Sarah P as President?

There is some parallelism between Sarah Palin and Jesse the body Ventura, ex-Governor of the State of Minnesota as there is some between Minnesota politicians then and The Whole Country politicians now, albeit, not enough to make a case - i.e., predict - that Sarah P will win presidential bid in 2012.

Even though I voted for Jesse V in '99 - see here for more (click POLITICS Venn then feather-boa pink line in the road to unknown destinations, politicwise) - I don't think I'd vote for Sarah P in 2012 because unlike my view of Jesse V back then I don't really like Sarah P because she has such a high pitched voice - it sounds shrilly to me and it turns me off. (However, if the choice were our current Pres and VP vs. Sarah P and Michele Bachmann as her VP (or even Condi Rice as Pres and what's her name, ex-wife of ex-Pres Clinton if she chose this route VP) I'd probably vote for either of the latter two - but right now I'm thinking that that might not be the choices and the real choices are a still-to-be-determined thing.)

Double Dip Depression

As to my Chart 5 (from December 2008 Newsletter) that predicted a double dip depression to bottom out in 2011 with a djia value of 4000, the jury is still out.

See here for chart and notice that my original error in predicting the first bottom was off by 9.8% so I conclude the top could be too. Hence if djia closes above 11,088 * 1.098 = 12,174.62 before it double dips then I failed to predict it. (Today, 12/31/10 djia opened at 11,569.33).

Of course if the double dip never occurs then I failed to predict it also.

Horse Race Predictions and other Problems with

Predicting the behavior of volition possessing animals

(Jockey's and Trainers and Owners, not horses; horses don't have the power of volition)

Horses don't zig when they should zag or zag when they should zig, only jockeys can do this-horses zig when they should zig and zag when they should zag.  Of course predicting these ahead of their occurrence when that occurrence depends on things inside the race itself is difficult if not impossible to do and so human beings usually accept some high percentage of being right as a pretty good thing - the higher the percentage the better.

Years ago I made the claim that I was going to provide a scientific counterclaim answer to the "psychology is not a science" critics who claim if human beings have volition--which by its very nature is unpredictable--then you can't have a science of psychology but since we want a science of psychology humans must not have volition.

I don't think I'll address this in my upcoming book 1a but I still might do it in a future work.

The answer to these critics I still believe falls into these areas:  1) their position rests on a mistaken notion of volition and 2) of science and 3) of prediction - i.e., the need to predict doesn't guarantee correct predictions any more than does the need of food guarantee a mushroom hunter he'll never make a mistake.