So back in January, I made some predictions. At mid-year, how am I doing on the ones we can verify?

National Politics

• Hilary Clinton will be nominated the Democratic candidate for President

Correct, but Bernie gave her a run, much better than I would have expected

• The Republicans will go into their convention with no candidate having locked up the nomination. Donald Trump will either be kingmaker or run on a third part slate.

I was one of the few that thought Trump would do well. I am saddened that he did so well. My only hope at this point is that his candidacy brings about the complete collapse of the Republican party as we know it for the next 20 years. We need a Grand New Party at this point

• Hilary will win the election, especially if Trump goes the third party route

Too early to call, but I’m sticking with this projection. 

• Democrats will not take over the House

Ditto, but I think the Dems will take over the Senate

• There will be no significant progress on the issue of gun control. The Texas model of open carry is likely to become the Next Big Thing for the NRA and will be successful in more states than Texas. Obama’s actions of today may alter this considerably.

The Orlando massacre will probably have the effect of raising up the racist, homophobic position of Trump and will make it more acceptable among some. Another such attack between now and the election would definitely benefit Trump more. Can you say “internment camp for mid-East Muslims”?

The Republicans will continue to cave to the NRA. There will be no progress until those who are against gun control are voted out of office. The best solution would be a Constitutional Amendment revising/rescinding the 2nd Amendment, but I can’t see it happening

• The Supreme Court will gut <pick your favorite rational position>

With the passing of Scalia and Republican intransigence on conducting hearings to decide the next, the Court is not it a position to change much of anything. My hope is that Clinton wins, the Dems take the Senate, and that Clinton puts forward a much younger, liberal slate to fashion Court decisions for the next 20 years

Sports

• Tiger Woods will not win a tournament of any kind and will at the end of 2016 announce his retirement from golf

To early to call, but so far on track, sadly

• Jordan Spieth and Rory McElroy will win two majors each

Not this year …

• The Gunners will win the Premier League. Man United will finish in the middle of the pack with a new coach. Chelsea will escape relegation.

Who the hell would have picked Leister City?? The rest of it pretty much on track.

• UEFA finalists will be Real Madrid and Bayern Muenchen

Too early. 

• The Arizona Cardinals will beat the Pats in the Super Bowl

Nope. Not even close.

• In basketball, meh, who cares? But it’s hard to see anybody matching up with Golden State

Still looks good to me, but that’s why they play the game

• In NASCAR, double meh
• I don’t follow tennis, so pick ’em, or Venus, Venus, Venus

Pick ’em

Technology

• The divide between those who have technical understanding and those who don’t will grow ever wider, much to the detriment of those who don’t, which leads to

Hard to measure, but I’m stickin’ with it.

• The utter lack of rational policy making. The calls to “shut down the Internet to ISIS”, however desirable, demonstrate this in spades.  This will continue to lead to bad policy decisions and threats to privacy will continue unabated. Expect even more compromises to personal data. This will not change until members of Congress themselves are attacked, and even then they will find it easy to do the wrong thing.

At least we now have the ruling on “Internet as a commodity” / Net Neutrality, so that’s something

• Audio book sales will grow more dramatically than e-books

Dead on target. Listen to anything that Will Patton reads. The Stephen King Mercedes Man series is especially good

• Amazon won’t have drones delivering goods in 2016 (but no bets on 2017)

So far so good

• The Monster that is Amazon’s Web business (AWS) will continue to crush the competition, and widen the gap between itself and others even further. This is a huge story that has received very little play. I’d worry more if I weren’t benefiting so much from it.

Ditto

Personal

• We will close on our new house before the end of April

Correct

• I will blog more than in 2015 as measured by the number of blog entries

I need to get a move on to make this one come true. So far I’ve been awful

• 2016 will be a better year altogether than 2015 (now there’s a prediction that’s impossible to measure except if I say so)

Jury is still out.