The movie about the horse will win none of the predicted Oscars because, it turns out, very few Americans know that there was a First World War.
Gary Johnson will be the Libertarian Party's nominee for president and in the general election will easily break their previous high-water mark (Ed Clark, 1.1%, 1980).
I predict a giant space baby floating up there.
Computers are clearly trying to kill us, so it's the next step.
War, depression, mass extinction, the living will envy the dead, and the Mavericks will be eliminated in the first round. Claire Danes will win an Emmy. Obama will be re-elected, but Republicans will win both House and Senate with filibuster-proof but not veto-override majorities.
LEDs will conquer the incandescent bulb.
I'm going to go ahead and make my annual "Orioles will suck" prediction.
This will be their 15th straight loosing season, so that's something.
Pfff. I think the Pirates will hit 20 losing seasons this year.
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that a second Franco-Prussian War. Also, that Prussia is recreated as an independent state.
Twins, after second straight losing season, consider move to AAA when they realize that they only have five major league starters and three of them are injured.
Peace with Mexico by Christmas and 54'40" or fight - and we will never impede the flow of the Mississippi river.
7 last w/r/t the election.
Dodgers win 88 games, obviously fail to make the playoffs. Lakers surprise by being decent to good, then fail in the second round. No Dwight Howard for them.
"Violet" will ascend decisively over "Isabella" and "Sophia" as a girl's name in mass use; amongst hipster yuppies, the old fashioned baby name thing will begin it's slow decline.
Someone will start a porn site called "Anal Karenina."
I predict the year will end sometime around midnight on December 31st.
I don't have any political predictions. Sometime in the last two years I broke something -- I look at the news and I can't think of anything remotely plausible to hope for happening.
the old fashioned baby name thing will begin it's slow decline.
It's kind of remarkable that during the past 20 years, baby naming has changed less than it has over any other 20 period since 1910 or so.
I'd love to see futurological baby nemes.
And yet everyone laughed at poor Storm.
Nothing will happen in Congress this year, but the economy and the unempoyment rate will get a little bit better. Obama will run as a centrist and will win reelection, and the Democrats will take the House and keep the Senate, all by very narrow margins. By year-end Democrats will be slightly hopeful. But liberals and progresives will remain angry. Hoefulness willl end early in 2013 but anger will increase.
I'd love to see futurological baby names so I could laugh at them.
22: Faith Popcorn? Galaxy Craze? We've been over this, surely.
I predict that baby naming will be affected by premature nostalgia and we will have a large new crop of kids named Jason and Jared and Amber and Brittany.
15.last: Be the change you wish for.
during the past 20 years, baby naming has changed less than it has over any other 20 period since 1910 or so
On the other hand, few things have been more stable over time than trends in pubic hair grooming for babies.
Why don't you make yourself useful and google "Anal Karenina"? I'm thinking it already exists, but don't really want to look from the office.
I believe that all my predictions from last December have come true.
Why don't you make yourself useful and google "Anal Karenina"?
I did, as soon as that comment posted. But it's mostly just people making up names for porn movies.
Repeating an earlier dystopian prediction - Obama wins a second term, but the GOP wins in 2016, as a result of the constant propaganda and obstructionist actions, and the rich get richer and the middle class shrinks. The price of energy rises, putting pressure on everything, and we see blood in 2019, the revolution is suppressed with a more authoritarian crackdown, at least for awhile.
Or, my more current outlook - as problems arise enough people eventually see the problems, and we see Wall Street blood in 2015, shocking enough fatcats that they actually give in and contribute their fair share, averting a bloody revolution.
28: Most of mine didn't come to pass. However, if the Panthers find a way to lose to Tampa Bay this weekend, I'm highly likely to have gotten their 2011 record exactly right. So there's that.
I've learned that my predictions depend on my mood. Personally, after two awful years that I wouldn't wish on anyone, things are finally starting to look up for me, so I project that onto the world.
Shorter answer - my predictions say a lot more about me than they do about the world.
I predict that Countrywide goes bankrupt. Not sure if BofA goes with it.
34: Hmmm. I predict that things will have to reach a tipping point before we see blood, and until we see blood nothing will change our path, so I guess I agree with you, many things will get worse in the next three years.
Panthers go 9-7 next season, but just miss the last wildcard spot. Also, UNC beats Ohio State for the national basketball championship in April.
UNC beats Ohio State for the national basketball championship in April.
Bold.
If I cared much about basketball, I might defend the Buckeyes.
I predict the next year will be neither as good as I hope nor as bad as I fear.
I predict the Bush tax cuts will be extended.
I predict that next year, I won't need bifocals. 2013 is probably going to be the switch.
I predict urple will have a NEW JOB !11!!
I'm getting new glasses next week, and I suspect bifocals are on the menu.
Bifocals are now "transition lenses." I am wearing a pair now. They are actually trifocals, allegedly.
I predict I will lose my glasses someplace and it will cost me a bunch of money.
Bachmann will be the 2012 Republican nominee (but will lose to Obama). Boehner won't be speaker in 2013.
The tax cuts won't be extended past 2012. The sequesters will take place. There will be a government shutdown in late 2012.
Pina will get released beyond BAM.
I have no prediction for the Republican nomination. (I expect it will be Romney, only because there's no one left for the anti-Romney vote to rally around. But I'm not confident about that.) But I do predict that (1) if nominated, Romney will narrowly defeat Obama in the general election, and (2) every other Republican candidate would lose badly.
If 47.1 comes true I will post five successive comments saying "Heebie was totally right in the fashion change rate thread."
Herman Caine will get a job as a Fox News contributor.
And he'll accuse the liberals of eating all the strawberries.
Oh I wish I had a prediction so I could type it and then intone "Bye Bye!" in my best John McLaughlin.
Dick Cheney doesn't make it until the end of the year. Increasing violence in Iraq makes the super-embassy untenable, leading to either abandonment or reintervention depending on the breaks (and who wins the presidential election). Romney is the nomine but he wins only if the economy slips back into recession, I think people have internalized 11 percent unemployment forever.
Dick Cheney doesn't make it until the end of the year.
You really think all the Horcruxes have been destroyed?
Well you know: Osama, gadaffi, Kim Jong, Bill Keane, Megatron.
Perhaps the last one is a sled by the name of Rosebud.
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Ha! I just finished my last official in-office duty of the year which was an online driving course and I failed. Only got 6 out of 8 (passing was 80% it turned out*)
Miss #1: "[Safety organization] estimates over 60,000 bad traffic things of this type per year. True or False". My answer: True. Wrong they say, estimate is over 600,000 per year.
Miss #2: The back of my head (which last time I looked had a vertical extent on the order of magnitude of a headrest) should be lined up with the top of, center of, or bottom of the headrest? I said bottom, answer was center.
OK, so you're supposed to parrot back specific lines from it and I wasn't really paying attention, but Jesus.
*Although initial report was failure**, it now seems to have rounded me up and passed me, or at least the totally effed up piece of shit Learning Management System won't let me re-take the quiz and let me print a successful completion certificate.
**Things have gotten so weird in a "It's a Good Life" kind of way around here recently that I semi-imagined this having semi-material "consequences".
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Miss #1: "[Safety organization] estimates over 60,000 bad traffic things of this type per year. True or False". My answer: True. Wrong they say, estimate is over 600,000 per year.
"Over 600,000" is over 60,000. If it were multiple choice and those were both options, I could see them counting "over 60,000" as incorrect, but True/False? "False" seems to be clearly more wrong than "True."
Is "bad traffic thing" a new technical term?
Especially considering that "incorrect" answer was the difference between a passing score and a failing score, I would have raised hell.
60: Yes, it is almost a parody. In fact I am looking for and not finding the mock interview with Tyrone Shoelaces's coach that led into Cheech & Chong's "Basketball Jones" where the coach corrects the interviewer for saying Tyrone is scoring over 40 points (or whatever) by saying "That's over 42 points per game".
