IDLE COMMENTS ON MATTERS ABOUT WHICH I KNOW NOTHING

1.  The Missing Malaysian Airliner:  Since no one, it seems, knows anything about what happened to the airliner and where it is, I choose to believe that it crash-landed in a valley deep in the Himalayas where the passengers have found a people who live happily to incredibly old age.  I predict that if one of the stranded passengers falls in love with an apparently young woman who is actually well over a hundred, and foolishly persuades her to leave the valley to make their way back to "civilization," she will grow old before his eyes and die as soon as they are outside the valley.  [For those of you who think I have lost my mind, see the great 1937 film Lost Horizon, starring Ronald Coleman and Jane Wyatt.]

2.  Crimea:  Well, my uninformed prediction seems to have been correct.  Putin is indeed attempting to reconstitute as much of the old Soviet Union as he can.  I rather suspect that in a little while there will be claims that Russian-speaking peoples in Eastern Ukraine are being discriminated against, and are asking Russia for help, which Putin will reluctantly but dutifully supply, in the form of Russian troops.  In retaliation, America and the EU will freeze more funds by Russian plutocrats, causing, among other things, a dip in the prices of apartments in Paris.  Oh well, we must all sacrifice for the greater national good.

3.  I very much fear that the feckless Millenials will fail to turn out next November, with the result that the Republicans will take control of the Senate, making the next two years even worse hell than the last two.  Fortunately, the Democrats only need to hold their losses to six seats, because in a split Senate, the Vice-President has the deciding vote.

4.  Next Monday, the blog 3QD, or Three Quarks Daily, will announce this year's Politics and Social Science Prizes.  It seems that a blog post I wrote six months ago called "How To Do History" is a finalist.  The site does not say what the winners actually get, aside from the enormous honor of having their blog posts noticed momentarily.  Inasmuch as I have never, in eighty years, won anything, I await the outcome with bated breath.  There are nine finalists and three prizes [First, Second , and Third.]   Can any Bayesians out there tell me whether my chances are one in three of winning something?