Our group of prognosticators was pathetic in guessing what would happen in 2009. Once again Ellen proved to be the most correct, although only by a small margin. Here is a review of what we predicted and what actually happened:
1. We guessed the hot new electronic item of 2009 would be: subscription radio for cell phones, something involving GPS, creation of very large wireless umbrellas, a laptop for every school child, a new kind of car with alternative fuel source, a roll up or collapsible computer, a Bluetooth-like device that is implanted inside your head, a new application with electronic paper or the Blackberry storm.
What actually sold well this year was the Kindle 2, portable GPS systems and flat panel TV sets. The idea of laptops for every child was nice but didn’t occur.2. Here is what we thought might happen during Obama;'s 2009 presidency: His economic package would pass with difficulty in congress but will start to recharge the economy, VP Joe Biden would swear on National TV, a close aid would betray Obama, former Bush cabinet members would be tried for war crimes and the country would see more racially motivated hate crimes against blacks.
The economic package prediction came true, if you believe that the economy was recharged. No one guessed that the President would win a Nobel or commit more troops to Afghanistan.
3. When predicting what would happen in medical news we thought that possibly that nationwide hospitals would reach crisis financially and in capacity, we might see the commercial cloning of livestock, that Autism would be in the news a lot, a breakthrough screen for pancreatic cancer would be newsworthy, that an extinct species would be cloned, that there would be a new, lifesaving diabetes treatment or that new therapies would come out of stem cell research.
None of us guessed that the biggest health story of 2009 would be the flu, more trouble for Tylenol or that the AIDS vaccine finally developed would only be a very modest success. Partial points for Autism as it continued to be a major worry with 1% of children ages 3-17 diagnosed with some sort of Autism spectrum disorder.
4.
Political scandals are always occurring but we didn’t get any of them correct. Here is what we thought might happen but didn’t: Hillary Clinton would be indicted for breaking campaign finance laws, Gov. Schwarzenegger exposed as having affair, or a Supreme Court justice found to be a sexual deviant.
5.
2009 had less natural disasters than previous years in this decade. Here is what didn’t happen: Another major hurricane struck the southern United States, worse flooding in the Midwest than 2008, major volcano, a meteor hit the Atlantic Ocean, major drought in US or a tidal wave hitting the East Coast. We did see a pretty significant power outage in December after the winter storm, so partial points there.
6. In
2009 the big international political story was actually Afghanistan and Iraq. Here is where we missed the mark: a new Shiite vs. Sunni conflict somewhere in the Middle East, predicting revolutions in China or Russia, an assassination attempt on the British PM, UN representative being implicated in Somalia piracy, a change in the role of UN peacekeeping or something involving Hugo Chavez. While Hugo Chavez did a lot of a lot of trouble making in 2009 with his threats towards Toyota and continued attempts to form a socialist state we didn’t find him to be very central to the news. Partial points awarded for having a name that actually made news.
7.
Predictions about the economy in 2009 were all over the place. Because the economy is a somewhat vague term, it was also hard to definitively say who got it right. We can say we haven’t completely recovered from the crash of October 2008 nor has the great depression reoccurred.
8. Some of the freestyle predictions were fairly entertaining, despite their inaccuracy. We didn’t send a manned expedition to mars, Schwarzenegger did not develop a pump it up Wii game, while the biological roots of homosexuality have long been suspected, there was no new research news, nor were there supply shortages in the US. Due to the economy there was a lot of talk about living cheaper so points were awarded to the guessers of a move towards minimalist fashion and the rise in old fashioned activities, such as reading or playing cards.
In 2010 we will develope some different predictions and thus make this blogger's life a little easeir.
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