A Small Victory

Ronald Reagan will die on the eve of Election Day.
Iran will test a nuclear weapon before year's end.
Arafat will burn through a third and fourth puppet/PM.

-Troy will tank at the box office.

-Despite their efforts to win it all, the Boston Red Sox will NOT win the 2004 World Series, despite having the best team (offensively) and record.

-George W. Bush squash Howard Dean like a bug, gaining nearly 57% of the popular vote and cruising to landslide victory. He will also win the electoral votes of California and New York.

-For the first time in a long time, terrorists as a whole will be shown to be cowards and that will begin their eventual downfall. And eradication.

-Brett Favre will play until 2006. But in 2004, he will win his FOURTH MVP award.

REVISED Predictions for A Small Victory
* Blogging: Michelle will fix her site so that her navigation and blogroll show up again under IE.
* Politics: Bush defeated; Dem victory muted by centerist conservative stranglehold on House and Senate. Republicans and Democrats both lose seats when seen as too extreme and/or too willing to flush money down the toilet.
* Sports: Fox will look for a signature sport; WB will trump their effort with co-ed "shirts and skins" basketball.
* Celebrity: Marie Osmand Sex video surfaces. Nobody cares.
* Entertainment: "West Wing" reality TV spinoff, where ordinary citizens attempt to do a better job than the actual administration. They do; precipitating bipartisan chagrin. Show is so successful that participants become real political contenders.

1. Politics: Paris Hilton will announce her intent to run for a Senate seat in Arkansas.

2. Sports: Gary Kasparov will challenge Deep Blue to a chessboxing match and lose by knockout in the 10th round.

3. Celebrity: Jennifer Lopez will give birth to Ben Affleck's baby. Someone will make the horrible mistake of allowing a copy of Gigli to be seen by the child, who will then begin intensive counseling sessions with a pediatrician who specializes in 'healing crystal' therapy.

4. Entertainment: The kid who played the plastic bucket on Mariah Carey's Someday video will attempt an adult comeback by staging a 'Concert for 1000 Buckets' on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which sadly will be disrupted by the protests of disgruntled building maintenance workers claiming they can't get any work done.

5. Blogging: The number one topic of bloggers in 2004 will be: peanut butter's role in a strong democracy.

[submission category: silliness (I hope...)]

Blogging: Michelle will fix her site so that her navigation and blogroll show up again under IE.

I'm using IE and it looks just fine to me.....

My predictions:

• Blogging: Someone will make yet another attempt to scam the Blogging Ecosystem over at thetruthlaidbear.com. Someone will be fired for blogging after inadvertently un-closetting a boss.
• Politics: GWB wins the election, based mostly on the public's hatred of Dean's awful toupé.
• Sports: Paradox backlash from Michelle's World Series voodoo will cause the Sox to win the series.
• Celebrity: A new Michael Moore "documentary" will get an Oscar, in spite of no basis in anything factual, logical or relevant.
• Entertainment: The lame reality show "Scare Tactics" will be yanked after being sued and/or held liable for a death or injury when someone decides to shoot part of the scare (i.e., the attacker, the aliens, Bigfoot).

• Despite criticism to the contrary, Garfield: The Movie proves to be the big summer hit for 2004.

• Despite having campaigned on repealing tax cuts and legalizing gay marriages, Howard Dean will start promoting balanced budgets and the need to leave social issues out of the campaign after getting his party's nomination. Dean's sudden shift to the center will then prove to be fatal, as Bush easily takes the 2004 election.

• Terrorist attacks will be on the rise briefly early in 2004, some even happening on American soil, but they will diminish greatly towards late 2004/early 2005.

• The news story of the year will be the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

Politics: So many celebrities will force feed us their choice for President that Celebrity Death Match will have no choice but air a tag-team episode that will actually end up influencing the popular vote.

