Richard Nixon

Guilt is a terrible thing and will always come back to take charge if not resolved. So at the moment in the UK after the funeral of Baroness Thatcher the Tory party are about to fully visualise what they think Margaret Thatcher want – an exit out of the European Union! 

Meanwhile over in the USA the right wing are going through their usual hunt for a Democratic scandal which will eclipse the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandal. At the moment they have Benghazi and are looking to make a noise over the death of four diplomats and whether politicians tried to minimise the terror attack.  When President Clinton was in office it was Whitewater, China and Lewinski so here is to the usual hyperbole which when it finally settles will never eclipse Watergate or Iran-Contra. I could be wrong however!

The guilt that the right wing feel is always more powerful than left wing guilt. The left wing are always trying to help people out of bad situations. The right wing aim to exploit bad situations so when it does go wrong there is more to feel guilty about, for the right winger. 

There has been numerous situation in which left wing politicians get caught up in sex scandals yet they never really stick. However, when the right wing get in sex scandals it just seem so much more tacky and yucky because they are always going on about the lesser classes of humans have no morals therefore they should be denounced and denigrated. Obviously they thinking behind the right wing agenda is to get non thinking right wingers to support their cause because their identity is different.  

With left wing guilt do go into hyper-space it is usually down to money. You can have as many lovers as you want. You can be such a drunk that you cannot stand up without help, but, get caught out fiddling or being bought and sold like a prostitute and you can kiss your political career goodbye. As Deep Throat said in the Watergate Scandal follow the money. 

Obama will fall if there is a money trail which links him to something fishy or dodgy. If there is no money trail then there will not be a scandal. Looking for a mole leaking information to Associated Press is not a scandal. Checking the tax affairs of your rivals is not a scandal. Getting blind-sided by a bunch of radicals kicking off all over the Middle East is not a scandal. Having his fingers in the till could be a scandal if the Republicans can prove it.

Meanwhile in the UK Nigel Farage and Margaret Thatcher are about to pull off the biggest political earthquake since Lehmans Day. The Conservatives are about to push for an in/out referendum for the European Union. Margaret Thatcher maybe dead but it is the guilt of political matricide which has kept the Tories in funk for over 20 years. The reason she was kicked out was her negotiation stand on Europe. She did not trust the Germans and hated the idea of greater political union.

Her problem was that she could not tolerate a more nuanced negotiation position or the fact that Nigel Lawson was shadowing the Deutsche Mark which was tantamount to operating a fiscal union à la carte. Obviously Margaret Thatcher would not be happy with this type of policy and Nigel Lawson left government in a hissy fit about being basically told off in front of people.

Now Nigel Lawson has come out in favour of leaving the E.U and those who support being members of the E.U have nowhere to turn as the vehemence of the ‘get out’ campaign is deafening. Nigel Farage the leader of the main anti-EU party is already doing deals not to run candidates against anti-EU Conservative party candidates. This is amazing! It is a bit like the Labour Party – Liberal Democrats non hostile tactic of 1997 to get rid of 18 years of Tory rule.

The result of all these machinations will probably lead to loads of talking points, hue and cry and not much else. Big business will want to stay in the EU because it is good for business and Hilary Clinton will win 2016 Presidency because the right wing media in the US will go overboard in their criticism.

Poker Totty Michelle G supports Obama

This 2012 election to get the next President of the USA is truly a wonder to behold. The two important issues are 1. Which one of the Poker Tottys will be on the winning side? At the moment the polls are showing it for Poker Totty Michelle G, although Poker Totty Shahna is not in bad shape with the possibility of a successful voter suppression campaign in various states.

The second big question is whether Nate Silver will augment his position as the greatest polling guru of his generation? For a very long time Nate Silver has been calling this for Obama with 80% certainty. This has enraged Romney’s supporters who have been questioning the validity of the polls, the numbers, the methodology, media bias the lot. 

In fact when I replied to a post about Romney winning in a landslide I suggested to the person that he should take advantage of the 2/1 widely available on a Romney win. A reply I got not only intrigued me but completely surprised me and I had to reply that yes I was wrong about the 2/1, it should be more than that and right now Romney is 3/1+ to win! When was the last time that with overwhelming  certainty of an outcome can you get 3/1? If the Romney activist are so convinced that Romney is cruising to victory, why not take up the chance to QUADRUPLE YOUR MONEY in 24 hours?

