What's Next for the GOP Race: March 10 and March 13

Here's how the score is so far:
Mitt "Perfect Hair" Romney: New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, Maine, Washington, Wyoming, Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Vermont, Alaska
Rick "The Swest" Santorum: Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri (non-binding primary), Tennessee, Oklahoma, North Dakota
Newt "I'm fat" Gingrich: South Carolina, Georgia

March 10th (Saturday)

Why Santorum Had Trouble Finding Delegates for Ohio's Congressional Districts

This was because the Ohio Congressional District map was highly contentious.  It was a massive Republican Gerrymander (ensuring a 12 to 4 advantage in a swing state).  Because of the threat of legal challenges and political roadblocks, the map was constantly in flux with the borders between congressional districts constantly changing.  The map was only finalized recently and by then, I reckon, Rick Santorum couldn't find the right people in the right location to fill out full delegate slates for the congressional districts that were in flux.

Super Tuesday: Winners and Losers

Winners
1.  Curious Capitalist:  got his predictions spot on for everything that mattered last night.  Overall I've called 11 out of 13 races accurately...correctly calling Ohio and Michigan and incorrectly calling smaller caucuses (much more difficult) in Alaska and Washington.
2.  Barack Obama:  the Republican contest will continue, so the guns will not be aimed squarely at Obama.  Obama might have the best shot against Romney, as opposed to Santorum.  I am of this persuasion now.
3.  Mitt Romney:  he won Ohio and padded his delegate lead.  It is very difficult for either Santorum and Gingrich to have a path to a majority of delegates.  Ohio was very close.  Romney has spent a lot of money and still can't land the knockout punch.  Romney is not winning well and is bleeding money, unfortunately.  However, he did get 6 wins on Super Tuesday and has a seemingly insurmountable lead in delegates even if he doesn't get a majority.  The most important win for Romney is Gingrich staying in the race and winning Georgia.

Neither Winners nor Losers
1.  Rick Santorum:  He won some key states such as OK and TN.  However, he didn't win OH and while he came close, close doesn't cut it in this cutthroat world.  The reason Santorum isn't a winner is because Gingrich is not dropping out.  Santorum will have to use some of his precious resources to butt heads with Gingrich in Kansas, Alabama, and Mississippi.  Gingrich got 15% in Ohio, in a state that Romney barely won.  Gingrich is spoiling Santorum's potential.  I really feel bad for Santorum because he is not fighting on a fair playing field.  He is being outspent by Romney by many multiples and money obviously matters.
2.  Newt Gingrich:  Gingrich won GA and nothing else.  He has no path to victory but gets to stay in the race.  Also, see conspiracy theory.  Gingrich didn't even have any second place finishes in the evening.  Essentially, he did well in his home state and no where else.


To quote Rick Perry: "no one won tonight", although I think Mitt Romney won the evening

Losers
1.  Ron Paul:  he is not going to win any state.  He could have made a serious play in Virginia and decided too punt it entirely.  His delegate count is lagging behind all of the other candidates.

Song of the Day

Mitt Romney, Conspiracy Mastermind

Here is a story that might be fact or fiction:

Mittens is a smart guy.  He knows his strengths and he knows his weaknesses very well.  Mittens knows that his odds increase if both Santorum and Gingrich stay in the race.  Mittens knows that Santorum is his biggest threat given the lack of general appeal of Ron Paul's agenda and Gingrich's personal unfavorables.

During the Nevada caucuses, mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, a Gingrich-supporter, met with Gingrich and then Romney.  What likely happened at the meeting was Romney urging Adelson to continue supporting Gingrich.  Romney's argument likely went like this (1) only I can defeat Obama, (2) I can only win if both Santorum and Gingrich stay in the race, and (3) please keep the Gingrich campaign alive.

After the Nevada caucuses, Gingrich's campaign was on life support and dying.  Adelson then donated an additional $10 million to the Gingrich SuperPAC.  This has helped Gingrich stay in the race and campaign in Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Ohio.

