OK, we are out here on the twig of a one of the smallest branches of a creaky limb of the tree getting ready to make predictions for the coming year. I have no crystal ball or psychic powers and if I did I would not use them because the Scripture forbids us to resort to supernatural means to know the future. What you are about to read is not my wishes for the year (maybe another post?), but my best educated guesses. So here goes . . .
Politics
1. Last year I predicted that the Conservative Party of Canada would win a majority in a general election. Alas, the general election never happened, perhaps because too many Liberals were afraid that my prediction would come true. So, this I think will be the year. I predict that we will either have a new liberal leader or a general election (or both) in 2011 and if an election is held it will be a Conservative majority with Ontario (specifically the 905 belt around Toronto) being the crucial battleground.
2. Quebec will do something stupid. (This one is like shooting fish in a barrel.) Maybe they will legalize infanticide and prohibit the killing of cows for food in the same bill. Maybe they will order all businesses to pay all women 10% more than the highest paid man in the company as "reparations" for past oppression. Maybe the government will remove all babies from the homes of private citizens and place them in government-run orphanages until they go to school at which they will go to boarding schools where they will be brainwashed to forget that they ever had parents. Or maybe they will confiscate all churches and turn Protestant ones into casinos and Roman Catholic ones into state-run brothels. It is hard to be specific about what the left-wing secularists running the Quebec government will do next; but it is pretty simple to predict that it will move the province closer to Brave New World.
3. The Tea Party in the US will continue to grow and expand its influence as the new Congress finds its ability to turn the country away from socialism frustrated by President Obama. The only business he will stimulate in 2011 will be the factory where veto pens are produced. By the end of the year everyone in Washington or who visited Washington or wrote a letter to the President will have one as a souvenir. Tea Party activists will be more determined to defeat Obama after a year of "whiny calls for greater bipartisanship, interpreted as Republicans just letting him spend more money."
4. Obama will be a one-term president. But, of course, we won't actually know if that is true or not until 2012, so let this prediction be that Obama will look more like a one-termer at the end of 2011 than at the beginning of 2011.
Religion
5. The Episcopal Church USA and its Canadian side-kick will do something stupid. (This is like shooting religious fish in a barrel). What will they do? Its hard to say. Maybe they will add a fourth order of ministry to deacons, priests and bishops: Coven Facilitator. Maybe they will ask John Spong to re-write the Apostles' Creed removing all references to the old, superstition known as the sky-god character. Maybe they will buy the Archbishop of Canterbury so they can write all of his correspondence for him. (Oh, wait they already did that.) It is so hard to be specific with the Episcopalians; you just need to know that it will be very stupid and it will drive the Africans around the bend. The Anglican Church of Canada will do everything the Episcopalians do except 10 years later and with less press coverage.
6. The Roman Catholic Church will be attacked viciously by the secular media until it agrees to ordain women and practicing homosexuals, change canon law to recognize the New York Times as equal in authority to the Four Gospels, make the Pope a figurehead with no authority in faith or morals, make contraception mandatory for all Catholics and beatify Margaret Sanger, Joseph Mengale and Paul Erlich. The current pope will stubbornly and unreasonably object to this moderate agenda and continue to live in the 13th century - or even, some would say, the first.
7. Someone will write a book called "Why Conservative Evangelical Churches are Growing," which will explain why churches that still believe in heaven and hell and getting saved do more evangelism than ones that obsess about social justice. It should not be hard to write. Dean Kelley's book has already done the explaining; just update the names of the denominations and leaders. We have seen this movie before and now know how it ends.
8. Barack Obama will go through a showy pretense of "changing his mind" about same-sex "marriage" and will face the consequences with his base of African-Americans. Many ordinary black voters will not be impressed by comparing their ethnic background to a perverted sex act. The secular media will be horrified at their unsophistication and will temporarily suspend their anti-racism rules long enough to attack those who attack the One. Republicans will remind black voters that it was the Democrats who supported segregation too.
General Culture
9. A backlash will arise in 2011 against Facebook. (I'm banking on the "What goes up must eventually come down theory here.) Am I the only person who is sick and tired of people asking me to be their "friends?" I thought I was through with all that after junior high. I don't want to be anyone's virtual friend; I only joined Facebook in order to see the pictures of my grandchildren posted there by my daughters. That is the extent of it. No, I don't want to join the cult. As I say to clerks trying to sell me affinity cards at retailers: "No thanks, I'm Baptist."
