PREDICTION: U.S. Solar Market To Double In Next Year.

ED MORRISSEY GETS A SUPER BOWL PREDICTION RIGHT. Not on the game, but on the post-Tebow spin.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Great IPCC Meltdown Continues.

When the glacier story broke, IPCC apologists returned over and over again to a saving grace. The bogus glacier report appeared in the body of the IPCC document, but not in the much more carefully vetted Synthesis Report, in which the IPCC’s senior leadership made its specific recommendations to world leaders. So it didn’t matter that much, the apologists told us, and we can still trust the rigorously checked and reviewed Synthesis Report.

But that’s where the African rain crisis prediction is found — in the supposedly sacrosanct Synthesis Report.

So: the Synthesis Report contains a major scare prediction — 50% shortfall in North African food production just ten years from now — and there is no serious, peer-reviewed evidence that the prediction is true.

But there’s more. Much, much more.

Read the whole thing.

MARK STEYN: “As Jonah and I have written here previously, ‘climate change’ is not only a scientific scandal but also a massive journalistic failure. . . . Like all the poodles of the environmental beat, Margot O’Neill repeats those magic words ‘peer review’ every couple of paragraphs like a talisman to ward off evil deniers. But, in the course of invoking the phrase ‘peer review’, she never bothers to look at whether the IPCC actually does it. By contrast, without benefit of the resources of a national TV news operation plus salary and benefits, lone blogger Donna Laframboise did a couple of text searches on the IPCC report and discovered multiple predictions of doom – on Himalayan glacier melt and much else – resting not on peer-reviewed science but merely on activist groups such as the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace.”

“I FEEL I’VE BEEN HAD.” A magazine editor writes:

Because of manmade global warming, I warned in 1996, that “sea levels could rise as much as three feet by the year 2100 … warming can lead to hotter and more frequent heat waves … stronger and more frequent hurricanes to Hawai‘i … endanger native plants species [and] coral reefs.” These dire predictions came from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Researchers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia provide much of the IPCC’s analysis and predictions. In November 2009, hackers released thousands of e-mails from the CRU, going back years, and it is these e-mails that reveal the very unscientific, unethical activities I described above.

Read the whole thing.

A RELIABLE READER EMAILS that Rush Limbaugh just endorsed Tea Party-backed Illinois Gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrezejewski. It may be too late to put him over the top — or not, I dunno — but that’s huge.

UPDATE: More here, including a poll that suggests it’ll still be hard for Andrezejewski to make it, but who knows?

MORE: “Holy Mackerel!”

ANN ALTHOUSE WILL BE LIVEBLOGGING the State Of The Union. And Jason Pye emails that the folks at UnitedLiberty will be liveblogging, too.

Stephen Green, of course, will be drunkblogging it, and has links to various State Of The Union drinking games. Jim Treacher will be liveblogging, too, and while it isn’t formally “drunkblogging,” well, informally it just might be . . . .

The country’s in the very best of hands. Our future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades. So sit back, relax, and watch!

Plus, Sandy Levinson on a SOTU catastrophe. “If we really do believe that there is, say, a 1% probability that a successful attack will take place on the Capitol when everyone gathers for the State of the Union address, that’s a good reason either to revert to an earlier tradition, when Presidents delivered written messages, or, at the very least, telling most of the Cabinet and Justices, for starters, that they can, like the rest of us, watch it on TV. (I note that Dick Cheney did not attend the immediate post-Sept. 11 address to Congress, but did seemingly attend all of the States of the Union address thereafter. But why? I ask this as a fully serious, and not cheap-shot, question.)” Well, Hillary isn’t attending tonight, but not as a security holdout. What does that mean?

UPDATE: More liveblogging from a panel of experts at the Cato Institute.

Also the inimitable Dana Loesch.

Plus, Jules Crittenden is doing the drinking games.

From the Cato Liveblog: “The assertions about the Depression we would have had are outrageous. Their forecasts of the stimulus’s impact have been horrible, so how can they have any credibility on this kind of issue? ” I think it’s full speed ahead, here, credibility be damned. Plus this: “Bastiat is spinning in his grave.”

The “stimulus” didn’t produce any jobs, but if we pass a new stimulus and call it a “jobs bill,” it will!

On Facebook, Alex Lightman writes: “I was looking forward to the State of the Union speech. Then I read most of it, and got depressed. It’s as if he’s running for office, not holding office. I didn’t hear anything about what’s going to be cut. Anyone can make promises to spend other people’s money.”

Reader C.J. Burch writes: “‘The worst of the storm has passed.’ Forget Green and Crittenden, what the Hell is Obama drinking?”

More from Cato: “Wonderful, more government-directed investment. That worked really well with Fannie and Freddie.” Plus this prediction: “He’ll pivot from a new $100 billion jobs bill to cutting the deficit.”

Ann Althouse: “Small businesses are good. (Come on, talk to them.) Big business sucks though. We want to help small business grow… so it can become big business and then we can hate it.”

Seems pretty much like a recycled campaign speech to me.

