One Big Issue, One Big Question

I like betting elections, and a friend asked me who I thought would win the US election later this year. I told him I have been betting Romney on dips. He asked why, and I told him, my political betting (I've bet every one since 1992), always hinges on a simple point and its worked for me. In this years case, if you get rid of all the yelling and screaming and tangential stuff about labels and such, and just put one dude's resume against the other dude's, it's not a hard bet. One guy ran businesses, has a market background, and one guy has not, and does not. The economy is the #1 issue with the mushy middle, ergo I bet the dude with the more applicable resume.

The problems at the Meadowlands over the last several years are similarly tied to one big issue, in my opinion. All the rest of the problems are noise right now, stemming from that issue. This was looked at today in HRU (on page four, pdf). To me it is stunning how places like Hong Kong, and even Ontario can address some of  their "one big issues", but the Big M can not.


There was a twitter battle last night between the New York Times' Joe Drape, and the masses. I got to doing some reading, and Sid Fernando brought up a nice end game point. It is the one big question about the one big issue.

Do you wonder like me, why the NRA stands up when someone wants to ban a gun that can shoot like 8,000 bullets a second (or whatever). It makes little common sense, in my opinion. However, they do because if the end game of their opponents is banning all guns, it is done incrementally and they don't want that to happen. I see their point, even though to me it seems silly.

Sid last night asked what the goal of the New York Times and others is, regarding the "24 horse deaths a week" they have promoted. He used the fact that Hong Kong has a death rate of about 5 per week, so double that (Hong Kong is a different animal all together) might be a very good goal.

If it was 10 per week, won't there be people still writing stories about mangled horses and maimed jockeys because 10 is too high?

What if they got it down to 5 per week, a huge improvement and better than all of the world.

I bet there will still be stories that 5 per week is barbaric. There'd likely be hearings on Capitol Hill, too.

When you see pushback against some of these New York Times stories, not all of the people pushing back are doing so out of anger, or irrational angst. Some want to see an end game- one that is an actual end game - so the sport can move forward. 

Enjoy your Saturday folks!