10. The European Union will experience a severe financial crisis (already underway) which will lead to either (1) an undemocratic political union cobbled together by political elites in spite of the public will or (2) the EU falling apart. If the first option occurs, the stage will be set for the seizure of tremendous power by determined Muslim minorities down the road. If the second option occurs, the result could be increased liberty and cultural renewal, especially if some countries rediscover their spiritual heritage, which has been crushed by secularist bureaucrats for the past 50 years. Which will occur, I do not know but I predict that the status quo is unsustainable.
Showing posts with label Predictions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Predictions. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Predictions for 2010: How Did I Do?
Here are my predictions for 2010 made at the beginning of last year with an assessment of how accurate they were after each one in red.
Politics and the Economy
1. The Conservative Party in the UK will fumble a glorious opportunity to win a large majority in the Spring election and one of the smaller parties (either UKIP or the BNP) will make astonishing gains thus changing the electoral landscape radically, possibly even to the extent of holding the balance of power in a hung Parliament.
I was pretty much right on in this one except that even a jaundiced, cynical person like me did not foresee a Conservative alliance with the Liberal Democratic Party. If only the Conservatives had formed a pre-election alliance with the UKIP and thus obtained a majority for true conservatives. I'll give myself a 75% on this one.
2. The Conservative Party of Canada will win an historic majority in a Fall election.
Well, there was no Fall election due to the continuing internal turmoil in the Liberal Party, which is now going through leaders like Michael Moore goes through hamburgers. But the shocking win by Rob Ford in liberal Toronto shows that Tea Party populism and a rival of fiscal conservatism has not been quarantined south of the border. I can give myself no more than a 10% on this one.
3. The Republicans will either gain, or nearly gain, control of the House and gain at least 4-5 seats in the Senate during the 2010 mid-term elections, which will be a referendum on Obama's fiscal, health care, environmental and abortion policies.
The Republicans gained 62 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate and there can be no doubt that the election was a massive repudiation of Obama and all that he stands for. Only leftists who cling to the dream that it was the bad economy that caused the election results are still in denial. I'll give myself 99% on this one; I shouldn't have hedged by saying "or nearly gain".
4. By late 2010 there will be fierce debate over the introduction of a European-style Value Added Tax and drastic cuts to military spending in the United States in response to a spiraling deficit.
Once again, I was on the money. The VAT is not being discussed only because of the success of the Tea Party revolt. The big-government liberals, progressives and their Marxist allies are all now bleating about the deficit. What a joke! What they mean is that after the orgy of spending in 2009 and 2010, they now want to raise taxes. The US military is being cut slowly and gradually but Obama is frustrated that he cannot move faster in the teeth of determined opposition from the country as a whole. I'll give myself 90% here.
5. By the end of 2010 polls will show Sarah Palin leading Barack Obama and there will be talk of Hilary Clinton challenging Obama for the nomination in 2012.
OK, Sarah Palin is not quite leading Obama in the polls, although Romney is. There has been plenty of talk of Hilary in 2012 but the putsch has run into one decisive obstacle: the stubbornly high poll numbers of Barack Obama among black Americans. He retains an approval rating over 90% among blacks while sinking to under 45% among Americans as a whole. The problem is the outsized influence of the black vote in the Democratic primary system. Hillary could defeat him among white voters and would undoubtedly do better in the general election, but she cannot win in the primaries. Also, she seems to understand that 2012 is going to be a conservative year. I'll give myself 30% on this one.
Religion
6. The Emergent Church movement will gradually fade, though it will take longer than a year for it to be absorbed completely into liberal Protestantism.
I hear less and less about the Emergent Church as time goes along. It is now a blip in the rear view mirror. Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis are now just two more liberal Protestants whose only gimmick left is that they used to be Evangelicals. I'll give myself 100% here.
7. The Church of England will begin to splinter in 2010 as the Anglican Communion divides into the section that remains in communion with The Episcopal Church and the section that does not.
The splintering is well underway. Primates representing the majority of world Anglicans will boycott the upcoming Primates meeting in Ireland and the Western primates and their colonial servants will get together to discuss the glories of deviant sex and freedom from believing the Bible yet once again. The toothless Covenant is now a dead letter. I'll give myself a 100% on this one.
