Just about everyone loves to predict what's going to happen. Why? Because they just know what's going to happen, of course! I'm no exception to the rule, so here's my list of predictions for the next fourteen months:
1 - A natural disaster will occur, and some conservative evangelical preacher will claim it's because Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed. (To be honest, I heard this one on the radio but I agree with it wholeheartedly)
2 - The Republicans will accuse Democrats of voter registration fraud (a misdemeanor) but will commit voter and/or election fraud (a felony). Democratic bloggers will call them out on it, but nothing will be done about it.
3 - The Tea Party will once again rear its head. Rallies of tens of Tea Partiers will garner more media coverage than rallies of thousands of anyone who might be protesting for something that Democrats support. And the conservatives will still continue to claim that the media has a liberal bias.
4 - There will be a big snowstorm somewhere in America this winter, and the global-warming deniers will come out in full force claiming that the snowstorm is proof that global warming is false, a conspiracy to protect the paychecks of climatologists.
5 - The Republican presidential nominee will be Mitt Romney, with either Ron Paul or John Huntsman as nominee for vice president in a bid to capture the moderate and independent voters. Note: I predicted (not online, just to myself) that McCain would choose Palin. It was a sure thing because he was a sailor and she was a pretty girl (to his eyes).
6 - The Democratic party will take a position that the GOP previously held, as they did with cap-and-trade, the individual mandate, and government subsidies for businesses other than Big Oil, and the GOP will immediately reject said position as socialist and condemn as a RINO any Republican politician who still supports that position.
Article comments
1 - roger nowosielski
I wouldn't post any articles, Glenn, until this mess is straightened out. I have two new articles on the back burner, but it's futile to submit them for publication under these conditions.
What I find amazing that there was no response from the high brass to at least appraise us of what's going on if only for courtesy's sake, not even a boo.
2 - Glenn Contrarian
Yeah, it seems that until they get it fixed, we'll all be hanging on in quiet desperation in the English way....
3 - roger nowosielski
A word edgewise would go a long way, but it's not up to me to second guess what's in the mind of our leaders.
4 - Dr Dreadful
We're working on addressing the spam problem, but Chris is travelling right now and I've been having issues logging into the comments editing tool. Technorati tech support has been helping me out and hopefully I'll be able to start clearing up the pollution very soon.
In the meantime, apologies for the inconvenience.
5 - roger nowosielski
Thanks.
6 - Dr Dreadful
I'm logged in now, and zapping as fast as I can, but one quirk of this particular attack is that we've no way of blocking it without blocking lots of legitimate commenters as well. As a result, new spam comments are coming in as fast as I can delete them.
As I said, Technorati is working on it and hopefully things will settle down soon.
7 - roger nowosielski
It might be better to disable the site for a while if that would expediting fixing the problem. I don't know if this is an option, but I'm certain that under the circumstances, no one would mind.
As things stands, it doesn't even make sense to post a comment.
8 - Glenn Contrarian
I was thinking about the script that must have been used to start this particular attack. It's simple enough to write a script to send random websites with random names, but in this case the attack - as far as I've seen - was targeted towards threads under particular articles...which means that the author of the script must write in the web address of the particular article into the script.
But if that's the case, then why did the author pick articles written some time ago - or at every one of the "most recent comments" lines that I've clicked on went to one of two articles that didn't seem particularly related at a glance - and that tells me it's probably not truly random, though the articles may have been chosen at random by the author.
But if that's the case, maybe the author doesn't want to disturb the most current threads...and so it's starting to make sense to me that this is an attack directed at BC, but done in such a way that it's not directly affecting the current writers but is still a pain in the butt for the editors...and that's something a former writer who respects fellow writers, but has a vindictive nature and is unhappy with the BC powers-that-be just might do.
So either a former writer is doing his worst to make life miserable for the editors but not for the writers...
...or I've been watching WAAAAAY too much "Castle" and thinking about this too deeply.
9 - Glenn Contrarian
But FYI to whoever might be doing it, you're making life miserable for the writers, too, including me - I was looking forward to lots of juicy, snarky attacks from our resident [personal attack almost written but deleted just in time by GC] um, conservatives with this article!
Clavos! Arch! Where are you when we need you!
10 - Arch Conservative
You know Glenn, half the time the shit you write is so idiotic that it's not even worth responding to.
