Barack Obama: the first 587 hours

Everyone seems to get quite excited about what politicians have achieved in 100 days, as if this is some magical milestone on which to judge their entire existence. Hogwash! It’s not even a prime number.

My model is the first 587 hours. So here we go.

Hour 1: Obama takes office. There was some kind of stuffup.
Hour 24: Obama re-takes office. No stuffups this time.
Hour 216: Obamicon.Me records its 500,000th Obama icon. Most of these are attributed to Duncan.
Hour 587: Prominent and world famous blogger Stu chronicles the first 587 hours of Obama’s presidency.

So far, nothing too interesting has happened. I’ll see you after 8191 hours of office!

US election Centrebet analysis

Avid followers of this self-indulgent isochronal may recall that my Centrebet analysis accurately predicted the result of last year’s federal election – give or take a seat in NSW and Victoria, and 2 in Queensland (bloody banana benders) and WA.

Let us therefore apply the same analysis to the upcoming US presidential elections.

So there we have it; the Dems to take 30 states (including Washington D.C.), and the GOP to take the remaining 21. If we translate that into actual electoral college votes (apportioning Maine and Nebraska 2-2 and 2-3 respectively), then Obama storms home with a whopping 375 votes to 163!

The closest race will be in Indiana, with the Democrats at $1.70. Centrebet has Obama at $1.07 to be the next president, however by my calculations he needs to win all the states that are at $1.11 or better to get the required 270 votes.

Of course, Centrebet is an Australian company, and so the options don’t stop at who is going to win the election. Here is my personal favourite option, which I will be putting five bucks on.