Obviously it is rubbish they are talking about and going from forum to forum typing stuff which they clearly do not believe in is both mindless and pointless, unless the rumours are true that some of the internet posters are being paid to write post. Clearly this happens with people who work in the SEO business but in the political world I would not be surprised that there are people being paid to write stuff and create a ‘internet buzz’ on whatever topic needing that buzz.

So at the moment Nate Silver is saying that Obama will win and will win with over 300 electoral votes and 50.6% of the popular vote. This is a big call but if he is right he can basically write his own check for any sort of polling work he wants to do in the future.

So while we wait to see how the Republicans try and steal the elections check out the last time such an audacious attempt to rob the people of their democratic right was successful with Radiohead’s ‘Hail to The Thief’. Bush v Gore 2000 will be an object lesson on why voting is very important and a crushing critique on those who want to make it more difficult for people to vote.

Radiohead – Hail to the Thief

1. 2 + 2 = 5 (The Lukewarm.) - 0:00

2. Sit Down. Stand Up. (Snakes and Ladders.) - 3:19

3. Sail to the Moon. (Brush The Cobwebs Out Of The Sky.) - 7:38

4. Backdrifts. (Honeymoon Is Over.) - 11:58

5. Go To Sleep. (Little Man Being Erased.) - 17:20

6. Where I End And You Begin. (The Sky Is Falling In.) - 20:41

7. We Suck Young Blood. (Your Time Is Up.) - 25:11

8. The Gloaming. (Softly Open Our Mouths In The Cold.) - 30:02

9. There There. (The Boney King Of Nowhere.) - 33:36

10. I Will. (No Man’s Land.) - 38:53

11. A Punchup At A Wedding. (No No No No No No No No.) - 40:55

12. Myxomatosis. (Judge, Jury And Executioner.) - 45:52

13. Scatterbrain. (As Dead As Leaves.) - 49:43

14. A Wolf At The Door. (It Girl. Rag Doll.) - 53:05

****Election 2012 Drinking Game****

If you do not want to listen to Radiohead and just want to watch the drama of the election, maybe you could spice it up with a drinking game based on the clichés and sound bites that will undoubtedly be mentioned. The phrases I will be drinking to are:

‘To close to call’ – 1/2 a shot (this will be a constant theme so you could be drunk in a hour).

‘In the battleground states’ – 1/2 a shot.

‘We call this for Romney’ – 1 shots.

‘We call this for Obama’ – 1 shot.

Happy drinking!

Paul Ryan

My totally speculative bet on Paul Ryan being the nominee that faces Obama on November 6th. With Mitt Romney looking like a loser and Ryan being the right wing sweet heart, my bet at the time looked great…until the debates and it has all gone ‘kaputt’.

First Obama looked like he wished he was on a date with his wife for their anniversary rather than debating the finer points of  US foreign policy with Mitt Romney. Then, today Paul Ryan got smacked by ‘Ol Joe Biden’.  Joe Biden was supposed to be trounced by political wonky Paul Ryan. Instead Biden literally slapped Ryan around and made Ryan make silly mistakes.

Ryan got involved in abortion, stimulus and Medicare and lost the debate. He may have won in the argument about Libya but saying a war with Iran is a good idea will not go down well.

Therefore the £1,600+ I would have won is now going to sit there until November 6th 2012 when Obama or Romney become President. Luckily I managed to trade out and made £0.06p on the trade anyway so it was a free bet.

Mitt Romney

The race for the White House has solidified that Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee! I had a bet that Mitt Romney would have bowed out and Paul Ryan would go forward as the GOP nominee. Yes, it was a punt and yea I managed to trade locking in my money back with the outside chance of picking up £1,600+ for an original £2.65 bet.

That £2,65 risk was is the price of a pint of Guinness. The fact I got it back with £0.03 profit with the added benefit that if it did happen – very unlikely, I would pick up the price of a week in Ibiza at Christmas. Why not have a go? I buy lottery tickets which I hope will win a Autumn hamper. Basically I throw money away on trying to predict 6 number out of 49. I have more chance of being struck by lightning twice than win the lottery, yet I do it.

