Grading My 2010 Predictions

Well dear readers, it's time to look back on my 2010 predictions and tally up the score. I'd say I'm on a roll - 2009 was a good year for my crystal ball and 2010 was OK too. I thought I'd go 3 for 8 and I am giving myself a final score of 3.5 for 8. I nailed the high-profle Obama cabinet resignations, ClimateGate Part Deux, ObamaCare creates constitutional crisis, and I'm giving myself .5 for Iran getting bombed because Stuxnet was basically a bomb (even I can't think farther outside of the box than those zanny Israelis). A few of my other predictions will likely prove true (California going bankrupt and the assasination one are still pretty solid) but, alas, didn't come to pass in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Ten.

Stay tuned for my 2011 predictions...

Get 'Em While They're Hot - 2012 Predictions !!!

Well, it's time to make my predictions for 2012. I've done pretty well on my predictions the last few years. In 2011, I nailed alot of them "directionally" if not a precise score. In making my predictions, note that I try to steer away from the obvious and make out-of-the-box prognostications that are at least plausible - they may be grounded in the obvious reality, but I try to take them further. No need to be conventional, you get that from the MSM. I'm not trying to be right as many times as I can, I'm trying to be right with a high degree of difficulty. I list them from most interesting/confident to least interesting/confident, so here goes.

- Romney/Tea Party, A Marriage Made in...Well, Just Made: Mitt Romney (who is FINE btw) chooses a VP nominee that solidifies his support with true conservatives just enough to complete his primary electoral strategy of 1) be the "non-scary" Republican that independents and moderate Dems can feel comfortable voting for and 2) be good enough for conservatives and libertarians to turn out like they need to turn out to defeat the constitutional democracy/individual liberty disaster that is Barack Obama. Likely choices are Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, Jim DeMint, or Paul Ryan. I say it's Romney/Ryan because we need this one badly and Ryan adds tremendously to the ticket (Republican poo-bahs move Heaven and Earth to get Ryan to sign up).

- 2012 Election is Close Until Sep-Oct When Obama Blows It ala McCain in 2008: Obama's political skills are awesome, but his political instincts are terrible. He will do quite egregious things to please his base (wow! as if on cue). He will run neck and neck with Romney/Ryan until he blows it with a policy gaffe that conspicuously reminds voters what an amateur and/or liberal fascist he is. The gaffe could even be a Clintonite engineered self-destruction conspiracy. (Wow! I could be early on this one!)

- ClimateGate email hacker is caught and it turns out he/she/them works essentially for the Russian government.

- Something Deep, Deep Underground in Iran Blows Up: Above-ground things are blowing up left and right and we are constantly told that the Big Bad Nuke Stuff is way underground where we can't bomb it. Well, maybe not with airplanes. We/they/whoever scores a big one with a KABOOM underneath the feet of the mullahs.

- SCOTUS Shoots Down Individual Mandate, Keeps Rest of ObamaCare Intact: Chief Justice Roberts garners the five votes needed to shoot down the mandate as a bridge too far in restricting the liberties of Americans. Although never revealed, the decision is an attempt to re-establish the Court's credibility as a bastion of protection of the citizenry's liberties after the disastrous Kelo decision.

- Global Warming, Er Sorry, Climate Change Officially Dies: Canada got the ball rolling so now the flood gates are open, three more major countries opt out of the Kyoto Protocol and the global warming movement is officially laid to rest.

- The Hopes and Dreams of the "Arab Spring" Actually Take Root...in Syria: Assad is killed or leaves and Syrians actually setup the relatively liberal democracy that people thought would prevail in Egypt. The new Syrian regime makes peace with Israel and allies with the West. But not before alot of people get killed.

- Al Qaeda Makes a Big Comeback, Targets China Too: Plenty of new places to regroup - Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq. They get the band back together, and they add to the list of Great Satans.

- Vladimir Putin Escapes An Assassination Attempt: Grudge-harboring Chechen is emboldened by Putin's political weakness, but, alas, fails.

- In a Rematch of Super Bowl 35, the New York Giants Defeat the Ravens of Baltimore in Super Bowl 46 by a score of 27-17. MVP is Victor Cruz.

+1 on Pelosi Prediction

2011 isn't over yet but one of my predictions is unfolding as planned. We might not see it within the calendar year, but being early is still a score of +1.