Sports: LSU completely trounces OU in Sugar Bowl resulting in a television set somewhere in Tampa being the victim of a "tantrum". (snicker)

Celebrity: Ben Affleck has his memory for real and can't remember why, but yes waiter, he still wants ALL of the J's, L's and O's taken out of the alphabet soup.

Blogging: Blogging awards take place, someone doesn't win, claims bias.

Here are my prognostications for 2004:

Politics:

George W. Bush will win re-election by a landslide, even taking the home state of his eventual opponent, be it Dean, Kerry, Lieberman, et al.

Dick Cheney will not run for re-election due to health concerns. Bush will ask Condi Rice to be his running mate for 2004.

More states will amend their constitutions to incorporate a Taxpayer Bill Of Rights (much like that of Colorado's), reining in state spending and bringing state budgets under tighter control. The first state in 2004 to pass such amendments will be New Hampshire.

This one might also be listed under Entertainment – Governator Schwarzenegger will solve California's budget problems by turning California into one big theme park. The state's motto will be changed to “As Seen On TV!”

Generalissimo Francisco Franco will still be dead.

Sports:

The New England Patriots will win SuperBowl XXXVIII.

The Boston Red Sox will make it to the World Series, but will lose the series in the seventh game...again.

The Boston Celtics won't win the championship in 2004. They won't even make it past the first round of the playoffs.

The University of Connecticut men's and women's basketball teams will win the NCAA championships in March.

No one with the first name 'Dale' will be NASCAR's Nextel Cup champion. (Remember, the Winston Cup becomes the Nextel Cup in 2004.)

Blogging:

This one's a no-brainer – Bloggers will once again scoop the mainstream media. But this time it will involve a political scandal that will bring down the government of an EU country.

Glenn Reynolds will be found to actually be twins – one teaches law while the other blogs. And we'll never know which is which. Neither will the Instawife.

Dennis Miller will start his own blog and become more popular than the ever – bigger even than the Instaprof (or should I say Instaprofs?).

Weekend Pundit will become the tenth ninth seventh fourth most viewed blog in the Americas because if its insight and mordant wit. WP will also be besieged by its own groupies and stalkers. Even the White House will be reading our humble blog.

POLITICS: GW Bush will win the Presidential election with 57% of the popular vote. He will beat Howard Dean. Colin Powell will step down as SecState, to be succeeded by Condi Rice.

INTERNATIONAL: Iran will pull a "Khaddafi"-style mea culpa, allowing IAEA inspectors into the country. Yasser Arafat will die of a heart attack, precipitating an increase in Mideast violence, which Israel will put down forcefully.

U.S.: Denny Hastert will step down as Speaker of the House - no prediction on his replacement.

ENTERTAINMENT: "Garfield" will fail to gross $100 million within 4 weeks of opening (thank goodness). "Kill Bill" will earn $55 million within three weeks of opening.

BLOGGING: A popular blogger will hit it big in a lottery (greater than $10M). A popular blogger will run for, and win, elected office.

Just one political prediction that I became convinced about and have been leaving around the blogoshere for about a month and a half:

The Democrats are doomed.

MonkeyPants
Imperial Minion

Michele will produce at least ten posts like this one, which either imply or state flat-out that people who oppose Bush are crazy. The majority of these will contain the word "moonbat" and/or a reference to democraticunderground.com.

There will be an equal number of posts in which Michele will claim, in a hurt tone, that she is really a "centrist", and her inability to understand how any sane person could possibly vote against Bush doesn't change that.

In addition, she will resume writing about Ted Rall.

Thlayi will attempt to - and fail - to explain how the above referenced post says that people who oppose Bush are crazy.

Thlayi will be proven wrong when my record-setting streak of not referencing Indymedia, DU or Ted Rall in a post stretches for months on end.

...IE on Mac OSX.. I'll give Netscape a try in a minute or so. Meanwhile, everyone read my "Christmas and Family post." You all are getting WAY too serious here, and you need esophogeal lumpifacton...

