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The bets are in--Bush to win
The bets are in--Bush to win
George W. Bush is heading for a surprise landslide victory in next week's presidential elections, going by online betting patterns.
Although U.S. opinion polls are still finding it hard to separate President Bush from his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, customers of Betfair, an online betting exchange, have overwhelmingly backed the Republican candidate.
Betfair's latest figures show 2.3 million pounds ($4.2 million) have been wagered on Bush, while Kerry has attracted only 680,000 pounds ($1.25 million) in bets. Bush is now at 1-5 odds to stay in office, whereas gamblers can still get odds of 2-1 on Kerry to win.
Betfair said its betting patterns are a more accurate indication of election results than the opinion polls. The patterns correctly predicted that Australia's Prime Minister John Howard would comfortably secure a surprise victory in last month's general election.
Mark Davies, director of communications at Betfair, said opinion polls only survey a small percentage of the population, who have no real incentive to provide accurate information.
''In contrast, Betfair's prices are based on people who are prepared to put their money where their mouth is,'' Davies said in a statement. ''Our figures have proved to be an amazingly accurate indicator at both the Australian general election last month and the California governor's election last year. As a result, we're sure George Bush will be pleased to hear that Betfair's sharp-minded punters are backing him to the hilt.''
By surprise landslide victory
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Haven?’t Asked Kerry Basic quest
America?’s voters have been cheated.
A year-long presidential campaign is almost finished, yet we voters have no idea why John Kerry has taken some of the stands he?’s taken, and said some of the things he?’s said. Why don?’t we know? Because the elite media, driven to defeat President Bush, haven?’t asked Kerry basic questions that beg asking. Since they didn?’t ask some of these questions, I will:
If John Kerry truly believes the alleged failure of our troops to secure explosive materiel in Iraq is a ?“great blunder?” that threatens the destruction of planes, buildings and other structures, is that not an admission that Iraq did, in fact, possess weaponry that justified the invasion?
Two months after September 11th, Kerry told an interviewer the following: ?“I have no doubt ... about our ability to be successful in Afghanistan; the larger question is, what happens afterwards. How do we now turn our attention ultimately to Saddam Hussein??” Does this mean that Kerry, back then, favored deposing Hussein?
Why has Kerry repeated the urban myth that Bush has plans to reinstate the military draft?
What proof does the senator have that the Republicans are trying to suppress the black vote in Florida, Ohio and other states ?… as he charges when speaking to black audiences?
Earlier this year, John Kerry said ?“life begins at conception.?” If he really believes that, how could he possibly support abortion?
Why, in the 1980s, did Kerry support a nuclear freeze ?– which may have been the single most na?¯ve and potentially destructive position of the anti-war Left during the Cold War?
Why did Kerry sit through, and apparently enjoy, a profanity-laced fundraiser in New York last summer, during which performers called the president a ?“cheap thug?” and made sexual jokes about his surname?
Why has he publicly opposed any new domestic oil exploration, while privately telling Teamsters boss James Hoffa (according to Hoffa) that ?“?…we?’re going to be drilling all over the United States.?”
Kerry decries tax breaks for ?“the rich.?” What does he consider ?“rich?”? How does he define it?
Why did the senator appropriate a campaign theme ?– ?“Let America be America again?” ?– from an avowed communist and Stalinist (poet Langston Hughs)
Why has Kerry not fully released his military records?
Why has Kerry never publicly apologized for labeling his fellow Vietnam servicemen mass murderers and war criminals?
I don?’t recall these or many other obvious questions being asked during this campaign. It was apparently too much to ask of our national media.
So who will win? Ordinarily, in a time of war, Americans would be reasonably expected to reelect their current leadership. A new type of war, with all of its attendant uncertainties, might be expected to increase that probability. But this campaign is different. I?’ve been closely observing presidential politics for roughly 28 years, and I?’ve never seen a candidate hit with the level of sustained, coordinated vitriol that has been launched against President Bush. From an opponent who will literally say anything to get elected, to screaming, foaming at the mouth would-be candidates (Howard Dean), to filmmakers passing off outlandish, conspiracy-theory propaganda as fact (Michael Moore, the Leni Riefenstahl of the Left), to mainstream media outlets dropping any pretense of objectivity CBS with its fake National Guard memos, ABC with its internal memo instructing its reporters to hold Bush to a higher standard of rhetorical proof than Kerry, the New York Times distorting the ?“missing explosives?” story), the president has faced a relentless, wide tide of single-minded opposition. He will likely not survive it.
It will be his loss, and ours.
