Once again I boldly charge in where angels wisely fear to tread, and make predictions for 2011:
1. The global warming scam/sham will continue to unravel. I only hope we recall this episode the next time elites around the globe use junk science as an excuse in order to attempt to remake civilization.
2. The Republicans in the House will put a halt to Obama’s legislative agenda, and Obama will veto most bills originating in the House that make it to his desk.
3. There will be considerable friction between the GOP in the House and the Republican Rinos in the Senate.
4. The economy will begin to improve with unemployment ending the year around 7.5%.
5. Either the North Korean or the Iranian government will be toppled in a violent overthrow.
6. Republican controlled legislative chambers around the country will pass pro-life bills, continuing the process of chipping away at Roe.
7. Obama’s foreign policy will face mounting opposition from the Left in this country, with liberal stalwarts making noises about mounting a primary challenge to Obama in 2012.
8. Palin will announce prior to July 1 as to whether she will run for President.
9. The country will experience a renewed interest in the Civil War as we enter the Sesquicentennial of the War.
10. At least three cabinet members of the Obama administration will resign in 2011, and the first of the “tell-all” books about the administration by insiders will begin to appear.
11. The Euro will not exist as a currency at the end of 2011, as the unraveling of many economies in Europe causes Germany and the wealthier nations in the European Union to decide that it simply is not worth it to them to continue to prop up nations like Portugal, Greece and, (gulp!) Ireland.
12. McClarey will be dead wrong on some of his predictions.
I think interest in the Civil War will only increase in the South. Unfortunately, our nations most tragic war seems to be little more than a footnote to everyone else.
“At least three cabinet members of the Obama administration will resign”
And THIS time one of them had better be Janet Napolitano!
Here are my (somewhat) safe predictions for 2011:
· Middle East peace talks will resume for the 987th time since Esau and Jacob had a spat 3,000 years ago.
· The U.S. will borrow another trillion dollars from China to pay for pork projects.
· Brett Favre will announce his retirement but leave the window open for another comeback by uttering the words, “never say never.”
· President Obama will go on at least four more vacations and will be photographed eating an ice cream cone while First Lady Michelle Obama will be shown teaching kids about the importance of good nutrition.
· Sarah Palin won’t go away and will be photographed killing something and smiling while skinning it.
· Neither will Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen, Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt and lots of other celebrities, some of whom will have unflattering mug shots taken at police stations.
· Newly installed House Speak John Boehner will cry at least once in public, probably because he can’t get any bills passed.
· Nancy Pelosi will get more botox.
· Harry Reid will continue to stumble over every sentence in press conferences.
· Vladimir Putin will take up hang gliding.
· Gas prices will go up, along with everything else except paychecks (unless you work on Wall Street).
· Someone famous will be embarrassed by a sex scandal.
· Speaking of which, Tiger Woods will continue to struggle with his golf game and swear on TV.
· At least one more big newspaper will fold (hopefully The New York Times).
· WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be convicted of something, but still make several million dollars selling books and making speeches.
· There will be more earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc., and dire predictions of more global warming or a new ice age. Al Gore will appear at least once on “Meet The Press.”
· New discoveries of animal life will include a lime colored creature with six legs and three eyes living in jungles of New Guinea who only comes out of his underground home between 2 and 3 every Friday morning.
· Multi-billionaire Facebook founder and Time magazine 2010 Person of the Year Mark Zuckerberg will buy California.
· New York City will ban pork rinds and Twinkies.
· Manny Ramirez, who will make $20 million playing baseball, will refuse to run to first base, but someone will say “that’s just Manny being Manny.”
· LeBron James will take an hour on TV to explain why he didn’t win an NBA championship.
· Great Britain will be on the verge of bankruptcy, but somehow manage to come up with $60 million to spend on Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal wedding.
· CBS News anchor Katie Couric, who makes $15 million a year reading a TelePrompTer, will agree to cut out fancy lunches in an effort to save her network money.
· At least one of the following will appear on “Dancing with the Stars”: Arnold Schwartzenegger, Rod Blagojevich, Brett Favre, Jim Doyle.
I believe that the Holy Father had some words to say about the future that have been very much overlooked by the culture at large:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RealCatholicTV?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/ndWBbrLc4rM
13. Jimmeh Carter will praise Obama for succeeding him as THE worst POTUS in American History.
1. See also: the fat/cholesterol/statin scam and the globalism/free-trade scam. Maybe it’s just the circles I run in, but I saw a marked increase in 2010 in people wanting to buy local and/or grow their own food and make their own goods, and in general be more self-sufficient and take charge of their own lives again. That’ll continue.
2. I’d like to think Republicans will cause gridlock, but I’m wary of them “growing in office” as too many of the 1994 inductees did. If they couldn’t stay strong against a scandal-plagued Clinton, will they against Obama? We’ll see.
