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Who needs a rockin’ new year’s party when you have the Three Whisky Happy Hour in peak form, dishing out on the top stories of 2023, and, in the spirit of the late financial analyst Byron Wein, offering a range of potential low-probability surprises (rather than firm predictions) for 2024.
What’s the difference between a prediction and a surprise? Well think about it this way: who would have predicted, at year end 2022, that right now our favorite Democratic Senator would be . . . John Fetterman? Black swans everywhere are saying, “I did NOT see that coming!”
But before getting started with your 2024 Bingo card we take note of the dumbest controversy of the week, which is seeing some conservatives upset at the “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America” 2024 calendar, which features fetching photos of leading conservative heroines such as Riley Gaines in fashionable attire. Like bikinis.
Seriously—what’s the matter with this?
Along the way we learn that somewhere in a box in her garage, Lucretia has some modeling photos from her time doing the Jane Fonda workout back in the 1980s, and so we’re committing ourselves to producing a 3WHH calendar at some point. (Meanwhile, Steve laments the loss of the classic Snap-On Tools calendars, which were discontinued in 1994. And why hasn’t Snap-On thought of reviving that calendar for our transgender moment?)
And speaking of attractive women in unattractive poses, Nikki Haley got her second strike this week (her first being the blunder several weeks ago of proposing to ban anonymous accounts on social media) when she completely flubbed the “planted” question about the cause of the Civil War. We deplore her Kamala-esque answer and attempts a cleaning it up, but are relieved that at least she didn’t say “tariffs.”
And as befits any fast-moving party conversation, we take surprising digressions, such as a detour into the legacy of Edward Tufte, who reminds us that Stalin had the greatest Power Point presentations (“no one has bullet points like Stalin’s bullet points!”) and also the single greatest chart of all time.
Eventually we get down to business with our picks for Story of the Year for 2023 (hint: Steve says “party like it’s 1954!”), and our surprises for 2024. Get your Bingo cards ready. And also enjoy our exit bumper music this week from Spike Jones. Happy new year!
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Lately, I’ve been comparing Pat Benatar’s career to Taylor Swift’s. Benatar may not have been quite as popular as Swift. I don’t think she had a concert where the audience was so raucus that it set off seismic sensors.
Yet, as I lived through the period I noticed that a lot of young women of the time had what I called the Pat Benetar look, which included their emulating her hairstyle.
So when Lucretia said that she modeled herself after Benater when she was young, that was another datapoint for me.
Today, the young women of today would not remember who Benatar was. But she had a pretty smooth glide path from her time as a top of the charts pop star. She still performs, obviously to dedicated older audiences, and from what I can see from Wikipedia, she has dealt with her fall from the top very well.
I predict the same for Taylor Swift. If she continues to perform, or chooses to retire, she’ll have a pretty good life. She’s business savvy, so she’ll continue to have an impactful life behind the scenes, but culturally no one will know who she is, much like Benatar. She’s ambitious enough to want her music to be longer lasting than it is, but I’m not seeing it. Her adherents are too limited to young women, and I suspect that her music isn’t crossing over to the black or hispanic communities or men of all American sub-cultures.
On John Yoo’s assertion that all the Chinese have to do is wait regarding the takeover of Taiwan, and that time is on China’s side, I say not entirely.
China has a low fertility rate, and at some point, that’s going to affect military “recruitment” if it hasn’t already.
According to Google, Taiwan has a slightly lower fertility rate than China, but there’s evidence that what China releases as statistics should be taken with a grain of salt.
As far as the interests of the United States and Taiwan, already chip factories are moving to other countries, including Mexico. As an aside, China has been buying or building their own factories in Mexico, which is a concern for us, but it also highlights that China has less people coming to adulthood to man the factories it has in their own country.
There are plenty of experts who think that China’s demographic crisis will result in an economic collapse. There are other countries like Japan that are better dealing with their own demographic problems. With their top down control economy, China won’t be able to adjust to their own future.
Taiwan will also probably be able to adjust better to their own lower population than China does.
You included the infographic in the post. Here’s a video explaining it.
Very cool.
Thanks!
This cradle Catholic who relies on the plain meaning of words has no problem noting that this Pope is scandalously careless as he flirts around the edges of schism.
St.JPII and Benedict are aching at what this man says and how he says it. He should be defending doctrine instead of priests and the laity having to defend HIM….he’s simply awful.
BUT….the MSM does not know nor care that the Pope is NOT the Church, as much as they would like him to be especially when this Jesuit Papa is so imprecise that the MSM can spin his every utterance into whatever they desire.
I can agree with you on all accounts. The MSM definitely takes what he says — which is bad enough as it is — and distorts it to make it worse. I always go to the original Italian to see what he actually said.
You may be right about their career trajectories, but was Benatar ever as huge as Swift is now? She was big, but was she ever a household name like Madonna in the ’90s or Swift today? I am 66, and though I cannot name a single Taylor Swift song, seldom does a day go by that I don’t hear/see her name.
Enjoyable episode, as always. I enjoy welcoming John, Steve, and The International Woman of Mystery into my home every Sunday evening. Best to all, and my fellow TWHH listeners in 2024.
This Loudon Wainwright III song, This Year, seems fitting for 2023/24.
“Last year was a fiasco, a real disaster, so full of sorrow.”
Bing Videos
As someone who started a career in USAF Intel/China in 1967, I am suggesting that we must NOT be surprised if Xi decides to probe Taiwan BEFORE the US election —(more than the simple violations of the Taiwan Air Defense Zone and shuffling of landing ships, etc) to determine the Biden (lack of?) response AND Trump’s rhetoric.
The probe will involve some low level of violence —and then Xi will NOT immediately respond to the West’s response, the better to determine what he can do and when he can move post the US election. That he has NOT taken advantage of Biden’s dithering now as we deplete our armament resources (see the CSIS report) in Ukraine and Israel remains a surprise to me…He’s the dog that is not barking.
It would be interesting to know how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected China’s calculations. Some people I’ve talked to wonder if China will try to take one of Taiwan’s smaller islands before attempting the main island as a sort of warmup.
Great episode, happy new year – I see that my late listen has proven John correct on Gay resigning. I also can explain why Biden is in the ballot instead of someone else: He performs best where it counts.
That’s it. Say what you want, but Biden popularity in numerous swing states, especially the rust belt/blue wall states, had been shown again and again to outperform Newsom et. al. both internal and public polls are showing this.
Realize that as surprising as this might be to many who don’t quite understand the voting habits of those swing voters who decide those states, it is even more sobering to think what our means for the future of the Democratic coalition… realignment is going to hurt in those very very important states…
Maybe.
Happy new year, merry Christmas season, joyful Epiphany!