Tag: Predictions

Does The US Have A Future?

NOTE:  Today I start the next round of poking, prodding, scanning, and chemo…it all begins this morning at 7 am so this may be the only post I do today….thanx for understanding.     chuq

That is the big philosophical question as we prepare to celebrate our 250th year.

The research says things are not looking good for the future….at least for right now….

Over a third of Americans do not believe their country is going to exist 250 years from now as the U.S. nears its 250th anniversary, according to a poll released Tuesday.

In the new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 38 percent of respondents said the U.S. is not going to be a single country in two-and-a-half centuries, while 62 percent thought it will last. When broken down by party, 26 percent of Republicans and 40 percent of Democrats said the U.S. is not going to be a whole country in 250 years.

The poll comes amid heightened political tensions in the U.S., with multiple instances of political violence in the last few years and increasingly heated rhetoric.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll also found that 30 percent of respondents said the U.S. is the world’s best country, a decrease from 38 percent who thought so when asked in November 2017. In the more recent survey, 48 percent said the country is among many excellent countries, 13 percent said the U.S. isn’t great in any way and 8 percent did not answer the question or were unsure.

In other recent polling, Americans have also expressed little faith in their country’s leadership and governmental structure.

An early June poll from Quinnipiac University found more than half of Americans saying that the system of democracy was not working in their country. President Trump, a polarizing figure himself, was sitting at a 40.30 percent approval rating in a polling average from Decision Desk HQ on Tuesday morning, with his disapproval rating at 56.8 percent.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll took place from June 12-15, featuring 1,537 U.S. adults and a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

(thehill.com)

This can be looked at in two ways….will the country survive or will the political system survive?

I know most people are concerned with the survival of our country but that aside what do you think with happen in the near future?

Personally I think Donny is killing the country as well as the system….so if the US is to recover then we may need another 250 years to accomplish it for Donny has done as much damage as possible to this country and its system.

Why would I say such a thing?

There are so many indications that point to the end of the American experiment….

Minoritarian rule of the winner-take-all (WTA) electoral college: Because 48 states allocate all electoral votes to the statewide winner, a candidate can secure the presidency while losing the popular vote. This enables the election of administrations that prioritize corporate deregulation and tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, even when the broader electorate demands reform.

Electoral manipulation: Once institutions are in place, the mechanisms of voting can be altered to ensure the ruling minority maintains an electoral advantage.

Partisan gerrymandering: Lawmakers manipulate district boundaries to pack opposition voters into a few districts or spread them out thinly, allowing the minority party to retain a governing majority of seats despite winning fewer total votes statewide.

Voter suppression: Stricter voting regulations—such as rigid voter ID requirements, purges of voter rolls, and the reduction of early voting—disproportionately restrict access for minority communities and lower-income voters.

Institutional counter-majoritarianism: certain governing structures are explicitly designed to over-represent specific geographic or demographic groups at the expense of population equality.

Malapportionment of legislatures: In systems like the U.S. Senate, low-population rural states receive the same representation as highly populated urban centers. This allows a minority of the population to block national legislation.

Legislative obstruction: Minority groups utilize built-in procedural hurdles within deliberative bodies to stop majority action.

The Filibuster: In legislative chambers, this rule requires supermajorities (e.g., 60 out of 100 votes) to pass routine legislation or end debate. This allows a minority of legislators to veto the entire legislative agenda.

Judicial entrenchment: When the ruling minority controls the executive and legislative branches, they can appoint lifetime judges who share their ideological preferences.

Counter-Majoritarian Courts: Appointed judges can use the power of judicial review to overturn laws passed by the majority, strike down civil rights protections, and further enable restrictive voting and campaign finance laws.

Money in politics and concentrated wealth allows well-funded, organized interest groups to exert outsized influence over the political process compared to the general populace.

Dark Money: Unregulated or anonymous campaign contributions allow a wealthy few to fund sympathetic candidates, lobby for specific policies, and run mass media campaigns that shift the political agenda.

Now look ahead….do you see anyone on the political horizon that will change these defects?