11 - Cannonshop
#10 the other half of the time, we're laughing so hard we can't type.
12 - Glenn Contrarian
'sokay - we'll see if the predictions come true - and as I said, you're all invited to include predictions of your own, and we'll tally them up 14 months from now!
13 - Dr Dreadful
[Ruvy] That's if there even is an election... [/Ruvy]
14 - Cannonshop
Mine:
The GOP brass will sacrifice this election to justify rooting out the "Tea Party Problem", Obama gets a second term, and the congress will remain relatively stable due to a bipartisan focus on the Presidential race, Democrats will hold both the executive, and the Senate, but may not regain the House. The National Debt will climb another 20% in February as both parties' leaders try what Bush and Obama already tried that failed. Employment numbers will be reported as stable with a slight gain, but real-world numbers will show continuing decay in the numbers of people in PRIVATE, as opposed to tax-financed, employment. Corporate taxes will increase, and as a result, jobs will decrease-but the decrease will not be reported until June or July, as companies demonstrate that even very strong patriotic sentiment does not trump a bottom line, while the top 1% will move their money further offshore, and Warren Buffett will still pay less in taxes than his secretary does.
The collapse of small to medium sized business and the offshoring of most of the survivors will lead to a new 'jobs programme' in or about 2014, we will see the collectivisation of agriculture and what remains of manufacturing, federalization of property taxes, and the implementation of "Civility Laws" with the prosecution of "Sedition". Jobs will thus be created in the prison and inspection sectors, and possibly in the domestic "antiterrorism" sector as the DHS starts a programme of paying informers to report "ECONOMIC SABOTAGE".
Using the provisions of the PATRIOT ACT, the administration can, thanks to the economic chaos and growing misery index, list anyone stupid enough to sign something related to it, as "terrorist suspects", a few high-profile prosecutions are all that is really required to make the rest shut up and accept the new order.
At which Point, Glenn Contrarian will be safely outside the United States.
15 - Cannonshop
(hey, someone had to float the krazy konspiracy...)
16 - Glenn Contrarian
Okay -
Your predictions, Arch? Clavos? Baronius? Dave?
17 - Deano
Obama and the Dems will feast on the entrails of the Tea Party like rabid velociraptors in a charnel-soaked Stephen King-Speilbergian cross-over work of genuine cinema verite but will inevitably be brought down in a post-apocalyptic invasion of vampiric parasites from the depths of some hitherto unforseen plane of elemental Hell that will be opened when the collective psyche of America unravels in the face of their inevitable betrayal of their own ideals at the hands of the corpulant Washington fatcats and rapacious Wall Street demonic minons that will pave the streets with the blood of the innocent and guilty alike in a orgistic frenzy of callow greed and carnage the likes of which has not been seen since Paula left American Idol.
Whew.
Or, if the economy stays in the dumper and the Republicans actually field a sensible candidate that isn't a pandering Tea Party acolyate, they might beat Obama.
If.
Given the current crop, kinda a long if.
18 - Dr Dreadful
Good work, Deano.
Long time no read.
19 - Deano
I've been busy. Finished my book so now I am starting the painful and long process of obtaining an agent, and then, fingers crossed, a publisher.
20 - Glenn Contrarian
If you know a good agent or publisher, let me know - I've got one on the shelf (that I'm too lazy to market).
21 - Dr Dreadful
But Glenn, you have to market to agents as well...
I'm in the same boat - although I tell myself that I'm too busy, rather than just being lazy!
22 - Arch Conservative
You want a prediction Glenn....
Here's one that's certain to come true.
Regardless of what happens in the 2012 elections, come 2013 and 2014 things won't change much. We'll still see the same talking head politicos saying the exact same things they're saying today. Americans will have the same problems they have today and last but not least, BC posters will still be having the same stupid, pointless arguments that they so enjoy engaging in today.
How's that for a fucking prediction?
23 - zingzing
"How's that for a fucking prediction?"
probably somewhat wrong. although probably somewhat right.
24 - Arch Conservative
Where's Glenn? He gets his panties in a bunch every time he thinks he's made some brilliant, insightful contribution on BC that we right wing whackos don't immediately respond to.
25 - Ira Titlinger
I predict that the electorate will ive up to its history of stupidity.
The leopard does not change it's spots, the leporad craps & the voters step in it.