I generally avoid politics; people have their own views and do not need mine.  I try to stick to things I know a little about: law and occasionally the Boston Red Sox.  (I do better on predicting the former.)

But the name of this site is “Law and Other Anomalies” and the way 2016 is starting out, I cannot resist pointing out a few things that are, well, strange; and we are only five days into the new year.

Do you not find it anomalous that:

One of our staunchest allies in the Mid East, Saudi Arabia, executed 47 people at one time?

When Iranians protested against the execution of a Shiite cleric among the 47, the picture of the protest appearing on the front page of the Wall Street Journal showed the crowd burning the flags of the United States and of Israel, not Saudi Arabia?

When incredibly heightened tensions in the Mid-East must suggest a risk to the supply of crude, the barrel price of oil responded by falling?

Bill Clinton in yesterday’s stump speech in New Hampshire emphasized his support for Hillary by constant reference to his intimate knowledge of Hillary based on his 40 year marriage and their close relationship?

That Democratic Representative Richard Neal, from the Massachusetts Congressional district which houses his largest campaign donor Mass Mutual, would claim that his sponsorship of a bill to lighten regulation on that company’s business (in opposition to the position of his own party’s administration) was merely coincidental?

That Paul Ryan is leading the House, as it reconvenes, to again vote to terminate Obamacare in order to live up to his party’s pledge to its base?

And finally, per headline on page A8 of today’s Boston Globe, “GOP Presidential Hopefuls Poised to Get More Combative”?  (I always love speculation about some development that appears logically impossible.)

Happy New Year to all…..