I do not and that is why I say this American experiment is in real trouble.

The nation is in real trouble and absolutely no one on the horizon that can save it.

Go ahead let the opinions fly.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

New Years Eve–A Look Back, Then Ahead

Yes my friends it has been yet another year and a good year it was for blogging at least for me….the year itself kinda sucked.

I have added a few new regulars and lost a couple but that is how blogging works……bloggers come and go a I am just thankful that most of my die hard regulars continue to visit and comment and I cannot thank them enough for their loyalty.

The last week of 2025 was great for views even if most were bots being irritating.

2025 I have written 720 posts and had 1825 views which is an uptick from the year before (not breaking any records but still feels good)…..although the uptick is probably ‘bots come to visit.

2025 was a terrible year…..politics sucked, international stage was alight, but most of all for me personally…..my best friend and my heart passed away….Sue was the best thing that every happened to me…..and then I was diagnosed with a double cancer…..after 6 months of steady treatment those tumors were shrinking…..and then in December a new shadow has shown up in my lung….now I must wait until next year to find out what is what.

So I am not a fan of 2025 for the obvious reasons.

There has been lots of predictions for the coming year….Nostro has had something to say, Cayce as well and then there are a few others but the one that caught my attention was the predictions from some shamans in Peru….

A group of shamans gathered Monday by the sea in the Miraflores district of Peru’s capital, Lima, to carry out an annual ritual in which they make predictions for the upcoming year. Dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, the group performed a ceremony and made predictions about the course of international relations, ongoing conflicts, and the fate of world leaders, reports the AP.

  • Maduro: This year, the shamans said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will be removed from office. “We have asked for Maduro to leave, to retire, for President Donald Trump of the United States to be able to remove him, and we have visualized that next year this will happen,” said shaman Ana María Simeón.
  • Trump: As for the American president himself, “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia said, per RNZ.
  • Spotty record: The group has a mixed record with its annual predictions. Last year, for instance, they warned a “nuclear war” would break out between Israel and Gaza. But in December 2023, the group correctly predicted that former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who had been imprisoned for human rights abuses, would perish within 12 months. Fujimori died from cancer in September 2024 at the age of 86.
  • Ritual: Before Monday’s ceremony, the shamans met to drink hallucinogenic concoctions derived from native plants—including Ayahuasca and the San Pedro cactus—which are believed to give them the power to predict the future. After dancing in circles and playing ancestral instruments, the shamans asked for peace in the Middle East, an end to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and the fall of Maduro. The prayers to the gods, performed amid flowers and incense, as well as dances, are intended to encourage leaders to make good decisions. The shamans also predicted natural disasters, such as earthquakes and climatic phenomena.

Will these predictions be accurate….more so than some of the others I have seen?

Thoughts?

I can only hope that 2026 will be a better year.

Please be responsible and careful if you plan on celebrating the new year…..I look forward to seeing everyone next year and the comments that will follow.

Happy New Year to everyone.

See you soon.

chuq

We Were Maligned

Years ago as Donny was ascending to the halls of power many of us saw it coming and tried to warn people, especially voters, what they were embracing….in those early days we were maligned as alarmists and fakirs….it is called foresight.

You can’t prove you’re from the future, and you’re limited to broadly legal means. Can you persuade enough people to take it more seriously?

After all, you know what’s coming—January 6, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, checks and balances failing, massive open corruption, troops on the streets, abductions by masked men, and concentration camps. But when you warn of these horrors, it sounds outlandish. People won’t believe you. If you insist, you’ll be dismissed as hysterical. Despite knowing the future, you won’t be able to prevent it.

This is not that far from the position many ordinary Americans found themselves in at the start of the Trump era. They weren’t time travelers but saw what was coming clearly enough. They called Trump’s movement fascist from the very start, and often predicted specific milestones of our democratic decline well in advance. They were convinced they were right—and often beside themselves with worry. Accordingly, they did everything they could to get others to listen.