Me on Jan 11, 2011:

- Pelosi Leaves Congress: She can't stand life as second fiddle after tasting raw, unrestrained power. She leaves. (Here's my long shot prediction for extra credit: Pelosi primaries Obama for the presidential election in 2012 claiming he has sold out the progressive movement.)

Plucked today from DR:

Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of House Minority Leader and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, told Big Government this week that her mother wants to leave Congress–and that she remains in Washington only at the behest of her campaign donors.

UPDATE:
BTW, one of my 2010 predictions was:

- Minor world leader is assasinated (three likelies: Assad, Calderon, Mubarak)

and this is what I said when it didn't come true:

A few of my other predictions will likely prove true (California going bankrupt and the assasination one are still pretty solid) but, alas, didn't come to pass in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Ten.

So, in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eleven we saw Qaddafi get whacked, Mubarak narrowly avoid a whacking, and Assad is on the brink. Not a bad call way back when...

Why the Hell Not...2010 Predictions!

Many bloggers are offering their predictions for 2010, so I figured why the hell not...after all some of my 2009 calls were pretty good (Copenhagen, 10% unemployment, Obama's unravelling, NY's tax receipts dry up, the "stimulus" wouldn't work).

Many of you already know of a few of my standing predictions:
- Iran gets bombed
- Obama sees a major unwanted cabinet level resignation (Napolitano doesn't count)

Here are some new ones (there are many easy ones I could list, but I will only make the bold ones here):
- Gen. David Petreaus quits, making obvious first move toward run for President in 2012
- Either California or New York declares bankruptcy
- Venezuela invades Colombia
- ClimateGate II is revealed
- ObamaCare passes and Texas responds w/federalist driven anti-ObamaCare bill sparking constitutional crisis
- Minor world leader is assasinated (three likelies: Assad, Calderon, Mubarak)

I expect I will go 3 for 8, 4 at best.

2011 Predictions !!

OK dear readers, all fifteen of you, I know you've been anxiously awaiting my 2011 predictions given the high octane performance of my cyrstal ball these past two years. As you know, here at NBfPB we don't dumb down the test. I don't make the easy predictions and proclaim great insight when they come true, I like to be slightly out there in left field so that when I'm right there's a little bit of a "Wow-factor", but only slightly because we lead a fact-based life here at NBfPB and we strive to be truly "reality-based" as opposed to, well, you know who. So here goes:

- Israel Gets Attacked, War Comes Back to the Mideast: I'm not talking a few Qassam rockets, that's everyday life in the Little Satan; I'm talking attacked where Israel must respond, thus war. This isn't a super original idea, but the conditions are now set for this, that is why I am predicting it now rather than last year or the year before. Iran is teetering, Hezbollah has lain waste to any shred of civic strength in Lebanon, Syria has Stockholmed the West, Israel will begin work on monetizing the enormous wealth of one of the world's great hydrocarbon deposits, and the relations between Israel and its great protector/ally, the US, have never been this bad. It's a perfect time for some pre-emptive mischief and Israel's enemies will jump at it.

- Hillary Re-emerges for 2012: Now that the Obama presidency is officially owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Clintonites, they will work to undermine his 2012 chances and/or strike a grand bargain that enhances Hillary's power post 2012 and sets her up for further gains when the time is right. The Clintonite cadre will now set the conditions as best they can for Democratic success (work with Boehner, win back business) but otherwise allow Obama to blunder into a situation that enhances Hillary's profile. (I know that the Hillary replaces Biden meme is tired and spent, but I think that is the most likely route.)

- Venezuela Explodes: I know I semi-predicted this before, but I need to pad my score a little bit. With Chavez now ruling by decree, Venezuelans can now be under no further illusions that they are living under a loathesome dictatorship, not just an incompetent but well-meaning socialist, and they will rebel with greater fury. They will conclude that the time for peaceful marches are over, and that if they are to prevent a full slide into severe privation and oppression, they must act by any means necessary.

- Gas Hits $4: This is the year. This isn't a hard one, but it was much harder to call when gas was at $2. I made the soft call then, I'm making it official now.

- Pelosi Leaves Congress: She can't stand life as second fiddle after tasting raw, unrestrained power. She leaves. (Here's my long shot prediction for extra credit: Pelosi primaries Obama for the presidential election in 2012 claiming he has sold out the progressive movement.)

