For the new year, I have decided to sharpen up my decision-making process. The goal, as always, is complete infallibility. To that end, I am currently test-driving a new approach to screening incoming data. Here it is: never believe anything anyone says — ever.

I have high hopes for this new mindset. For starters, it relieves me from the need to listen to other people at all. I mean, if you aren’t going to trust whatever it is they’re going on about, why pay attention at all? No offense, but all that fact-checking was really chewing into my leisure time.

One still has to make choices, of course. But I am finding that, with dead reckoning and good, old-fashioned horse sense, one can do just fine — without all the messy second-guessing and self-doubt! Anyway, it’s working like a charm so far. I have plenty of free time, and life has become so much simpler.

If you have any thoughts about my breakthrough, please send along your input. I’ll ignore it, but you know, no offense.

An H-bomb
In a bottle?

Please, take your time
And get it right

A hundred million
Degrees inside?

It should be
(At least) airtight

We hope ten years
Will be enough

To deliver us
From climate blight

‘Cause if it is
Much more than that

I’d have to say
“Not quite”

Time
And light
Came first
Then space
Then matter
Then us
And finally
Gods
And more gods
And now
We wait
For something
New

It’s been obvious for a while now that the Republican Party is in the process of committing suicide. It’s been long, drawn out, and ugly — and getting uglier every day. My main concern is not that we are losing an important counterpoint to left-wing policies. That disappeared a long time ago. My worry now is that the rest of us will be sucked down the rathole with them.

Once upon a time, Republicans represented a calm, moderate (if somewhat boring) force for common decency and fiscal restraint. They were holding their own against the Dems, but they didn’t have anything snazzy like Social Security or Medicare to brag about.

Then, in the 80s, they came up with supply-side economics — and abandoned the whole fiscal restraint thing. Supply-side was a fantasy, it was a crock, but they actually seemed to believe it. Cutting taxes, they told us, would actually bring more revenue into the U.S. Treasury. Yes, I know. That’s just stupid.

But they insisted it was true. That was the first death knell of the old Republican Party. The second came in the early 90s, when they left behind their reputation for basic human decency and began to follow the lead of Newt Gingrich. The result: a zombie party. Not only stupid, but mean. It’s a party that has come to believe a whole bunch of things that aren’t true. Global warming is a hoax. Corporations are people. Money is a form of speech. Saddam has nukes.

And now: Trump is a truth-teller, elections are rigged, Jewish space lasers started those fires in California. Yes, the zombie GOP ship is going under, and its leaders have been busy throwing everything overboard. First it was sensible economics, then science, then principles, then humanity itself. And finally, their best people. Over the side and gone. And they won’t be coming back

Come January, with their return to power in the House, we will see what is left of the Republican Party. As we have said, it will be ugly. Full of grievance and cruelty and dark, conspiratorial visions. Yes, it will be laughable and pathetic, but also dangerous. That ugliness will still be capable of wrecking everything.

So what are the rest of us to do? Well, we should start by moving the furniture out of the way. Put away anything breakable. Lock up the silver. Then, find a comfortable, secure location from which to witness the death throes of the GOP. And pack a lunch; this could go on for a while.

We will surely miss them. Having a genuine loyal opposition is vital to the health of the republic. But we will be so-o-o happy to see this bunch go.