But not enough people did, and many attacked them—even as events proved them right, again and again. As late as February 2025, respected legal commentator Noah Feldman was casually asserting our constitutional system was “working fine” and Jon Stewart was scolding people who used the word “fascist,” claiming all they had done “over the last ten years is cry wolf.”

There is an ancient archetype at work here. In Greek mythology, Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy—of seeing the future—but cursed that she would never be believed. Her name is sometimes used as a pejorative for an overacting alarmist, which, appropriately enough, misses the point. Cassandra was, after all, right. When the Greek army seemingly abandoned the siege of Troy, leaving behind the Trojan horse, she pleaded with the Trojans not to bring it into the city. They did so anyway, and armed men burst out of it, dooming them all.

Why did we see this story again? Why did some immediately see America’s dark future, while others fought them so long and so hard?

https://newrepublic.com/article/204254/survey-2024-election-cassandras-trump-2025

So we were not alarmist…..and yet about 35-40% of the voters still hang onto this creeps coattails for whatever reason.

Maybe people should take a closer look at any political predictions that are made from knowledge and not some knee jerk whim.

The most beautiful words in the English language…..’We Told You So”

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Prepare For War

I recently read an article that says the Brits have been warned to prepare for all out war in four years….

I post this for I want any of my UK readers to confirm that they have seen this prediction….

The British public should be prepared for “widespread war in Europe” within the next three to four years, military experts have said.

Russia’s increasingly audacious incursions into Eastern Europe risk spilling over into an all-out “hot” conflict that engages Nato, while Vladimir Putin’s current “grey war” activity of sabotage, cyber attacks and disinformation is expected to be “on steroids” before the end of the decade.

The chairman of the UK’s National Preparedness Commission, Lord Harris, told The i Paper that Britain needed to be better prepared, both militarily and across society, for a widespread conflict of this nature happening in the next few years.

This includes stockpiling emergency supplies to be used in the event of a war or major attack on critical national infrastructure, such as water, electricity or transport networks.

Harris, a Labour peer, said Britons needed to prepare for their lives “being changed or likely to be changed in the foreseeable future”, including having 72 hours worth of provisions if there was a major attack on infrastructure or a power cut caused by a hostile state

He suggested that the Government should make its “Prepare” website – which offers advice on readiness for emergencies such as floods and power cuts – more “in your face” and run regular ad campaigns on radio, TV and social media, as well as lessons for schoolchildren.

Britons told to prepare for ‘widespread’ war in Europe within three to four years

Please let me know if you have seen this or have more information than is presented in the article.

Do you believe the prediction?  If so why?

If true then it should have wide ranging implications across the globe.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Will Change Come To DC?

There has been a meme going around social media saying that by the end of 2025 Donny will drop out and Vance will take over as prez….

Since I avoid social media like a plague I find articles written on this prediction….let me share one such article….

It has been suggested that Donald Trump may not be president by the end of the year.

Trump started his second term as president in January, and in his short time as POTUS, has caused many controversies.

From his ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ and his fallout with Elon Musk, to his links to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and that meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House, the president has been no stranger to causing a stir.

His alleged ties to Epstein has proven to be a big issue for Trump, particularly in light of his administration seeming to cherry pick which files they’re releasing on the convicted sex offender instead of just publishing them all.

But in a move to try appease his nay-sayers, Trump recently called for the justice department to release all grand jury testimony in the Epstein case.

He announced on Truth Social on July 19: “I have asked the Justice Department to release all Grand Jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to Court Approval. With that being said, and even if the Court gave its full and unwavering approval, nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request. It will always be more, more, more. MAGA!”

Despite his apparent efforts to keep people happy, some political commentators think his ties to Epstein could be Trump’s downfall and see him replaced by JD Vance by the end of 2025.

TikToker Josh Greene shared his thoughts on why he believes this will happen in a video that’s been viewed over 275,000 times at the time of writing.

Greene noted that what he was saying was just speculation but insisted that there were ‘signs’ that Trump won’t finish his second term as POTUS.

“His popularity his plummeting right now,” said Greene.

“Vance is removed from the Epstein saga — at least to some degree,” he added.

