01 January 2007

Ten things LIKELY to happen in 2007

(1) The United States will get through 2007 without a major terrorist attack on its territory. Europe will suffer at least one or two attacks on the scale of the Madrid or London train bombings.

(2) At least one major new breakthrough medical treatment, involving stem cells, will be announced.

(3) In at least one major western European country (probably France or Italy, but possibly Germany), the option of abandoning the unpopular euro currency and bringing back the country's old national currency will be openly and seriously discussed, causing a worldwide crisis of confidence in the euro and a stampede back to the dollar.

(4) China will suffer some kind of catastrophic crisis, either ecological or (more likely) in its banking system.

(5) The US will try a new military strategy in Iraq, but it will ultimately fail due to inadequate planning, reliance on half measures, and continuing reluctance to confront neighboring countries about their meddling.

(6) Jean-Marie Le Pen, or someone like him, will gain a startlingly-large number of votes in the French election, forcing the political establishment to confront the problem of Muslim violence and intimidation in France.

(7) India, whose normal summer temperatures approach the limits of what the human body can endure for long periods of time, will suffer a global-warming-related heat wave severe enough to produce a death toll of over 100,000. This will lead to a diplomatic crisis between India and the United States due to the latter's record of refusing to acknowledge or deal with human-caused global warming.

(8) Nobody will do anything about the Darfur genocide.

(9) The US -- the one country with the logistical capability to destroy Iran's nuclear program with a conventional (non-nuclear) airstrike -- will take no action, instead continuing to fiddle-faddle around with UN resolutions and economic sanctions. This will force Israel to act by itself against the Iranian program -- a task for which it will have no choice but to use its own nuclear weapons.

(10) A consensus will emerge (outside the hard right) that the Bush Presidency is a failure, but he will not be impeached.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home