8. Pope Benedict XVI will succeed in bringing the Society of St. Pius X back into full communion with the rest of the Church. He will continue to be vilified by the liberal media and will continue to view that as a good sign that he is doing his job.
The process of bringing the Society of St. Pius X back into full communion is ongoing. Non-catholics can never get used to how long things take in the Roman Catholic Church. But there is no reason to think it is not on track. As long as Pope Benedict XVI is spared long enough, this process will be competed eventually. Pope Benedict is still being attacked by the "progressive" media; they know who the real threat is to their leftist agenda. I'll give myself 90% on this one.
9. John Paul II's Theology of the Body will begin to be recognized by Evangelicals as the theoretical foundation of an alternative to the sexual revolution and will be increasingly embraced by conservative Christians of all stripes.
This prediction was not specific enough to be able to evaluate precisely and I can't point to too many bits of evidence that Evangelicals are recognizing the ToB as a resource. But there continue to be straws in the wind here and there. I'll give myself a 50% on this one.
Culture
10. The debate over whether global warming is man-caused or part of the natural cycle of the planet's constantly changing environment will accelerate in 2010 and climate change alarmists will be increasingly placed on the defensive.
This debate did accelerate and the repudiation of the whole global warming scam continues to increase. Cap and Trade failed in the US Senate and has no chance in the next Congress. Obama will try to use the regulatory power of the EPA to regulate carbon but I believe that attempt will fail. The UN continues to push its agenda, naturally since it is a way of increasing the power of unelected UN bureaucrats. But the financial troubles in the EU are presenting an obstacle to implementation of Kyoto let alone anything more. The collapse of Spain's economy was aided by its Green policies and the UK is bumping up against the fiscal limits of Greenism. The future of the whole AGW scam is uncertain. Already the name has been changed to "Climate Change" in recognition that global warming is just not happening. I think we can expect the announcement of a new "crisis" that requires world government any day now. I'll give myself 100% on this one.
11. It will become widely recognized in 2010 that declining world population growth rates mean that a drop in population by mid-century could result in economic disaster.
It is maddening to report that the biggest economic threat facing Western democracies - the coming population decline - is still not being widely recognized. Most people have not yet connected the dots between Japan's population problems and its economic stagnation. I'm sorry to have to give myself only 30% on this one.
12. There will be another major terrorist attack in the United States in 2010.
There were too many to list. The Obama administration has been extremely lucky that a terrorist attack bigger than 9/11 did not happen. It was more good luck than good management and one wonders how long their luck can hold out. A major terrorist attack on American soil - particularly one with Iranian involvement - has the potential to bring Obama's whole sorry, foreign policy crashing down. I'll give myself 100% on this one too.
Total: 73% right.
Tomorrow: my predictions for 2011.
Politics and the Economy
1. The Conservative Party in the UK will fumble a glorious opportunity to win a large majority in the Spring election and one of the smaller parties (either UKIP or the BNP) will make astonishing gains thus changing the electoral landscape radically, possibly even to the extent of holding the balance of power in a hung Parliament.
I was pretty much right on in this one except that even a jaundiced, cynical person like me did not foresee a Conservative alliance with the Liberal Democratic Party. If only the Conservatives had formed a pre-election alliance with the UKIP and thus obtained a majority for true conservatives. I'll give myself a 75% on this one.
2. The Conservative Party of Canada will win an historic majority in a Fall election.
Well, there was no Fall election due to the continuing internal turmoil in the Liberal Party, which is now going through leaders like Michael Moore goes through hamburgers. But the shocking win by Rob Ford in liberal Toronto shows that Tea Party populism and a rival of fiscal conservatism has not been quarantined south of the border. I can give myself no more than a 10% on this one.
3. The Republicans will either gain, or nearly gain, control of the House and gain at least 4-5 seats in the Senate during the 2010 mid-term elections, which will be a referendum on Obama's fiscal, health care, environmental and abortion policies.
The Republicans gained 62 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate and there can be no doubt that the election was a massive repudiation of Obama and all that he stands for. Only leftists who cling to the dream that it was the bad economy that caused the election results are still in denial. I'll give myself 99% on this one; I shouldn't have hedged by saying "or nearly gain".
