Two predictions: one good (but bad), one not so good

Keeping up with my undangerous predictions for 2013, my prediction that Caroline Wozniacki would win a Grand Slam this year still isn't looking too great.  She's definitely not the equal of Kvitova, Azarenka, Sharapova, and Williams.  I think it's very  unlikely that those four would all falter in a Slam, and there's several other pretty good players out there now, too.  Woz will have to step it up a few notches to get the major silverware.

Kvitova pummels Wozniacki to reach Dubai final

On the other hand, the sequester cuts will hit the national parks very hard. Still no word of actual full-park closures, but they are getting closer, with full areas, campgrounds, visitor centers, and entrances being closed or opening later in the season.   I think that a demonstration will be enacted by one of the park managers to show the f*cking GOP that caused this mess (see the links and quotes further below in this post) what dumbasses they really are.    I could also add heartless idiot bastards. So I will.

A look at potential sequester cuts to national parks

Examples:
* Glacier National Park, Mont.: Delayed opening of the only road that provides access to the entire park.

* Grand Teton National Park, Wyo.: Close the Jenny Lake Visitor Center, Lawrence S. Rockefeller Preserve and the Flagg Ranch Information Station impacting 300,000 visitors.

* Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, HI: Invasive species would go untreated.  [ Very serious problem on the islands).

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About that stupid sequester:

In sequester fight, there are no winners

"Even more absurd is the fact that there are unnecessary crises yet to come. In another month, the federal government faces a shutdown unless Congress keeps it running by passing a continuing resolution. And not far down the road, there will be another fight over preventing default by raising the debt ceiling.

Obama is likely to continue winning “victories” that only King Pyrrhus could love. The president is aided by the fact that public opinion is with him on two key points: Elected officials were not sent to Washington to do gratuitous harm; and the nation’s fiscal woes should be addressed with a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases."

Ruth Marcus is EXACTLY right here.

Republicans rewrite history on the sequester

"The underlying concept, from Democrats’ view, was never to implement the $1.2 trillion through spending cuts alone. Rather, the threat of sequester was to be leverage for a blend of spending cuts and tax increases. Sequester is happening because Republicans in the supercommittee balked at raising adequate revenue. [And they were instructed by their Congressional leadership NOT to accept any deal that included new revenue.]

Second, no matter whose brainchild it was, Republicans voted for a deal that included the sequester as the enforcement mechanism. They can’t now disown their vote by insisting it was the other guy’s idea."

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So, and I will be repeating this mantra many times:  the sequestration is totally the Republicans' fault, and the recession it will cause is ALSO the Republicans fault.  All the hardships, longer lines, reduced services, less availability of those things we Americans have a right to as citizens of this great country -- all those things are the Republicans' fault.