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Wednesday, January 01, 2003


Predictions for 2003



Happy New Year.

Just for the record, I did not steal this idea from Tim Blair. I stole it from someone else, don't remember who.





Cher will be in the news this year in circumstances that will invite comparisons to Michael Jackson.

The tattered remnants of Al-Qaeda will release a crayon drawing of Osama Bin Laden holding up a copy of a newspaper from 1991. The CIA will pronounce it "conclusive proof" that he's still alive.

The French will bitch about something the US does, using fancy-schmancy French words.

A notorious convict's prison sentence will be in doubt when The Thing on Traficant's Head files for an appeal on the grounds that it is a separate (but symbiotic) life form and is being wrongfully imprisoned. The Thing will give a revealing and moving interview to Greta Van Susteren.

Florida will once again be the site of an embarrassing electoral scandal, despite the lack of elections this year.

The Dept. of Homeland Security will hire color consultants from Max Factor to identify and name the 250 shades in its color-coded Advisory System. (See here for a sample. It's rumored that "Startling", "Scandalous", and "Excessive" are shoo-ins to be chosen, but, for some reason, "Spirited", "Defiant", and "Fearless" were rejected.)

St. Louis will be hot and humid this summer.

Dozens of new shows will emerge to feed the public's seemingly bottomless appetite for reality TV. These will include "The Doctor's Waiting Room", "The Cemetery", and "Inside the Shoe Box on the Top Shelf of the Closet". The public's appetite will turn out to have a bottom after all.

At least one major motion picture will fill the much-needed gap in theatrical versions of grizzled TV sitcoms.

Argentina's money troubles will disappear overnight. It will later be discovered that the money was obtained by sending 783,596 "Nigerian" scam letters to Kim Jong Il.

There will be a stunning upset at the Miss World pageant when the winner, Miss Libya, is revealed to be Moammar Qaddafi.

Sometime during 2003, the stars will align in the manner foretold long ago. There will be a trembling in the belly of the earth, oceans will boil, and the lost, dreaming city of R'lyeh will rise once more. In the heart of that eldritch city, a crypt will yawn open with a great wailing moan. Its inhabitant will cast off his long slumber, and emerge to once again walk the earth. Men will shiver in fear to hear his first terrible words: "Hi, I'm Al Gore, and I want to be your President."

Middle Eastern sales of baby wipes will plummet this year.

The US will commence hostilities against Iraq early in the year, but we won't see Saddam's head on the Al-Wastani Gate, as he'll have skipped to Libya (watch for stunning upsets in the Miss World pageant in 2004). After the war, Saddam's willing human shields will have to flee for their lives when the Iraqis find out who they are and what they're doing in Iraq. Robert Fisk, to his lifelong regret, will be completely ignored.

I will get a decent job this year. It will involve neither punditry nor comedy.