Hoefulness willl end early in 2013
Get your hoeing in now.
Hat in rink? ...!
My predictions are all super parochial, but: Gle/nn Liv/ingsto/ne runs for Ch/ch mayor, loses narrowly to Bo/b Par/ker, Ann/ette King takes Wg/tn. Labour/Greens out poll National consistently by year end.
Shearer will not get any front page posts. Please?
My last year's annual prediction that the Orioles would suck got them to the playoffs this season, so I'm going to go ahead and predict they will suck again.
I made my accurate prediction in the wrong thread last year.
I made my accurate prediction in the wrong thread last year.M
How did you do on the goal mentioned in the previous comment in that thread?
jim's wasn't so bad. Pina got into wide release.
The specificity of correctness in the sports portion of Halford's prediction wins. Dodgers win 88 games*, obviously fail to make the playoffs. Lakers surprise by being decent to good, then fail in the second round.
*They won 86.
Should I bother to predict another losing season for the Pirates?
I was decent on my sports predictions last year. Dodgers won 86 games (my prediction: 88) and the Lakers went out in the second round as predicted. This year I say the Dodgers win 94 games and win the NL West, and I'm (perhaps) over-optimistically predicting the Lakers to lose in the Western Conference finals.
I predict no major domestic legislation of great significance will pass in 2013.
Oh hey I hadn't even seen Stormcrow's post. I predict I will continue to fail to read threads, and talk less about the paler diet but more about other dubious pet theories, and that I will start a war with an unexpected commenter.
Heebie will finally admit she was wrong in the fashion-change thread.
I'm impressed that everyone ignoring the fact that my prediction is obviously coming true.
-r, +o, paleo gives you a nice caveman tan. Happy New Year, fuckers!
I predict no major domestic legislation of great significance will pass in 2013.
"Domestic" is an interesting qualification there. Are you predicting another war?
No, but I wanted to hedge there a bit.
Oh, fuck it, there will be a massive crisis/change in North Korea in 2013. I feel it in my bones.
Fair enough. Also, the paleo diet is my favorite of your dubious pet theories, so I hope you don't stop talking about it entirely.
I don't have any predictions myself this year. I used to predict the apocalypse in these threads, but I've come to suspect that that's more of a slow-motion thing that will play out over many years (and may have already begun).
I predict that House Republicans will make good on their promise to be even more maximally obstructive than before. Even though it seemed like there wasn't any way to get worse, they'll show us how much we lack imagination. They won't quite brandish guns in the chamber and literally hold people hostage at gunpoint to get their way, but it'll be close.
They won't quite brandish guns in the chamber and literally hold people hostage at gunpoint to get their way, but it'll be close.
Beating people with canes being, of course, well within congressional precedent.
Sports predictions are subjective ? They're the only objective predictions! That's the appeal of sports, real decisive answers to your questions.
I agree with Teo. The slomopocalypse will continue, but there will be no dramatic lurch downward, just a gentle slope.
Assad will not see 2014, at least not as leader of Syria.
21.last is going out on a limb. I wouldn't like to bet that guns won't be brandished, certainly not if you include state senates.
Gun restrictions mean that UK politicians have brandished maces in the House on more than one occasion. And I am not talking about the 16th century here. I remember it happening.
Predictions: no war with Iran, end to war in Syria, some sort of bloodshed in the South China Sea, death of Ayman al Zawahiri.
I wouldn't like to bet that guns won't be brandished, certainly not if you include state senates.
State senates are not in fact included in the US House of Representative, so I think we're safe on that count.
I thought North Korea would collapse, but it sounds like Kim Jong Un has successfully shot all of his competitors.
Don't worry, it'll collapse eventually.
55-57 win last year's thread. (Not for their prescience, just in general.)
I only just now noticed that prescience ="pre-science."
It's interesting to look back at that thread and see what we cared about at this time last year.
Because I've upgraded my Android software and it's giving me fits. Though Stormcrow was right in 41.
And by "upgraded" I mean "updated."
22: Precedent for pulling guns, too. At least in the Senate.
