Nuts for the Nutcracker Season

A collection of quotations offered with no editorial comment.

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“I threw a potato. Mum brandished a knife … would whole-family therapy save our Christmas?”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/dec/20/whole-family-therapy-save-christmas-arguments-mental-health?utm_term=69464cfab5413539f1b25578f026c663&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

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Evangelical preacher Franklin Graham told participants at the Pentagon ‘s “Christmas Worship Service” that the “God of love” they’re familiar with “also hates.”

Graham addressed troops and Pentagon employees Thursday at the event hosted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his wife, Jennifer Hegseth.

“You know, we think about, God is a God of love,” Graham said before reciting Bible verse John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that he whoever believeth in him shouldn’t perish, but have everlasting life.”

GRAHAM CONTINUED, “WE KNOW THAT GOD LOVES, BUT DID YOU KNOW THAT GOD ALSO HATES? DO YOU KNOW THAT GOD ALSO IS A GOD OF WAR? AND MANY PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT THAT, OR FORGET THAT.”

https://www.yahoo.com/?err=404&err_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2Ffranklin-graham-says-god-hates-1738%2F

^^^

J. D. Vance about Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer:

“He rejected the conservatism and the spirituality, the values of a small-town family. He moved into a small apartment . . .”

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/vance-rebrands-maga-revenge-as-a-christian-crusade.html

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Lawyer Isaac Mills at the 1925 trial Rhinelander vs. Rhinelander:

“There isn’t a father among you who would not rather see his son in his casket than to see him wedded to a mulatto woman.” 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/magazine/rhinelander-trial-interracial-marriage.html?searchResultPosition=1

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[Alan] Dershowitz argued a different interpretation when presenting Trump with a copy of his book, entitled Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term? – due to be published next year – in a meeting in the Oval Office.

“I said ‘it’s not clear if a president can become a third term president and it’s not clear if it’s permissible,’” Dershowitz told the Journal.

He said Trump “found it interesting as an intellectual issue” and said he planned to read the book.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/18/trump-third-term-alan-dershowitz

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When President Donald Trump visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon in 2018, he reportedly showed little interest in the estate or in the first president. But Trump did have a critique of his predecessor. “If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” he reportedly said. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff, or no one remembers you.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2025/12/donald-trump-naming-american-institutions/685362/

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"We’re sorry your daughter hates you, Elon," [Governor  Gavin Newsom’s] press office wrote on X, a platform that Musk owns.

The SpaceX CEO came back with a blistering response, doubling down on his refusal to call Wilson his daughter.

"I assume you’re referring to my son, Xavier, who has a tragic mental illness caused by the evil woke mind virus you push on vulnerable children.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/elon-musk-blasts-newsom-office-173114117.html

 

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[Katie]Britt [Republican senator from Alabama] tells [Katie] Miller [Stephen Miller’s wife] that her decision to run for Senate was a religious calling, and that when her son was 10 years old, he came to her and asked to speak privately. He then presented her with a list of reasons for why she needed to run. “I want people to know how much you love Jesus,” he told her. “I want them to know what a good mom you are.” Then he added: “Mom, I definitely think they need to know about your passion for small business.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/12/donald-trump-stephen-miller-wife-katie-news.html

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South Korean president Lee Jae Myung has instructed his government to consider extending public health insurance to cover hair-loss treatments, arguing that baldness has become a “matter of survival” rather than a cosmetic concern for young people.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/19/south-korean-president-urges-public-health-cover-hair-loss

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Citing things that work against the “social reinforcement” of fertility that “fertility cults” provide, [Scott Yenor, appointed as Heritage’s new director of the B Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies], said the “most pernicious of these things” are “young women who want to be known for their minds”, adding: “I’m glad that you have a good mind, but if that’s what you want to be known for, like, you’re not going to have kids.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/15/heritage-foundation-thinktank-scott-yenor

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FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino has publicly distanced himself from his own conspiracy rhetoric, offering a striking walk-back of claims he made before joining the agency’s leadership. . . .

“I was paid in the past for my opinions, that’s clear, and one day I’ll be back in that space,” Bongino declared. “But that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/bongino-makes-jaw-dropping-admission-101852136.html

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During a marathon Tuesday Cabinet meeting filled with the president’s secretaries lauding him with praise, [Kristi] Noem thanked Trump for keeping hurricanes at bay.

“You made it through the hurricane season without a hurricane—you kept the hurricanes away. We appreciate that,” she said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/newsom-trolls-ice-barbie-she-215030034.html

 

How Was Your Beige Year?

Are you ready for “Cloud Dancer”? 

Various media have reported this week that a color by that name is to be 

2026 “Color of the Year.”  

Who says so? Why, Pantone, a private company whose pronouncements

every year are treated as if they have the authority of a new posting of 

Internal Revenue Service regulations. The New York Times, for one, 

converged a panel of four writers from their Styles department to debate 

the choice of “Cloud Dancer” (overkill, perhaps?).

Incidentally, “Cloud Dancer” is merely fancy, shmancy for “White.” 

According to Pantone Color Institute vice president Laurie Pressman, 

“An ethereal white hue, PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer serves as a symbol of calming influence in a frenetic society rediscovering the value of measured consideration.” 

As you may recall, the “Color of the Year” for 2025 was beige. (1)

How was your beige year?