I predict that some little twerp from a TV reality show will inexplicably manage to sell two million albums of coma-inducing Perry Como-type music.

Wait a minute - you say that's already happened???

Politics:
John Kerry will change his position on the Iraq war 3 more times. Dean will try to get votes from the South by saying he wants to appeal to people who eat roadkill. Dick Gephardt drops out after Barbara Streisand endorses "Dick Gebhardt". Wesley Clark will claim that he is a fan of all 30 NFL teams, as well as every team in the CFL, NFL Europe, the Arena League, and the USFL, until he is told they don't exist anymore. Everyone ignores Joe Lieberman, again. Al Sharpton credibly argues that he is the most qualify Democrat in the race.

Republicans stop trying to put Reagan on the dime after drug dealers start selling "Reagan bags".

Osama bin Laden is captured; Democrats complain that Bush hasn't found Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson's killer yet.

In a shocking move, Canada announces that it is closing its southern border after thousands of Dean voters follow their vow to move to Canada if Bush wins.

Sports:
The Red Sox will finally trade for A-Rod--after the 2004 season ends.

The NHL locks out its players; nobody notices, except for Canadians, who'll blame Bush.

Every team that wins the championship will complain about "getting no respect".

The person appearing on the cover of the next Madden game will be ... John Madden, after every football player in the league decline, citing the "Madden jinx".

Millions of men will go into a simultaneous daze when they watch the first week of Monday Night Football and are shocked the new female sideline reporter, Suzy Kolber, knows what she is talking about.

The Knicks, Bruins, Cardinals (football), and Brewers still suck.

Celebrity:
In a backlash against tidy, well-groomed men on Queer Eye, Saddam Hussein appears on People's list of the 50 most beautiful people of 2004.

Jessica Simpson joins Mensa after they lowered their standards, but they will still reject Ashton Kutcher.

Michael Jackson will join forces with Pat Buchanan, and they'll claim that Jacko was a victim of "reverse discrimination".

Matt Drudge will make thousands of people the first winners in their dead pool when Bill O'Reilly actually kills him.

Entertainment:
Following a Simpsons prediction, Fox will finally become a full-fledged hardcore pornography channel.

Economy goes into downward spiral--only one company makes its projected Christmas sales after every person in America buys the first season Seinfeld DVD in December and stays home watching it for the next 30 days.

Teens accuse MTV of "selling out" after they start playing actual music videos again.

A politician will be forced to resign when it is discovered that he owns a copy of the Dead or Alive beach volleyball video game.

Blogging:
Glenn Reynolds will say "Indeed" 847 times.

Andrew Sullivan will ask for money 847 times.

A left-wing blog will past Instapundit in the Ecosystem for a week when it promises to show a live ritual sacrifice to prevent Bush from winning.

After a post by Michele Catalano, there will be a topic in the Democratic Underground debating whether she is worse than Satan. Many people stick up for Satan.

...IE on Mac OSX.. I'll give Netscape a try in a minute or so. Meanwhile, everyone read my "Christmas and Family post." You all are getting WAY too serious here, and you need esophogeal lumpifacton...

...IE on Mac OSX.. I'll give Netscape a try in a minute or so. Meanwhile, everyone read my "Christmas and Family post." You all are getting WAY too serious here, and you need esophogeal lumpifacton...

POLITICS: GW Bush will win the Presidential election and bring along enough senators that the his judge selections will be filabuster proof.

INTERNATIONAL: Iran will have open revolt in the streets and there will be many dead. The rule of the mullahs will end.

U.S.: unemployment will be under 5.2% and the Dow will top 11,500.

ENTERTAINMENT: RoTK will win best picture and PJ will get best director.

BLOGGING: Blogging will continue to grow and Glenn will still be number 1.

I forgot the most important one:
The Yankess will win the World Series.

Mark Pilgrim will have another blogfight with Dave Winer.

The current Pope will die, and the new Pope will be black.