Happy New Year, ya Kiwi bastard!
Predictions:
US Politics: Ruth Bader Ginsburg will stand down on her 80th birthday and Obama will be unable to get any replacement through the Senate.
UK Politics: There will be a by-election somewhere and the UKIP candidate will get in.
US Sports: I will continue to be unable to unable to understand any of it all year.
UK Sports: The England cricket team will wipe the floor with NZ and all the journos will write that they're on course to do the same to Australia. They will be proved wrong.
US Kulcher: The winner of the Best Movie Oscar will be really boring and predictable.
UK Kulcher: Adele will continue to win any award she's eligible for.
General scientific stuff (1): The new boson at the LHC will be shown conclusively to conform to the standard model.
General scientific stuff (2): Somebody will claim to have found a partial skeleton of a Denisovan. It will turn out to be a Neanderthal with minor pathologies.
Long shots:
1. The Duchess of Cambridge's baby will be black.
2. Nick Clegg will have a full sale meltdown at some major public event.
3. Markey will win the special election in MA by less than 1000 votes.
LUCIFER will establish a foothold above ground, raising overnight a ten-mile high fortress in Death Valley fashioned of red hot iron. His chief lieutenant BEELZEBUB will give his first interview to Piers Morgan, winning the hearts of many in all parties by delivering same to eternal fiery torment at interview's end. Glenn Greenwald will scornfully cite this as further proof that Obama supporters have always been pro-torture.
Someone will die that everyone believed was already long dead. My prediction: Douglas Fairbanks Senior.
I'll keep my hat out of the rink. Who wants to wear cold hats?
Since I did so well with US predictions last time (but I've still got until Thursday for Boehner), I'll try Europe.
The Scots will vote to stay in the UK. The Greeks will abandon the Euro. Merkel will be reelected. The UK coalition will collapse. There will be a new record flood in Venice.
The OP is being unfair: my real prediction last year was in comment 30. And also 34. And 42. And most of all 68.
In 2013, buildings will learn... to ski!
In 2013, most grocery-store-bought tomatoes will continue to suck ass.
Thank you, thank you! Do I get a free subscription? My predictions last year were consistent with my pseud.
For the coming year, I predict that my typing ability will not improve. I predict a sex or financial scandal involving the families of one of the four candidates for president and VP in 2012.* Also either a sex or financial scandal involving one of the two nationally prominent politicians from my home state, Cory Booker and Chris Christie.** And a very serious, maybe successful, assassination attempt on the President.
Politically, I boldly predict that gridlock will continue and nothing much will happen this year in th U.S. political scene. Israel will not bomb Iran, and the gradual drawdown of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan will continue, while the ongoing war there intensifies. Regime change in Syria. Drone strikes will continue but only those being targeted and a few blogggers will care.
*Perhaps a revelation that Mitt Romney has additional children beyond the five sons, and it was the "number of dependents" line that forced him to keep his old tax returns secret. Less interesting would be evidence that Biden was on the take when he was a Senator.
**Maybe both: Christie with a dead girl, and Booker with a live boy.
The Supreme Court will uphold DOMA and Prop 8.
We will get at best some better enforcement of existing gun laws, and no immigration reform (at least in 2013).
44: I do not like that prediction, Sam I Am. I do not like homophobia and ham.
Mali and Syria worse, Turkey and Syria better.
Supervolcano caldera scare, either in Montana or Iceland.
Debt ceiling botch, leading to much higher interest rates and food prices in the US. European recession.
One more coastal city disaster, maybe two.
Grubs served to rich people as a foodie delicacy in one cutting edge restaurant.
I will continue to resist bifocals, but will start a tumblr of photos of people peering at their telephones over the tops of their glasses which will lead to temporary fame.
I think we're about due for a spate of celebrity deaths. I predict the following people will die in 2013:
Warren Buffett
Woody Allen
Bob Newhart
Hillary Clinton
Lindsay Lohan
46 -- Me neither. If it's any consolation, the decision will lead to a Dred Scott-like loss of moral authority for the Court.