*

I’m declaring the 2026 “Color of the Year” to be strawberry. And I’m not convening a panel to discuss it!

*

From time to time, this blog has commiserated with the ultra-rich over their various discontents with their lot in the modern world. (2) We return to the subject today with the plight of David Rubenstein, billionaire co-founder of the Carlyle Group, a global investment fund. (3) 

By his own admission, Rubenstein “plowed millions—‘modest amounts,’ he calls the sum—into his children’s private-equity funds.” Alas, 

[t]oo much comfort, he said, puts the children of the wealthy at a disadvantage. “You might have grown up spoiled, without the drive to achieve something.”

Excuse me, while I dry my eyes.

*

To go back to the old (maybe apocryphal) exchange between Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald:

Fitzgerald: “The rich are different from you and me.”

Hemingway: “Yes, they have more money.”

The true response would be: 

“Yes, they have no awareness of their fatuity.”

***

(1)  https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2024/12/too-cold.html

(2)  https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-discontent-of-ultrarich.html

       https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7509882774440556801/4687582235502923161

(3)  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2025/12/david-rubenstein-carlyle-kennedy-center-private-equity/684985/

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UPDATE

In a recent blog (https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2025/11/trust-me-im-doctor.html), I speculated that the "MRI" that Trump allegedly underwent was really a stress test because of his “chronic venous insufficiency.” On Dec. 2, it was reported that Dr. Ron Blankstein, a preventive cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, pointed to the phrase “no evidence of arterial narrowing limiting blood flow” in Trump's physician's report, which suggested, he said,

that the president underwent a stress test, which could mean a doctor suspected or wanted to rule out heart disease. Most standard M.R.I. exams, he said, do not show the coronary arteries.*

• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/health/trump-mri-results.html 

 

Influenced by the Moon

I have in the past written about predictions that were horribly wrong. (1) Today I wish to return to the subject of prognostication, because so many examples of silliness have come across my radar recently.

But first—a tip of the hat to A. J. Liebling of The New Yorker, who, in 1949, foresaw the shrinkage of New York City’s dailies because of consolidation: “If the trend continues, New York will be a one- or two-paper town by about 1975.” He may have been off by a few years and a paper or two, but was keenly aware of what the trend was.

On the other hand, here’s our latest walk of shame (from the 1940s to today):

John T. Flynn, a commentator on the political scene, in 1939 “predicted that Social Security would be under water by 1970, and insolvent by 1980.” (2)

Cosmopolitan’s Horoscope:

In 1948, Queen Elizabeth gave birth to the son who would be heir to the throne. He was christened Charles Philip Arthur George. Time magazine opined that “the baby would probably ascend the throne as George VII.”

Like John T. Flynn (above), James Burnham moved across the political spectrum from left to right. In its April 26, 1947 issue, The New Yorker gives us a breakdown of some of Burnham’s predictions:

Mr. Burnham was equally generous with ominous predictions in two earlier books. In 'The Managerial Revolution. published in 1941, he predicted, with a few small "if"s, that Germany would win the war (p. 247), consolidate the European Continent and smash the British Empire (p. 177); that the world would coalesce into three super-states-Japan, Germany, and the United States (p. 178)—with half of Russia going to Germany and half to Japan (p. 225); that the governments-in-exile would never be restored (p. 173) and Europe would never again be broken into a score of sovereign states, since any attempt to do so would collapse within twenty months (p. 246); that capitalist states could not fight a modern war adequately (p. 267); that American youth would never fight willingly, since it had nothing to fight for (p. 190); and so forth.

"The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom,” published in 1943, Mr. Burnham's alarm was unabated. He predicted that a terrific economic crisis would occur soon after the end of the war and that public debt would be repudiated all over the world (p. 259); that the war would not end with a victorious coalition writing a peace (p. 234) ; that Japan would not be crushed for many years, perhaps never (p. 260); that our Army would never again shrink from its wartime size and influence (p. 233); and that the Roosevelt administration, to get reelected in 1944, would have to suspend political liberties (p. 260).

Is it any wonder that he became a leading light of William Buckley’s National Review?

Here’s a prediction that is less than a month old: “Jack Ciattarelli will win N.J.’s red-hot governor’s race on Tuesday.” That’s Tom Martello at https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/11/jack-ciattarelli-will-win-njs-red-hot-governors-race-on-tuesday.html

+++

💡Researchers at Tsinghua University (Chun Liu and Shunzhi Pang) studied LinkedIn posts of 727 financial analysts and their forecasting performance over 2021–2023, covering forecasts for 3,336 U.S. firms.  

💡They discovered that analysts who used highly positive, expressive, self-promotional language tended to make less accurate predictions.  

💡Paradoxically, those same analysts who performed worse were more likely to receive career promotions, especially if they had fewer followers, less experience, or were male. (3)

Back in the 40s, The New Yorker informed its readers that someone queried “the reference library of the House of Commons and received the following pronouncement: ‘In Great Britain any adult twenty-one years of age or over may register and vote except peers and lunatics.’”

The line between prognosticators and lunatics is a thin one. Best to keep both out of the voting booth.

***

(1) https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-were-saying-milord.html

https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2023/03/crystal-ball-for-sale.html

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T._Flynn#cite_note-5

(3)  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ketanmakwana_boasting-on-linkedin-a-good-way-to-mask-incompetence-activity-7378877061488189441--jjl