It’s one time of year everyone keenly anticipates—no, not Ice Dancers Interpret the Music of STYX, the Sooper Bowl, ski season, or even Oscar® season—rather, the various news outlets’ Predictions for the New Year. The below makes me think we should go deeper into the future next time…get your wheels turning for 2013 submissions.

Predictions about 2011 from a 1911 Ladies Home Journal (at http://imgur.com/bwUWM) included:  horses, rats, and mice will become extinct; coal will not be used for cooking; Nicaragua will ask to be part of the Union, Americans will be taller by 4”, autos will be cheaper than horses…plus prophetic visions of the escalator, “air ships”, medical imaging, and global wireless telephone “and telegraph” circuits, pneumatic tubes delivering goods directly the homes of the wealthy (= the Internet + UPS?), and “peas as large as beets.” We’re behind on that one.

For 2012…here you go. All submitted by friends.

From California

None this year. Bunch of laggards. You’re out of work; I know you have time.

From Florida

Lady Gaga garners the VP nomination for the Republican Party.

From Kansas

Radio stations start playing silence because it is better than current popular music.

From Massachusetts

Rick Perry comes out. (This submitted before he, er, pulled out.)

From Missouri

After a warm winter resulting in lower heating bills, American citizens begin burning more coal (by cooking???) to speed up global warming.

Greece breaks off from the Euro in order to devalue the drachma and restart its economy via tourism. Doesn’t work – no one wants to vacation in a country of starving people. Or do they?

From New Hampshire

Angelina and Brad become surrogates for Jennifer Aniston’s baby. Angelina will carry the egg(s) to term and deliver the baby(ies) on a remote Pacific island, then hand [them] over to Jennifer at LAX.

Tom Brady will get a tattoo of three green gummy bears.

“I will break up Colin Firth’s marriage.”

From New York

Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination and do a victory lap with a dog attached to the top of his car “in an airtight kennel.”

Apple will introduce the iPhone 666® which calls whomever you’re thinking about. Which can be problematic.

Medical science will determine that post-menopausal women are predisposed to weight gain so that when old ladies fall down we have something to land on so we don’t break our keisters; insurance rates drop for plus-size women over 50.

Occupy Wall Street morphs into Occupy Arby’s nationwide.

A new Weight Watchers app delivers repeated high-voltage zaps if you approach stressors, including people, that make you overeat.

Government officials will be picked as in jury draws—via computer from a local population.  History proves that no matter whom we elect, the economy and public education stink, unemployment is high, no one can afford a mortgage, our great-grandchildren will be paying down the national debt, and gasoline prices will rise. Might as well “elect” a neighbor whose house you can TP instead of someone you can’t even talk to.

From North Carolina

In a collective pot shot at the Tea Party, at the 2012 Republican Convention the Republican Party is re-named the Beer & Cheese Party for its roots in Racine, Wisconsin.

From Pennsylvania

The Republican Party is shaken when Mitt and Newt profess their love for each other, then head to the Andes to raise alpacas.

From Texas

As more young women start dressing like Lady Gaga, prom dresses will be made of meat.

From Corporate America

Many will utilize value-added deliverables, organically, as they leverage synergistic solutions.

From Vermont

Due to extreme variations in temperatures, Vermonters will open their pools this winter, converting them back and forth from swimming pools to skating rinks as temps dictate.

Rap music will disappear while rock band reunion tours become increasingly ridiculous with older bands in tighter leather leggings and plunginger necklines with bigger, more-dyed hair and arthritically large—though delicately manicured—hands. And that’s just the men.

The ozone layer will recover so that Italy no longer goes tropical five months of the year.

And my personal favorites:

1.  I predict Mitt Romney will get the Republican nomination.  I predict Ron Paul will run as an Independent. I predict Barack Obama will serve another term. His term will end when the world ends on December 21 of this year.
2. Our computer passwords will never expire. That is, until the world ends on December 21 of this year.
3. Eaton’s Sugar House will begin serving fondue.

Good day, and good year.

Sent from my Dixie Cup on a string