32: Though Stormcrow was right in 41.
And I double down on that prediction for 2013.
US Kulcher: The winner of the Best Movie Oscar will be really boring and predictable.
Going out on a limb there. Care to make a more specific boring prediction?
52: I predict that chris y's answer to nosflow's question is "no".
Neb will be driven to express his disappointment and frustration with the comments of others at not infrequent intervals.
Far from your best work, JP. Please come see me in my office.
48: Somehow it seems like Woody Allen would be the most shocking of those, though not the saddest.
I predict that peep will be the first commenter in this thread to have their prediction proved true.
I predict that the Troll of Sorrow, MD, will continue to show remarkable persistence.
56, 57: Actually I think we tied! Congratulations, chris y!
Bill Waterson will decide he wants to cash in after all, signs a deal for a new Calvin and Hobbes movie, to be directed by the same dude who made Garfield.
It's not 2013 yet, though, at least not where it counts (sorry, Keir).
Some sort of token gun control legislation will pass that will have no effect on gun violence in the US, but will enable the NRA to continue to raise buckets of money with "Obama is coming for your guns" scare ads.
but will enable the NRA to continue to raise make its backers buckets of money with "Obama is coming for your guns" scare ads.
Somewhere, sometime, a person will do something nice for another person.
On average, everything will be 5% worse.
Somewhere, sometime, a person will do something nice for another person.
The other day I went to local "gastro" "pub" Magnolia to mack on some cupcakeseat lunch. While I was waiting to order, the couple sitting next to me (we were both seated at a communal table, you see) offered me their single remaining chip, which I declined, after first indicating that I was tempted, citing my desire to avoid spoiling my appetite, and consulted the menu, read Njal's Saga, and ordered. Some time between my ordering and my receipt of my foods, the manly half of the couple went off to inquire about purchasing a horse, and the womanly half asked me am I from the area (yes). I asked her were they passing through, and she said that they were, that they were from FL, and that the manly half had misspent his youth there. I replied that it seemed like a good place to misspend one's youth. Shortly thereafter MH returned with no horse to show for himself, and WH went off to see what she could do about it, first whispering something to MH. My food arrived and I ate it with piss. My beer, too, arrived, and I drank it with vinegar. The couple left. Shortly thereafter I signalled that I wished to pay, and I was informed that—the just departed couple had payed for me!
Tim Tebow goes to Jacksonville, continues not to be a viable NFL quarterback.
Some sort of token gun control legislation will pass not even pass the House, no matter how useless and watered down it is.
Michael Vick gets traded to Cleveland because Dawg Pound.
67: What? All of it? Why do you doom coastal cities?
There will be a nationwide freakout when it becomes apparent that the US military does not have a monopoly on drone technology.
My long-awaited return to OKCupid will bear no fruit.
72: Please excuse my parochial perspective. I was only referring to the snow in my little neck of the woods.
I guess this is why people granted wishes often mess up. Perhaps we are all the result of some such mistake.
I'll predict that water* becomes more of a national topic, and than Megan returns to comment on unfogged more often.
I saw somebody else predict that Climate Change would be a breakthrough topic next year, and I think in the US water will be one of the ways it gets talked about. I don't have any optimism for legislation creating national regulations for carbon emissions, so I think Climate Change activists are going to have to start talking about what it means to 'adapt' to climate change and what specific steps have to be taken, and that water is a good place to enter that conversation.
* I'm thinking mainly of water usage/availability and rainfall as topics. I did see some articles about how the rise in sea level affected Sandy. I don't expect sea level to be the focus of conversation, but if it is I'll claim success anyway.
Perhaps we are all the result of some such mistake.
Why do all these 12-inch pianists keep sucking my cock?
I'm (perhaps) over-optimistically predicting the Lakers to lose in the Western Conference finals.
I don't think they make it that far.
What's interesting is that they could face the Clippers in the first round (maybe as the 2/7 match-up). I'd bet on the Clippers if that happened (assuming both teams were healthy) the Lakers seem vulnerable to a team which aggressively forces TOs.
