I've never tried this before, but I thought I'd start out the new year with some predictions about a wide number of things. It'll be interesting to look back next year and see how I fared. Here they are:
1. The Democrats will pick up many seats in the November elections, possibly enough to retake control of the Senate.
2. The number of troops in Iraq will be below 90,000 by the time the elections take place in November, possibly below 75,000.
3. NCAA Final Four teams: Duke, UConn, Villanova and Michigan State. National Champion: UConn (and it kills me to say that).
4. The Pistons will win the NBA title for the 2nd time in 3 years.
5. The Indianapolis Colts will win the Super Bowl.
6. Brokeback Mountain will win the Oscar for best picture. The anti-gay crowd will scream bloody murder about the "moral relativism" of Hollywood (I know, that's not a terribly risky prediction).
7. Britney Spears and Kevin Federline will split up for good. Federline will return to his natural habitat (a shabby trailer park in Louisiana) and will next be seen on television in an episode of Cops (without his shirt, of course).
8. Katie Holmes will give birth to a baby that bears a striking resemblance to John Travolta. Tom Cruise will go on anti-depressants and be caught in a threesome with Brooke Shields and Matt Lauer.
9. Karl Rove will be indicted for perjury, prompting renewed calls for impeachment hearings.
10. Adam Sandler will make a movie where he plays a lovable loser whose path to success is blocked by a really mean person, but in the end he'll miraculously overcome the odds and get the girl too.
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10. Adam Sandler will make a movie...
Are you referring to The Benchwarmers, Click, or Reign O'er Me? The latter may even fit the Sandler forumla, despite being a serious film co-starring Don Cheadle.
Beyond that, I don't know which is the more facetious prediction: your Tom Cruise fantasy, or the notion that Democrats can retake the Senate this year.
Pretty crummy year in movies. I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, but one of my favorite movies of the year is a British film called My Summer of Love which is about two lesbians (though it isn't as big of a point of the movie as homosexuality seems to be for Brokeback Mountain).
Excellent predictions, but there were none regarding the status of the ID movement. Too tough to call?
I'll make a ten year prediction in this vein: In the year 2016 the word "Dembski" will not be used as a referrent to a proponent of the new "Intelligently Engineered" concept of biological development. Instead, it will be a pejorative term used by people in all walks of life referring to getting censored for dissenting views.
As in, "I just got dembskied in my high school science class for bringing up the idea of common descent!"
Or: "Chief justice John Roberts dembskied the minority members of the SCOTUS today for their views regarding the Bush (Jeb) administration's implementation of mandatory prayer at all public gatherings."
Your predictions a remarkably specific and noticably lacking in vagueness. You would never make it as a psychic; witness Sylvia Brownes predictions for 2000 at
http://www.sylvia.org/home/2000pred.cfm
I particularly like no. 28:
'Democrats will win the election with Bill Bradley, with close competition from the Reform Party.'
and no. 31:
'Organized religion becomes gentler and kinder and more liberal, which goes along with spirituality and in keeping with Christ's words.'
Amazingly, she has kept this list up for 6 years for all to see!
Hmm.
#1: May happen IF the Democrats can figure out something to say other than "those other guys really suck!"
#2: No doubt, just in time for elections. Declare victory, and withdraw.
#3: As a UConn grad (for grad school), what's your beef, bud? Go Huskies!
#4: Forget UConn, this makes me sad.
#7: Too easy on that one, Ed.
#9: Would make for an interesting year.
#10: Like #7.
The Colts won't win the Super Bowl, the Boston Patriots will.
More to the point, regarding (6) as much as I might like to see BBM win academy awards--and as you well know, I am gay--I would like to see the major awards going to George Clooney's "Good Night And Good Luck." That would make an important political statement--and I was raised in Cincinnati, where his father, veteran newsman Nick Clooney, is still writing columns for the Cincinnati Post newspaper. I cannot prove it, but I presume that that is the genesis of George's interest in the news profession. I haven't yet seen the movie (I will when it comes out on DVD) but from the excerps and trailors, it is clear that he has an interest in the journalism profession.
Actually, I would be interested in seeing if Joseph McCarthy is nominated for "best supporting actor." Clooney's use of his original recordings--instead of an actor--was absolutely masterful. Note that I am not saying that McCarthy was a sympathetic character--far from it.
This was a terrible year in which two amazing movies are vying against each other. That probably has not happened since 1939 (Gone With The Wind vs. The Wizard Of Oz). What might happen is that most of the major awards will go to Good Night & Good Luck, and that best director will go to Ang Lee for BBM.
Given what you say in #2, what is your fate filled prediction for the price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline come next summer--given the current large discrepency between the price of oil/barrel, increasing world wide usage, and the artifically subsidized (read avoiding windfall profits taxes) price of gas at the pump?????
Sylvia Brown's predictions for the next 100 years are even better:
http://www.sylvia.org/home/2000plus.cfm
14. People will be able to simply "walk out" of their bodies upon death.
18. West Coast goes under in 2026. Parts of the East Coast also get inundated. Tsunamis will wipe out a large portion of Japan. The Hawaiian Islands will have upheaval and be the site of a large new landmass.
40. Aliens will begin to show themselves in the year 2010, they will not harm us, they simply want to see what we are doing to this planet. They will teach us how to use anti-gravity devices again, such as they did for the pyramids.
Amazing!
I predict that the impeachment hearings will ocurr before Rove is indicted - or shortly after but definately before the 2006 elections so that when Cheney gets booted too there will still be a repub president and the repubs will keep more seats by following the will of the people. . .
Treban at January 2, 2006 10:23 PM
It is doubtful that Cheney's ticker (i.e., heart) would survive a term as president.
Well Cheney's reputation as Lord Sidious probably couldn't be overcome even with the republican money train anyways so I think we get to avoid that disaster. Here's hoping for McCain personally. I'm not in love with him but I'm pretty sure he's not a tool, and I know everyone else in both parties will definitely be a tool, so i'll take my chances with the guy who thinks for himself.
Matthew at January 3, 2006 01:33 AM
Regarding McCain, frankly, I have never understood his appeal. His only claim to fame is that he was shot down over Vietnam and served a few years in a POW camp. My father was shot down over Germany and served a few years in a POW camp, and I would vote for him before I would vote for McCain--if my father were younger, of course.
I predict that the impeachment hearings will ocurr before Rove is indicted
I hope so, to avoid a presidential pardon.