As well as Epstein, Trump’s health could work against him too following his recent chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) diagnosis. Cleveland Clinic states that it occurs when your leg veins become damaged and can’t work as they should.

“He is not in good shape,” Greene said of the president.

People were quick to share their own thoughts on the matter, with many suggesting that Vance would be no better than Trump.

“He’s just as worse,” wrote one person. A second added: “Vance is a danger to the USA, just as bad as Trump if not worse.”

Others pointed out that it’s highly unlikely that Trump would voluntarily step down as president.

Someone insisted: “There is absolutely zero chance Trump would ever resign.”

Echoing similar sentiments, another wrote: “I think Trump’s ego is too big to resign.”

What do you think?

(unilad.com)

I think Donny is tougher than this prediction….he will fight to stay where he is and slowly inch out Vance as much as possible.

I think is just wishful thinking.

What say you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

New Years Day–2025

HAPPY NEW YEAR

The fireworks have ended (hopefully) and those damn pesky resolutions are being made (and are seldom followed) a new year begins and thoughts of the old are left by the wayside.

The first day of a new year and what better time for me to offer up the predictions of Nostradamus for 2025….

But first the family will drop by for we have a tradition of corned beef, cabbage, black-eye peas and cornbread as the first meal of the new year.

That out of the way….what does old Nostie have to say for 2025?

As the year draws to a close, it’s time to talk doomsday, my babies — and no one grips us with grim quite like Nostradamus.

Nostradamus, Nos if you’re nasty, was a 16th-century astrologer, plague doctor, accused heretic and bearded seer who has been credited with foretelling the Great Fire of London, Hitler’s rise to power, the Sept. 11 attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic, and last year’s New Years Day earthquake, to name a few.

Referred to as the “prophet of doom,” Nostradamus’ bleak worldview is believed to have been shaped by heavy doses of the Old Testament and the trauma of losing his wife and young children to illness, presumably the plague. Unable to cure the ones he loved most, it seems he set out to forewarn the rest of us through his revelations of ruin.

Sometimes right on the money but more often than not missing the mark, our man’s prophecies lean towards conflagration and catastrophe.

With the publication of his famed book “Les Prophéties” in 1555, Nostradamus gifted the world and its future generations a quasi-poetic tome that predicts wars, pestilence, natural disasters, civil unrest, political assassinations and other such lighthearted fare.

Heavy on language like “blood rain,” the book is an enduring classic, and with 2025 on the horizon, we’re looking at what fury and hellfire lay in store.

But first, a look back.

https://nypost.com/2024/12/09/lifestyle/nostradamus-predictions-for-2025-what-to-prepare-for/

Old Nostie seems to be stuck on Doom and Gloom….I take his stuff with a grain of salt….but that is just me.

Make a list and let’s see how accurate these ramblings are….I am not one that holds his predictions in high regard….but I will give him a chance to impress me.

This is for all those readers that may have celebrated a bit too much last night….and to add to the bad head some history.

Picture the scene: a disheveled man stumbles through the Forum, his wine-stained toga bundled haphazardly around his torso. At his feet, a smattering of empty amphorae lie strewn across the floor, their contents greedily imbibed by the convivium’s attendees. Saturnalia has been wild this year, but the December festivities are drawing to a close and it’s time to go and lie down with a cabbage on your head.

Fast-forward a couple of millennia and we’re still partying our way through the darkness of mid-winter, though our green hangover remedies now tend to come in smoothie form. Personally, I’ve never had much relief from blended kale and ginger, so this year I’m going old-school and trying out some of the ancient world’s top cures for alcoholic remorse.

https://www.iflscience.com/do-ancient-hangover-cures-still-stand-up-77267

Let’s begin this journey together…..I look forward to my readers input in the coming year.

The only sure cure for that hangover is not overindulge….pretty simple.

I hope all my readers have a great day and a better new year….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

When Will The Collapse Come?