I'm here! I was just on a road trip last week.
Debt ceiling botch, leading to much higher interest rates and food prices in the US
What's the pass-through meant to be? Cuts -> higher inflation? Can't see it. Cuts -> recession -> weak $? but the US exports food, hugely. Bond vigilantes -> higher interest rates...well, I suppose you could start believing in them but I'm not seeing how it leads to inflation as such.
36 General scientific stuff (1): The new boson at the LHC will be shown conclusively to conform to the standard model.
They're starting a long shutdown, so there won't be any new data. Probably the final analysis of the current data will be out in March. "Conclusively" is a strong word, since they won't measure any of its properties better than maybe 30% accuracy, but "consistent at reasonable confidence level with the Standard Model" is a good bet. Which is why I've been increasingly trying to work on things other than collider physics.
Meat and dairy in the US are artificially cheap due to massive subsidy.
My prediction: Douglas Fairbanks Senior.
Who?
||
Philippa Foote shouldn't try to verify her thought experiments in supermarkets.
|>
58: Speaking of the original ToS, when I read this in a recent Krugman blog post I could not help but speculate.
I've banned a couple of known trolls, but haven't seen them (or him -- might be all one person) for a while.
Oh, and the intermediate is not cuts but a panic reaction to uncertainty. "Vigilantes" don't exist or don't seem to care much about aggregate debt anywhere, which is the shorthand BS used by deficit hawks. But markets respond with panic to clown politics-- look at the extreme gyrations for Italy or Spain this year.
43 And a very serious, maybe successful, assassination attempt on the President.
Somehow even discussing this as an abstract possibility makes me really uncomfortable. Probably that's irrational.
Somebody will claim to have found a partial skeleton of a Denisovan. It will turn out to be a Neanderthal with minor pathologies. an Oompa-Loompa.
87. I heard many people express these fears when he was first elected. I had concerns myself also then, but now think those fears was unrealistic. Still hope there's no disaster, obvs, but I think it's a panicy line of thought.
2013: mental health year!
I think the first black president being elected in 2008 and quickly assassinated was the backstory to LeVar Burton's 1997 sf novel.
84: I have shopped in that M&S often. However I have never caused or been cause of a Foote Incident (despite no longer being as slim as I would like).
90: But we don't have to take your word for that.
A dude on World Have Your Say predicted hyperinflation followed by a fascist takeover, because Americans were demanding positive liberties not in the constitution. He wasn't clear on the time frame, though.
I'll go ahead and predict he is wrong.
I will start dating someone and break up with her after a few months, at most.
I will have no job interviews in 2013. So, I'm probably staying put for at least 5 more years.
Were you applying for jobs, essear? … Why?
Or perhaps you won't have any interviews precisely because you didn't apply.
95 makes me sad. I'm going to go ahead and predict that nosflow finds the love of his life, or at least of his youth and early middle age, in 2013.
Also: the Red Sox just barely make the playoffs, and Oakland wins the World Series.
The prime of your life, then. Stop being a little bitch.
97: for one, at a certain west-coast public university, because I think it's comparable to my current job but more secure. They appear to have no interest in me.
The Red Sox are totally not making the playoffs. But Toronto might.
99: I'm going to go ahead and predict that nosflow finds the love of his life, or at least of his youth and early middle age, in 2013.
Sure, me too. And he'll break up with her after a few months, at most, in order to make 95 come true.
...but more secure.
So not a California public university, one assumes.
105: on the contrary. At least they tenure people.
UK politics: at least one Tory minister will be exposed as grossly incompetent, and corrupt. The former probably used as misdirection for the latter. He will keep his job or be promoted.
This one doesn't require Nostradamus levels of prognostication.
I predict Lindsay Graham and John McCain will appear on multiple Sunday shows.
I think income inequality, though perhaps not class tout court, will become a mainstream topic of discussion and might even make its way back into some corners of popular culture.
I think my potential misuse of "tout court" may become a topic of conversation here.
