Predictions for 2007

As 2007 begins, it is customary here to make a few predictions about the year ahead. One has no patience for weasel-worded quatrains or readily misinterpreted warnings of doom. A prediction must be useful and clear or it’s nonsense. So, empirically verifiable in 364 days, here is what 2007 will bring.

• Scotland’s elections in May will result in the Scottish Nationalists returning as the largest party with talk of independence offering a constitutional crisis for the UK.
• Iran will formally withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
• No military action will be taken against Iran by any western nation
• Microsoft’s Vista Operating System will not sell as well as the company has predicted.
• Helen Mirren will win the Oscar for best actress in “The Queen.”
• Peter O’Toole will get his for best actor in “Venus.”
• The Fed Funds rate will drop from the current 5.25% as the US economy will grow slowly in 2007.
• Barry Bonds will break Henry Aaron’s career home run record of 755 in June of 2007 unless he quits over steroids.
• Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will not be in office on December 31, 2007.
• The COROT project, an effort from the European Space Agency, will detect an extra-solar rocky planet much more like Earth than any found to date.
• The “surge” in US troops in Baghdad that’s coming will result in higher US casualties rates than this year with no change in the violence to Iraqi civilians.