The collapse I am writing about is the collapse of society….there have been many predictions and conspiracies about how and when our society will fall into the manure pile……and this has been going on for many years with this group or that looking for signs in the heavens for ultimate fall….

Now scientists have used a computer fed it all the relevant data and the year is 2040….but there is more….read on….

Scientists once used a computer to predict when society as we know it would collapse, and let’s just say there’s apparently not long to go.

We often rely on technology these days to give us an idea of what life might look like in the future, whether it’s through AI predictions or simply becoming more and more reliant on the machines in our daily lives.

…

Through this research, the team learned that the fall of society would hit near the midpoint of the 21st century. And yes, in case you’d forgotten, that’s the century we’re currently in the middle of.

In fact, there’s apparently less than two decades to go until the collapse. 17 years, to be precise, as the scientists predicted the collapse would come in 2040.

At the time the report wasn’t taken too seriously and did attract some ridicule, the Guardian reports. However, before you start to feel smug you should know that in 2009, a different team of researchers did a similar study which produced similar results.

https://www.ladbible.com/community/weird/mit-scientists-predict-collapse-of-society-434778-20230812

That is not very far from now and as old as I am I may still be among the living when it comes.

Does anyone care?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–08Aug22

This is a post for all those that think Russia will not stop with Ukraine….that Putin wants to rule the world…..

Ever hear of the Nostradamus Of The Balkans?

Her name is Baba Vanga who died in 1996…..she predicted 9/11 attack and now she has made a prediction about Putin…..

Clairvoyant mystic Baba Vanga, who is most famous for forecasting the 9/11 attacks in the US had possibly predicted the rise of Russian President Vladimir Putin. With Russia taking on the West and launching a military offensive in Ukraine, a prophecy of the blind mystic seemingly about Putin has gone viral on social media. According to Baba Vanga, Putin will one day ‘rule the world’ and nobody could stop Russia from becoming the ‘lord of the world’.

Russia would become the “lord of the world” whereas Europe would become a “wasteland”, Baba Vanga told writer Valentin Sidorov. 

“All will thaw, as if ice, only one remain untouched – Vladimir’s glory, the glory of Russia,” she said in a possible reference to Putin, adding, “Too much it is brought in a victim. Nobody can stop Russia.”

Nicknamed the ‘Nostradamus of the Balkans’, Baba Vanga has made several prophecies. The mystic claimed that after losing her eyesight at a very young age, she discovered her ability to foresee the future. Vanga has made prophecies dating thousands of years into the future till 5079, with people still seeking her wisdom. Forecasts of the Bulgarian mystic who died in the year 1996, have a success rate of 85%, reports have claimed.

In case you are interested she made other predictions for 2022….

https://torontosun.com/life/blind-mystic-baba-vangas-troubling-predictions-for-2022

The prediction about Putin ought to give legs to the fear that Putin is after world domination….the fear mongers will latch onto this and make the Twitter light up and go viral.

I have tried to find more but I was unable to…..to be honest I stopped looking for the whole thing is nonsense.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Come August

Closing Thought–04Jun21

Donald the Orange has made yet another of his ‘brilliant’ and uninformed predictions……it seems this ‘really smart person’ thinks that he will be reinstated as president come August……

Yep he believes that the election of 2020 will be overturned and he can once again sit in the seat of power…(and the peasants danced)….

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times covered President Trump while he was in office, and she now reports that he’s intent on getting back there sooner than people think. On Twitter, Haberman writes that Trump “has been telling a number of people he’s in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August.” In subsequent tweets (there’s no Times story about this, at least as of Tuesday morning), Haberman writes that Trump is “laser focused” on state election audits still underway. “It isn’t happening in a vacuum,” she adds. “It is happening as he faced the possibility of an indictment from the Manhattan DA.” Haberman’s initial tweet on this was a reaction to a CNN story about Trump supporters wishing for a coup to restore him to office.

Business Insider notes that Trump allies, including MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, have been pushing the idea that the former president will be somehow restored to the White House, even though no constitutional framework exists for that to happen. And Forbes points out that even former Trump attorney Jenna Elllis, who maintains that the 2020 election was “lawless,” isn’t buying the idea. “The Constitution has only one process for removal of a sitting president: impeachment and conviction,” she writes. “No, President Trump is not going to be ‘reinstated.'”

