Predictions for 2011

Every New Year's Eve a group of friends get together to feast, imbibe, tell stories, Yankee swap, and make predictions for the coming year.  Here are some of the more interesting predictions for 2011:

• Facebook takes second place to a glossier social networking site

• The Euro will decline by at least 20%

• Serious civil unrest in Venezuela

• North Korea will suffer an economic collapse

• Oprah decides to run for public office

• Kate Middleton will be 2 months pregnant at her royal wedding

• Gracie Mansion (NYC) will be held by terrorists for 12 hours: 5 killed, 7 wounded

• True Grit will win Best Movie Oscar

• Prominent Wall St. firm will collapse amidst political scandal

• Suze Orman will file for bankruptcy

• Patriots win League championship and then Superbowl by 14+

• Obama proves he was born in the U.S.A.

• Glenn Beck retires after scandals hound him

• Bottled water co. has massive recall -- contaminated by plastic bottles

• Supreme Court Justice is caught in illegal activities, steps down

• Two major religions talk merger

• A plot to disrupt the power gird is foiled, but only after 1/4 of the country goes dark

• Tiger Woods declares he is gay

• Randy Moss begs to come back to Patriots and is welcomed home

• Unemployment will fall below 8%

• Gold prices will stall but silver prices will go up by 20%+

• More global warming data found to be fudged

• Massive student-loan meltdown -- Uncle Sam foots the bill

• One state will declare bankruptcy

• Colin Firth wins Best Actor Oscar for The King’s Speech

Associative Illogic

The Obama administration has tapped James Cameron (the Director of Avatar) as a consultant on how to solve the Gulf oil-spill crisis. This is because he has had some experience with submersibles, presumably during the filming of Titanic. Now this seems to me to be the ultimate in thinking outside the box on the part of the White House. As a consequence, I have the following suggestions for future administration appointments:

- George Lucas (creator and director of Star Wars fame) to help us plan for NASA’s future after our last space shuttle flight this fall.

- George Lopez (Mexican-American comedian and star of The George Lopez Show) to opine on how to solve our illegal immigrant problem.

- Homer Simpson (star of The Simpsons) to help us plan on how to expand the number of our domestic nuclear power plants … and get rid of our nuclear waste.

- Ray Croc (deceased McDonald’s founder) on solving our unemployment problem.

- Suze Orman (financial consultant and host of The Suze Orman Show) on solving the U.S. national debt crisis.

- Kevin Costner (of The Untouchables fame) to help us wipe out organized crime.

- George Soros (billionaire monetary speculator and former Nazi collaborator) on unwinding the world’s monetary crises.

- Kiefer Sutherland (of 24 fame) on preventing future domestic terrorist attacks.

- Peter Shin (Korean-American and director of The Family Guy) on how to pacify North Korea’s nuclear belligerency.

- Christiana Amanpour (Iranian-American, CNN newsreader and future anchor of NBC’s This Week) on convincing Iran to give up their nuclear ambitions.

- Barbara Streisand (star of Yentl) to help us solve the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.