Category Archives: Ethics

The John Edwards Non-Affair: How on Earth did they get this photo, what does this photo prove, and which prediction markets should we trade on to profit from this alledged scandal?

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– Will CNN report on the John Edwards/mistress/baby rumors? | Hubdub

– Will a supposed affair between John Edwards and Rielle Hunter be confirmed? | Hubdub

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UPDATE: The Charlotte Observer

UPDATE: National Review

UPDATE: Google&#8217-s cached webpages of the National Enquirer about John Edwards – Click on &#8220-Cached&#8221-.

UPDATE: Video


Edwards infidelity
envoye par dollarsandsense123

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UPDATE: UPI + Daily Mail + National Review

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UPDATE: ABC News + John Edwards&#8217- statement

UPDATE: Associated Press + Silicon Alley Insider

UPDATE: LA Times + Huff Post + USA Today + Huff Post + CNN + NewsWeek + MSNBC

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UPDATE: Blogumentary + Dallas Morning News + New York Times + Robert Scoble + CBS News

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UPDATE: Elisabeth Edwards + Huff Post

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UPDATE: CNN + ABC News + VIDEO + LA Times

UPDATE: API + NewsWeek

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UPDATE: The ex mistress rules out a paternity test. So, now we know what the big money is buying: her silence on the fact that the child is John Edwards&#8217- one.

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UPDATE: American Spectator + Huff Post + Huff Post

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UPDATE: ABC News

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UPDATE: CNN

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UPDATE: Cleveland Leader

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Video

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UPDATE: New York Times

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The John Edwards Non-Affair gives us an opportunity to look deep into the caldron of the wisdom of crowds.

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As you all know, The National Enquirer (a supermarket tabloid which pays its informants and sometimes publishes false news) has it that John Edwards has a &#8220-love child&#8221- from one of his former assistants (all this while his wife is dying of cancer), and that the whole story is being covered up, big time.

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Should the Wikipedia webpage on John Edwards mention that alleged scandal?

Well, the debate is raging inside Wikipedia.

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How does InTrade deal with insider trading?

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InTrade CEO John Delaney (in 2007):

Insider trading is one of the wicked problems, perhaps. Intrade is about providing the best predictive information. If insiders have information, then getting that information reflected in the market increases the quality of the information. I know this is not the conventional view concerning insider trading, and I am not arguing wholesale adoption or acceptance of insider trading. But we all know that, in the real world, insiders trade on inside information. We have even had markets on insider trading. Our view is to get the best information available into the market while we make sure there is some fair protection for outsiders.

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As I said, the problem is that this view is very unpopular among event derivative traders.

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APPENDIX: Economic arguments in favor of insider trading.

Devoting the whole NBC Nightly News bulletin to Tim Russerts passing was worst than beaming out porn.

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John Cole:

Let’s Get Something Straight
By: John Cole June 13, 2008 at 6:35 pm

I liked Tim Russert, even though I thought his BS gotcha nonsense was thorough idiocy and not helping the debate at all. He was a likable guy- friendly, always smiling. I understand it is a loss for the beltway folks, and he had a lot of really good friends and meant a lot to people, and I would be dishonest if I failed to mention that I feel sad by his passing.

MSNBC has been running nothing but a 5 hour (and presumably it will go until 11 pm or beyond) marathon of Russert remembrance. CNN has done their due diligence, and Fox news has spent at least the last half hour talking non-stop about him.

But let’s get something straight- what I am watching right now on the cable news shows is indicative of the problem- no clearer demonstration of the fact that they consider themselves to be players and the insiders and, well, part of the village, is needed. This is precisely the problem. They have walked the corridors of power so long that they honestly think they are the story. It is creepy and sick and the reason politicians get away with all the crap they get away with these days.

Tim Russert was a newsman. He was not the Pope. This is not the JFK assassination, or Reagan’s death, or the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. A newsman died. We know you miss him, but please shut up and get back to work.

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Devoting the whole NBC Nightly News bulletin (on Friday, June 13, 2008) was simply insane.

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INSANE.

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i followed him every Sunday.

But his slanted interview of Ron Paul left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

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Video
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Justin Wolfers [*] is the most cited prediction market economist
  • The Orb @ Texas Tech University
  • IS IT SAFE TO LOCATE A PREDICTION EXCHANGE NEAR A RIVER???
  • RIVER RISING. POWER PLANT CLOSED. IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS AT RISK? DEVELOPING…
  • U.S. COAST GUARDS DEPLOYED TO SAVE THE IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS
  • VIDEO: The financial markets hacker who will impress Jason Ruspini
  • VIDEO: WeatherBill caught on tape

Question to Caveat Bettor

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Cav,

In light of Robin Hanson&#8217-s latest blah blah blah&#8230-

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Do you really think that a prediction market journalist (or blogger) should disclose his/her event derivative holdings (as you do systematically)?&#8230-

Just a question that crossed my mind.

