New Year's Eve--No Resolutions

This next year has got to be an improvement over 2006, unless the melting ice shelf phenomenon accelerates and we see an increase in sea level of twenty or thirty feet, which is going to really suck for New Orleans and Bangladesh, among other locations. Glad I'm at 7000 feet.

We enter 2007 with one less malignant narcissist now that Saddam has had his neck snapped, but I would really like to see 2007 designated as The Year of the Eradication of War Criminals. You can name your own favorite candidates. Mine is Henry Kissinger, closely followed by the members of a certain cabal who have been consulting with Kriminal Kissinger during this last year. You must be aware of those names by now if you are even an irregular reader.

In general, I would predict more violence in Iraq (a slam-dunk prediction, as George Tenet might have said, but this one truly is a slam dunk), more idiocy in public policy from the executive branch, more lily-livered cowardice from the Democratically controlled Congress, more concentration of wealth. The good news is that secular sensible Americans are going to be making their voices louder--we will see the demise of the influence of the religious right, who will be collared together with Islamic fanatics who also seek fantasy-dwellers as leaders and fairy tailes as truth. God won't be declared dead, but he will return to private, closeted worship, as harmless as any other superstitious practices like tossing salt over one's shoulder after knocking over the shaker. (Yes, I still do this. But I don't cry heresy and eternal damnation against anyone who doesn't--those persons will see soon enough why it's bad luck to fail in this minor action. Don't believe me? Knock over the salt shaker at lunch and just walk away. Make me your beneficiary first.)

More specifically, I think Fidel Castro will still be around this time next year and until at least January 20, 2009, so that he can claim to have outlasted yet another American president. Segolene Royal, on whom I have a total crush, will be the next president of France, and the phenomenon of the two largest economies in continental Europe headed by women (Germany's chancellor is Angela Merkel) will at last erase prejudice in this country against women as heads of state. Unless, that is, Nancy Pelosi ends up presiding over a House that remains nearly as corrupt as it was under the Hastert/Delay regime and/or Hillary Clinton continues to compromise principle in the interest of her ambition to be president. I think she's going to find that triangulation and adoption of Republican positions is a taint on future Democratic nominees. Also, any potential candidate supporting Chimpie's "surge strategy" will find his or her prospects skidding asymptotically toward zero by the Iowa primary.

I fear for the dollar, which is losing favor among those dependent on our oil junkie habits and process of denial, and eventually the Chinese will slow their purchase of our debt as a bad investment as we continue to slide into a two-tiered society of ultra-rich and comparatively impoverished citizens. With their credit maxed out, average Americans are going to see that the illusion of affluence bought with plastic is nothing at all like true affluence which derives from receiving interest payments rather than making them. It may get to the point that many Americans will shed the jingoism that has blinded them to their own exploitation and will begin to look upon the social democracies of northern Europe as far better models. "Socialism" as a word will lose its fear power in the mouths of extremist idiots like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Ann Coulter. Unbridled, unregulated capitalism will not look so good, and although this may hurt libertarianism as an economic model, the libertarians will make large gains because of their morally-neutral and pragmatic stances on social issues.

More later. Gotta go walk the dog, or, rather, the dog is going to walk me.