The Year in Wild Guesses

It’s a tradition to make predictions at this time of year. It’s nonsense, of course—the thing that happens, in the news, will be the thing we did not expect. Otherwise it would not be news.

But what the heck, for the fun of it, here’s my best shot. I’ll just give opinions without the reasoning, to make it all seem more mysterious. A year from now, we’ll get together and have a good laugh about how wrong I was.

1. Republican John McCain beats Democrat John Edwards to win presidency of the US.

2. No federal election in Canada.

3. No US or world recession in 2008.

4. The government of at least one of the following countries implodes: China, Cuba, North Korea, Myanmar.

5. News of a demographic shift in the developed world—more babies being born.

6. A spate of books responds to the atheist books of the past year, and sells well. Militant atheism becomes a bit of a laughing stock.

7. More breakthroughs in biotechnology. At least one major cure.

8. Violence in Iraq continues to decline. Iraq is generally reevaluated as a success. Bush’s popularity rises.

9. Muslim militancy visibly on the decline.

10. Microsoft will lose profitability; Google will grow.