So with Mitt Romney getting 67% of the view on CNN, that he won the first debate means he sticks in the race and my bet which is not entirely finished, but, it is in a critical position. I always knew Mitt Romney would come out raging and fired up. You do not become a nominee by not being fired up. However, if there is a  sudden accident, or a sex tape featuring teenage boys scenario turns up, then things could change again.

It was  a weird coincidence that a tape attacking Islam gets prominence on Youtube on the 9/11 anniversary remembrance this year, which then led to people getting killed! These things always seem to happen. Just sayin!

During the 2004 election do you remember the Osama bin Laden tape which came out saying to  vote against President Bush? That was to help President Bush!

In political terms this is the World Cup Final of politics and Romney is leading 1 – 1 after the first half. Yes, leading 1 – 1! Therefore he is now in the position in which Obama has to attack, in the second half to secure victory. Obama has a good ground game, but, Romneys’ side has a very fired up base and could also develop a good ground game. We all remember the TEA Party rallies, completely bonkers and stupid but effective.

So now Obama has to put Romney in his place. Apparently during the debate, Romney dropped policies, came up with stats that do not make sense and just kept saying believe what I am saying and don’t listen to reason or facts. I am taking the US  cabal TV analysis for this view as I had fallen a sleep while waiting to watch the debate. Fact checking are for wimps was the essence of Romney’s debate approach!

For an outsider this is fascinating, that’s why I love US politics. In a way this is a big election because Mitt Romney has no core beliefs to drive him to be President , just that he wants to be President. You do not have so many changed positions without people noticing and this debate will be fact checked until the cows come home. I missed the debate but really and truly unless Mitt Romney actually ‘puked all’ over himself like Rick Perry, he was going to be the nominee. Now I will have to look at another hail Mary type zinger bet to have a chance to pit my analysis against the US betting public.

If the polls tighten then it makes my fun a little bit more interesting. Could Obama win North Carolina? Can Romney win Ohio? These odds may fluctuate wildly over the next couple of days and I will sure take an interest when they do. Bring forth the guillotine!

The Paul Ryan v Joe Biden debate should be really interesting. Paul Ryan is looking to knock Joe Biden out and place himself as top dog of the GOP. If he does so then he will be in great position for 2016. Joe Biden could spring a surprise and win it for President Obama by locking Paul Ryan on facts and figures. Paul Ryan is so dodgy when it comes to facts and figures that it could get him in all sorts of trouble. But, as an Ayn Rand devotee, Paul Ryan could not give a toss. Objectivism means being selfish is a great thing. So, the debate maybe more interesting than the 3 Presidential debate put together.

NFL logo

In soccer terminology it has all kicked off! The owners of the NFL have locked out the referees over pay and conditions. The owners want to make it worst and the referees want to keep it the same basically the standard workers v bosses situation. However, into the mix the bosses have thrown in scab labour to effectively sack the old referees and replace them with new referees. Again, standard labour dispute stuff.

The problem with this labour dispute is that it is in the middle of a defining Presidential election and it is being watched by a normally uninterested crowd who have now become very interested. As was seen in the Green Bay Packers v Seattle Seahawks when rookie referees make bad decisions on TV there is no hiding place. In the game which took place on Monday 24th, September 2012, Green Bay Packers clearly won because they had control of the ball at the right time. Somehow the referees made a hash of it and gave it to Seattle Hawks!

This decision has led to political rivals Obama and Romney to both say that the dispute need to end and bring back the original professional referees. Probably the first time both men have agreed on something other than ‘RomneyCare’. The fans are so angry that it is now ruining the NFL brand and the owners are beginning to look like those old caricature of old factory owners deliberately screwing their workers for no apparent reason other than greed. The refs are coming out of this rather well.

Obviously there will be a solution for this and the refs will win! The owners are going to have to get used to this that refereeing is a skill and good judgement is all important. NFL can be a ponderous game for the casual viewer so to have blatant bad decisions only spoils the game.  

Ann Romney Look Of Disgust At Clint Eastwood

The look says it all! Is this the time that Ann Romney knew that the game was up? How can her husband carry on when all around him the sub-ordinates are actively positioning themselves to run for President in 2016? By positioning themselves for 2016 it is clear that they know in their heart that Mitt Romney cannot win 2012. Only the die hard Obama haters will continue because they would do anything to get rid of President Obama and nothing will stop their hatred not even the truth or facts. 