4. By late 2010 there will be fierce debate over the introduction of a European-style Value Added Tax and drastic cuts to military spending in the United States in response to a spiraling deficit.
Once again, I was on the money. The VAT is not being discussed only because of the success of the Tea Party revolt. The big-government liberals, progressives and their Marxist allies are all now bleating about the deficit. What a joke! What they mean is that after the orgy of spending in 2009 and 2010, they now want to raise taxes. The US military is being cut slowly and gradually but Obama is frustrated that he cannot move faster in the teeth of determined opposition from the country as a whole. I'll give myself 90% here.
5. By the end of 2010 polls will show Sarah Palin leading Barack Obama and there will be talk of Hilary Clinton challenging Obama for the nomination in 2012.
OK, Sarah Palin is not quite leading Obama in the polls, although Romney is. There has been plenty of talk of Hilary in 2012 but the putsch has run into one decisive obstacle: the stubbornly high poll numbers of Barack Obama among black Americans. He retains an approval rating over 90% among blacks while sinking to under 45% among Americans as a whole. The problem is the outsized influence of the black vote in the Democratic primary system. Hillary could defeat him among white voters and would undoubtedly do better in the general election, but she cannot win in the primaries. Also, she seems to understand that 2012 is going to be a conservative year. I'll give myself 30% on this one.
Religion
6. The Emergent Church movement will gradually fade, though it will take longer than a year for it to be absorbed completely into liberal Protestantism.
I hear less and less about the Emergent Church as time goes along. It is now a blip in the rear view mirror. Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis are now just two more liberal Protestants whose only gimmick left is that they used to be Evangelicals. I'll give myself 100% here.
7. The Church of England will begin to splinter in 2010 as the Anglican Communion divides into the section that remains in communion with The Episcopal Church and the section that does not.
The splintering is well underway. Primates representing the majority of world Anglicans will boycott the upcoming Primates meeting in Ireland and the Western primates and their colonial servants will get together to discuss the glories of deviant sex and freedom from believing the Bible yet once again. The toothless Covenant is now a dead letter. I'll give myself a 100% on this one.
8. Pope Benedict XVI will succeed in bringing the Society of St. Pius X back into full communion with the rest of the Church. He will continue to be vilified by the liberal media and will continue to view that as a good sign that he is doing his job.
The process of bringing the Society of St. Pius X back into full communion is ongoing. Non-catholics can never get used to how long things take in the Roman Catholic Church. But there is no reason to think it is not on track. As long as Pope Benedict XVI is spared long enough, this process will be competed eventually. Pope Benedict is still being attacked by the "progressive" media; they know who the real threat is to their leftist agenda. I'll give myself 90% on this one.
9. John Paul II's Theology of the Body will begin to be recognized by Evangelicals as the theoretical foundation of an alternative to the sexual revolution and will be increasingly embraced by conservative Christians of all stripes.
This prediction was not specific enough to be able to evaluate precisely and I can't point to too many bits of evidence that Evangelicals are recognizing the ToB as a resource. But there continue to be straws in the wind here and there. I'll give myself a 50% on this one.
Culture
10. The debate over whether global warming is man-caused or part of the natural cycle of the planet's constantly changing environment will accelerate in 2010 and climate change alarmists will be increasingly placed on the defensive.
This debate did accelerate and the repudiation of the whole global warming scam continues to increase. Cap and Trade failed in the US Senate and has no chance in the next Congress. Obama will try to use the regulatory power of the EPA to regulate carbon but I believe that attempt will fail. The UN continues to push its agenda, naturally since it is a way of increasing the power of unelected UN bureaucrats. But the financial troubles in the EU are presenting an obstacle to implementation of Kyoto let alone anything more. The collapse of Spain's economy was aided by its Green policies and the UK is bumping up against the fiscal limits of Greenism. The future of the whole AGW scam is uncertain. Already the name has been changed to "Climate Change" in recognition that global warming is just not happening. I think we can expect the announcement of a new "crisis" that requires world government any day now. I'll give myself 100% on this one.
11. It will become widely recognized in 2010 that declining world population growth rates mean that a drop in population by mid-century could result in economic disaster.
It is maddening to report that the biggest economic threat facing Western democracies - the coming population decline - is still not being widely recognized. Most people have not yet connected the dots between Japan's population problems and its economic stagnation. I'm sorry to have to give myself only 30% on this one.