Super Tuesday Blog Thread #4

11:45 pm EST:  I'm calling it a night for live blogging.  I'll do a summary of tonight's events and a preview of what is coming up next.  Mitt Romney looks like he's going to win Ohio.  Also, who cares about Alaska.  Romney wins ID, MA, OH, VA, and VT.  Santorum wins ND, TN, and OK.  Gingrich wins GA.  All accurately predicted by Curious Capitalist.

11:30 pm EST:  Romney's margin in Hamilton County is about 16k votes.

11:26 pm EST:  Romney's performance is very troubling in Virginia.  Ron Paul (a guy who does not have general appeal) got 41% of the vote against Romney.  An argument for Romney is that Virginia doesn't really matter which depressed turnout and therefore, the results are not indicative of anything.

11:25 pm EST:  Idaho has been called for Romney.

11:23 pm EST:  In other news, Santorum has won North Dakota!  Curious Capitalist might have a perfect prediction night.  So far, I've been right about Vermont, Massachusetts, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and North Dakota so far.  I've been wrong about 0 states so far this Super Tuesday.  For the whole cycle, I'm 9 out of 10 right!

11:22 pm EST:  Back from the gym.  Looks like I need to get out of the "calling states for Santorum" game.  Ohio has swung back in Romney's favor by 3k votes.

Conspiracy Theory: Obama and Ohio

FoxNews showed the unemployment percentages in different regions of Ohio.  The areas with the lowest unemployment (about 6.5%) are the Cleveland area and the Columbus area, the two best areas for Obama.  Could Obama have steered stimulus dollars specifically to those areas at the expense of other areas to help his re-election chances?

Super Tuesday Live Blog Thread #3

10:09 pm EST:  I'm going to the gym now.  I will be back by 11pm to wrap up the night and will start a new thread.  

10:09 pm EST:  Santorum is now over 13k votes ahead with 61% reporting.

10:04 pm EST:  Mittens is under 11k votes behind.

9:58 pm EST:  Maybe Mittens will make a late night comeback in Ohio, he's brought Santorum's lead below 12k now with Hamilton County still largely outstanding.

9:56 pm EST:  Mitt Romney has been under-performing his polls.  He's had three chances to close things out and he's blown all of them.  This guy sucks.  The three chances I'm referring are (1) SC, (2) after NV, and (3) Super Tuesday.

9:55 pm EST:  Will I be wrong in my most recent prediction?

9:48 pm EST:  CNN and FoxNews are too scared to call Ohio for Santorum but Curious Capitalist is going to officially call Ohio for Santorum.  Yay!!!!!

9:45 pm EST:  Ann Romney says women are worried about the debt.  How is that 20% tax cut going to help the deficit?  Make it way worse?

9:44 pm EST:  All three major candidates will get delegates from Oklahoma.  Santorum will get at least 8.  Romney and Gingrich will at least get 5 each.

9:38 pm EST:  Santorum needs to turn this momentum into contests later in March in Kansas, Mississippi, and Alabama.

9:36 pm EST:  This is a great night for Santorum, an ok night for Gingrich, and a disappointing night for Romney.  However, don't be surprised if Romney still wins a plurality of the delegates from the night's momentum.  

9:33 pm EST:  The news is getting worse and worse for Mittens.  At least he got all of the delegates from Massachusetts since no other candidate crossed the 15% threshold.

9:31 pm EST:  Santorum is leading with 17% in with a substantial lead in North Dakota.  Looks like North Dakota's GOP is similar to Minnesota's GOP.

9:30 pm EST:  12.5k lead for Santorum in OH.

9:25 pm EST:  8k lead for Santorum in OH.

9:20 pm EST:  Romney's hope is in Hamilton County.

9:15 pm EST:  With more rural/small town data in, Santorum has a 6k vote lead in Ohio.  YAY!!  