I was in favor of it before I read Hanson. Now, I have doubts&#8230- (Hanson, be damned. :-D )

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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • POLLS VERSUS PREDICTION MARKETS: Justin Wolfers retorts to Bob Erikson.
  • Based on market data from a tiny prediction exchange (IEM, which is much smaller than InTrade-TradeSports or BetFair), a couple of researchers claim that prediction markets do not have superior predictive power. — And, adding salt to injury, they call our prediction market luminaries (Robin Hanson, Justin Wolfers, etc.)… “naive”.
  • Do the media avoid reporting the bad omens that is sometimes reflected in the prediction markets?
  • BetFair’s brand-new bet matching logic
  • Quizz Of The Day — Monday Morning Edition
  • BEWARE THE BLOGGING ACADEMICS: They are not blogging to inform us —they are blogging to promote themselves.
  • Did Jason Ruspini and friends cash in on huge moves in prices of oil, natural gas, coal and other parts of the energy patch, this semester?

Iraq War = not necessary, a serious strategic blunder – US News Media = complicit enablers in the manipulation of the public (the propaganda campaign) – George W. Bush turned away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.

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Scott McClellan

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Check what he wrote on Katrina and on Condoleeza Rice.

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And, now, the clincher:

[Scott McClellan] does not exempt himself from failings — “I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be” — and calls the news media “complicit enablers” in the White House’s “carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval” in the march to the Iraq war in 2002 and 2003.

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More in The Politico – (3 pages)

History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary. […]

The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served. […]

I still like and admire President Bush. But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security.I still like and admire President Bush. But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security. […]

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More from AJC.

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Let&#8217-s create a prediction market on who&#8217-ll be the next former White House official who will sell Bush down the river.

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UPDATE:

NBC News

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AP

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NBC News

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Tim Russert

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Jessica Yellin

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Today

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • If David Pennock were to seek innovation in prediction market data visualization…
  • Is Malta’s Lotteries and Gaming Authority a serious governmental body?
  • The simplicity and social utility of the gravatars explained to Tom W. Bell by blog guru Chris Pirillo.
  • Excellent article about enterprise prediction markets and Inkling Markets —with a good word for Robin Hanson, who invented MSR.
  • HubDub limitations
  • BetFair Developer Program use Joomla! as their blog software (and CMS).
  • Lawsuit aiming at compelling the office of the United States trade representative to produce a copy of its compensation settlement with the European Union over the United States’ withdrawal of gambling services from the General Agreement on Trade in Services.

John McCains grumpy old pal writes to Bo Cowgills boss.

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Joe Lieberman:

May 19, 2008

Dr. Eric Schmidt
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Dear Dr. Schmidt:

YouTube is being used to share videos produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. The purpose of this letter is to request that Google implement its own policy against this offensive material, remove these videos from YouTube, and prevent them from reappearing.

Today, Islamist terrorist organizations rely extensively on the Internet to attract supporters and advance their cause. The framework for much of this Internet campaign is described in a bipartisan staff report released last week by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (“Committee”), which I am privileged to chair, titled Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat. The report explains, in part, how al-Qaeda created and manages a multi-tiered online media operation that produces content intended to enlist followers in countries all over the world, including the United States. Central to this media campaign is the branding of content with an icon or logo to guarantee authenticity that the content was produced by al-Qaeda or allied organizations like al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam (a.k.a Ansar al-Sunnah) or al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb. All of these groups have been designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the Department of State.

Searches on YouTube return dozens of videos branded with an icon or logo identifying the videos as the work of one of these Islamist terrorist organizations. A great majority of these videos document horrific attacks on American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan. Others provide weapons training, speeches by al-Qaeda leadership, and general material intended to radicalize potential recruits.

In other words, Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training – activities that are all essential to terrorist activity. According to testimony received by our Committee, the online content produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations can play a significant role in the process of radicalization, the end point of which is the planning and execution of a terrorist attack. YouTube also, unwittingly, permits Islamist terrorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive, and amplified voice, despite military setbacks or successful operations by the law enforcement and intelligence communities.

YouTube posts “community guidelines” for users to follow, but it does not appear that the company is enforcing these guidelines to the extent they would apply to this content. For example, the community guidelines state that “[g]raphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don’t post it.” Many of the videos produced by one of the production arms of al-Qaeda show attacks on U.S. forces in which American soldiers are injured and, in some cases, killed. Nevertheless, those videos remain available for viewing on YouTube. At the same time, the guidelines do not prohibit the posting of content that can be readily identified as produced by al-Qaeda or another FTO.

I ask you, therefore, to immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations from YouTube. This should be a straightforward task since so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance. In addition, please explain what changes Google plans to make to the YouTube community guidelines to address violent extremist material and how Google plans to enforce those guidelines to prevent the content from reappearing.

Protecting our citizens from terrorist attacks is a top priority for our government. The private sector can help us do that. By taking action to curtail the use of YouTube to disseminate the goals and methods of those who wish to kill innocent civilians, Google will make a singularly important contribution to this important national effort.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this critical matter and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Joseph I. Lieberman (ID-CT)
Chairman, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

Mike Smithson says that one impersonator (that is, someone pretending to be Mike Smithson) published comments on the PoliticalBetting.com thread about the London political elections, giving false exit poll information, in order to influence the betting prices (which I understand, partially, at least

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Starting now, his blog will only publish comments from already approved commenters &#8212-comments from brand-new commenters will have to be manually approved.

We have had this procedure in place on Midas Oracle for some time, now.

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