Will this insurrection continue?

Further information…..https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-is-reportedly-telling-people-he-will-be-reinstated-as-president-by-august/

A deluded rejected demagogue who cannot accept that he was thrown out of office and desperately attempting to try an be relevant once again.

Is this a veiled call to arms for the loyalists to Trump?

Even his new ‘platform’ has been a dismal failure like his presidency….and it is now defunct….

“From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” we hardly knew thee. The former president’s blog ended up lasting just shy of a month. Senior aide Jason Miller confirmed to CNBC that the page has been shut down for good. “It was just auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on,” he told the site via email, though he didn’t elaborate on those broader efforts and said he did not “have a precise awareness of timing.” A week after the blog’s launch, NBC News reported Trump’s posts had garnered about 212,000 engagements—shares, comments, etc.—across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Reddit, on par with what a single tweet would formerly garner on Twitter alone.

Yet another failure for a failed presidency…..

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

2020 Vote: Biden Wins!

Most people are hoping that is the headline as soon as the count can be verified.

Pundits are throwing the polls at the public which , according to them, looks as if Biden has a sizeable lead in the polls.  (a forecast not a prediction)

According to the metrics at fivethirtyeight.com Biden has a good chance of winning…..

a flurry of national polls as we inch closer to the conventions, but so far, the numbers haven’t moved much. Joe Biden still has a comfortable lead over President Trump in our national polling average and is favored to win the election in our forecast. But remember, Trump still has a meaningful chance of winning — even though the polls are stable now, that doesn’t mean they will stay that way.

  • Another big point of uncertainty? How voting is going to work. Due to the pandemic, many states have already changed their election laws to make voting absentee easier, but the influx of ballots cast by mail risks overwhelming the U.S. Postal Service. In fact, the USPS has already told the state of Pennsylvania that some mail-in ballots might not be delivered to voters on time because “the state’s deadlines are too tight.” Troublingly, Trump has signaled he might not be cooperative in getting the USPS additional funding to help with these problems.
  • We’re tracking all this and more with our new state-by-state guide to voting in the general election. Find out how to vote — by mail or in person if you prefer — plus the key deadlines. We’re keeping it up to date with all the latest changes to election laws that have arisen because of the pandemic.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

But a sound thrashing by Biden over Trump is a bit too optimistic….

This file has been corrected to reflect that 40,000 simulations were run.) Stats guru Nate Silver and his FiveThirtyEight.com team ran 40,000 simulations of the November election and concluded that Joe Biden has a 71% chance of defeating President Trump. This is clearly good news for Biden: “Having a 70-ish percent chance of beating an incumbent in early August before any conventions or debates is far better than the position that most challengers find themselves in,” writes Silver. But he also thinks that widespread predictions of a Biden romp are misguided. He reminds readers that his site’s final forecast in 2016 also had Trump with an identical 29% chance of victory. “So if you’re not taking a 29% chance as a serious possibility, I’m not sure there’s much we can say at this point, although there’s a Zoom poker game that I’d be happy to invite you to.”

Silver runs down the reasons that it’s too early to write off Trump, and one is the “uncertainty index” built into the models. This year, the coronavirus is a big factor in that. A vaccine or a dramatic decline in cases or deaths before November could give Trump a boost. Another issue: Silver expects the race to tighten in the coming months, and it appears that Trump would have an advantage over Biden in the Electoral College in a close race. Of course, uncertainty cuts both ways—it’s possible Biden could widen his lead between now and Election Day. Silver’s bottom line: Biden is in a good position with a “robust” lead, but there’s too much time left to be making assertive predictions about a victory in November.

Most of the info says that Trump could get 40-47% of the vote….now think about that for a moment.

Will we have a repeat of 2016?

My thought is that it is very possible…..

The moral of this story is…DO NOT TRUST POLLS!

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

I Read, I write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”