Your Predictions for 2005

[Agathon]

From last year's thread.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=105419&perpage=50&pagenumber=2

Imran responded:

Return of the King will reach one billion dollars in revenue.

VERY doubtful!

Wrong. ROTK is currently at about 1.15 billion worldwide.

As for my own.

I was wrong about Dean being nominated.

I was right that insurgent attacks would increase and that reporting of them would descrease (although it picked up just before Xmas).

In response to Bush raising gay marriage as an issue and thus winning the election.

"If this happens, or something like it, the US will become a pariah among developed states. Everyone else is getting progressive, the US is getting more mediaeval by the minute. Overt Anti Americanism becomes a sure fire vote winner everywhere except Britain and Israel."

That seems to be coming true. Spot on about the gay marriage thing from whoever predicted that though.

Let's look at the rest of mine:

1. The Liberals under Paul Martin win a landslide election in Canada. The New Democratic Party under Jack Layton wins so many votes that it becomes a de facto opposition party. Apart from those in the wilds of Alberta and Canada's hate criminals, nobody pays attention to the United Conservative Party.

Well this was too optimistic. The left vote went up in Canada, but the Liberals managed to hold on comfortably. I didn't predict the Bloc winning in Quebec. But the conservatives were indeed a miserable failure.

2. Howard Dean becomes the democratic nominee. He attempts to get Wesley Clark to be his running mate and has some difficulty doing so.

oops

3. US forces "find" Osama Bin Laden about a month or so before the election guaranteeing a Bush win. Bush takes the win as an opportunity to make new laws further restricting abortion.

Wrong on the first, we'll see on the second.

4. The rest of the world minus Israel and the desperate British Tories become even more politically and ideologically estranged from the United States.

Yep.

5. Newcastle United will not win a single football trophy.

Yep.

6. The Toronto Maple Leafs will falter in the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Second round, but accurate otherwise.

7. The advertising campaign for the Linux operating system will become more prevalent as will the presence of the OS and related OSS in the business world. The SCO suit will be exposed for the fraud that it is and that company will implode.

I think this is still happening. I have seen a lot of IBM ads for Linux, and the wheels do seem to be falling off of the SCO case.

8. Microsoft will announce further delays to its new "Longhorn" OS. Bill Gates will give away a lot of his own money.

Both true.

9. Apple Computer will announce that the new version of Mac OS X (codenamed "Hyena" or something equally embarrassing) will ship in the first quarter of 2005. Apple will release a new Office suite based on KOffice or some less elaborate alternative to replace the ageing Appleworks. Steve Jobs will appear to announce these things wearing a black mock turtleneck and blue jeans with no belt.

The Office thing is still rumoured, but OS X "Tiger" will be released in Q1 2005.

10. Apple will continue to dominate the online music business and the portable music player market. The ipod will continue to be the number one selling portable player mainly due to the fact that Apple will introduce a new low cost version at January's MacWorld Expo. At least one of the other "major" players in online music retail will go out of business (probably Napster, which by all accounts "sux").

This was pretty much on the ball.

[GePap]

The elections will be nasty, both in the country and here in Poly.

I was spot on

Things in afghanistan will deteriorate though not catastrophically.

This is questionable.

50% +, not bad.

Keep them short, keep the general- thats the way to go.

[Dis]

the elections weren't nasty. we've had far worse in the 19th century.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Dissident
the elections weren't nasty. we've had far worse in the 19th century.

Those two things do not compute- something can be nasty even if nastier things have happened before.

[RGBVideo]

Last time, I think I got zero correct... I wonder how these'll go now.

I predict I will get a girlfriend.

Don't predict -- make that your new year's resolution.

Khodorkovsky gets a jail sentence on some of those ridicilous charges.

Yep, getting charged from not paying your taxes, that sure is ridiculous...

Muslim influence in France increases, more acts of violence towards foreigners. France becomes more anti-US.

Is it even possible (I assume we're talking about the public opinion here)?

Despite the new Palestenian leadership (I HOPE it's Abbas and not someone from Hamas), there's no visible progress in the ME, as terrorist attacks continue and the withdrawal plan continues.

With Sharon's plans to withdraw from Gaza with honour (as opposed to the disastrous, in a way provocative withdrawal from Lebanon), I think there is now truly an unique chance to form a peace between Israel and the Palestinians by shuttle diplomacy. I hope Sonny Bush won't let this opportunity to slip by.

Economies of France, Germany, Spain and Italy continue to deteriorate (deficits increase while GDP growth is <1%). Finland ends up being the only country in the whole Eurozone upkeeping a budget surplus. No progress whatsoever made regarding the farm subsidies.

Sunshine diplomacy with Iran fails somehow, making the EU diplomacy the laughing stock of the whole world, greatly decreasing our credibility among other countries.

EDIT: Added smiley.

[Giancarlo]

1) Leftism will suffer another major failure after the 2004 Election.

2) Iraqi elections will go as planned, proving leftists and critics wrong. The same people who complained that the Afghan elections would never work out... will be proven wrong... once again.

