The Armchair Blogger

McCain has publicly stated that he won’t reveal his choice for Vice President until after the Democratic primary. There are omnipresent rumours about the internet that Obama will announce his preferred candidate in the next two hours. Here’s how I see it:

For McCain, the obvious no-brainer is Mitt Romney. He’s strong on fiscal responsibility, he’s a Republican from a very heavy Democratic state (Massachusetts), he’s younger than McCain and a bit more vibrant. The only problem is that the two don’t seem to get along very well. I don’t see this as a major problem as together they represent a very balanced ticket that will be quite formidable come November. I think to go with anyone else would be a mistake.

Obama on the otherhand has to make a punt. There is no way of knowing how the election campaign is going to pan out so he is going to have to make a decision. I see three scenarios:

1. Obama sees the international climate is going to deteriorate (see Russia vs. Georgia) as an example. The American electorate are going to clamour for experience and reliability in their President. In this case, Obama would need to choose someone with oodles of experience and strong on foreign policy. If he sees this as characterising the election he’ll go with Nunn or Biden.
2. Obama takes a domestic focus, identifies that the economy is what the election will be about and the swing states in the rust belt will decide the election. He may also seek to cement his positioning as an agent of change. In this case, he’ll want a Washington outsider who is young and fit with a good reputation for economic management. In this case he’ll select either Bayh from Indiana or Kaine from Virginia. Both in states near the Rust Belt. Both with very strong economic credentials. Both are governors/former govenors.
3. Obama wants to continue on the Obamamania from the primaries and select a candidate that will elicit an outpouring of enthusiaism and focus from the media. In this case he will choose either Sebelius from Kansas or resort back to Hillary. This will be a strategy to keep the change momentum running and leverage the much anticipated alas not forthcoming bounce in the polls. This is probably the more riskier of the strategies.

Logically, if I were Obama I would take option 2. I think this election will be fought on economic management and in the rust belt swing states. However, I hope he takes option 3. I want to see the enthusiasm perpetuated. The last thing Obama wants to do is get bogged down in the minutae of policy. As was said about him in the primaries: while his opponents are thick, logical, cogent and structured essays; Obama is poetry.

So let the stanzas keep flowing.

The media has seemed to jump on the idea of a Costello ascendency within the Liberal Party. I like Costello and a part from his weird ChurchSong thing, I think I stand pretty close to him on many of the issues (although I’m probably a bit more radical socially). The media, however, have seemed to jump on the idea of Costello as weak, ineffectual and spineless because of his inability to depose Howard when he had the chance and challenge for the leadership before the last election.

My alternative hypothesis is that he never wanted to lead the Liberal Party to the next election. He, in fact wanted the Liberal Party to lose the election. Why on Earth would he want to do that? Because Costello knew the boom was about to bust. He is a smart economic thinker and realised that uh-oh inflation is starting to get out of control, interest rates are going to go up and the economy will slow which will cause unemployment to rise. No government, no matter how effective, can manipulate the economy so much as to avoid a recession. That being said, however, the electorate will still place the responsbility of the economy firmly on the shoulders of the federal government. Costello knows that Rudd and his Labor team will struggle with the economy for the next few years and Labor’s credibility will suffer - they have always struggled on the issue of economic management. 

Costello is about to launch a book establishing his vision for a future Australia (how American of him). With that he will ascend to the leadership and take the task of economic management straight to that moron Swan and his cronies. Costello will have the upper hand as a supreme economic manager (perception - because as we all know, there is no just think as objective truth when it comes to politics) that guided Australia through relative prosperity and growth. The next election the Liberals will come out on top and Rudd will go down as a petty 3 year government.

Costello is not spineless or weak for not challenging. Costello knew exactly what he was doing. He is a cunning and smart man that predicted the end of the bust, saw a way for the Liberals to get out with their economic credentials in tact and to reinforce Labor’s inbedded perceptual positioning as poor economic managers.

And if Costello is that smart and cunning, I can wait for him to be Prime Minster.

Today, whilst on the train to uni I decided to turn my iPod onto random selection…not something I usually do because, let’s face it, I hate my entire iPod play list. Yet today one of the songs that cropped up which I hadn’t heard in a while and which I had completely forgotten I had on my playlist was Kenny Roger’s song, The Gambler. Listening to the song’s lyrics I could help but consider how much of life’s lessons really plays itself out on the poker table. As an avid poker player (Texas Holdem, of course), there is nothing more exhilarating, challenging, frustrating, soul-destroying and exciting then a hand of poker. Poker is really a melange of psychology, strategy, probablity and sheer luck squaring off against each other which, when you think about it, is a microcosm of life.

We all start off with a hand. We have no control or influence over.

 Some people get handed pocket Aces. These are the people born into rich familes. They start from a privledge positon - playboys and heiresses, mansions, private jets, butlers. Their lives are an array of parties and privledge. Their success is pretty much assured. Strategy wise, they just need to play the hand straight, maybe try and rope some other players in and clean them out but from the outset they are in a strong position. Moral: You are in the best position. Just hope that life doesn’t flop you terrible cards and you’ve made it. Be happy though, the odds ae with ya.

Then you’ve got your Ace Four off-suit people. These are the people that have been endowed with a very strong gift but unfortuantly a handicap to go along with it. They may have a special ability but because of circumstance, something is holding them back or holding them back from truely succeeding such as poverty, the illness of themselves or a relative etc. Should life flop them another ace somewhere down the  track then they have the potential to succeed but they will always have that weakness hanging over them. A strategy on this hand would be to try and get into the action, hope your strong card holds and pays off, but in the face of strong a strong challenge proceed with caution. Moral: Hope that life flops you your strong card which will pay off extraordinarily.

Now you get your people with no hand. They have low cards. Nothing to fall back on. These are the people born into poverty or lower-income areas. They aren’t graced with looks, intelligence, charisma. Because of the nature of their hand they have no motivation to continue. Should life throw them the right cards they could make a decent game of it, however, the odds are stacked firmly against them. Moral: Do your best to hope that life flops you the right cards.

Your final people are the ones dealt the lower pocket cards. They are born in white bread, middle-class suburbia. They have never had to struggle for anything but their lack of struggle becomes a struggle within itself. This is the class to which I think I belong. You’ve been lucky to get a pair, something with which to play, but there pair is not that good. The odds are there but not excessively tipped in your favour. The strategy with this hand is to risk it early in the game. Raise the stakes. If you do that, the payoff can be huge. See what is out there. If you play this hand slowly and avoid the risk then you are leaving yourself open to being in a worse position in the end than when you start. Moral: Take risks early in life, you may just improve your position.

That’s what I love about cards…and life…no matter what position we start in, there are still more cards to come. We could start with pocket aces, but should the cards turn your aces may become valueless. You could start with nothing and form a powerful hand depending on how luck treats ya. The lesson for this is, in poker and in life, we can win any hand with any combination of cards. It’s all about playing the hand we are dealt. In my case, I need to raise the stakes now in my life, if I am ever looking to make that triple 6 down the track. Take the risk, it may pay off. It may not…but hey that’s poker.

Okay, ever since last September when I gazed into the crystal ball and predicted a Clinton Presidency, I’ve always secretly wanted her to resurrect her chances and come through with a victory. Whilst it is now an impossiblity, I think the need to assess the viability of a Clinton Vice Presidency is not without merit. Firstly, let’s analyse the reasons against a Hillary presidency:

1. Obama and Hillary have had a very strained relationship since the primaries. However, they virtually have the same positions on the vast preponderance of issues. Also, a strained relationship between President and Vice President does not necessarily make for a ineffective team - see Kennedy/Johnson and Reagan/Bush.
2. Billary in the halls of the White House. Yes, the ominous presence of Bill Clinton stomping around the gardens of the White House does have the chance to undermine Obama authority. But the real likelihood of this occuring, I feel, is highly minimal. The Clintons are not so stupid to realise that undermining an Obama presidency, undermines the Democratic brand and therefore inhibits a later Clinton Presidential campaign.
3. A black man and a woman is too much change all at once. Conceeded point. But the only voters who would be turned off by this are those, at the end of the day, who wouldn’t support the Democratic party anyway.
4. Hillary is a polarising figure. Hillary was only a polarising figure because she was the conservative media’s punching bag. She had been positioned in that way. In a similar vein to the way liberal has been positioned as a dirty word. However, now that the conservative media has bigger fish to fry, Hillary is certainly no longer the divisive figure she once was - in fact it seems that she has almost been humbled.

I think people have started to suffer from what I term the Kennedy Paradox - the belief that a politician has swept to power when in reality, the circumstances of their election were extremely contentious. Kennedy beat Nixon by one of the thinest margins in presidential history. Likewise, Hillary was only beat out by Obama by a very thin margin. Obama’s ascendency was by no means a cake walk - despite the fact that it has been positioned as so.

I believe that is added value to a Clinton name on the ticket. First let’s look at the key battleground stakes (purple states):

Now let’s consider those key battleground stakes in terms of the voting outcomes of the democratic primaries (Clinton is red, Obama in green - the deeper the colour the higher the vote outcome):

Notice the big strip of red (representing Clinton supporting counties) across the key battleground states? These aren’t just lightly favouring Clinton either. These counties heavily favoured Clinton in the primaries and they are the Reagan Democrats that let’s face it haven’t been falling behind Obama with much enthusiasm. Obama faces a real threat from Reagan Democrats, especially as the economy starts to falter. They generally mistrust him and this may hurt him electorally. I see few voters who will actually abandon Obama because of a Clinton joint venture. However, I do believe the inverse to be probable.

Overall, it is my personal belief that it would not be a stupid idea for Obama to attach Hillary. It would result in the much talked about, but not forthcoming boost in Obama’s polling numbers over McCain. I think Obama needs to tread carefully with his VEEP choice. If not Hillary, then someone who can make the Reagan Democrats fall into line.

Vice President Hillary Clinton…don’t write it off just yet.

*Disclaimer: If my previous predictions (see http://thearmchairblogger.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/im-in-a-speculative-mood/) are anything to go by then Clinton will most certainly not be chosen by Obama. If my previous predications had come true, then Howard would still be Prime Minister and Clinton would have already won the nomination. But nevertheless, it’s fun in speculating.

I have a friend who once took a philosophy course over a summer semester. At the end of it, I asked him, almost jokingly, ‘So then, what’s the meaning of life?’ His response, although awkward and hesitant - which is usual for him, ‘Well…the meaning of life, I guess, is really what you make of it.’ The quote is one of which I have never forgotten. So simplistic and yet so insightful. It was the synthesis of thousands and thousands of years of religious, philosophical and scientific thought encapsulated by one simple, awkwardly spoken phrase.

The debate over religion has seemed to have followed my around of late. I’m not sure why. Every since Youth Day a few weeks ago there has been increasing talk of religion. I am an atheist. I heard a great quote the other day, I can’t remember it exactly, but the effect of it is, ‘my being and spirit was once nothing, now I am, and once again I shall return to nothing.’ And I’m fine with that. If I shall return to the place where I was before birth, then that is fine with me. I don’t like the term atheist though. Because I do believe in something. I believe in the goodness of humanity. I believe in the fact that human beings can demonstrate acts of pure alturism. That they can sympathise and empathise with people they don’t even know.

However, I fail to understand how and why people are willing to sacrifice their lives on this planet for war, bigotry and prejudice all in the name of religion. My blood boils when intolerance is permitted in the name of religious dogma. Look, there may or there may not be an afterlife. What does it matter anyway? Why not concern your time on this earth with doing the things that make us feel great. Showing compassion and concern for thy neighbour. Overcoming challenges within ourself. Using our natural born faculties to their fullest potential in order to further the human cause.

I guess, though, at the end of the day, we make meaning in our lives and that’s for us to choose. But religion should be something personal. Not something that is should have any relevance to greater society.

Obama in his whistletop and much publicised tour of the Middle East and Europe was recently in Berlin where he gave a speech to 200,000 Berliners - an unprecedented rally for a presidential candidate. In his speech Obama, reminiscent of Reagan, expressed that, “the walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand” and “the walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.” The use of walls as a metaphor was a callback to Reagan’s famous imperative to Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” referring to the Berlin Wall. Whether this action actually heralded the fall of the Soviet Union is debateable, but the imagery was powerful enough and it is a presidential quote that to this day stands as one of the all time greats.

Obama’s latest expeditions have, however, attracted accusations of all style and no substance. His speechs tend to be ladden with emotive prose, however, is there anything by the way of real ideas in which this may be achieved? Does Obama have concrete ideas on how to “tear down the walls of division?” Not that I’ve seen, or ever seems to filter through the news media. But, does this matter? I would argue not. Not at the moment, anyway. The mere symbolism of what Obama stands for is enough to express the ideals that he espouses. The imagery of a liberal African American in the White House has the potential to change the hearts and minds of the world. Nations will be more likely to engage with the United States, for no other reason than who Obama is - case in point, the German people. I always find it unfathomable that the personality of the leader can in so many ways affect the direction of an entire nation of people, but it invariably does. Obama doesn’t pack his speeches with substance because he doesn’t need to at the moment. At the end of the day, people don’t vote on substance. If my current study has taught me anything, it’s that people vote using style as an indicator of the substance of character. Whether this is right or not - most studies seem to indicate that people get it right regardless of voting on style or substance - check out How Voters Decide by Richard Lau. However, if the style does invariably equate to substance than Obama must have oodles of it. But even if he doesn’t have the substance, the sheer symbolism of an Obama White House has the potential to do more for the United States, and lets face it, the world than 1,000 policy wonks working 24 hours a day crafting the best constructed, most thought-out policy known to man. At the end of the day we are all social creatures and we are foremostly judging character and style first and substance and action later. Additionally, the office of the President of the United States of America is a position of rich symbolism - the leader of the free world. So I believe, in terms of foreign policy, whether Obama is all style over substance is mute. Who he is and what he represents is worth all the substance in the world.

I haven’t added any new content in a while so I figured it might be good to keep all my fans abreats of the latest goings-on in the Pauliverse.

I will be going to Sydney on the 29th of August to the 31st of August for a conference of like-minded libertarians (not to be confused with the Young Liberal Party of Australia and all the sycophants that populate it). In a brief snapshot, a libertarian is one who fundamentally believes in the rights of the individual who through their own exercise of rational judgement should be fundamentally allowed to take whatever actions they wish so long as it does not encroach upon the rights of any other such individual. I believe that the state (government) has no business regulating the lives of anybody, that everybody is endowed with the right of opportunity (through access to education) but that fundamentally some people will seize upon opportunity and others will not. Those who through their own intelligence, skill and preparation seize these opportunities should be rewarded through profit. However, I fundamentally believe that every human is endowed with a right to a standard level of living and that through the altruism of humanity shall receive that benefit. However, forced altruism through a governmental mechanism is basically immoral.

So the conference will be good to mueet-and-grueet (as Kath & Kim would say) some other people from around Australia. Best part is that it’s all expenses paid and I get a free weekend in Sydney and I get to take “Go to Sydney” off my list of 101 things to do and I am so going to Star City Casino.

Nothing else exciting is really happening. I’ve ploughed through 16,000 words on my dissertation. So only about another 9,000ish to go. I hope to have it done as soon as possible so I can high tail it out of the university for the real world. I’m starting to get itchy feel being there and doing what I am doing. I need a change. What that change will be - stayed tuned - but as for now, I’m concentrating on getting my myriad projects done. 

The stock market has me real confused at the moment. About 2 months ago I invested in Macquarie Bank shares on the advice of a few commentators who saw it undervalued. For the past two months the share price has been fluctuating around the $47 dollar mark, sometimes up sometimes down. Then yesterday MacBank declared a reduction in profit forecasts - usually a signal, especially given the current climate, that the stock will take a battering. But it went up. Not only did it go up. It went up by 12% - which is quite an good gain really. So what did I do? I sold it quick smart of course. I have no doubt that the stock will climb higher in the coming months and years, but right now the volatility is too great and as some analysts portend, the market may take a sudden dive around October. So I made a quick $350 bucks for holding the shares for a couple of months (that is until tax time).

This is all.

I feel in the mood to spend my leisurely Sunday afternoon writing a book review. The book I shall review is “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell.

I had received a $50 Borders gift certificate at the Faculty of Business Awards in July and was eager to use it; however, given the overwhelming choice that Borders offer I was hesitant to commit to a singular book purchase.  On my first visit to Borders I scanned all my usual favourite categories (Economics, Sociology, Psychology, Business and Self-Help - I am much more favourable to non-fiction than fiction). After which I settled down to read The Bell Curve - a controversial thesis written by some Harvard Scholars that essentially argued that society is being segmented on the basis of IQ (recall Brave New World by Aldous Huxley) in that those with greater IQs were being accepted into the best universities in the U.S and those with poor IQs were being forced into the workforce or lesser colleges creating both an intellectual elite and an underclass. Fair call. However, they went on to argue that blacks were part of IQ-Challenged because of their natural proclivities towards aggression and away from intellectualism. Tough sell. So I put the book down, already being dubious of the use of IQ to measure intelligence away, and decided not to purchase anything that day. I did, however, glance at Gladwell’s book - Blink. I was a big fan of his first novel The Tipping Point (a must read) but I put it back on the shelf and didn’t think anything more of it. The basic premise was how do people, usually experts make snap descisions in the blink of an eye and oftentimes get it right. For some reason, despite the cursory glance I gave the book in Borders, days later I started thinking about that basic premise and suddenly I became overcome with a desire to learn more.

So I went back to Borders a few days later and purchased the book. I read it within a couple of days. Gladwell, a journalist for the New Yorker, has a simple yet engrossing writing style that does invite the reader to turn the page. He calls on many famous Social Psychology experiments and studies (true to his form) to illustrate his main thesis. Overall, I found the book engaging and insightful, however, I feel Gladwell’s central idea did somehow get lost in the body of the book and wasn’t reclaimed by the climax. I did find this with the Tipping Point also, in that the body of the book can become encumbered by lengthy discriptions of phenomena that isn’t central to the idea and can obfuscate the core message. Nevertheless, his idea that humans are primed to make snap decisions that, if left simply to biological processes, are oftentimes correct is interesting and I think the book is well worth the read if you enjoy Psychology and non-fiction. However, I would recommend the Tipping Point first. 7/10.

Two items in the recent media and piqued my attention and outrage. The first is the child nudity in arts issue and the second is the issue over the convicted pedophile Dennis Fergurson. It is these two issues, that having both arisen within weeks of each other, that I believe to be indicative of a worrying social trend back towards wowserism in the first instance and vigilantism in the second. Both of which, paradoxically, seem to me to indicate a slow regression of society.

Firstly, I refuse to believe that people are actually taking this issue of child nudity in the arts seriously. Children have always been depicted naked in the arts. Never before has it been an issue. Never before have people mentioned the sexualisation of children. Then suddenly, the great mob of christians and moralists come along, on their soapbox, pontificating about the perils of depicting children as sexual objects. They only become sexual objects if the perceiver perceives them to be sexual objects. They only become sexual objects when people cast them as sexual objects. They only become sexual objects when a group of people come out and decry the pictures as sexual objectivism. This is what the moralist have done. They have caused this issue because they have chosen to interpret the pictures in this fashion. By banning these pictures, swooping in and removing them, they have perpetuated the issue - making it a national controvery (mind you: probably the intention of the artist). Ultimately, however, you cannot regulate what a person thinks. A person could objectify children in a K-Mart catalogue, in a school picture, heck walking in a shopping centre. I highly doubt people will attend an art exhibition in which to satiate pathological urges towards children nor do I consider the artists themselves to demonstrate any sort of pedophilia. By removing this art all that is being created is a culture of repression and a culture of censorship. One may question, why would the artist even do this? Well the point of all art is to push the boundaries. Shake people from their comfortable little existence and start to question, to probe, to think. To encourage them to use that big mass of flesh inside their head instead of resorting to fucking Today Tonight or A Current Affair for their insight into the world. The word Avant Garde comes from French (literally advance guard) and it means the soldiers in the French army who were at the front. Took the fighting forward. Engaged with the enemy. This is what art is all about. Pushing the boundaries and shaking existing patterns of though. So censorship of art, of anything really, signifies a social regression. An inability to have a sensible dialogue about it without resorting to moralistic outcries of depravity. And that’s what’s truely disgusting about this issue.

Secondly, the issue of Dennis Fergurson. Personally, I think the man should have had a trial interstate or somewhere away from the media glare. But the judge is correct. There is no way that man could have a fair and reasonable trial by an impartial jury to render a logical and emotionless verdict. A glimpse at the lynch mobs that have arisen in response to his release is testament to that very fact. The man deserves a fair trial. The man is currently free and therefore should be able to live his life in quiet enjoyment until such times that he is found guilty by a fair and impartial jury based on a preponderance of the evidence and sentenced to incarceration by a judge in keeping with the requirements of the law. The man has generated such a vitriolic response because he is a particularly disgusting pedophile. He meets the very schema that most of us would have for a pedophile vis-a-vis he looks like a pedophile. He is a sniviling, old man with long gangly hair and baked bean teeth. This is why he’s the media’s darling. Because he engenders all that fear and anxiety that it is natural within parents. But this is wrong. We, as a society, need to have faith in law to exercise and dispense justice in a fair, equitable and above all rational fashion. Not at the capricious or arbritray whim of emotion. Justice by fiat is the first step towards total and utter anarchy. And vigilanty justice IS anarchy.

I realise that these positions are contary to the populist viewpoints so readily covered in our media. I guess they won’t make me any friends. And it’s easy to be angry at the pedophiles or pseudo-intellectual artists. But they are points of view that must be considered and discussed. I will refuse to live in a society in which overt-moralism regulates every aspect of life. I will refuse to live in a society of trial-by-media and where justice dispensed by lynchmobs. But most of all I refuse to live in a society that is not guided by rational and considered thought through robust argument and debate. And that’s what I have to say about that.

Enter a poker tournament

Okay, I’ve done this twice in the past two weeks. My friend, Mia, knew of a place at Mt. Gravatt that has poker tournaments every Tuesday night. So not last week but the week before we went. Then we went again last week. We are totally becoming regulars. The people that go are there EVERYWEEK and are TOTALLY into it. Like hysterics and tantrums when they lose (there’s no money for victory, just a free bar tab). Anyway, to prove that I’ve actually completed this you can go to this website www.australianmasterspoker.com.au (go to results, go to venue leaderboard, go to Southside Sport and Community Club on Tuesday Night) and see that I’m 17th out of 72. Which is not bad considering its my first REAL poker tournament with people that have been doing it for years. Meanwhile, i am determined to improve my skills at make it to the final table at some stage.

Anyway, if anyone else is interested in coming along, it’s free and for beginners as well. You pretty much just need a general idea of how Texas Hold Em run.