12. There will be another major terrorist attack in the United States in 2010.
There were too many to list. The Obama administration has been extremely lucky that a terrorist attack bigger than 9/11 did not happen. It was more good luck than good management and one wonders how long their luck can hold out. A major terrorist attack on American soil - particularly one with Iranian involvement - has the potential to bring Obama's whole sorry, foreign policy crashing down. I'll give myself 100% on this one too.
Total: 73% right.
Tomorrow: my predictions for 2011.
Friday, January 1, 2010
My Predictions for 2010
Politics and the Economy
1. The Conservative Party in the UK will fumble a glorious opportunity to win a large majority in the Spring election and one of the smaller parties (either UKIP or the BNP) will make astonishing gains thus changing the electoral landscape radically, possibly even to the extent of holding the balance of power in a hung Parliament.
2. The Conservative Party of Canada will win an historic majority in a Fall election.
3. The Republicans will either gain, or nearly gain, control of the House and gain at least 4-5 seats in the Senate during the 2010 mid-term elections, which will be a referendum on Obama's fiscal, health care, environmental and abortion policies.
4. By late 2010 there will be fierce debate over the introduction of a European-style Value Added Tax and drastic cuts to military spending in the United States in response to a spiraling deficit.
5. By the end of 2010 polls will show Sarah Palin leading Barack Obama and there will be talk of Hilary Clinton challenging Obama for the nomination in 2012.
Religion
6. The Emergent Church movement will gradually fade, though it will take longer than a year for it to be absorbed completely into liberal Protestantism.
7. The Church of England will begin to splinter in 2010 as the Anglican Communion divides into the section that remains in communion with The Episcopal Church and the section that does not.
8. Pope Benedict XVI will succeed in bringing the Society of St. Pius X back into full communion with the rest of the Church. He will continue to be vilified by the liberal media and will continue to view that as a good sign that he is doing his job.
9. John Paul II's Theology of the Body will begin to be recognized by Evangelicals as the theoretical foundation of an alternative to the sexual revolution and will be increasingly embraced by conservative Christians of all stripes.
Culture
10. The debate over whether global warming is man-caused or part of the natural cycle of the planet's constantly changing environment will accelerate in 2010 and climate change alarmists will be increasingly placed on the defensive.
11. It will become widely recognized in 2010 that declining world population growth rates mean that a drop in population by mid-century could result in economic disaster.
12. There will be another major terrorist attack in the United States in 2010.
1. The Conservative Party in the UK will fumble a glorious opportunity to win a large majority in the Spring election and one of the smaller parties (either UKIP or the BNP) will make astonishing gains thus changing the electoral landscape radically, possibly even to the extent of holding the balance of power in a hung Parliament.
2. The Conservative Party of Canada will win an historic majority in a Fall election.
3. The Republicans will either gain, or nearly gain, control of the House and gain at least 4-5 seats in the Senate during the 2010 mid-term elections, which will be a referendum on Obama's fiscal, health care, environmental and abortion policies.
4. By late 2010 there will be fierce debate over the introduction of a European-style Value Added Tax and drastic cuts to military spending in the United States in response to a spiraling deficit.
5. By the end of 2010 polls will show Sarah Palin leading Barack Obama and there will be talk of Hilary Clinton challenging Obama for the nomination in 2012.
Religion
6. The Emergent Church movement will gradually fade, though it will take longer than a year for it to be absorbed completely into liberal Protestantism.
7. The Church of England will begin to splinter in 2010 as the Anglican Communion divides into the section that remains in communion with The Episcopal Church and the section that does not.
8. Pope Benedict XVI will succeed in bringing the Society of St. Pius X back into full communion with the rest of the Church. He will continue to be vilified by the liberal media and will continue to view that as a good sign that he is doing his job.
9. John Paul II's Theology of the Body will begin to be recognized by Evangelicals as the theoretical foundation of an alternative to the sexual revolution and will be increasingly embraced by conservative Christians of all stripes.
Culture
10. The debate over whether global warming is man-caused or part of the natural cycle of the planet's constantly changing environment will accelerate in 2010 and climate change alarmists will be increasingly placed on the defensive.
11. It will become widely recognized in 2010 that declining world population growth rates mean that a drop in population by mid-century could result in economic disaster.
12. There will be another major terrorist attack in the United States in 2010.
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