9:07 pm EST:  Santorum is running strong in the Columbus area and going toe to toe with Romney.  Romney needs to rely on Hamilton County and the Cleveland metro area to win.

9:04 pm EST:  Santorum has just taken a 2.5k vote lead in Ohio.  Whooooo!!!!!!

9:01 pm EST:  It's going to be a close on in Ohio.  The vest (Santorum) is about 2,000 votes down.

Super Tuesday Live Blog Thread #2

9:00 pm EST:  New thread soon!

9:00 pm EST:  Santorum is staying above the "I'm going to get delegates" line in Georgia.

8:51 pm EST:  Oklahoma has just been called by the only true news station around, FoxNews, for Santorum.  Curious Capitalist is now 6 for 6 in predictions!!!!!!

8:49 pm EST:  Newt's taking shots at everybody tonight...Santorum, Romney, Obama, Wall Street.  Newt is really going after Wall Street...yikes...

8:46 pm EST:  Newt's quote of the day "Wall Street money can't beat Main Street work."  Question #1:  what about casino money from Newt's main donor, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson?  Question #2:  Didn't Wall Street money beat down Newt twice, once before Iowa, second after South Carolina?  Question #3:  Newt is Main Street work?  I thought he was just fat and married an attractive blonde, 23 years his junior...the American Dream for guys right?

8:41 pm EST:  About 60 percent of the votes tabulated so far are from Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton counties, home to Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, respectively. But only about 20 percent of the votes in the Republican primary in 2008 was cast in one of those counties, meaning it the current vote count is disproportionately weighted toward these areas.  Look for Romney's current margin in Ohio as the night wears on.

8:39 pm EST:  This evening will likely not be decisive for the GOP primary.  Tennessee is Santorum's first primary win that counts!!!

8:38 pm EST:  Curious Capitalist-endorsed candidate, Rick Santorum, has just won Tennessee!!!! WHOOOOO!!!!!!  I'm 5 for 5!

8:35 pm EST:  Right now, Santorum is leading in all of the counties where the vote has come in.  Counties from West, Central, and East Tennessee.

8:32 pm EST:  Santorum is still leading in Oklahoma and Tennessee.  The liberal mainstream media just won't call it for my boy.

8:29 pm EST:  This just in...Palin says that her door is open if there is a brokered convention.  If my boy, Rick Santorum won't be the nominee, I'll be throwing my hat behind Sarah Palin.

8:26 pm EST:  Palin speaks in such a folksy style.  She has got to be super stupid...I think she has no original, substantive thoughts. 

8:24 pm EST:  Rush Limbaugh really sucks for the GOP on this contraception controversy.

8:23 pm EST:  Romney's lead made possible by more votes from Cleveland metro, Cincinnati metro, and Franklin County (Columbus).

8:22 pm EST:  Palin is doing an interview on CNN...she is not the sharpest tool in the shed.  "Obama's Orwellian message", "We have to fight with history, facts, and logic", "The leftist radicals continue to say discriminatory things about the disabled, women, and defenseless"

8:21 pm EST:  Romney now has a 4,000 vote lead in Ohio.

8:15 pm EST:  Romney's strength in Ohio seems to be in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) and the counties around the Cleveland metro area.  Santorum's strength is in the rural areas outside of Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland.

8:11 pm EST:  In Ohio, Mitt Romney has about a 800 vote margin with 2% of precincts in.  The precincts coming in are from a smattering around the state.

8:07 pm EST:  A really smart talking head just stated how to connect with voters.  Not by talking about himself/herself, but by talking about what voters themselves can do and what role voters can play themselves in helping our country.

8:02 pm EST:  Very little has changed for Mitt Romney.  He continues to run an exclusively negative campaign with decreased turnout models.  Romney is having his easiest time in blue states and in blue areas of each state.  He is struggling in traditionally red parts of the country.

8:00 pm EST:  Mitt Romney will win Massachusetts...Surprise!!!!!  Curious Capitalist is 4 for 4!

7:59 pm EST:  Exit poll data now in for TN and OK, 72% of voters in both states identify as white, evangelical, born-again voters.  This ought to be good news for Santorum.

7:58 pm EST:  Romney is slightly ahead of Santorum in Ohio according to the exit polls there.

7:53 pm EST:  Polls are about to close in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Massachusetts.

It is ironic that “libertarian scholars [fail] to enthusiastically embrace a couple billionaires’ putative property rights” over the Cato Institute

Cato Scholar Julian Sanchez argues that there is nothing ironic or hypocritical about members of the Cato Institute manning the barricades against Charles and David Kochs' lawsuit to obtain a controlling stake in the institution (Kochs' complaint here). He is wrong; it is highly hypocritical.

On the standard libertarian view, property rights are created through productive effort and exchanged through voluntary transactions. They are pre-legal, moral rights and not violating them is a big part of the libertarian prime directive (so big that they cannot even be violated to provide the destitute with “food, shelter, health care, employment”).

The Kochs, Cato President Ed Crane, and a few others got together in the 1970s, created the Cato Institute, divided property rights in it equally among the different founders, and provided that "[n]o stockholder of the Corporation shall have the right or power to pledge, hypothecate, sell or otherwise dispose of, directly or indirectly, all or any part of his shares of stock without first offering to sell such shares as he desires to dispose of to the Corporation for a price equivalent to the price paid by such shareholder for such shares." Cato Chairman Bob Levy effectively concedes that, regardless of its current legal effect under Kansas corporate law, this agreement was intended and understood to prohibit the disposition of shares by devise (including William Niskanen's shares that are presently at issue):

Levy explains to National Review Online that “the way forward is to abandon this shareholder structure, substitute a structure where the institute is controlled by members, the way just about every non-profit in the world is, and those members would be the board of directors themselves, so that we have a self-perpetuating board.”

Abandoning the shareholder structure is the way forward for Levy because the current structure doesn’t enable a self-perpetuating board (including a board that self-perpetuates by decedent members’ willing their shares away).

But despite the fact that the Niskanen shares are not to be devised – should have been tendered to the Corporation for repurchase (a collateral consequence of which would have been the Kochs’ obtaining a controlling stake in Cato) – Crane, with the apparent approval of his scholars, has vowed to use Kansas law to try to destroy the scheme of property rights upon which Cato’s founders agreed. Maybe he has a sufficiently plausible legal argument (we can punt that one to the “experts in Kansas corporate law” to whom Sanchez glibly adverts), but so what? The law has been known to disrespect property rights in the past. And given that property rights have lexical priority over act-consequentialist considerations in libertarian morality, it is hypocritical for libertarians to focus all of their energies on lamenting, and fighting in the press, the Kochs’ “takeover attempt” without a word about what, by libertarian lights, is a violation of the Kochs’ moral rights.

Where’s the rousing defense of the right to make an unwise decision? Where’s the reminder that the ends don’t justify the means? That rights are to be taken seriously? That legality does not excuse wrongdoing? When the exercise of those rights hits too close to where libertarians earn their daily bread, nowhere.

Administrative Update and A Request!

Administrative Update
After less than a month of starting my blog, I already have 2,500 pageviews.  I have had visitors from the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, the U.K., and Singapore.  Within the U.S., I have readers from 14 states (NY, VA, WA, MA, NC, SC, FL, LA, CA, OR, AK, NJ, MN, CO) and D.C. 

The blog is also making its way up the Google search engine hierarchy. 

Thank you so much for this and your continued support!

Request:  Spread the Word!!
If you think this blog is great/intellectually informative and is worth sharing with the world, please do...facebook, world of mouth, twitter, gmail...whatever you are comfortable/willing to do.  It would really help me out.

