I’m not going to do any 2011 predictions as such, though you can read some implied predictions for next year in this post.
(1) Based on the success of Rush Limbaugh’s weight loss diet in 2009, and because one of the tenets of this diet is no alcohol consumption, for alcohol is a roadblock in the digestion process that causes you to gain weight quickly, many breweries will come out with low or very low alcohol versions of popular beers, though they won’t be light beers. All the other ingredients will still be there, but there will be far less alcohol by volume.
Bonk. As someone who buys plenty of alcohol, I can personally attest.
(2) Tiger Woods reverses his previous decision, and returns to the tour in 2010. And, since he’s got nothing else going for him, and very little endorsement income now, he’ll have the best season of his career — He’ll win the majority of tournaments he enters, and three of the four (if not all four) majors.
Bonk. He flopped so badly in 2010, by his standards, that he’s no longer the world #1 in the cumulative rankings. He was only 68th on the money list for 2010 — But with $1.3 million meaning 68th place, I’d be happy with 268th place.
(3) This is the Stupid Party we’re talking about here. Their gains in House and Senate elections in November will be disappointingly few, and not enough to flip control of either chamber. Don’t worry, Democrats — This is the Stupid Party you’re competing with. Mere rumors of a talk radio host’s heart condition led many to fear that the only opposition to the Democrat/Obama agenda was about to kick off.
Bonk. Obama and the Democrats fucked up so badly that all the Republicans had to do to win what they did was to hold their index finger on their noses and walk a straight line.
(4) The Intel Core i9, a 6-core CPU due to be released some time this year, will break all post-rollout sales records for computer processors, in spite of its likely per unit retail cost of over one kilobuck, and in a rotten economy that has hurt high end computer product sales (read: Apple).
Bonk.
(5) Sarah Palin will announce that she won’t run for the Presidency. Family will be the excuse, but the real reason is that not being President will be more profitable than being President.
Bonk for this year, but I’m predicting it for next year. I also think that at the end of 2011 going into the 2012 primaries and caucuses, the person considered the Republican front-runner will be someone that not even one in ten-thousand Americans could recognize by name right now. This person will either be someone who is in my opinion very good or very bad — The reason s/he won’t be mediocre or middling is that almost all of the speculated contenders right now are mediocre and middling, so such a “dark horse” would have to differentiate him or her self from the Republican lamestream by being either significantly more or less conservative than the party lamestream.
(6) Massive layoffs at either the ADL or SPLC, maybe both. Why? One word: Madoff.
AFAIK, bonk. But I do think that the ADL and SPLC are going to engage in open warfare against each other, mainly because the kind of people from whom they both raise money don’t have the kind of discretionary funds they used to have. The row over the Armenian genocide seems to be the first real rift between the two, the ADL thinks no genocide, the SPLC thinks genocide. However, what MIGHT preclude this sort of open warfare is that the SPLC thinks it has found a new fund-raising honey pot, in the relatively prosperous homosexual community. Mark me, that’s the only reason the SPLC added a bunch of religious right groups to its shit list. But, thinking out loud, the ADL tried to play this card 15 or so years ago, and they haven’t played it since, meaning that the card is probably a joker and not an ace. But if the SPLC is right, then it’s got a money trump card the ADL doesn’t have, and this would preclude the internecine warfare for awhile.
(7) The Cardinals will finish under .500 next season. Too little offense and the pitching will be depleted for most of the season.
Bonk, but I think the Reds will be the class of the division for the next several seasons.
(8) There will be massive riots and/or successful terrorist activity in at least one European capital city.
Giving myself a half ding. Though I thought any rioting would be Muslim — As it turns out, it’s white leftist reaction to government budget cuts (“austerity measures”).
(9) I’m sensing a major scandal, probably personal, relating to or surrounding a conservative radio talk show host you’ve heard of, or at least I’ve heard of.
Bonk. The closest this had to being any semblance of a ding was the row re Hannity and the dead soldiers fund-raising fiasco from back in March. But Hannity is a big name — I was guessing scandal relating to one of talk radio’s backbenchers.
(10) A state where you would least expect it to happen will legalize gay marriage.
Bonk. I’m not calling Iowa a “state where I would least expect” gay “marriage” to be legalized, because I’m a native Missourian, and I know that Iowa’s founding white population were New England Puritan/Egalitarian anti-slavery farmers, so socio-politically at the core of its elite levels, Iowa = Massachusetts + Corn. MO-IA is something of a Mason-Dixon line. However, the state’s voters turned out all the State Supreme Court judges who were both on the ballot and voted for gay “marriage.”
(11) Ibid, but for small quantities of marijuana possession, with the countenance of the Federal government.
A few medical marijuana ballot measures passed, but the proposition in California that would have gone further failed. Schwarzenegger did sign an EO which in essence legalized possession of small quantities in practice. And electing Brown/Newsom/Kamala Harris is de facto legalizing weed. But my prediction didn’t turn out true in spirit. The spirit of my prediction would have been the Federal government waving the white flag, which they did not. So bong, er, bonk.
(12) Two or more relatively prosperous school districts in the St. Louis area will either merge, or start serious talks about merging. I know Wellston and Normandy might merge, so that’s why I qualified this with “relatively prosperous.” Money will be a factor.
Bonk. Nothing even close to rumors about this sort of thing.
(13) The murder tally in St. Louis City will be higher in 2010 than it was in 2009, or even in 2008. As I type this, we’re already at two on that odometer.
Bonk. 131 so far in 2010, compared to 143 last year and 167 two years ago.
All in all, a lousy half-ding for 13 predictions this year. And you wonder why I’m stopping this tradition formally.
