MY SCORECARD FOR 2015

A new commentary every Wednesday — December 30, 2015

The jury is still out on many of our predictions made in the waning year. Nevertheless, there is some value in recounting the issues.

How have I been right or wrong in the last 12 months? Let me count the ways— beginning on January 7th, 2015, when I took note of the sparsely attended, empty and abandoned Christian churches in Great Britain and much of Europe. Little did I imagine that there will soon be more mosques in the "old country" than Christian places of worship; a real-estate solution I had not dreamed could occur.

On January 14th I asked why there was little done in America to prevent maniacs and terrorists from obtaining guns and on January 28th we told about Russia supplying most of the depleted Uranium for U.S. power plants. Russia is now trading arms for more uranium from the mass murderer Assad of Syria. Nothing truly substantive has been done to affect either issue in the past 12 months. This could be the beginning of a lose-lose proposition. Russia and China have cornered the market on the manufacture and sale of AK-47 Kalashnikov automatic rifles.

February brought questions regarding parents who oppose vaccinations and endanger the lives of their children and other children as well.

In March, I wondered why employers in the United States were being allowed to break the "Illegal Immigration Act of 1996" by getting a free pass (except for a period of time in Maricopa County, Arizona) to hire illegal border crossers. It seems strange for people to say that "there needs to be a law against doing that," when there already is a federal law—with stiff fines—forbidding employers from hiring illegal aliens. The language in the above referenced law provides penalties if employers do not keep a file that requires documentation of employees' national origins and status on a special government form as regards citizenship in the United States. Obviously, the law is not being enforced. Never really was.

I predicted the death of the giant Keystone oil pipeline. Congress subsequently refused to fund it, partially due to the glut of oil from Canadian oil sands and extensive fracking in both North American countries. I can't count this as a "right" or a "wrong," just a pleasant surprise as gas prices plummet. Not so much if you held shares in Exxon or Chevron-Texaco stock.

Early in 2015, that we became attracted by the flack seen on the horizon about a new Star Wars opus. It appears that we Americans are more interested in what is going on in another time and another fictional galaxy rather then the distress afflicting millions displaced by war on Mother Earth. Rack it up to escape-ism, the production of which is Hollywood's chief reason for existence.

Along the way, we did two pieces about global warming. Nothing in my 88 years on this planet triggered a more greater negative response from naysayers—despite the fact that half of the Arctic ice cap has melted and the one over the Antarctic is disintegrating. There are many among us who persist in denying there is any such thing as the greenhouse effect caused by spewing ever greater amounts of particulates into the atmosphere; insisting that this a natural cyclic phenomenon, or worse, left-wing propaganda.

By then, the candidates for President had lined up in droves and I made the preeminent faux pas of my long, error filled life. I predicted that Donald Trump would become toast the minute he was given an opportunity to speak to an audience of more than one. He has ascribed powers to himself that heretofore was the province of Greek gods. I was sure that he would be laughed off the stage the moment after he closed his mouth. Perhaps that's the reason he has done so well. He exudes an unending passion for his excellence in all things. No one in recent history has proclaimed more often "what" he is going to do, without touching upon "how" he plans to accomplish so much.

Suffice to say that he wasn't yanked off the stage, but instead is attracting hordes of adoring adherents. This baffles me more than most any other thing I have experienced in my long life. Though I have listened to the many who try to excuse this aberration for one reason or another, I simply cannot come up with any rational reason for his dominance in the polls. I've never been more wrong about anything, dot com.

-Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself." - Joseph L. Menchen

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