My goals for this blog are to: (1) cut across the partisan cacophony and separate the merit-based arguments from the pre-textual/frivolous arguments in our political debate, (2) share some interesting societal trends which are not covered by the mainstream media, (3) share alternative explanations for many of today's social phenomena and (4) share interesting financial ideas for yuppies.

I would like to share my knowledge and insights with the world.  Regardless, I really appreciate the support you have shown me already.

Please try NOT to use my real name if you know who I am.  As shown by this post and this guy, real progress in our information-saturated world require anonymity.  This is why I have anonymous commenting.

Super Tuesday Live Blog Thread #1

7:53 pm EST:  Starting a new thread.

7:52 pm EST:  Romney is currently third in Georgia, but none of Romney's best areas in the Atlanta suburbs have come in.

7:50 pm EST:  Gingrich and Paul are likely shut out of any delegates in Ohio.

7:49 pm EST:  Santorum is in danger of not getting any statewide delegates from Georgia (not including delegates by congressional district).  He needs to clear the 20% mark statewide to get any delegates.

7:47 pm EST:  In the delegate front:  Romney likely won't shut out his competitors in Vermont.  Romney should win about half of Vermont's 17 delegates with Ron Paul and Rick Santorum splitting the rest.

7:44 pm EST:  Team Romney is likely to be very happy for tonight.  They are accumulating delegates and widening their delegate lead over Gingrich and Santorum.  Even under the worst case scenarios, Romney will win more "bound" delegates tonight than either Gingrich and Santorum.

7:42 pm EST:  Team Romney is outspending Team Santorum 5 to 1 for Super Tuesday states...yikes.  American Democracy at work.  If both candidates had the same amount of money to spend this race could be vastly different.

7:40 pm EST:  Curious Capitalist is 3 for 3 in predictions so far for Super Tuesday  (5 for 6 overall). 

7:37 pm EST: Vermont has just been called for Romney.

7:34 pm EST:  Vermont, what was once thought as a slam dunk victory for Romney is still too close to call.  He could still win easily, but it is still too early to call.

7:28 pm EST:  The lack of Democratic primaries this season has a curious effect on the electorate of the Republican primary.  A greater proportion of Republican primary/caucus voters identify as moderate/liberal.  Conservatives are having slightly less of a say in the Republican nomination.  This likely helps out Mitt Romney and Ron Paul generally.  It might help Santorum in situations where Democrats are voting strategically to influence the Republican nomination.

7:25 pm EST:  Ron Paul is slated to win about 40% of the vote in Virginia to Romney's 60% according to the exit poll data.

7:18 pm EST:  Virginia was just called for Romney.  He will a majority of the votes which means he will get all of Virginia's statewide delegates at stake. Ron Paul could still win delegates for those assigned at the congressional district level.

7:17 pm EST:  Gingrich has just won his mandate to stay in the race with a massive win in Georgia, the state with the most delegates on Super Tuesday.  If the media called it this early, the victory margin will likely be very substantial.

4:40 pm EST:  Results start pouring in around 7pm EST.  Here is a list of when polls close (all times Eastern)

Georgia: 7 pm
Vermont: 7 pm
Virginia: 7 pm
Ohio: 7:30 pm
Tennessee: 8 pm
Oklahoma: 8 pm
Massachusetts: 8 pm
Idaho: 10 pm
North Dakota: 10 pm
Alaska: 12 am

This means that Gingrich and Romney should be getting favorable press coverage at 7pm.  Then, it's most important 3 states of the evening (OH, TN, OK).  Look for some Ron Paul speech about how he is accumulating delegates out of ID, ND, and AK late in the evening.

2:51 pm EST:  It is Super Tuesday.  Before the polls close and the results come in let me just summarize what would be a win and what would be a loss for each candidate.

Mitt "Mittens" Romney
Super Win: win Ohio and Tennessee
Win: win Ohio
Neutral: lose Ohio and win a majority of delegates
Very Mild Loss: lose Ohio and don't win a majority of delegates

"My Boy" Rick Santorum
Win: win Ohio, Tennessee, Oklahoma
Lose: lose Ohio, Tennessee
Super Lose: lose Ohio, Tennessee, Oklahoma

Newt Gingrich
Super Win: win Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma
Win: win Georgia, Tennesee
Gets to stay in the race: win Georgia

Ron Paul
Win: get a lot of delegates (more than 50)
Lose: don't get a lot of delegates (less than 15)

Barack Obama
Win: Santorum wins
Lose: Romney wins

A Destructive Human Desire

This problem is our constant desire to feel dominance over others.  This feeling that all of us have can explain so many of the world's problems: (1) hazing, (2) rape, (3) condescending moral arguments, (4) war, (5) racism, (6) bigotry, (7) "mean girls", (8) bullying, (9) Columbia students thinking that they are so much smarter than Barnard students (and then getting mad that the Barnard Diploma also says "Columbia" on it), (10) a desire to compare penis sizes, and (11) a lot of other problems. 

This desire is connected to the need to feel some sort of superiority over others. For those Maslow fans out there, this desire stems from our need to have esteem among our peers and also from our need to have a sense of achievement.

These related feelings are natural and should not be completely condemned.  However, we need to channel those feelings in ways that do not harm and disrespect others.

Here are some potential solutions:

Logic Gone Wild: Socialized Medicine

Against socialized medicine?

Let's put an end to health insurance which pools risk among many individuals.  Such socialized vehicles of risk motivate people to get injured and sick so that they take more from those who pay in.  Health insurance is socialized medicine.  Health insurance also over encourages the use of medical services beyond what is efficient for the market since people do not bear the true cost of what they directly consume.  Therefore, people will over consume because they don't have to pay for the full cost directly.  This increased demand artificially raises prices.  Why can't we have a true free market system where people by medical services like they buy hamburgers or apples or furniture?

Against government sponsored socialized medicine?

Song of the Day

Which View of Marriage Do You Have? Ross' or Rachel's

In an episode of Friends, when Ross discovers that Rachel is pregnant with his baby.  In an excited haze, Ross proposes marriage because children should be raised with 2 married parents.  Rachel, however, refuses and says that marriage is something that people do when they are in love, not when they have a surprise pregnancy.

So what's the main reason for marriage (because these two views are not mutually exclusive)?
The Rachel View:  As an expression of love.  This view of marriage is very friendly towards gay marriage.  Did some left-wing group pay off the Friends' writers to put the Rachel view on the air?

The Ross View:  As a way to provide children with a stable upbringing.  This view is less friendly towards gay marriage.  Did some social conservative group pay off the Friends' writers to put the Ross view on the air?

A Satrical Look at Culture War Nonsense

This is not all fun and games however.  There are many people who actually think like this.  Many women in Africa have their clitoris removed when they've hit puberty.  The reasoning being that this will motivate women not to have sex.  More than 100 million women around the world have experienced this procedure.

Bad Public Marketing for Contraception Debate

I've been paying a lot of attention to this debate.  Have you noticed that there are 0 women who are appearing on behalf of the anti-contraception side of things?  Whoever is in charge of messaging for that side of the debate needs to get fired.  All the messengers are dudes and at least half of them don't have sex.

Conspiracy Theory: Could it be that women are just more immoral than men?

A Love Affair

Some people are absolutely in love with fossil fuels and hate clean water/air laws.  However, what I really don't understand is why some people want our cities to look like this and our rivers to be like this.  Both of those links are of China.  China is rapidly growing (good), very prominent in manufacturing (good), and uses a lot of fossil fuels (good?).  Air pollution and water scarcity (the lack of clean water) are huge problems.  I like fossil fuels as much as the next guy (my ownership of COP), but come on... 

The Perverse Incentives of Impending Cap and Trade Legislation

Cap and Trade legislation has often been proposed as a way to curb carbon emissions and slow down climate change.  However, this system of handing out "pollution credits" and allowing the sale of these credits on the open market has perverse incentives for the current market.

