Your Predictions for 2023

The custom on this blog on New Year’s Day is for readers to predict what they think will happen over the course of the year ahead. Then, once the year is over, on or around the next New Year’s Eve, we will revisit those predictions and see who made the best one. . . .

The predictions can be weighty or light, serious or whimsical. Winning predictions will likely be highly specific. They tend to seem highly unlikely at the time they are made, but then, to our surprise, they happen anyway. The winning prediction makes us think, “How could anyone possibly know THAT was going to happen?”

This year, since the New Year’s festivities are happening over the weekend, we are shifting the timing of these posts, which are free and open to all.

I also add this disclaimer:  “Don’t be afraid to be wrong.  These are predictions, not prophecies that claim supernatural authority.  We’re not talking about  the Deuteronomy 18:21-22 principle.”

I’ll go first, hoping and praying that I’m wrong and that I lose:

1. Vladimir Putin will explode a nuclear weapon in his war with Ukraine.
2. This will not result in a world-destroying nuclear exchange, but it will shock and appall the world.
3. The war will stop, but the attack will lead soon after to Putin’s assassination, either by his fellow Russians or by NATO forces.

I hope my thinking about my predictions won’t kill the buzz of your New Year’s celebrations, but that’s how dangerous I think the current situation is.  You can take consolation in the fact that, historically, I am usually wrong in my predictions.

Now your turn. . . .