61: No it is my gloss for whatever the fuck the thing was "merge accidents" or some shit like that.
62: I would have raised hell.
And that would be the wrongest answer of all.
It's not that "True" is a perfect answer--it's tecnically correct, but misleading low. It's that "False" is a clearly incorrect answer. "False" means that a true statement is "[Safety organization] estimates LESS THAN 60,000 bad traffic things of this type per year."* Which is wrong.
*Logically, sure, it could mean other things, such as "[Safety organization] does not estimate bad traffic things", etc., but that a bit beside the point.
62, 65: Of course, I do have that in my back pocket if something got really silly. But, "Pol, ummm, ... Mr. Pot please sir, I think the test was poorly constructed" is generally not the best strategy for keeping ex-spouses from moving in with their parents.
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NMM to Republicans blocking extension of the payroll tax cut.
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66: You are of course so very, very right, that you are very wrong.
The actual right answer is: "Don't wait to take this training until nearly the very last possible day when anyone who can do anything about anything is gone."
The second right answer is: "Shut-up."
This back-and-forth does make me have some pause about my advice with regard to the interview.
NMM to Republicans blocking two-month extension of the payroll tax cut.
I predict that this post will remain the best snark on Obama's assassination of American citizens. Even if we assassinate more of them.
I predict drinking in front if a TV on March 6th, 2012.
A supertuesday tradition.
Should this be classified as a prediction, or as a plan ?
58: But we'll never know who Johnny is because, like, she's dead.
I predict that, now that my nasal cavity has gone from "just fine" to "all dried out and fucked up", it will not be okay again for another 4 months. Stupid dryness.
Not a prediction: I have apparently, in the space of two days, successfully leveraged my participation in one subculture into a privileged entry into a completely different subculture. I am clever that way. Also, being a white guy definitely helped.
69: That's not pause-play. It's I-was-almost-kinda-right!
I haven't followed it closely, I'm completely mystified why the media has been treating this latest episode of attempted Republican hostage taking as just that, rather than as the usual both sides nonsense. Or is my perception off?
I predict that the Red Sox, held back by an awful back-of-the-rotation, will just barely squeak into the newly-added 2nd Wild Card, but will ride their offense and 1-2-3 pitchers all the way to the World Series, which they will win.
More seriously, I see stasis as the order of the day for both the US and Europe--and for much the same reason; federal-level supermajoritarian rules here, EU-level ones there. The EU double-dip will be worse, but the US economy will be bad enough to give Romney the election. This will set us up for at least another 4 years of the '01-'09 political economy, with a little less military adventurism and a lot less debt-financed consumption (both private and gov't). Throughout this period, both left and right will become increasingly radical, while Serious Moderates continue to insist that the right grownups just need to be in charge and Get Serious and Shared Sacrifice in order for everything to be okay.
I'd be happy to share the sacrifice, as long as it's lamb, with mint jelly.
I'm completely mystified why the media has been treating this latest episode of attempted Republican hostage taking as just that, rather than as the usual both sides nonsense. Or is my perception off?
It's mostly because this time it was an inter-Republican fight, which is subject to different rules. Basically, the Senate Republicans negotiated a deal with the White House, passed the bill, and went home expecting the House to do the same. Instead, though, the House GOP rejected the whole thing after having basically played no part in the negotiations, which pissed everyone off so much that they eventually backed down.
I predict the fascists will continue to promote oppression and death, making me ever angrier and more paranoid.
I predict that there will be an eye of the storm at some point in the near future, where it temporarily seems as though anthropogenic climate change has been halted, only for it to return with a vengeance a little later.
I predict that all the evils of society will pretty much continue unabated -- more people in jail or murdered by the state; more environmental degradation; more cultural decline; more ignorance and apathy and fraud and hypocrisy; more people beat down, busted, broke, underwater and betrayed. No one will be able to stop anything and the vast majority of people will continue sitting around doing nothing like the proverbial frog in the pot. I predict that people will not make the necessary cognitive and empathic leaps that would allow them to work collectively without hierarchy and domination.
82 makes me think I should stop feeling sorry for myself that I can't sleep because my 7-year-old nephew is coughing up a storm next to me. (Yes, I feel sorry for him, too, and yes, I've given him cough medicine.)
Let me be the first person to take your question seriously, Stanley, unlike the self-styled "comedians" that infest this comment section. I predict that before too long, the Earth will be enveloped in eternal darkness. We will struggle against this fate as the life is slowly choked from us, but before the end we will come to agree with Lincoln and the Psalmist that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
76: Me too. I keep water simmering on the stove and I spray saline solution, both of which help.
My cousin who lives in CHC has had just about enough of it.
87. I imagine they might have. Are they safe this time?
Facebook status this morning: Totally sick of this. The Biggest was about 3 km away from us just off the coast and a 6.0. House is ok. We're ok. [cat] disappeared but he is back now & ok.
Basically, the Senate Republicans negotiated a deal with the White House, passed the bill, and went home expecting the House to do the same. Instead, though, the House GOP rejected the whole thing after having basically played no part in the negotiations, which pissed everyone off so much that they eventually backed down.
A rare case of the media's snuggling up with elites working in our favor, I guess.
http://www.mattglassman.com/?p=2232
So the fight between the Republican crazies and the Republican even-more-crazies is how policy decisions now are made.
45: Bifocals - if you can tolerate it, I find that monocular vision works great, except for 3D movies, and I wear my driving glasses for that.
This time I got monofocals after 5-10 years with bifocals. The split vision is annoying, and I read with my my glasses off anyway. If I had to I might just buy reading glasses rather than returning to bifocals.
Despite the "caving" story, the Republicans as a whole have done pretty well for themselves. The long-term unemployed have been lost in the shuffle - 99-monthers in 11 states (including Michigan and Ohio) will lose benefits in January and February, and I presume more states if nothing is done before March.
Also more regressivity in home-buying: higher FHA fees, just what everybody needed.
And that's just in exchange for the 2 months' extension! Who knows what more will be ceded in February.
Minivet,
You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have the facts of life.
You just wait - the days will start getting longer and longer soon enough now.
I promise.
What's the thought on this alleged missile strike against Iran? I am skeptical, as the Daily Mail is the only corporate media reporting it. But perhaps that's all part of the conspiracy.
Don't see anything. It's my primary nightmare, though.
AFAICS there's another round of speculation over whether Israel is going to bomb Iranian nuclear installations over Christmas. This story runs about once a month. If Israel actually does this, it will start World War III, so I'm against it. If Kennedy had bombed Cuba it would have started WWIII, and he had much better reasons, but he didn't: because he was sane. I don't know if Netanyahu is sane: the evidence is inconclusive.
Merry Whatever You Celebrate Around This Time of Year, everybody.
This is an alleged strike that already happened. However, until someone beyond the Mail and the Iranian news agency does some reporting on it, I am very dubious.
15: fuck you, halford. I researched that shit so hard; the name hadn't cracked 8000 of the SS top 10,000 ever and was on a downward decline. goddamnit.
"Ebola" is still available as a cute girl's name.
There's a microbiologist who gave his kids salmonella and ecoli for names. Middle names, FWIW. I could probably google it to confirm, but I don't care enough.
My ex once had a student named Goni/lila. I saw it on the roll.
A sometime acquaintance named her sons Turing and Huxley. The end of Alan Turing's life gives me such a terrible case of the fantods that I can't imagine inflicting the name on a kid -- eventually he'd learn about it, and then we'd both have nightmares. I like the old-fashioned name Lucretia for its aesthetic qualities, but was very easily persuaded never to consider it for my offspring.
I am completely agnostic about the election results. I'm not sure why the prospect of a Romney victory upsets me as much as it does -- because of what I expect it to do to the Democratic party, or because of reproductive rights, or because I actually expect the klepto-plutocracy to worsen under a Republican? It might be too late to think any harder about this.