So was I right?

It is time for me to review the predictions from last year so we can have a good laugh. Maybe? Not sure. I wrote that last sentence before even looking to see what I predicted. Here goes:

- Either a new country will be created somewhere in the world in 2009, or a country will disappear.

As far as I know, this did not happen.

- The GDP of the US will be lower in 3Q2009 than it was in 4Q2008. It will be higher in 3Q2009 than it was in 2Q2009.

Obviously we all had the economy on our minds at the end of last year (still do). So let's look up the actual statistics here. I am going to use the best available numbers, since I know they get "updated" from time to time, probably when it's politically convenient.

I am using http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=5&FirstYear=2008&LastYear=2009&Freq=Qtr for some nice raw data. These numbers are presumably in billions of US$.

3Q2009: 14,242.1
2Q2009: 14,151.2
4Q2008: 14,347.3

So it looks like I was right on that one.

- I am going to put up an additional new web site in 2009.

I'm going to call that a "no" -- there was really nothing significantly public that I did. Partly because of the next item.

- The Western Syndicate site will still be going same as ever at the end of 2009.

It turns out no. Postings here, as you may have noticed, are significantly down, but that is because I have offloaded a lot of stuff to the Twitter/Facebook combination, where I am actually posting more than I used to. Foresaw the rise of social media, possibly, but not my sudden increased use of it in 2009.

So I got, what, 1 out of 4. That seems pretty typical. Predicting the future is hard.

One I can agree with

If we're picking what we want the next terrorist act to be, here is a good suggestion.

Are you ready?

Do you want to talk about predictions from last year and predictions for next year?

The Queen what?

Queen faces anti-terror checks every time she leaves UK
(Daily Mail)

The Queen is to be forced to go through an identity check every time she flies into and out of Britain.
For the first time, Her Majesty will be compelled to give her full name, age, address, nationality, gender and place of birth to immigration officials, who will then check that she is not on a list of wanted terrorists.

I want to know what they do if they find her on the list.

Nebraska Nebraska

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/426-mysterious-nebraska-shaped-field-in-nebraska/

Why didn't I think of this?

This was a great idea... while it worked. (from Daring Fireball)

Scott McCartney, for the WSJ:

At least several hundred mile-junkies discovered that a free shipping offer on presidential and Native American $1 coins, sold at face value by the U.S. Mint, amounted to printing free frequent-flier miles. Mileage lovers ordered more than $1 million in coins until the Mint started identifying them and cutting them off.

Coin buyers charged the purchases, sold in boxes of 250 coins, to a credit card that offers frequent-flier mile awards, then took the shipments straight to the bank. They then used the coins they deposited to pay their credit-card bills. Their only cost: the car trip to make the deposit.