- Polling Reveals 40% of Americans Identify With the Tea Party Movement: The movement will persist and, after watching it in action and after concluding that the original tawdry slurs of the MSM/EJM are false, more Americans will come to a fair-minded understanding and appreciation for the Tea Party.

That's it for now, gotta go. Cheers!

UPDATE: Almost forgot, one more prediction...more "hot chicks with guns" on NBfPB...

Score Two for My 2011 Predictions

One of my 2011 predictions has now gone about as mainstream as one can get.

And another one gets a score here - the Tea Party is over 40% approval.

Global Warming Versus The Black Swan

OK, so I'm not immune to reading a trendy book now and again. Right now, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "The Black Swan" is the hot book of the moment in my business. I have mixed feelings about the book, but it undeniably has its virtues. Particularly in its discussion of the failure of expertise. Taleb hues to the belief that the world is simply too complex for "expertise" to really exist, and he discusses at length the demonstrable failure of so called experts' predictive efforts. This isn't a new concept, the dismal receord of prediction and forecasting is well known, so much so as to be part of the 'wisdom of the common man'. Still, Taleb arrays the evidence and the argument against expertise impressively, and as he demolishes economists, securities analysts, CIA intelligence analysts and all manner of forecasters, I can't help but thinking about global warming. The global climate is mind-blowingly complex, just the sort of system for which expertise is essentially unattainable. The implications of this are that it is a near certainty that current consensus predictions of global warming and the damage it will cause will be proved wrong. The current forecasts of what temperatures and climate conditions will be 50 years hence may be too pessimistic or even too optimistic, but they are all but certain to be wrong. We may indeed be in life threatening climatological danger, but it won't be because of excessive man-made greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, or we may be in no danger whatsoever. We are simply unable to know. (Of course, scientific absolutists will vociferously disagree but that doesn't mean their predictions will be any good.) If that sounds too fatalistic, it is. That is proably why humankind has had a fatalistic outlook for much of its existence, and much of the world still does. What are the policy implications? We should probably encourage smart things that reduce pollution at the margin, but mostly we should not inhibit spontaneous technological discovery (which, for example, could yield a 'Black Swan' advancement in fuel technology) by picking winners today (i.e. ethanol) and we should maintain a level of flexibility just in case the consensus is dead wrong. Certainly what we should not do, is elevate global warming prevention to the central organizing principle of society as Al Gore suggests.

NBfPB 2011 Predictions Looking Solid

Wow. Surveying the media landscape for positive signs regarding my 2011 predictions, I'm encouraged. First, the reemergence of Hillary Clinton is proceeding apace. Second, Soros is making noises about funding a progressive candidate whose initials are not BHO (I guess he is taking for granted the fact that we have a President named Barack Hussein Obama...how could he? C'mon George, put that lightning back in the bottle!). Finally the kissing and making up between Hamas and Fatah combined with the steep escalation of rocket attacks into Israel hints that it may soon be on like a certain popular Nintendo video game of the 1980s.

Global Warming Is Dead, But We Still Need the Corpse

Readers please note that one of my predictions for 2012, made not a few weeks ago, was the official death of the global warming movement. The movement, I believe, is actually dead now, but when I said "official" I meant official. So, as in real life criminology, we need a corpse to declare a death. The most obvious corpse would be the UN's IPCC. Killing this fraudulent driving force behind the AGW movement will be tough, but we're not even into February and we've got a massive salvo right across the bow of the IPCC's credibility. We could have our body relatively soon.

UPDATE: Oh, by the way, I said this (in 2007 no less):

"The implications of this are that it is a near certainty that current consensus predictions of global warming and the damage it will cause will be proved wrong. The current forecasts of what temperatures and climate conditions will be 50 years hence may be too pessimistic or even too optimistic, but they are all but certain to be wrong."

Let's Face It, I'm a Bloody Genius

Oh, BTW readers...I just wanted to remind you all of my 2012 predictions, which I laid down, oh, back in January.  Actually, one or two predictions in particular...

- Romney/Tea Party, A Marriage Made in...Well, Just Made: Mitt Romney (who is FINE btw) chooses a VP nominee that solidifies his support with true conservatives just enough to complete his primary electoral strategy of 1) be the "non-scary" Republican that independents and moderate Dems can feel comfortable voting for and 2) be good enough for conservatives and libertarians to turn out like they need to turn out to defeat the constitutional democracy/individual liberty disaster that is Barack Obama. Likely choices are Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, Jim DeMint, or Paul Ryan. I say it's Romney/Ryan because we need this one badly and Ryan adds tremendously to the ticket (Republican poo-bahs move Heaven and Earth to get Ryan to sign up).

- 2012 Election is Close Until Sep-Oct When Obama Blows It ala McCain in 2008: Obama's political skills are awesome, but his political instincts are terrible. He will do quite egregious things to please his base (wow! as if on cue). He will run neck and neck with Romney/Ryan until he blows it with a policy gaffe that conspicuously reminds voters what an amateur and/or liberal fascist he is. The gaffe could even be a Clintonite engineered self-destruction conspiracy. (Wow! I could be early on this one!)

UPDATE:  BTW, the Greatest Prediction Ever is STILL the Great Prediction Ever!

Vindication!

Aha!  I have been vindicated.  Two themes I've been writing about here at NBfPB are 1) there is no such thing as "austerity" going on in Europe, and 2) even so, what little fiscal retrenching European nations are doing will be good for their economies but yet be skewered in the press as disastrous, driven by all manner of delusion and/or fealty to nutty Keynesian notions of the economy.

Well, the WSJ carries an analysis piece today highlighting the confounding reality that the UK economy is doing well despite all manner of predictions to the contrary, all based on "theory." 

Here is the headline:

For five years, the British economy has persistently failed to behave as predicted by theory—and continues to do so with increasing evidence it is growing faster than almost any other major Western economy.

Some choices tidbits:

Yet this growth spurt has taken economists almost entirely by surprise. It is hard to identify a single leading forecaster predicting such a strong recovery at the start of the year, or even at the end of the first quarter.

As recently as July, the International Monetary Fund was so gloomy about the U.K. that it was advising the government to loosen its deficit-reduction strategy. This month, it raised its 2013 growth forecast by half, to 1.4%.

Gee, globalist government econo-bureaucrats were advocating more unaffordable government spending?  No kidding.

The answer to the first question is becoming clear: More policy makers and economists now accept that the most plausible explanation for the U.K.'s postcrisis underperformance and its recent outperformance lies in the workings of the financial system—something that barely features in standard macroeconomic models.

 Gee, f**k with the banking system and things go awry.  Where have I heard that before?

Previous attempts to blame the U.K.'s weak performance on the government's fiscal policies have been undermined by the recovery and by the fact that U.K. austerity hasn't actually been very austere.

 +1 for DB.

While economists argued over Keynesian demand-side remedies, the main problem was one of supply—specifically the supply of finance.

Stuck on demand-side thinking.  I think that was even the title of one of my posts!

If you want more background as to how supply-side economic analysis has been pasting demand-side (Keynesian) analysis these last few years, check out here and here.

Prediction...

Seeing as how I love making predictions...here goes an easy one:

A Stephen Strasburg lookalike bangs like 80 chicks in Dewey Beach this summer...

We Bungled Egypt, But We Can Still Salvage a Good Outcome

Despite having made the greatest prediction ever, being on the cusp of making the second and third greatest predictions ever, having called the Obama unraveling down to the very details, and a host of other perspicacious prognostications where I am ahead of pretty much everybody, Roger Simon has seen fit to pass me over for Spengler. Well, you know what Simon, I crap bigger than Spengler!! The WSJ steals from me, Nobel economists crib my schtick!! Hell, I smelled the second coming of the Kosher Chicken !!

OK, I don't actually crap bigger than Spengler, just was as good an opportunity for a Jack Palantz reference as any. Actually, Spengler is closely watching something very important with MAJOR implications for the Middle East and the world, namely that if something doesn't change, Egyptians are gonna starve.

"...compared to Egypt, which imports half its caloric intake and is running out of foreign exchange."

You won't be seeing any "Miss Me Yet" t-shirts with Hosni Mubarak's mug on them for sale at the souvenir shops in Cairo, but what you could see is a yearning for leadership, any leadership, who can alleviate suffering by hook or by crook. History teaches that the likely results are not auspicious. Conversely this is an opening for the US. Call me Machiavellian, but much hunger could be alleviated with food-aid from the US if moderate, sensible, not radical Islamist governance carries the day, hint hint if you know what I mean.