An Awesome Song of the Day

Back to the girly songs.

Congress: The New Normal

Under the new normal of hyper-partisanship and pro-nut job politics, there lies a hope for the future.  Right now a small group of lawmakers are trying to stop this nation from committing financial suicide. YAY!  Maybe we're not totally doomed?

The only reason why they are even allowed to negotiate without outside groups going bat-shit crazy is because of secrecy.

There you go folks, the new way to get stuff is secrecy!   Some might decry the end of open democracy.  Open democracy also means the most passionate (nut-jobish) people/entities have the most influence since they are the ones who care the most.  Yikes...

Song of the Day

A non-girly song day.  This guy is the new normal in the GOP...not because of this song, because of this badly reasoned pro-Iraq War song.  Don't blame him though, he just got confused by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

A Curious Story on the Subway

During my subway ride home the other day, a couple of ladies were passing out fliers.  The fliers decry how hundreds of thousands of unionized postal workers will likely lose their jobs.  The two women went on a rant about the destruction of good wage jobs and aimed the blame at "privatization" and Wall Street (the same Wall Street that had profits drop by a lot).  The United States Postal Service is losing billions of dollars.  With the increase of email, traditional mail usage has plummeted.  The bottom line is that those postal worker jobs are just not needed any more for our economy.  Keeping those jobs would be extremely inefficient and a poor use of resources, especially government money.

More on Rush Limbaugh reasoning

On Health Insurance: why are we paying for other people to get injured or sick?

On Car Insurance: why are we paying other people to get in car accidents?

On Home Insurance: why are we paying for other people to get their houses robbed?

On Flood Insurance: why are we paying other people to get their homes flooded?

On Dental Insurance: why are we paying for kids to get cavities?

Washington Caucus Results and Prediction Revisions

Mitt Romney will win the Washington State Caucuses.

I got that prediction wrong, which makes me 2 of 3 overall.

Also, I am changing my prediction of Ohio from Santorum to Romney given Romney's recent momentum.

2012 GOP Washington State Caucuses Today

For live results coming in, click here.  They should start coming in about 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific.

UPDATE: Republican voters turned away by Republican party officials after voting venue becomes over-crowded.  About 1,500 voters were turned away in Kennewick, WA.  This is in Eastern Washington and is likely bad news for Rick Santorum.  These caucus problems are getting uglier and uglier.  Will there be a constitutional violation challenge?

UPDATE #2:  The voters who were turned away were in Benton County, a county where Romney won easily.  The person who lost the most from the turned-away voters was likely Romney.

Song of the Day

Justin Bieber sounded a lot better before he hit puberty.

Also, Luda!

Financial Investment: Stock Picking-the first thing you should do

Read Annual Reports...

What are annual reports?
They are the 10-K filings that every public company in the United States has to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

Where can I find annual reports?
Here, they are available online for free.  Courtesy of your tax dollars.  There are sites that offer this info for a fee, don't encourage that economic behavior.

Why should I read annual reports?
It's what research analysts do.  It's what Warren Buffett does. It's what all investment professionals do. It gives you all the important info about the business.  If you read the annual reports first without anything else, you will help yourself make a non-biased valuation.

What should I look for when I'm reading?

The Truth of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is quite possibly the most brilliant theory on human behavior ever.  The human mind and brain are complex and have parallel processes running at the same time, so many different motivations from different levels of Maslow's pyramid usually occur at the same time. Maslow was clear about speaking of these levels and their satisfaction in terms such as "relative" and "general" and "primarily", and says that the human organism is "dominated" by a certain need.  The dominant need is the highest (most complex) level of need that has not been met yet.

Here is summary of the different layers of needs: from most basic to most complex
1.  Physiological Needs: Food, Shelter, Air, Sleep
Without these, we can't live...let alone think about happiness.