4. Depends on how much money they print. A couple trillion dumped on the streets could create enough consumer spending to bring down unemployment. It’s only temporary, borrowing from the future to ‘create’ jobs now, but it’s worked more-or-less for 50 years; they might be able to put off the reckoning another year. The question is whether it’s even possible to borrow/print enough at this point without bringing down the house of cards.
Personally, my prediction would be that they’ll roll out a couple more sub-trillion stimulus deals, which will be just enough to generate some supposed positive signs of recovery, but most of it will still go to pay off debt, so unemployment will stick around 10% (with real U6 unemployment nearer 20%).
7. I think it’s very unlikely that liberals could ever openly oppose our first black president, whatever he does overseas. That’s just hard-wired. Sure, there might be a few “stalwarts,” as you say. I remember a handful of Hollywood liberals protesting Clinton’s bombings in Serbia by dressing up in body bags, but “the Left” as a group was fine with it and the mainstream press ignored them. There’s a small minority that’s consistently peacenik, but most liberals are only anti-war when it’s not their guy calling the shots.
11. That’d be a big one, almost the equivalent of solvent US states (if there are any) deciding their citizens don’t want to bail out bankrupt states like California and Illinois. China has been moving some reserves from dollars to Euros over the last decade, and if it weren’t for the uncertainty in the EU, they might have already stopped buying dollars. We Americans are fortunate that, as deep a hole as we’ve dug ourselves with our debt-based economy, most others in the West are as bad or worse.
My bet – neither Iran nor North Korea will experience a violent overthrow.
Iran will be increasingly well-off. Europe will figure out that they really like heating oil, and don’t particularly mind anti-Semitism. The sanctions will fall by the wayside, maybe after an insincere act of contrition by Iran. The society will liberalize (at a snail’s pace) as the religious leaders lose influence, but the religious leaders will still control the government, and they’re not going anywhere.
North Korea, on the other hand, will get a *lot* worse. The last of the food will run out, there will be mass desertions, and the country will fall into chaos. China will continue to prop up the regime and pretend that everything is fine, but they’ll be flooded with refugees and universally condemned. It’ll be their first excoriation as a superpower, and they won’t like it.
Here’s hoping I’m wrong.
“13. Jimmeh Carter will praise Obama for succeeding him as THE worst POTUS in U.S. history”
14. James Buchanan will send a message from the beyond thanking Obama for replacing HIM as a serious contender for the title of Worst POTUS Ever 🙂
A good Irishman makes predictions only after the event.
“At least one of the following will appear on “Dancing with the Stars”: Arnold Schwartzenegger, Rod Blagojevich, Brett Favre, Jim Doyle.”
At least one of the above will also host Saturday Night Live or appear as himself during Weekend Update or another sketch. However, given that Blago’s retrial starts in April he better move fast.
You left out:
The Catholic Church will formally be acquired by the Republican Party as a junior partner and will agree to repeat as revealed divineky revealed truth any utterances from Palin and Beck (two ex-Catholics) and Ailes and Gingrinch (coverts to Catholicism). These people are clearly the voice of Jesus.
Why do you say that Germany is propping up Ireland. That’s the media view. In fact the Irish government, for secret reasons they refuse to reveal, agreed to pay the debts of Ireland’s privately owned baks to European banks (mainly German). Should the Irish government not pay these debts the German banks would be in danger of collapse and the Euro plunge,, perhaps into oblivion.
In fact the taxpayers of Ireland are propping up Germany, and are even willing to plunge their country into long term economic decline to do so. Is that generosity, subservience or naivete?
Ireland can never repay the debts racked up by the Irish banks, and the Irish government knows that. The empty guarantee was given in order to gain EU aid and to forestall the complete collapse of the Irish banking system. Ireland is effectively bankrupt, but the Irish government, and the Irish people, are unwilling to face that bleak reality yet.
“The economy will begin to improve with unemployment ending the year around 7.5%.”
On the contrary, inflation will rise and be apparent by the first quarter of this year and become blatantly obvious by the end of summer. As inflation starts to rise they will spin it as “positive” for they will logic that demand is driving prices up. By early fall the spin will have dissipated as the reality of continuing unemployment increases. States will be late on their budgets and will be looking for a federal handout to close HUGE deficits but sorry daddy is broke too.
At this point mass layoffs at the state levels will probably happen. When this happens “IT” is going to hit the fan.
sorry folks I do not have an optimistic view of our future. I do hope that I am wrong, I truly do. My biggest fear is the USD falling or being replaced as the worlds currency. Look at the direction all the commodities are going…. up, up, up…. The only reason we are doing as well as we have been is because all commodities including oil trad in USD. If that changes we are finished….