It’s that time of year again, when columnists are faced with two choices: Look back and pick the top stories or events that shaped the year just passed, or look ahead and predict what’s coming down the pipe.
The former is safer ground. That stuff actually happened. But it’s more fun lurching into the future, and why worry? No one ever remembers if you’re right or wrong.
So onward! Here are Sullivan’s Fearless Predictions for 2010! Guaranteed to come true!
Or not.
• Canada will get off the snide and actually win a few Olympic gold medals on home turf in Vancouver. But not as many as we like. When the women’s curling favourite is someone called Binyu Wang, it’s clear the rest of the world is learning how to play in the snow, too.
• Tiger Woods will be a lonely guy in 2010. And worth half as much. He may be the athlete of the decade, but that doesn’t cut any ice at home. He had it all, but wanted more. The upside? He will have more time for golf with the ex-wife and kids barricaded on an island in Sweden. So he’ll be playing the field, and by that I mean other guys in plaid pants.
• Greed is not so good: The price of gold will go below US$1,000 an ounce. I love this quote from Warren Buffett, the second richest man in America: “Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”
• Stephen Harper will still be prime minister this time next year unless a miracle occurs and Michael Ignatieff gets his head out of his, um … book. But Harper should keep an eye on Jean Charest. As they say about New York, if you can make it in Quebec, you can make it anywhere.
• Global Warning. Not a typo. The British Met office predicts 2010 will be the hottest year ever, hotter than 1998. Glaciers will continue to melt. Oceans will continue to rise. Deniers will continue to deny. But you better hurry and book that Florida vacation — if this keeps up, 50 per cent of its beaches will be underwater.
• We will not find other life in the universe in 2010. Wouldn’t it be weird if we’re the only ones? It would serve us right.
