(crossposted
verbatim from the
Cup O' Joe blog, also on Kos)
I have a big post brewing that I hope to get finished before he end of the year, but in the meantime I wanted to announce some minor changes to the site in 2006. Mainly, I'm going to print the text of each daily (well, Monday-Friday) Cup O' Joe Report on the site and make them available for podcasting. I figure increased output will hopefully bring increased readership. Increased readership and listenership are two of my primary goals as far as the blog and radio show is concerned. I don't expect to ever get the numbers of the big blogs, but I would be ecstatic to get about 500-1000 hits a day, even more ecstatic to get enough subscribers to cover my basic necessities; at present I could get by with $800 a month, which is just enough money for rent, bills, and food.
For myself, I'm hoping for a year of full employment, best case scenario being an actual job as a radio host. If things look good financially I will stay at my current address, perhaps even looking to rent the other basement apartment and using my current room as a studio. I may balk at that, unless I can get the landlord to hire some contractors to patch a few things up. If things look really good financially, I'll pay for the contractors myself as a gift to my landlord who was generous enough to allow Cathy and I to stay here despite not being able to pay the rent for many months. I can't imagine where we would be if it weren't for him. My long-term hope is to do the radio gig from home and making enough to buy a small house and building a real studio where guess can sit and be comfortable.
At the very least, I hope to put together a house party/fund-raiser and try to raise about $10,000 to cover the back rent I owe the landlord and improvements on the computer: more memory, a faster chip, and much more hard drive space. If I earn enough money I'd love to get server space from which I could stream "Radio Joe" which would essentially be me tossing my thousands of songs, comedy bits and other assorted items into WinAmp, setting it on shuffle and letting it play. I think I could go a month and not repeat anything.
Always the optimist, me...
Predictions
- I think I'll make this an annual thing. most of these are going to be lame, and many are liable to be just plain wrong, but I'm going with my gut so you take what you get. My gut has been right about a lot of things over the last ten years or so. I think I'll be more accurate with my domestic predictions than my international ones.
I predict, firstly, and this is the one I am most sure about, that Congress will remain roughly as it is after the 2006 elections, mainly due to a combination of electoral fraud, gerrymandering, and apathy. I also predict some obvious shit, like the big community bloggers will remain as cliquish as ever and conversation there will still be slanted towards the Oh Boy Bush Is Gonna Get It Now! crowd.
Bush will of course still be in office in 2006, and there is a slim possibility that Karl Rove and Tom DeLay and possibly a few more high-ranking administration officials will be indicted, and an even slimmer chance that Cheney will be indicted. If the near-impossible happens and both Rove and Cheney are either imprisoned or forced to step down, I predict that Bush will become even more unstable. Rove and Cheney are the real powers behind this administration, Bush can't even watch TV without getting a black eye. It's possible that Bush may even try to pardon a few people, if he does I predict that the right wing will find the lamest excuse to defend it and an even lamer excuse to blame Bill Clinton.
I predict the Democratic leadership will continue to spend more time fighting for their own political careers than they will fighting to save the country, and that moderate Republicans, while maybe occasionally speaking out against the criminality and corruption of the administration. will continue to kowtow to the GOP leadership on substantial issues.
I predict that there will be at least one more catastrophic natural disaster in the US, and that Bush will fumble it again, and he will be defended by the so-called "professional" media. There will be no major terrorist attacks in the US by Islamic fundamentalists, however there will be several small incidents with radical Christians.
I predict that working people in this country, especially poor Southerners, will continue to vote against their interests, and many will continue to make fear and hatred their primary passion when it comes to public policy.
On the international front, I predict that Iraq will become more and more unstable and that a civil war will break out either in summer or directly after: with Kurds attempting to form their own nation-within-a-nation, Sunnis increasing their attacks on US troops and Shi'ite, and Shi'ite starting to fight back in a big way. Ayatollah Sistani will be the most powerful person in Iraq, and Ahmad Chalabi will either be assassinated or be exiled to Iran. There will be stirrings in Saudi Arabia, and we will see the beginning of the end of the rule of the Saud family.
I predict that the European Union will suffer some severe setbacks, however it will survive and in time emerge as a more unified continent.
I predict that China will take further steps in their space program and announce that they will attempt a Moon landing sometime within the next ten years.
I predict that Central America will become more and more anti-American and that the Bush administration will try once more to oust Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, possibly even an assassination attempt.
Anyway, that's about it. Some of the predictions are pretty lame, I know, but I couldn't be any worse than anyone making
real money doing it. Hope you all have a good New Year, hopefully I'll have my big post up by Jan. 1.
(sorry about the title, shows what you have to do to get a little attention around here...happy New Year everyone!)
Cup O' Joe - Blog Of The Working Man!