It’s January 16 Do You Know Where Your Year is?

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

This image is a misnomer, of course, because the year of the Fire Horse (also the Red Horse. Uh) doesn’t start until end of February, but a wooden snake is not nearly so amusing, and besides I have this theory that in our fast-communication world the avatars for the Chinese years got confused and started reigning (in this case perhaps raging would be more appropriate) when the Western New Year starts.

It sure would explain — as much as anything can — what happened starting Jan 1 — well, Jan 7, but you know — when the year came in like a horse. A horse that’s on fire. (But…. it’s on FIRE.)

I mean, it’s not just the fact that in the dead of night we removed a dictator from his bed and brought him to the Us to be held accountable. That’s amazing, yes, but there’s so much more going on. No, it’s not just Tim Walz being Timwalzed and doing his best imitation of Temu Jefferson Davis — or as someone put it “If Jefferson Davis and Liberace had a baby.”

There’s Iran, which is rebelling. It’s been quiet recently, and I think the rebellion is in the process of being subdued, and I’m hoping we don’t allow that. It’s the kind of edge of the seat thing that is keeping me awake at night. (If you’re the praying sort pray for Iran.)

And then there’s… good Lord, this year has been everything all the time. Like, we have finally made a food pyramid that makes sense, not one designed by people who thought Diet For A Small Planet (i.e. we’ve got to stop eating meat, because the population is exploding) made any sense. And we did away with two thirds of early childhood vaccination.

In a normal year those two things alone would have been news enough for six months of argument in the newspapers. I mean, you might think the food pyramid is just a recommendation, but it informs all the federal food aid, plus feeding of the troops, food in schools, all of that. It has a profound impact. But…. this year.

The US withdrew from 66 global organizations.

In a normal year the left would be wailing about our leaving such vital organizations like:
1) 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact

2) Colombo Plan Council

3) Commission for Environmental Cooperation

4) Education Cannot Wait

5) European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats

6) Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories

7) Freedom Online Coalition

8) Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund

And such vital UN organization as:

9) Peacebuilding Commission

50) Peacebuilding Fund

51) Permanent Forum on People of African Descent

52) U.N. Alliance of Civilizations

53) U.N. Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries

54) U.N. Conference on Trade and Development

55) U.N. Democracy Fund

56) U.N. Energy

57) U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

58) U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change

59) U.N. Human Settlements Programme

But this year? This year it’s not even registering. They haven’t even started a scream that Israel withdrew from those right after we did.

Meanwhile abroad: Syria working with Israel on security. Israel recognizing Somaliland. Somalia being removed from the nations eligible for refugee status in the USA.

Also, apparently, some number of nations are no longer eligible for visas to the US.

And– And– And– Oh, yeah, stuff is being done to curb fraud and clean voters’ rolls, though I’m sure it’s not enough, and I wish it were fast and more strict. OTOH considering how much they depend on fraud, just removing some avenues might help.

Of course there’s already been sad events too, like Scott Adams’ death. Soemthing else that would take at least a month of news, any other year.

And I’m sure I’m forgetting half a dozen things that rocked my world when they came across the screen. It’s that type of year, apparently, it’s been at least a year since Jan 1st.

So — as a community service, I’m laying down a challenge: What do you have on your bingo card for this year?

Things I’m hoping for –

freedom for Iran

the fall of communism in China.

Things I wouldn’t be surprised if they happened:

The collapse and political rebuilding of the rest of the Americas

The discovery and IMPLEMENTATION of life extension technology.

Things that might rate a raised eyebrow:

The EU breaking apart in a fit of sanity
Atlantis raising from the sea.

Deej kindly contributed some for that last category:

“Elon reveals the colony he’s already established on Mars.”

“Grok copied Scott Adams’s brain pattern, and will be making Dilbert strips for the foreseeable future.”

Now, your turn. Hear those hoof beats? The year commeth like a raging fire horse. (Or perhaps a raging zebra.)

What’s in your bingo card?

44 thoughts on “It’s January 16 Do You Know Where Your Year is?”

  1. You missed the French farmers going on strike, Japan announcing a snap election, and further collpasing of the uniparty over on airstrip one where the tory wing has lost a couple of important former ministers to Reform and Two Tier Keir gets ever more bansturbatory deciding to ban some local elections so that he doesn’t lose more local councils.

    In things I expect. Cuba and Venezuela are going to both collapse. Iran too. Russia may not, but if so it will only because it becomes a de facto satrapy of West Taiwan.

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    1. The European farmers’ strikes have been ongoing in a rolling series for at least five years. They all have somewhat different causes, but all are in opposition to top-down decisions that have little or nothing to do with actual food security and good farming practices.

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    2. Saw on Twitter a report China has already nibbled a good strip of Russia almost to Vladivostok. Interesting if true.

      And really,what can Russia do about it?

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  2. The Reader expects Russia to collapse soon, and that collapse will look like 1917, not 1991. All of the bad actors bordering Russia will try to grab a chunk of it and we’ll discover that none of their militaries (including the PLA) can spell logistics. The Reader does think St Petersburg will make a lovely addition to Finland or Estonia and that Trump should grab Big Diomede Island.

    The unknown unknown is how much additional debt world governments can print money for before there is a run on the world.

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  4. Let’s see… There will have to be some kind of peace made regarding AI and media. The early adopters will figure out an appropriate place in the pipeline for AI assistance, the traditionalists will double down, and the hacks making slop will make slop exponentially faster.

    I think that the big platforms will crack. They won’t be viable for indies much longer. As a response to angry consumers who are displeased with the incoming AI slop flood, they will implement “quality control” in typical heavy-handed fashion, nuking all indie creators.