By America?’s voters have been cheat
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calls for racial profiling at ai
Conservative author calls for racial profiling at airports
The next terrorist aboard an airplane will be a Muslim, accordng to conservative political commentator and author Ann Coulter.
Coulter told a crowd of 1,700 Friday night at Iowa State University that racial profiling could make airports safer. She ticked off a list of terrorist attacks in the last 20 years that she said were masterminded by Muslim extremists.
''It might be helpful if law enforcement looked for Muslim extremists,'' Coulter said.Ramsey Tesdell, an ISU junior, thanked Coulter for visiting ISU and asked for an additional round of applause for her before saying, ''I'm a Christian Arab, and I took offense to almost everything you said; and my Muslim roommate and my black roommate feel very isolated by your presence.''
Coulter attacked Democrats and liberals throughout her address, particularly in regard to their arguments about the war in Iraq and on homeland security.
She said Democrats didn't understand the word ''unilateral'' when it came to the United States and its allies who fought in Iraq.''Only if we had France and Germany on board would it be a multilateral coalition. Glad we didn't have that rule in 1944,'' Coulter said.
Coulter made a stop at ISU to promote her new book, ''How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).''
Louis Kishkunas, a junior and president of the ISU College Republicans, helped introduce Coulter to the crowd.
Kishkunas said Coulter is a provocative speaker.
''She's a lawyer, and she definitely knows how to defend herself,'' Kishkunas said.He said Coulter presents her views differently from most conservatives, who tend to be more mild-mannered. ''She kind of makes a spectacle of herself, which works for her,'' Kishkunas said.
By Author Ann Coulter.
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THEODORE! with all thy faults
THEODORE! with all thy faults, The New York Sun's 1904 endorsement of Teddy Roosevelt
This column has expressed abundant skepticism about the grandiosity of George W. Bush's foreign policy .
And about his passivity about spending (he has vetoed nothing), his enlargement of the welfare state (the prescription drug entitlement), his expansion of inappropriate federal responsibilities (concerning education from kindergarten through 12th-grade, through the No Child Left Behind Act) and his complicity in vandalizing the Constitution (he signed the McCain-Feingold bill, which rations political speech).Still, this column prefers Bush.
Reasonable people can question the feasibility of Bush's nation-building and democracy-spreading ambitions. However, having taken up that burden, America cannot prudently, or decently, put it down. The question is: Which candidate will most tenaciously and single-mindedly pursue victory? The answer is: Not John Kerry, who is multiple-minded about most matters.
Tuesday's winner will not start from scratch but from where we are now, standing with the women of Bamiyan, Afghanistan.
Back in Washington recently, Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said those women were warned that Taliban remnants would attack polling places during the Oct. 9 elections. So the women performed the ritual bathing and said the prayers of those facing death. Then, rising at 3 a.m., they trekked an hour to wait in line for the polls to open at 7 a.m. In the province of Kunar an explosion 100 meters from a long line of waiting voters did not cause anyone to leave the line.
However, his career is one of multiple tepid regrets. Carefully parsed, his rhetorical ambiguities, which seem designed to discourage deciphering, suggest that he regrets not only his vote for Justice Antonin Scalia but also votes for the 2002 Iraq resolution, for No Child Left Behind, for the Patriot Act.
When he intimates that medical marvels will quickly follow his termination of a nonexistent ''ban'' on stem cell research, his dishonesty exceeds even his philistinism. His synthetic alarm about possible conscription would cost him his reputation for honesty, had he one after warning seniors that Bush will cut Social Security benefits up to 45 percent.
Regarding entitlements, Kerry's campaign has been of breathtaking banality. Some great challenges arrive without preambles -- the Depression, Pearl Harbor, Sept. 11, 2001. Others are precisely predicted. One such is the baby boomers' coming retirement. America's economy cannot retain its dynamism during this demographic deluge if it must support the welfare state as currently configured.
But Kerry is dismally believable when he vows that nothing will be done about this during his presidency. He promises no increase in Social Security taxes and no cut in benefits, and he shows no interest in original thinking about other ameliorative measures.
He is even banal in the fright-mongering that is his substitute for thinking about the problem. It is fair for him to warn about substantial transition costs associated with Bush's plan to allow Americans to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in a few approved equities funds.
Kerry is more than merely comfortable with liberalism's preference for achieving its aims through judicial fiats rather than political persuasion -- by litigation rather than legislation.
That preference for change driven by activist judges rather than elected representatives expresses liberalism's condescension about the normal American's capacity for thriving without government tutelage.
Kerry constantly calls to mind a three-time Democratic presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan: ''The people of Nebraska are for free silver and I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.''
So this column's conclusion is: ''GEORGE! with all thy faults.''
By George W. Bush's
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