is shooting an unarmed man in the face legal and proper while enhanced interrogation including water boarding of a detainee under very strict controls and limits; why is that over the line?

The fun starts at 1:58

In short, the answer is that Obama has no answer.

The Left has no answer.

Rather, they come back and say, “Well, that’s not us; that’s not who we are.”

But it is.    We raise men in this manner.  It IS who we are.  And I’m glad it’s who we are.

Jeepers.

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Posted in Diplomacy, Politics: International, Politics: National, Raising Men

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Did Sexist Men Make Education Better?

Posted on May 10, 2011 | 7 comments

I write part time -Trying to write full time- over at The Constitution Club.  I’m cross  posting this here:

I’m gonna be upfront here. Don’t read this if you are faint of heart or can’t handle true things. There are gonna be things called facts strewn about and they may hurt.

I’m just sayin’.

I remember awhile back tellin’ my wife that I thought she was one of the reasons that our education system isn’t doing as well as we would like.

She looked at me and asked “Why?”

I said, “Because you are a woman.”

I had to walk home, but I have my reasons.

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Posted in Education, Politics: National

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The World’s Most Valuable Brand

Posted on May 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

There is an organization that measures such things.  And, in fact, they place a dollar value to those brands as well.  Anyway, the latest list is out and the winner is:

Apple

In a study released Monday by Millward Brown, a market-research arm of London advertising giant WPP, Apple AAPL +0.50%  was listed as the world’s most valuable brand, with an estimated value of more than $153 billion.

And how do they determine this list?

…calculations are based on an analysis of financial data combined with “consumer measures of brand equity.”

They use how well consumers feel they are served by the corporation.

In so far as companies are “greedy” and “capitalists”, they can’t succeed unless they build and sell something that people want.  And the most successful of those corporations are exactly those corporations that do the best job at making the best products.

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Posted in Economy

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So How Is Obama Doin’ With The Economy

Posted on May 8, 2011 | 11 comments

We all wanna compare; we wanna know.  How is one team vs. another?  How am I compared to my peers?  So, it’s only natural that we do the same thing for the economy and how we’re managing our way out of it.

So.  How is Mr. Obama doing?

Well, let’s look.

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Government, Liberty, Politics: National

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I Don’t Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

Posted on May 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

Looming Layoffs at Schools Imperil Bloomberg’s Legacy

In proposing to lay off 4,100 teachers, Mr. Bloomberg turned a political third rail into fair game. He is taking on the teachers’ union amid an incendiary national debate over the impact of public employees’ benefits and protections on state and local governments.

If by “Imperil” you mean:

Generates a ton of respect for doing the hard work that must be done in order to ensure that the New York City School System doesn’t absolutely fail every single one of it’s students by reducing a bloated unionized work force.

The yeah.  Imperils is spot on!

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Posted in Education, Lobby/PAC, Politics: National

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Bin Laden: How Did It Begin

Posted on May 5, 2011 | 40 comments

I think that taking a suspected criminal into custody and slamming his fingers in th desk drawer to find out who the murderer is is okay.

I think that keeping a suspected terrorist awake for 48 hours in order to get him to tell me where the other terrorists are is is okay to.

The Left doesn’t.

Whatever.

The latest fabrication of the Left is Rumsfeld and his “view” that enhanced interrogation methods don’t work.

Let’s see what he says:

Sounds like Rumsfeld is clear.

“Unquestionably it works … It produced an enormous amount of very very valuable intelligence information.”

I’m not sayin’ – I’m just sayin’

40 Comments

Posted in Diplomacy, Government, Politics: International, Politics: National, War

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Irony

Posted on May 4, 2011 | 5 comments

I like going to the YMCA to work out.  Mostly I like going to the tavern after I work out for a beer.  But this is my story so we’ll just go with the whole YMCA thing.

In recent months, the YMCA has shifted the way it market’s itself.  They’re moving away from the “YMCA” towards a more general “The Y”.

Meh.

Who cares?

Then I saw this:

Interesting, huh?  Even catchy.

Ramblin’ Rose Triathalon.

Now look closer:

Pure awesomeness!

The YMCA, in an effort to be more gender neutral, has a “Women Only” event.

Freakin’ Leftists 😉

5 Comments

Posted in Fun, Idiots on Parade

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