It’s New Year’s Eve, time for our annual review of the predictions made by the readers of this blog back on the last New Year’s Day. Check them yourself here. Though they were mostly wrong, there were some good guesses and some that were right on target. No one will get stoned for making a mistake, though this is legal now in Colorado and Washington state.
My analysis and the announcement of the big winners after the jump.There were lots of predictions that the economy would collapse or have another crisis. None that it would improve and remain in the doldrums at the same time.
Several of you predicted that the European Union would breakup or go to war with itself, but that didn’t happen.
A number of you made predictions about sports, which were mostly wishful thinking. Your Superbowl and World Series predictions were all wrong, especially those involving the Washington Redskins and the Washington Nationals.
Several of you correctly predicted that the Supreme Court would rule in favor of gay marriage, th0ugh the ruling was less sweeping than some of you expected.
Some of you came close, but just missed. For example, SKPeterson said that Republicans in Congress would give up without a fight. Actually, they gave up with a fight.
Some were right. Klassie Kraalogies predicted that Nelson Mandela would die, which he did. (But, hey, he was 92!) Orianna Laun predicted that a royal prince would be born, which he was, with young Prince George of Cambridge being born on July 22. (But that royal bun was already in the oven, as announced on December 3, but Orianna did predict a prince rather than a princess, with 50-50 odds of getting it right). Despite my parenthetical reservations, Klassie and Orianna get honorable mentions.
And now the winners:
THIRD PLACE: Me! I predicted that efforts would be made to amend the Constitution to repeal the 2nd Amendment and to allow Barack Obama to run for a third term. Both came to pass. (The amendment to end presidential term limits came up a week after I made my prediction.)
SECOND PLACE: Barry Bishop, who predicted that the popular Reformed pastor Mark Driscoll would undergo a “public fall from grace due to pride.” Sure enough, Rev. Driscoll is ensnared in a plagiarism controversy that has hurt his image.
FIRST PLACE: The winner has to be SAL, who predicted that the new year would bring a new pope. Pope Benedict’s resignation was virtually unprecedented and took everyone by surprise. Except for SAL, whose prophetic prowess was further bolstered by predicting that Angela Merkel and her party would win big in Germany and that Australia would shift to a liberal (that is, conservative, everything in Oz being upside down) majority in parliament with a corresponding new prime minister.
So congratulations to SAL, who bears the virtual crown of glory for accurate prognostications!
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