    Whatever you create, get your own platform ready now.

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    1. Very perceptive.

      AI is currently somewhere around the intellectual level of a publicly-educated fifth grader. That’s impressive, but like the singing collie, it’s not that it does it well, but simply that it does it impresses us.

      Private platforms are easy and cheap now, and unfettered. A friend told me the other day he runs a million dollar online business on a virtual machine that costs him $4/month. Yes, the virtual machine is elsewhere, but it’s unrestricted. Doing the same from a server in his closet would work the same but cost a little more.

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        1. Yes, exactly. How much power would we cede to an actual 5th grader, even one who could remember all of the crap the schools (LLM) had pumped in to that point?

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      2. ”AI whisperer” will be the growth job category, since it’s become basically like negotiating your wishes with a djinn. Even in coding, where there was huge initial AI-replaces-humans potential, early adopters are reporting AI generated code has of late become more and more buggy, with the coding flaws deep and hard to find. So the folks with l337 prompting skills will be the ones in demand.

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        1. Or editor. You get Ai as close as it’ll get, then hire someone to get it in shape.

          My experience with AI is that it gets further from what I want with every iteration -.- I disengaged from a contract with an artist who did that once already. I think there may have been tracing over ai gens going on, because the obtuseness kept getting worse.

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        2. Very early AI coding help is why I got my first major job. “Doesn’t do what we want it to. Fix it.” Which meant rewriting huge chunks, if not the whole thing. Because AI could not do what the users needed. No reason why that has changed at the top level. The rewrites AI now could probably be guided into writing those blocks. But it would take someone who knows what building blocks are needed and why, then guide the AI to paste them together. This has been ongoing now for almost 40 years in software.

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    2. You know, I must say that watching an American governor call for open insurrection against the federal government is quite an occasion. Has that ever really happened before?

      #LittleTimmy must be in some really deep doodoo. Way over his head.

      Looks like they bet the farm on #Cacklin’Kamala, they rolled snake-eyes and now the marker has come due.

      Who wants to bet some prominent American politicians fell the country in the next month or so? Governors, senators, legislators, people like that. Jump on a plane and fly to China. No point flying to Cuba anymore, it’ll be part of Florida later this year.

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      2. The thing that strikes me is the metaphorical bullet dodged when the kneepads+timmay ticket was defeated, and not just because DJT+JD won. If you want a bad timeline, imagine timmay, his Middle Kingdom friends, and his Somali coconspirators a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

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        1. The USA really is watched over by the same God that guards drunk men and little children. We all missed the kneepads+timmay win by a quarter of an inch.

          I say “we” because I’m putting Canaduh in the basket of countries that are being saved by #TheDonald. Nothing could move the entrenched elite here in Canuckistan short of bankruptcy.

          Here we are with bankruptcy looming over Ottawa, and it’s barely been a year. Three more to go! Faster, please!

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  6. I’m hopeful for the end of the Federal Reserve, and the 16th Amendment had best watch its back. But, hey, we’re already halfway through January and the doomers tell me nothing’s happening …

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    1. I can’t point to anything directly, but beyond the “limiting”, essentially no for most households, “taxes on social security”, mutterings of “no taxes on retirement savings”; i.e. 401(k)/IRA. Already a bunch of pension sources that are limited on tax burden (based on the list showing on TurboTax, not that we’re qualified for any). If nothing else, the 16th Amendment is getting whittled by an ax in a way that makes it more difficult to restore. Not impossible, just more difficult and on the record.

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  7. Hopeful the left continues to melt down into absurdity, as Californians wait for it to sink into the sea, and wait, and wait.
    A question for Cali;
    Who will you tax after all the billionaires leave the state?
    A question to those who believe in over population;
    Why hasn’t China sunk into the earth under the weight of all those people?
    India?
    Africa?

    Yes very tongue in cheek.

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    1. ”Who will you tax after all the billionaires leave the state?”

      Obviously, the same people the Federal income tax changed to tax after they got the 16th amendment ratified by promising “a tax just on the rich!”: Everyone Else.

      The question is how many idiots can be bamboozled into voting for the proposition, though with all the publicity’ and Gavin’s political ambitions, I wonder if the powers-that-be will quash the effort to even get it on the ballot.

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    2. “Who will you tax after all the billionaires leave the state?”

      Millionaires.

      Then thousand-airs, and so forth.

      Communism only works with a captive population. If they can hop into mom’s minivan and drive away, the Commies are kind of stuck.

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        1. The Reader suggests you slip it to Justice Jackson’s law clerks. It will be in a dissent in no time.

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  9. Goodness. Looking ahead to see what I need to do this afternoon is far enough to look ahead. My age tells me that’s more important, and necessary for peace of mind.

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      1. Did you see the video? The guy next to him reacted with a “what the hell did you just say?!” glance when #CarkMarney said “new world order”? That was Scott Moe, the Premiere of Saskatchewan.

        It’s a hell of a thing when a professional politician like that guy breaks character at a formal event.

        Going to be interesting what His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition has to say about #Carky’s little China trip the next few days. We are fortunate to have YouTubers to cover these things, given the slavish obedience of regular media.

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      1. “…his “Gov’t agent” was Chinese.”

        I saw this one. Clearly a work of fiction, my dear JP. Chinese government official? Impossible.

        All government officials are Indian.

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  14. Hmmm. Wood Dragon. I will have to make use of that somewhere….

    (rolls d20) “Splinter breath blast! Critical hit! The attacking fighters are now on the wall as hors d’oeuvres. Call the housekeeping gelatinous cube for cleanup. And Munchies. ”

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