And not just recycled campaign speech — the Cato folks note this:

“Through stricter accounting standards and tougher disclosure requirements, corporate America must be made more accountable to employees and shareholders and held to the highest standards of conduct.”

–George W. Bush, 2002 SOTU

They told me if I voted for John McCain we’d see a third Bush term. And they were right! [LATER: Tad DeHaven keeps running quotes from Bush SOTUs that match what Obama's saying tonight.]

More from Cato: “He has decided to run against lobbyists. The populist turn again. Carter did that too.” Those guys are on fire. Just head over there to catch all the gems. But here’s one more: “This is the most awful anti-trade position of any president in a long time.”

More liveblogging from Jason Van Steenwyk.

Ed Driscoll: The Semiotics Of The Anointed.

Stephen Green: “’Our approach would bring down the deficit by as much as one trillion dollars over two decades.’ Fine. But when those two decades mean another 20 or 30 trillion dollars of debt, you’re talking about scooping pee out of the ocean with sieve.”

Plus this: “’Let me know.’ Dude, the voters of Massachusetts just did.”

And: “The guy who just bragged of his (mysterious) 25 tax cuts just ragged on the Bush tax cuts.”

An Obama speech word cloud.

“But we took office in a crisis — and never let a crisis go to waste!” Okay, I kinda interpolated the second part. . . .

Hey, does this sound familiar?

Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt. I listened, and I agree. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now, and I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years.

It’s from George W. Bush’s 2001 SOTU.

A reader emails: “Oh for heaven’s sake. It’s a freaking stump speech. You’ve been elected all ready Mr. President. Now you have to do things. See the difference?”

The freeze starts next year? And I start my diet tomorrow.

From Dan Mitchell at Cato: “We’ve all done something very naughty if this is the government we deserve.”

Now Obama, after delivering an hour-long stump speech, criticizes the perpetual campaign. Luckily for him, most people will be watching Teen Mom on their Tivo by now.

A reader sends a link to Reagan’s 1982 State Of The Union by way of comparison.

The Insta-Daughter: “He needs to quit referring to Bush. It’s weird.”

Nick Schulz: The Definition of Chutzpah.

John Samples at Cato: “I agree with Chris. It is surprising how unsurprising this speech has been, particularly for a president in deep political trouble.”

More liveblogging at Reason. Radley Balko: “wow. no none is better at trivializing opponents’ arguments than obama.”

A call to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I’m for it, but I’ll bet there’s not much follow-through.

Stephen Green: “’I have embraced the vision of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.’ Okay. Except you embraced the competence of Jimmy Carter & Herbert Hoover.”

Jim Harper at Cato: “Following through on his transparency promises would be a great way to actually deliver change.”

Matt Welch: “8-year-olds sending money to the president don’t make me all tingly inside.”

Reader Rob Lain emails:

Others have probably done this already, but I just ran these numbers:

Obama SOTU 2010 First Person Singular Pronoun Count

I – 96 times

me – 8 times

Bush SOTU 2008 First Person Singular Pronoun Count

I – 39 times

me – 2 times

Think this may wind up correlating to their relative contributions to the national debt, when all is said and done?

I dunno, but what’s funny is that I think Obama was restraining himself here . . . .

Okay, it’s over. My sense is that he was trying a bit too hard. Comparing the mood to last year, the Democratic applause and cheering seemed rather forced, too. Plus, I don’t think his public scolding of the Supreme Court was very Presidential — or, for that matter, very smart.

Krauthammer is noting that Obama treats “Washington” as a pejorative, but that he is Washington now.

Matt Welch: “I think I’ve forgotten it already. Except for the I WON’T QUIT part. Don’t worry, it *is* about you, etc.”

Reader Matt Barger writes: “There has never been a SOTU as patronizing as this. God help us.”

C.J. Burch emails again: “A brittle speech by a brittle administration. He’s done as a political force, I think. If not now, soon.” We’ll see.

And Stephen Green concludes: “We’re into the Big Finish… but there’s no new here. For a guy who got his bottom handed to him in three big elections, he’s strangely reluctant to change course. In fact, he’s not even willing to change tone. Which means, whatever you thought of Bush’s lousy last three years, Obama has already outdone him in being tone-deaf. Let me restate that. This guy hasn’t gotten one single thing done since Porklulus was passed 11 months ago, and he just doubled down. Well, you know what? Who cares how much is in the pot when it’s other people’s money?”

Reader Allen S. Thorpe writes: “It is probably better to think of it as a State of My Presidency speech and it’s probably the best chance he’s had since his Inauguration to speech to this size of an audience. He’d better be in campaign mode, because he’s losing the election right now. From the back of my memory, some familiar words are floating up: ‘Lipstick on a pig.’”

Gerard van der Leun emails with praise: “Excellent digest. All the hot liveblogging lines with none of the screen refreshing tedium.”

Thanks! As Leon Lipson once said, “Anything you can do, I can do meta.” But really, follow the links to the other blogs as this is just the merest skim of cream.