Prescient?

Wow. This was another of my 2012 predictions:

- 2012 Election is Close Until Sep-Oct When Obama Blows It ala McCain in 2008: Obama's political skills are awesome, but his political instincts are terrible. He will do quite egregious things to please his base (wow! as if on cue). He will run neck and neck with Romney/Ryan until he blows it with a policy gaffe that conspicuously reminds voters what an amateur and/or liberal fascist he is. The gaffe could even be a Clintonite engineered self-destruction conspiracy.

Forget about the details of timing and the Republican ticket in that statement and focus on the bolded words. Egregious things...reveal that he is a liberal fascist. Hmmm. Can we say "contraception mandate"? Could it be that I got it exactly macro right, if not exactly micro right?

Egypt Erupts: Giving Myself Partial Credit for 2010 Prediction

Just a reminder, one of my 2010 predictions was that someone like Mubarak gets shot. We're still in January and if he showed his face, he most certainly would be shot, so I'm claiming partial credit for this prediction, score .5 for DB! That makes 4 of 8, pretty good for some not-quite obvious prognostications.

One Prediction Already Nailed!

January ain't even done and one of my predictions (ClimateGate II) is already in the win column. It's a squeaker, kinda like New Orleans' win last night, but a W is a W.

...and the makings of another W are starting to come into focus.

UPDATE: Let me pause from tooting my own horn to tooting that of another...I think this prediction holds up pretty well, although I would add to the mix a hyper self-regarding cypher in the White House.

Europeans Fleeing to Former Colonies

Just as we have our "reverse Dust Bowl" migration here, they're having something similar in Europe, call it "reverse post-imperial migration."

Maria Mendes is returning to the land of her birth four decades after she fled war and revolution.

Hers is no sentimental homecoming, however. Cold economic reality is forcing her and tens of thousands of other Portuguese to seek a new life in Angola

"You can't get by on a pension here," says the 60-year-old retired teacher as she stands in a line for visas that stretches outside the Angolan consulate in Lisbon.

"Salaries there are at least three times higher,” she adds. “That makes it worth all the difficulties.

Mendes, whose husband is already in Angola, has accepted a university teaching job there. 

She was among more than 500,000 Portuguese who joined an exodus from Portugal's African colonies when they gained independence in 1975 after 14 years of anti-colonial war.

But with their economy in the grip of the euro zone's debt-driven recession, many are now flocking to seek new opportunities in a Portuguese-speaking country whose economy is enjoying a spectacular oil-fueled recovery after a 30-year civil war.

Angola.  "Spectacular oil-fueled recovery".  That clearly has implications, no?  Where have I heard that before??

UPDATE:  Welcome Instapundit readers!  Check out the latest updates on the most delicious political conspiracy theory that is actually true here. Check out my current predictions on where the election is headed here.  And don't forget the Greatest Prediction Ever and the death of Global Warming.  Also, lots more, take a look around.

UPPDATE:  Oh, and... FREE PUSSY RIOT!

Was This The Big Clinton Knife?

Well, well, well.  It's time to revive an old theme here at NBfPB.  I make alot of predictions and am often right, but also often directionally right yet off on the details.

Leading up to the 2012 election, I was convinced, through careful observation and analysis, that the Clinton clan was intent on obliterating Barack Obama from the scene.  This is for two reasons, 1) the enormous Clinton ego, and 2) the health of the Democratic Party, which Obama was/is in the process of destroying.  Naturally, I saw the most logical path for a Clinton take-down was to undermine the Lightworker's re-election and I predicted that Obama would lose re-election as the Clinton's withdrew support and Obama was left with nothing but his lousy record.

Obviously I got that call wrong.  However, now I am seeing that I might have been directionally right all along.  The Clintons are still intent on destroying Obama.  Removing him from office was not the game, obliterating him from history is apparently the game.