When Clint Eastwood made his improv monologue he looked and acted like a someone with a serious mental illness. This could not have been planned as a good thing, why would you let your biggest moment of your personal and political life be held by a guy who looked like he just got of bed and decided to wear an ill fitting suit to introduce the potential next President? Someone knew this and let it happened. They wanted to destroy the message of the Republican nominee and in effect the leader of the Republican party. 

Now I let you into a not so little secret, I wanted Rick Santorum to be the nominee because I had a small bet on him at massive odds. My thinking was that the Republican party have had a collective mental breakdown since Lehman’s Day 2008 when the banking system went into total collapse and the government was forced to do what they said they would never do and intervene into the markets to make sure the ATM’s still worked. If they didn’t then the whole economic system would have gone into meltdown and civil war would have broken out.

In effect they ripped up the doctrine of Ronald Regan and became a communist government – as they would see it! Their leader was George W Bush aided and abetted by the most right wing backroom staff ever, which was marshalled by Dick Cheney. This led to utter and complete confusion for many true believers and they just have not got over it. On top of that, the country then voted for a guy with the name Barack Hussein Obama to be the President which completely done their heads in and this all happened 40 years after Martin Luther King jr was assassinated. 

So after they gained some composure they set out to ‘take their country back’. It meant doing anything and everything to destroy Obama and bring in someone to restore order and the Ancien Régime – as they see it! However, some within the party knew that Obama is a formidable campaigner and did not want to take on an incumbent with the mass appeal of Obama. They know that the country was left in a disastrous state that even Hank Paulson told George W. Bush to give him the trillions of dollars, but don’t ask any questions about what he was going to do with it. Why, because it would not have been very popular and would cause resentment and not entirely resolve the problem with the economy. 

When the primaries got started it was clear that all the sensible candidates would not take part. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels and even Paul Ryan, who I had a small bet on in the beginning, trading out when it was profitable. So the only half sensible candidate was Mitt Romney the rest were clowns and performance artist. The only one that could be sensible was Rick Santorum but his politics was so conservative that it was seen as a turn off to the independents.

Now looking back I bet those who really believe in banning rape in all cases and even going back to the gold standard wish they had gone for Rick Santorum. Hence this is why I think that Mitt Romney is not leading the party, the party is leading him. He is not in control of his party. Apparatchiks are running the show, that’s why Paul Ryan could go on stage and blatantly lie and not produce any ideas or policy for the public. Mitt Romney cannot tell Paul Ryan what to do. 

After the disastrous foreign tour and now a disastrous convention, any pretence that Romney is fit to lead goes straight out of the window. He is the nominee in name only. So this is the question. If Ann Romney want to see her husband completely and totally humiliated then she will let him continue in the process – not humiliated by not winning, but demeaned by the people on the inside who want him to lose? The country will not be put right in another four years. Even Paul Ryan’s plan is talking about a 20+ year period before it will be in credit. So the objectivist and others around him do not mind Obama being in charge for four more years as he is more or less doing what they would do.

Mitt Romney cannot be happy with the lies that are said in his name. It is so blatant and unwarranted. Even the joke about Obama’s birth must have been stomach churning. The only person that can stop Mitt Romney is his wife. She has to tell him the truth about what is going on and tell him that let Paul Ryan take the the fight to Obama without him. One way or another he must get out. Anything else will destroy him as a human being as he cannot in his heart want to be the guard that lets the lunatics take over the asylum. My bet on Paul Ryan still stands!

Paul Ryan

It is further evidence that Mitt Romney is a lousy poker player when he picked Paul Ryan as his Vice-President. By all accounts Paul Ryan is a Ayn Rand worshipping, policy wonky head. He eats breathe and sleeps politics! Yes, he looks like that nice guy down the road who runs the sub post office, but in his heart he is a rock hard extreme objectivist, who believes that society does not really exist and certainly there should not be any government social programs that would help for the poor.