106: whether you get a job out here or not, you're always welcome to come over and watch tv. I'll even make snacks. Well, depending on the snacks, I might not be willing to make them, but, barring anything really weird, I'll almost certainly be sure that they're here for you to eat while you watch tv.
The bells of St John at Hackney are ringing midnight, meaning it's official (though five minutes early): so I predict this is the thread where I say HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone who ever posted to Unfogged (and to the lurkers viz email).
49: John Roberts:
"Our country faces new challenges, including the much-publicized 'fiscal cliff' and the longer-term problem of a truly extravagant and burgeoning national debt," he wrote. "No one seriously doubts that the country's fiscal ledger has gone awry. The public properly looks to its elected officials to craft a solution."Everyone: "Shut up, John."
Apparent Senate/Prez cliff deal annoying me immeasurably. Time for bed. Sequester only off the table for 2 freaking months and $5M inheritance tax limit indexed to inflation (the poor little babies)...
114: gah, me too. This -- the worthlessness of the Democratic party -- is one of the reasons I think we're going to be talking about inequality a lot more in the future.
115: Somewhere I read an interesting analysis which showed that even without the current payroll tax cap, SS would basically be solvent if the US had experienced the same mean rise in income over the past 30 years, but distributed evenly across the population. Krugman maybe? See also increasing share of capital versus labor based income. So let's nail workers twice; I mean why should capital support rewards for labor?
116: if you find a link, let me know. In the meantime, I'm charmed by the fact that my hopes now rest with the Tea Party caucus in the House. Hopefully Boehner wants to be Speaker more than he wants to make this shit-ass deal. 2013 is shaping up to be a great year!
Let me amend 116 to say solvent for a much longer time period. I did not mean to feed the zombies.
I want the Defense Department to more directly pay for itself. Invade the Caymans, the Bahama and Switzerland and take all the money. But don't think I'm going to predict that--because Matt Stoller tells me that Obama sucks so he probably won't do it.
Matt Stoller is still writing things? I wouldn't have predicted that.
It's fitting in some sense that this stupid manufactured crisis would end with Obama striving valiantly at the eleventh hour to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and succeeding. Though I guess it's too early to tell if this is actually the end or if there's more stupidity ahead.
120: I'm genuinely hoping that President Obama ends up looking like an asshole. I mean, maybe Bernie Sanders will filibuster the deal. That would be a fitting end to this nonsense.
BTW, NYC finally counted all of its votes and NY state certified. Only Hawaii left and probably no significant change. Margin grew quite a bit as expected, now at 4.967M (32K+ short), and 51.06% - 47.21%.
I do want to thank LB for her personal efforts in this endeavor.
120: There are some aspects which aren't the worst.
..I think. Debt ceiling involved how?
I mean, maybe Bernie Sanders will filibuster the deal. That would be a fitting end to this nonsense.
Oh man, that would be awesome. Might have an effect on the debate over filibuster reform as well.
Happy New Year, Buenos Aires/Greenland Unfoggedtariat!
Hmm. My meta predictions from last year were certainly right. I just didn't realize how shitty a year it would be for me personally, what with the deaths and hospitalization and lousy job stuff.
Let's see: Gary Sch/ff will handily win the Mpls mayoral race. Ranked choice will not make a difference. There will be major general strikes in several W. European countries, but the overall political/economic situation will not change much. The Obama administration will roll out some new, draconian immigration "reform" initiative, which will further militarize the border and immiserate people without the proper papers. Nothing important will happen with gun control nationally, but a few coastal states may pass stricter measures, esp. around hi-capacity magazines. Drone war continues unabated. Idle No More will be totally coopted by the official First Nations power structure. The Mexican Drug War will hit the Zapatistas harder. There won't be any serious attempts on the President's life, but there will be a rash of well-publicized racial violence this summer.
There are some aspects which aren't the worst.
Yeah, actually as deals go this one doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as some other stuff that was floated earlier. (Ygglz agrees.) Still, the absurdity of rushing to get a deal done tonight is bizarre when Obama could have just waited a few hours and been in a much stronger position is striking. The deal also doesn't appear to address the debt ceiling at all AFAICT, which, yeah, makes it all even more pointless.
