Presidential Election: 2012

Intrade odds that a Democrat [Obama] wins the election in 2012:

Men Are Better Than Women At Everything Except —

Well, virtually everything.  This includes making money.

And now for the latest in 21st century news, women are even better at getting elected than men:

AMERICAN politics has a glass ceiling that keeps women down. This is a wisdom so conventional that Hillary Clinton, in conceding to Barack Obama in 2008, could safely earn cheers and tears by thanking her supporters for those “18m cracks in it.”

The only trouble is that empirical analysis has not found a bias against female candidates. In fact, a new study in California suggests that voters are, if anything, biased in favour of women. That glass thing in American politics, in other words, might be an elevator, not a ceiling.

In the Democratic races, women fared much better than men. This might be expected, because voters seem to associate women with more “liberal” issues (starting with, well, women’s issues), and Democratic primary voters tend to be liberal. More surprising, perhaps, were the results of the Republican primaries. Conservative voters tend to be more concerned with allegedly manly issues such as law and order and defence. This should put female candidates at a disadvantage. But it didn’t. Even among Republicans, a male name carried no advantage.

In half of the political races, women had an advantage.  In the other half, there was no advantage to be had; for men OR for women.

It might be time to put the bras back on ladies.

Well At Least There’s That

Egypt’s on fire.  Been that way for some time now:

The 2011 Egyptian protests are a series of street demonstrations, protests, and acts of civil disobedience that began in Egypt on 25 January 2011.

And, just in time and to make us believe we’re all safe:

Latest News

White House Holds Two Hour Meeting on Egypt Situation

Jan 29, 2011

Hope and Change.

There is Talkin’ The Talk…

I’m new to politics.  I’m a junky, but I’m a new one.

For example, I don’t know that politicians have been forever promising to reduce spending only to increase it.

I don’t know that we’ve been tricked and treated for ever.

But I do now.

Which makes Michelle Bachmann’s proposal pretty unique.

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Egyption Violence

So Egypt.

People protesting their government for perceived Rights violations.

Violence is being used.

When do you suppose the Leftists in America will begin to label the Egyptian protesters “Tea Baggers”?

Obama and Egypt

So, more interesting to me than the events occurring in Egypt will be how President Obama handles it.

On one hand, Egypt is a key ally in the region.  And, like him or not, the current President of Egypt is likely the best option as far as a government is concerned.

However, the community organizer in him must be screaming out in support of these people.  It sounds like they are protesting for their rights, for their jobs and for fairer wages.  ALL things that our current leader embraces to his very core.

Will he support the protesters or the President?

Time will tell.

We Did NOT Elect Republicans to Act Like Democrats!

Yo!  North Carolina Republicans [and, frankly, Republicans everywhere] we did NOT elect you to run around thinking that you can just treat people any ol’ way ya want.

Be consistent with the concepts of Liberty.

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Shooting Themselves In The Foot: Hope It Hurts Edition

Liberty.

THAT is what we stand for.

Or, at least, what we should stand for.

Which makes me cringe and cry out in frustration when the Right is wrong.

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Taxes Up or Taxes Down – Pick One

Lot’s of talk about taxes.  Mostly it was last year during the Lame Duck session, but with the State of the Union coming up, we’re back to talking about ’em again.

It seems, normally I suppose, that folks are divided as to whether or not tax increases create or destroy jobs.  Or, in the inverse, do tax cuts creats jobs or not.

It’s an interesting debate.  But for another time.

I wanna suggest that until the actual vote to make ’em permanent takes place, it doesn’t matter.

Consider this:

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The Problem With Knee Jerk Reactions: Other Than The Jerk

We knew it wasn’t gonna take long.  As shock and horror melted away into grief, which in turn melted into rejoicing, we have time to reflect on the impacts of this tragedy.

Because they are elected to “do the people’s business”, our elected officials are going to feel obligated to do just that.

To be sure, folks are gonna line up and voice their complaint, their grievance, their solution.  And they’re gonna say, like everyone before them, “Restrict more rights!”

Except they won’t say it like that.

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