Looking forward

NRO contributors are running their predictions for the upcoming year:

Denis Boyles tries to be funny, with little success.

John Derbyshire makes some interesting predictions. Here are the best:

Iraqi Sunnis will become yet more reluctant to be ruled by Iraqi Shias; Iraqi Shias will become yet more reluctant to be ruled by Iraqi Sunnis; and partition will become the conventional wisdom, with Trianon-style guarantees to the Turks.

I hope this happens. I think that in the end it offers the best hope for the Iraqi people.

There will be at least one more “Larry Summers moment ” — i.e. an important, respectable, and intellectually significant public person will speak some obvious truth about human group differences, and be vilified for it.

This just about has to come true. Speaking the truth is ever more becoming the unpardonable sin.

The U.S. government and legislature will take no effective action on illegal immigration. There will, however, be more civil lawsuits by citizens whose jobs have been lost, or wages depressed, by companies that hire illegal labor.

I hope that this comes true. Since the most realistic alternative is an amnesty/open borders law.

Jonah Goldberg, who can be worthwhile when he scrunches up and tries really hard, has a few worth looking at:

Battlestar Galactica’s Gaius Baltar will not be revealed as a Cylon.

But it will be done in such a way as to leave room for Baltar to really be a Cylon after all.

The "Are Blogs Over?" debate will reach new heights in ‘07.

The debate will be carried out in the dead tree media where it will be heard by steadily shrinking numbers of people.

They’ll find more evidence of past life on Mars. For those who want to prove the non-existence of God, this will be relentlessly hyped as all the proof needed.

For people who want to prove the non-existence of God the fact that the Bible refers to "sunrise" and "sunset" constitute all the proof needed.

Kathryn Jean Lopez says:

George W. Bush will exceed expectations. (How could he not?)

True, but the left will not admit it when he does.

There will be Latter-Day backlash against “Can a Mormon be President?” stories.

But will anyone care?

The Dems will not escape Hillary Clinton.

In the end they will not even try, to their ultimate undoing.

Rudy will end his presidency exploration and won’t run.

We can only hope.

Castro’s death will give birth to a tyranny-chic revival. A double-whammy gift for Hugo Chavez.

I can already imagine how the New York Times will eulogize him (I just threw up a little in my mouth thinking about it).

Carrie Lukas has these:

The much discussed libertarian/conservative break-up will subside out of mutual loathing of big-spending, big-government liberal Democrats.

The libertarians are also smart enough to realize that there just aren't enough of them to realistically control either party. And because libertarians tend to be smart they will realize that Republicans at the worst are still much to be preferred to Democrats at their best.

All charges will be dropped in the Duke rape trial farce.

We can hope that it begins here and ends with Nifong behind the same bars he tried to put the innocent students he is trying to railroad.

There are more so if you are interested by all means go and read the rest.

Oh, and if anyone is interested here are Lemuel Calhoon's predictions for 2007:

The Duke rape case will sink Nifong's career.

The Democrat majority in congress will deadlock over the question of whether to go all out with left-liberalism in order to get as much done while they have power or to lay low and try to fool the public in order to win the White House in 2008. As a consequence they will get nothing done except to scare the sane part of the public with talk about socialized medicine and amnesty while enraging the loon part of the public by their inability to enact socialized medicine and amnesty. This will lead to a big Republican win in '08.

China will work with Middle Eastern nations to wage economic warfare against the United States.

The Science Fiction Channel will not air episodes of hit British TV series Torchwood because it is too raunchy for their standards, however the Dr. Who spinoff will find an American market on BBC America.