Previously, I gave what I thought valid reason on why Romney is not cut out for politics. Politics is poker for sociopaths and althouth he maybe a sociopath he is not that deluded to want to believe everything he says. In this respect he is a bit like Obama but without the natural charm of someone who had to be charming to get ahead. So Romney tried to co-opt some charm and got Paul Ryan onboard to give him that charm. However, this then begs the question who’s policy will get to be on the table if Romney becomes President.

We have enough evidence of what Paul Ryan thinks. He would want to:  

1) Remodel Medicare to change it to a voucher system,

2) Gut the social safety net,

3) Give big tax cuts to the wealthy,

4) Have a balanced budget by 2040.

On the face of it no one sensible would want to vote for this as it looks like austerity for austerity sake. It is clear that it does nothing for the middle class and the poor, it certainly does nothing for the nation and it is ideology for ideology sake. Clearly a person who has no empathy for his fellow countryman  has drawn this up. 

So why is it been taken seriously? Well it is all to do with Paul Ryan as a person. He has puppy dog eyes and an easy smile. Basically he is the sort of person people feel comfortable having a drink with, unlike Mitt Romney who appears to be created in some robotic lab. He also has a back ground story which helps him with the sympathy vote in that his dad died when he was young and he had to grow up quickly. The fact that he used social security to help him grow up quickly does not help Ryan to realise that what was good for him maybe good for other people. Just like Ayn Rand his hero, who used social security and Medicare to help herself out when things got bad.

Objectivism or extreme selfishness, is OK when your health and strength is great but when things go wrong or your luck runs out for you, it has about as much use as a rabid dog in a school yard full of kids. The Paul Ryan Plan allied with Mitt Romney’s dodgyness when it comes to tax clearly cannot be the choice of the US this November. Why would the vast majority of the nation (95% of the population) go out of there way to make themselves more poor for the sake of making themselves poor? It absolutely makes no sense whatsoever!

The only way Romney and Ryan can win this is if the left and progressives go mad and start to demonstrate in a nasty way to Paul Ryan. He is a consummate campaigner and knows how to charm people by making them believe that he has their interest at heart with soft soap selling and diversion from the real agenda. The guy is dangerous! If Newt Gingrich of all people can call his ideas ”right wing social engineering” you know there is something fundamentally wrong with his idea.

You must remember the Will.I.Am virtual interview with CNN when Obama won the presidency of the USA, could this be the vision for the next generation of poker website? It would make sense because it would transpose the problem of distance, anonymity and ‘the live question’.

Playing live will always beat playing online because the dynamics are different and more interesting due to the extra senses that are used. With virtual transportation the game will be heightened due to the visual sense being given more info. The sense of touch and smell may still pose a problem but maybe that is not a bad thing.

The major problem with this idea will be cost (the Will.I.Am interview cost about $50,000) and this will not be overcome in 2010, however, it will be done sometime and should be a spectacular.

The unfortunate Mr Anurag Dikshit has lost $300 million dollar but manage to keep out of jail because he was one of the main shareholder of Party Gaming a pioneer in online poker <Link 1>.

What was he doing to have suffered such an ordeal? Well he facilitated US citizens the chance to play poker online, which apparently under US Law (The Interstate Wire Act of 1961) is illegal. When this law came in it was to stop bookies taking telephone bets on sports such as football and horse racing and was not designed to stop online poker, which obviously was not even a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee eye.

Now anyone with even a passing knowledge of poker realise that there is a big difference between playing poker and having a double on the first two favourites at Churchill Downs. In fact poker can be seen more as chess for the psychology student than gambling. You can gamble, but, that is no more different than deciding which direction the FTSE will move.

Now why is this important? Well the US is the spear of capitalism and poker is the ‘house game’ for capitalist. In fact it is the purest form of capitalism and is so ingrained into the Us of A psyche that over 80 million play poker every week. In fact a number of Presidents were well known poker players and this includes the President presumptive Barack Obama!

This ludicrous situation must now be rectify, not because Mr Dikshit will be bankrupt by this ruling – he is the 207th richest man in the world, but because in an age where people have virtual relationships with people over the world, what more does a good capitalist need but to have the whole world playing poker?

Anyway, according to Wikipedia the US Supreme court has yet to rule on online gambling <Link 2> and us poor feeble minded individuals await its ruling with relish since it will indicate whether the US is a nanny state or not,