125: And people in the Eastern time zone lying to young children.
And here's how the fucking fuck cunts of the real estate pron-purveying NYTimes is headlining it: "Tentative Deal Is Reached to Raise Taxes on the Wealthy".
If Congress acts quickly and sends a deal to President Obama, the economic impact could still be very limited....Under the agreement, tax rates would jump to 39.6 percent from 35 percent for individual incomes over $400,000 and couples over $450,000, while tax deductions and credits would start phasing out on incomes as low as $200,000, a clear win for President Obama, who campaigned on higher taxes for the wealthy.What the fuck was going to happen if they did nothing you treasonous little eichmanns of the plutocracy. And it gets better:
And the new deal does nothing to address the big issues that President Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner hoped to deal with in their failed "grand bargain" talks two weeks ago: booming entitlement spending and a tax code so complex few defend it anymore....
"No deal is the worse deal," said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, rejecting the assertions of liberal colleagues that no deal would be better than what they would see as a bad deal.Go home you treacherous jackass!
There's nothing about the debt ceiling in the deal, apparently. And right, as the deals we've been hearing about go, this one is just fine. But not making a deal would have been far better as policy and as politics would have left the Democrats with more leverage.
I didn't even realize I was disagreeing with Joe Lieberman when I posted 130. I guess now I'm right but an antisemite. I can live with that.
The thing is, President Obama, like the editors at the Times, almost certainly believes that people making $250,000/yr are middle class.
Context for 132 from MTP this past wekend.
A lot of people don't realize in the large urban and suburban areas of America, 250,000 dollars doesn't necessarily make you rich. You've got two kids in college at 60,000 dollars. If you're a boomer, you may have a dependent parent of some kind.You stupid fucking fuck. OK, it does not make you "rich" but it sure as fuck makes you well able to afford a marginal increase from 35 to 39.6 percent on your income over 250K. So the hypothetical family you mention pays exactly $0 more in taxes you douchebag. And don't ever say "boomer" again or we'll kill you. Much less "Greatest Generation".
The whole thing is a fucking blowjob to the managerial class and their fucking SUVs and privileged little sprats. They'll be the death of us all in the end.
I don't know, JP. If you make $300,000, that marginal increase would amount to an increase of $2,300—for perspective, that's less than one-tenth of your monthly gross income.
HARDLY an inconsiderable burden!
And AMT is 'fixed". I forget where that starts coming in.
135: Nice act. What do you call yourselves?
The Upper Middle Class!
My comments on this* not entirely free of semi-ironic self-loathing if I need to make that explicit.
*And everything else as well!
That's an extraordinary amount of fireworks for inside city limits and before 10:30. For a while it sounded more like an artillery barrage.
I was going to say that I was happy if they had reached a deal, but apparently nobody involved in making a deal cares about the "sequester" massive budget cuts which is what the worried people like me are actually worried about, so what the fuck, raise everyone's taxes. I would rather be allowed to have a job thanks to non-slashed NIH budgets than not have a job and pay lower theoretical taxes on my first $400,000,000 of income.
Nobody gets an R1 that big anyway.
143: You clearly have not internalized your allotted role in the great chain of national sacrifice. I blame lack of watching Sunday talk shows.
I do not understand the complaint that sports predictions are too subjective.
1. Fewer 40 goal scorers in regular season NHL play.
2. Ross Douthat will continue as the abortion columnist.
3. Former politician Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani will meddle in NY campaigns, but coverage of him will struggle to transcend the shibboleth of 9/11.
4. The economy will move towards equilibrium.
5. Mass market cultural product will be marketed in an evermore cloyingly indirect way such that I won't discern even the name of the product after being exposed to the adverts.
6. An elected gay will come out as Republican.
I predict that Corbet's lawsuit against the NCAA will be settled by letting the NCAA keep the $60 million, but letting Penn State keep its wins for at least 10 of the 14 seasons that were stripped.