In the grand tradition of The NESS, I proudly present my psychic predictions for 2008. Here’s what my ancient magic Slinky sees for the year:

World Events

• There will not be a major terrorist attack on American soil this year. We will hear, however, that our government stopped one. Evidence for this will be sketchy.
• Major flooding in the midwest this spring will claim over 100 lives.
• There will be a major earthquake in the Pacific rim this year.
• The hurricane season will be below average.
• The first palpable economic pressures of global climate change will be felt this year.
• While oil will continue to rise in price, it will be water, and not oil, that will be the commodity that generates the most press this year.
• Despite the promising start to the primary season, once again the U. S. will fail to elect a minority as President. This failure will be because of racial and gender biases, though not many pundits will say so.

Entertainment news

• Celebrity deaths this year: Michael Jackson, Lindsay Lohan (ok, i stole this from the NESS dudes, but I believe it), and Walter Cronkite.
• Tom Cruise’s continued slip from reality will start showing itself at the box office, as people begin to reject him and not go to his movies. He, or his ilk, will make a thinly-veiled movie about his craziness. Plans for a movie or a script count.
• A rising young comic, largely unknown at this time, will be one of the top money makers for the year.
• An indie movie, budgeted at under $500,000, will win an Academy Award.

Tech news

(hey, it’s my sector, i have to say something)

• The first serious flaw in Mac OS X will appear. Serious, though, is relative. This will be the first flaw that causes pundits to recommend some sort of anti-virus or anti-spyware solution (not really needed today on Macs). Though serious, the threat will be short-lived. Apple will patch it (the Slinky says that it will be Mac OS X 10.5.4.1) within two weeks of the flaw’s publication.
• Microsoft’s Vista SP1 will finally make Vista a viable option for people that, today, say it’s crap. It will still be crap, but it will smell a whole lot better. (this is kind of a gimme)
• A previously little-known or new distribution of Linux will make a big splash. While not challenging Ubuntu as the de facto distribution, this new one will be in the running.
• Firewire will die or be on life support by the end of the year. FW800 will be mostly irrelevant, as new prosumer Macs (the only ones really to have FW800 now) will ship without support for the standard. USB3 will take its place, but won’t be highly adopted this year. (hey, my first 2009 prediction!)
• IT shops will continue to replace Windows servers with Linux (gimme). Windows Server 2008 won’t ship until very late in the year, and people that would ordinarily care, won’t.

Sports

• The New England Patriots will not win the Super Bowl in February.
• My beloved Denver Broncos will have a 10-6 record during the 2008-9 season. They will make the playoffs, but lose a wild card game to the Jacksonville Jaguars, in Denver, 24-20.
• The NFL will have another high-profile athlete be involved in a performance-enhancing drug scandal (gimme). He will receive a meaningless suspension, and be right back on his team, and will win an award for his on-the-field performance.
• The Boston Celtics will win the NBA championship.
• The Cincinnati Reds will come out of nowhere, and be in second place by the All-Star break.
• Ice hockey will begin its rise in the American sports consciousness. This is a multi-year prediction — it will be hockey that makes the Winter Games in 2010 very popular.
• Some new idiot will pull an Imus this year and insult female athletes. Like Imus, this person will barely feel the slap on his or her wrists.

One more thing

• Psychics and mediums will be loudly debunked, but no one will care. (gimme)

We’ll take a look at these in late 2008, and see how I did. We’ll also look at how my record fared against those “psychics” who presume to know about these things. In case you don’t know, I consider these to be absolute horse hockey, and think that my fairly random predictions will have a similar chance of being right.