Bubba might have just stuck a fork in the Era of Obama.  Obama has nothing left save ObamaCare.  It is the only thing he's got to his name, everything else he's touched has turned to dust.  Yet ObamaCare hangs only by the threads of its theoretical appeal.  People like the idea of healthcare reform and like the idea of a slightly better healthcare safety net.  But the actual provisions of ObamaCare are destructive; they are causing and will cause revulsion among the American people.  Should the reality of ObamaCare sour its nominal appeal, the age of Obama is over - it sure has been neat that we have our first black President, now can we get this disastrous man off the stage?  That is effectively what Bubba has just said, let's go back, let's reset, ignore what has just happened.

I see now where the Clinton end zone is.  Obviously, it is somewhat about Hillary, but it is much more than that.  It is to ensure that Obama is an historical footnote, a nullity in the pantheon of the nation, twice elected but conquering of nothing. The Clinton game is that the history is written thus: among multi-term Democratic presidents there is FDR's iconic New Deal and WW2 leadership, Clintonian prosperity, and that embarrassing Obama episode.

Petraeus For Partial Credit

In my 2010 predictions, laid out in December of '09, I said that David Petraeus would quit his job as commander of forces in Afghanistan. Well, it seems all but official. I'm taking .5 credit, which after my .5 score for my Mubarak call, puts me at 4.5 for 8. Pretty good.

My Meltdown Blueprint Looks Like a Solid Call

Just for fun let's go back to the original DB blueprint of Obama meltdown predictions. So that's how it happens. I think there is plenty of evidence that the media is slowly dismantling its supportive scaffolding around Barack Obama. Now the evidence that the never-loyal hangers-on are dropping off (remember Obama really only rented loyalists, he had no deep connections going into his campaign). I think Carville's rant over the BP spill response and Mort Zuckerman's numerous scathing diatribes against Obama's economic policy are evidence that the Clintonista's are free to drop unbending loyalty to Dear Leader. Now, we have Ed Rendell says that The One might have a primary challenge. That's confirmation folks. So my blueprint is looking pretty darned money.
All of this, of course, leads to the key discussion of Obama's viability in 2012. Many seem to think that Obama is easily re-electable and that anyone else can only be considered a long shot. I disagree and I think there are three paradigms that one can use to analyze Dear Leader's chances of being a two-term President. The first paradigm is one that I have discussed at length, which is discerning the state of the nation from some time-tested metrics that have a good record of determining an incumbent's electoral prospects - namely unemployment and gas prices. I have already nailed the 10% unemployment prediction and I am standing by the $4 gas prediction - Obama will see this toxic economic tandem at some point before the 2012 election and history teaches that his electability will likely not survive such an environment.
The second framework in which to analyze his 2012 chances is to look at the demographic coalition that formed to deliver him the win in 2008. He won on the back of 1) huge black turnout, 2) dominance among the young and independents, 3) a solid swing to him from the business community, and 4) Republican apathy and failure to turnout. Clearly, each one of these phenomena will not be repeated to the same degree in 2012, if not fully reversed. I believe blacks will not turn out in great numbers in 2012. Their historic moment has been achieved, the passion and excitement has faded and their turnout will revert to historical norms. The polls are clearly showing that Obama has lost independents and, as I have highlighted, the terrible economic prospects for America's voting-age youth are dismal and likely to dampen the youthful passion that benefited Dear Leader in 2008. On point three, the business community loathes this administration, full stop. He'll get no support here. On point four, they won't make that mistake ever again. For all the putative squabbling, leadership vacuums, and lack of focus, the one thing that Republicans, Republican-leaners and Republican-sympathizing Libertarians can now agree on - if you're caught sleeping come election time, you get statist, big government progressivism run amok and you lose liberty and prosperity in big chunks.
Finally the third and least compelling paradigm is the historical preference of American voters for executives with actual executive experience, so of Governors over Senators. Once in a while this pattern breaks and it did in 2008, but there is a reason we as a nation prefer not to put Congressional leaders in the Oval Office...we value executive experience. We dabbled in 2008 and took a gamble on breaking from this historical pattern. It is fair to say to date that the gamble has not worked out well, making historical reversion much more plausible by virtue of solid reasoning.

Granted, all this could change drastically in two years, so stay tuned...

UPDATE: What did I say just a few lines up about Republican-sympathizing Libertarians? Steve "Vodkapundit" Green is kind of a bellweather for libertarianism and he says (I'm paraphrasing) "No flights of fancy this time around folks, vote for the most electable Republican. That Libertarian Party candidate can wait for less crucial times."