3) Dollar begins to pick up and strengthen, and US economy will continue to strengthen, while the EU continues to weaken. The French economy tatters near recession once again

4) All of Saddam's men put on trial will be summarily executed after swift trial, along with Saddam later. His collegues are getting tried first. The left wing cries and comes to the defense of Saddam (says he should not be executed because they are against the death penalty [but in reality love Saddam])

5) Apple leaves computing business after the G5 continues to prove a complete business failure (I hope)

6) Verizon will merge with another cell phone company (after the Sprint/Nextel and Cingular/AT&T this is bound to happen)

[Skanky Burns]

I predict I will wake up, do a bunch of stuff and then go back to sleep. Roughly 360 times.

[mrmitchell]

Education in Arkansas will marginally improve as things trudge ahead.

My city will be hit with a major employer offering to buy an existing building around the city and bring 100s of jobs. Let's all knock on wood or whatever and hope for this one, because it hasn't happened in many years and we're just withering away down here.

Real estate prices will increase, crime rates will drop. The average debt of an American will increase. Inflation will be more than we would like. The dollar will continue to decline, but never at catastrophic levels. GDP will rise, but unemployment and average income may stay the same or go slightly worse. Republicans will trumpet rising GDP as a sign of the obvious recovery. Democrats will focus on unemployment and average income more than a starved squirrel focuses on the last nut on Earth.

The New York Yankees and the St Louis Cardinals, sharing the responsibility for letting, of all teams, the Red Sox win the World Series, will not win a WS ever again, having been officially declared the saddest group of sorry failures ever to come together in any sport. Nothing's coming up in my crystal ball about Boston, though.

Global warming will produce strange weather in many regions of the world, but the take on it by each party will be the same as it always has been, and always will be until the oceans are boiling away and the average winter temperature in Minnesota is 75 F.

The Republicans will continue to do evil things. The Democrats will continue to be too weak or too centrist to stop them.

Kuci will make a wiseass comment about how I'm predicting things based on my ideology, at which point I will hunt him down, tie him up, and force him to watch marathons of Full House, with the only commercial being that Geico soap opera one, over, and over, and over again. He will emerge from this torture as a battered shell, but then you shouldn't point out obvious things.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
Your predictions are all very right wing. I don't think much of what you predict will happen.

Well, guess what dude. We had a right wing year for 2004. Anything can happen.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

I predict. . .

I predict I will start school next year.

I predict I will make some money next year.

I predict that Saddam Hussein will go on trial next year.

I predict that the ball will drop on New Year's Eve next year.

I predict...

I predict...

I predict...
















I predict that the Rapture of the Church will happen next year! Yay!!!
























Just kidding date setters.

[Kuciwalker]

MNG will continue to be a two-trick pony.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
Germany is finally accepted leading nation in Europe.

Allah korsun

Yep, getting charged from not paying your taxes, that sure is ridiculous...

Isn't it a funny coincidence that the Cremlin discovered he wasn't paying taxes just after Chodorkowski supported the opposition?


My predictions:
someone fameous will die (perhaps JPII, unf)
New deadly disease will appear somewhere in Asia or Africa
Some natural cataclism will happen in Africa
USA will be even more hated through the world
Muslim fundamentalists will gain more strenght,
perhaps overthrowing some political regime in ME
Polish political scene will suck even more than today
I will drown in lazyness and apathy as usual but will pass another year of studies
No important problems of the world shall be solved next year

[Solver]

Yep, getting charged from not paying your taxes, that sure is ridiculous...

It's not that simple there, at all. The lawsuit is complicated by the fact that actions of Khodorkovsky can not just be considered illegal as not paying taxes. It's bit late, so I can't go into specifics now, but it has a lot to do with the laws changing rapidly when Russia became a country after USSR's collapse.

With Sharon's plans to withdraw from Gaza with honour (as opposed to the disastrous, in a way provocative withdrawal from Lebanon), I think there is now truly an unique chance to form a peace between Israel and the Palestinians by shuttle diplomacy. I hope Sonny Bush won't let this opportunity to slip by.

I agree that the situation will likely look better for the peace process, provided nothing goes wrong at Palestenian elections, but I still do not believe that any sort of resolution will be reached, with Bush or without. And in all honesty, Bush doesn't strike me as a great intelligent leader who could maybe help the situation - he's not a great politician, IMHO, such as Churchill, Thatcher, Gorbachev, etc.

[Dinner]

1) Bush passes Social Security "reform" which insures Social Security will be bankrupt with in 15 years.

2) Bush and the Republicans increase the already monumental deficit thus causing the dolllar to sink ever lower.

3) No improvement in Iraq after the elections and the pace of things might actually increase.

4) With luck Rumsfield will finally be fired though he will claim he just wants to retire.

5) The economy of the EU will either stagnate or go into recession since the low dollar will eat into their exports. Most of continental western Europe still won't engage in meaningful economic reform so stagnation and high unemployment will reign.

[Vince278]

I'll have a baby girl in August. arty: