Smart Bomb’s predictions for 2024 

It's that time of year again when the staff here at Smart Bomb looks forward to the coming year. But since Wilson and the band broke our crystal ball, we've had to look elsewhere for help making our annual predictions. So we turned to psychic Helga Olga Helga for some answers that might help guide us and you through the New Years:
— Great Salt Lake returns to capacity as alfalfa farming is banned along the Bear River.
— UTA gives up on light rail in favor of a system of gondolas.
— The Rio Tinto mining group plans 2034 Olympic Opening Ceremony in Kennecott's open-pit mine.
— Major League Baseball comes to American Fork.
— Mayor Erin Mendenhall takes Main Street back from Mormon Church.
— Mayor Erin Mendenhall excommunicated from Mormon Church.
— Utah Legislature approves Critical Race Theory but bans the word “slavery.”
— The Utah towns of Beaver and Virgin sign a joint tourism agreement forming the Virgin Beaver Resort.
— Gov. Spencer Cox selected as running mate for Donald Trump after signing an NDA.
— The Utah Jazz win the NBA championship and then trade away all the starters.

LDS Church Blows Out the Stops to Remake Downtown
Holy Moroni have you seen the new plans for Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City? It's going to make the Vatican look like a Tooele trailer park.

Smart Bomb's old pal, Tribune ace Tony Semerad, blew the lid off the heavenly inspired blueprint that would make Brigham Young blush. No Wilson, we are not making this up. The massive makeover would extend Temple Square to 400 West in time to welcome the 2034 Winter Olympics and show the world that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints knows how to build a mall.

Final plans are still in flux, so the staff here at Smart Bomb reached out to architects Dewey, Cheatem & Howe to get a feel for what it will look like. Interesting options include renovating the historic Hotel Utah that morphed into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in 2000 when Main Street was permanently closed and Temple Square became “A Little Bit of Paris.” It could become the Saints Zion Museum.

Inside, Olympic visitors could see life-like robots reenacting scenes, like Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates from the Angel Moroni and other Mormon history, such as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Rather than “A Little Bit of Paris,” the new Temple Square could be dubbed “A Little Bit of The Celestial Kingdom.” Let the Games begin.

Gaslighting All the Way to the White House
Every four years, things get weird. That's because politicians rewrite history to convince voters they're hallucinating on LSD or just demented. Case in point: the Civil War was not about slavery. No, of course not, it was about the economy and state's rights and God didn't make little green apples and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley stepped in it when asked what caused the Civil War. "I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was gonna run... ," Haley said.

It was, no doubt, a trick question posed by a Democratic political operative. Republicans don't like to say the S-word, 'cause if there was slavery, then there would be the struggle for civil rights, the Voting Rights Act, racial quotas and all kinds of un-American stuff that points to our history of unspeakable ... freedom.

Or as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis likes to say: Slavery was good because slaves learned skills they could use when they got free. Or as Supreme Court Justice John Roberts like to say: We don't need the Voting Rights Act anymore 'cause there is no longer any racial discrimination. That's why states such as Florida, Arkansas, Missouri and others are banning African-American History. Rewriting the past can be so rewarding.

Postscript—That's a wrap for a warm and wonderful holiday and a hideous 2023 here at Smart Bomb, where we keep track of national electoral politics so you don't have to. (WARNING: Watching news on television is harmful to your health.) It's light years to the presidential election, although the campaign has been going on since anybody can remember.

Media types and pundits began talking about the 2024 election the minute after Joe Biden was sworn in. Do we really need to hear from Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and that Ramaswamy dude blabbing on every single day? In some places, words don't mean what they mean. For example, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President or hold any office, civil or military ... who, having previously taken an oath ... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

This, of course, doesn't mean Trump can't be president because it just can't mean what it says. And besides, who said he engaged in insurrection or gave aid to insurrectionists. You just can't believe your lyin' eyes.

A new year, Wilson, and we should be on the lookout for good stuff and try to ignore the bad stuff. It's a mean world out there and we ought to listen to the guy who said it's up to all of us to make a difference. So wake up the band and take us out with a little something to help us jettison some of the cynicism:

As I walk through / This wicked world
Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity.
I ask myself / Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?