I'll split my winnings with you 50/50

In 2004, Osama Bin Laden did a message along the lines of 'if you vote for President Bush your genitals will shrivel'. Knowing full well it would cause every American to vote for President Bush. I was expecting the same in 2008 for McCain, but no message? What happened?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape/

""We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript."

Bin Laden didn't do squat to the US economy. They printed money till their bond market collapsed, then printed some more, till the M3 numbers had to be hidden, then printed some more until the banks started collapsing, and they're currently printing some more for Paulson's bailout plan, not even a fiscal stimulus package that one, it's just to prop up the banks and companies till a change of power can happen.

Bush did that, every year while he was in power, eveb before 911 and before Bin Laden did his claim. He's just taking credit for it.

So I'd kind of expect Bin Laden to do a message along the lines of 'if you vote for McCain your banks will shrivel to the size of small olives blah blah blah...". So where's the message? Or did he only do those for Bush's benefit?

Osama is nothing but a puppet, a strawman, that the US government hauls out every now and then to keep public opinion focussed on fear and not on what is going on.

Did they catch him ? Does anyone really think for one minute that the US military is going to take over seven years to hunt down one guy on this planet without actually finding him ?

I seriously doubt it.

Ergo, the US military did not get the requisite orders to actually catch the bugger. Either that or the US doesn't need to catch him because Osama is, at this very moment, watching CNN from a cushy hotel room/spy pad/whatnot, which he leaves only for the recording room/Afghan cave set next door.

Oohh, I'm in conspiracy-land now.

please please check out the king of the hill cartoon from the makers of beavis and butthead, it's her sarah palin/peggy, jesus h! we should be told.

http://predicts.betfair.com/ is better, the odds are not set by betfair but by the the bettors in the market themselves, so any numbers are pure market force with no betfair profit margin skewing the result.

There's also straight prediction markets like InTrade and IEM which are both predicting an Obama win.