Predictions from a troubled mind — July to December 2024

The future is not what it’s cracked up to be!

Ol’ Sparky, our Eisenhower-era mainframe computer, is up on the hoist for a transmission rebuild, forcing the faceless bureaucrats to improvise this year’s fearless prognostications. Bad to worse, someone dropped the Magic 8 Ball©, smashing it to smithereens. Scrambling to meet a deadline, we found a slightly used Japanese surveillance device on e-Bay allowing us to see far back into the future. Herewith are our predictions for the second half of 2024:

July

Republican national convention in Milwaukee overrun by bare-chested Democrats wearing horns, animal skins, and face paint.

Latest Dane County jail construction bid demands to be paid in gold bullion. 

Charles III sends Harry to the Tower, gets thee Meghan to a nunnery.

Lost plays of ancient Greek dramatist Euripedes discovered hidden at Mar-a-Lago.

Palestinians convert to Judaism. Problem solved!

August

Latest Dane County jail constriction bids cause intestinal bleeding. 

In Jets 2024 pre-season opener, Aaron Rodgers trips on combination of untied shoe laces and ayahuasca while emerging from locker room tunnel. Out for the season.

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway startles Collectivo coffee shop patrons by wearing red MAGA cap.

Joe Biden puts White House in reverse mortgage, Tom Selleck takes possession. 

119,236 lost mismatched socks found at Mar-a-Lago.

September

Three Badger football players leave through the portal into an extra time dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination.

Californians risk lives to cross Mexican border.

Pope Francis converts to Catholicism. 

Latest Dane County jail constriction bid demands to be paid in small-denomination, unmarked bills in a suitcase deposited next to the A3 pillar in the Lake Street parking ramp every day for the next four months. 

Madison teacher disciplines student. Miraculously, is not fired.

October

Los Angeles Dodgers play themselves in split roster in World Series. Shohei Ohtani wins all seven games.

Trump fires a tearful Bret Baier on air, takes over anchor chair.

Wearing Mike Dukakis’ old tank helmet, Gov. Tony Evers leads expeditionary force into the Upper Peninsula to claim Michigan’s stolen land for Wisconsin.

Dane County Board declares Halloween the 36th paid government employee holiday. 

Big Ten adds Calgary Stampeders from the Canadian Football League.

November

Latest Dane County jail constriction bid demands virgin sacrifices.

Write-in candidate Donald Trump elected President due to Dominion voting machine snafu. Victory speech broadcast from Trump-rebranded Carnival ocean liner, somewhere off the coast of Bimini in international waters, due to outstanding warrants for his arrest.

Ark of the Covenant and entire library of Alexandria found at Mar-a-Lago.

California closed as a fire hazard, EPA Superfund clean-up site.

Big Ten applies for NATO status.

December

Badgers qualify for Waste Management Bowl. Entire offense line opts out, as do three assistant coaches, the equipment manager, and the hotel shuttle driver. 

Taking advantage of global climate change, Wisconsin farmers sow next year’s pineapple crop.

An elderly Leo Burt, missing since the Sterling Hall bombing at the UW in 1970, identified as caretaker at Mar-a-Lago.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s Armeé de la republique bogs down in waist-deep snow 30 kilometers out of Moscow. 

Democrats send “alternate” elector slate to vice president Kamala Harris, who orders all voting machines seized and impounded, along with Brad Raffensperger and a player to be named later.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: takes over Wisconsin State Journal editorial page in daring commando raid! Well, it could happen!

Can we put off the future for awhile?