And there’s always the Zomby translation.

Plus, Richard Fernandez weighs in. “Since the current administration is doing all these good things, it will stay the course. It won’t let the aforementioned saboteurs and wreckers stand in the way.”

The McDonnell reponse? The bar for these things is low — and he was certainly infinitely better than Jindal last year. But the big story is the subtext: “I was just elected in a state Obama carried, even though Obama campaigned against me. Whatever he may say under the lights, he can’t save you come election day.” Likewise, the Scott Brown mention.

And from Meryl Yourish: Breaking the Obama Code:

Tonight, he addressed the American people, and he addressed Congress. Go back and look at the speech. He was earnest, and his chin was down, his head relatively level, when speaking to Congress. When he spoke to us, his chin rose, and he talked down to us—literally.

Go ahead. Take a look. Note his posture. You’ll see it, too. You and I, we are not his equals. He is above us.

That’s what sets my teeth on edge every time I listen to him.

That’s almost worth rewinding the DVR for, but . . . no, I’ve suffered enough.

Some extensive thoughts from Dan Riehl, including this: “Obama praised the concept of separation of powers, then immediately turned to question the Supreme Court’s recent decision on campaign finance reform. That tendency caused much of speech to ring hollow throughout.”

Alex Castellanos writes: “There were too many Barack Obamas tonight, making too many promises to too many interests. The same president who said he wasn’t interested in relitigating the past . . . did exactly that for over an hour. The same president who yearned for less partisanship also resorted to it without hesitation, often just a few sentences afterwards, blaming his problems on his predecessor one long year into his own administration.”

Jim Geraghty: On His Last Day in Office, Obama Will Still Be Talking About What He Inherited.

More from The Anchoress:

You know, one could argue that President Bush “inherited” Al Qaeda from Bill Clinton, who did little-to-nothing in response to all of Al Qaeda’s provocations throughout the 1990’s and unto the USS Cole bombing. But never, not once, did Bush ever say, “I inherited this…” It’s time for Obama to become a man.

Much more at the link.

John Podhoretz: “One liberal trope after the speech, voiced by Chrystia Freedland of the Financial Times on Charlie Rose, is that Obama is putting Republican politicians on notice he will go after them as the do-nothing impeders of progress. Republicans should pray this is the case, and it may be the case.” In New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts he’s proven impotent. Why should people fear him more now, when he’s weaker?

And reader Eric Naft writes:

You posted a CATO link that mentioned Bastiat, but do you realize exactly how precisely delicious that observation is? In extolling the virtues of the stimulus, President Obama cited several small businesses, including a “window repair company” in Philadelphia.

Having read Bastiat’s influential “That Which Is Seen & That Which Is Not Seen: The Unintended Consequences of Government Spending,” I don’t think he could have chosen more poorly (or perhaps more aptly?). The opening vignette of Bastiat’s seminal work, which demolishes the notion that government spending stimulates anything, is subtitled, “The Broken Window.” It explains that paying to repair broken windows doesn’t help the economy at large because the money used to pay for the repair is money that can’t be used to buy a shirt or to do whatever else the private citizen may be inclined to do with his money.

Has nobody in the administration’s speech-writing team ever read basic economics? Never mind. I think I know the answer to that.

Yes, I do realize. But heck, forget the speech-writing team. What about the economic team?

Plus, what the voters think about Obama’s speech points.

Chris Matthews on Obama: ‘I Forgot He Was Black For an Hour’.

Good grief. Why is this guy still on the air? Oh, wait, he’s not — he’s on MSNBC . . . .

And reader Scott Blanksteen writes:

Obama’s comments about the Supreme Court’s decision enabling foreign corporations to donate in US campaigns are particularly ironic given that it was his campaign that mis-configured their credit-card acceptance software in a way for which the only purpose would be to enable foreign donations!

More on that here, here, and here.

Jules Crittenden: “But seriously, we have just witnessed an extraordinary exercise in presidential oratorical animation that may be without peer or precedent. Can it be said that any American president has ever tried to blame so much on other people, or has been willing to so rapidly abandon his own principles for the betterment of his standing with the people, to seize up the banner against himself in our nation’s time of need, that this nation should not stand against him? For this, the president deserves our unabashed, gaga-eyed astonishment.”

INDEED: “GOP’s Brown Wins In Epic Upset.”

UPDATE: “Rick, this is the first time in years that David Gergen has helped elect a Republican!”

BUT DON’T LET THIS CAUSE YOU TO ASK ANY AWKWARD QUESTIONS: “The BBC reports that the Vice Chairman of the IPCC has just admitted the obvious: the IPCC’s terrifying prediction that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 is wrong. And not just a little bit wrong. Totally, catastrophically, eye-poppingly, inexcusably and blatantly wrong.”

THIS SEEMS SAFE: Official Prediction: Gas Will Hit $3 This Summer.

THE PRESCIENCE OF Victor Davis Hanson.

STARTING: A 20-Year Mini Ice Age?

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

Brr. I don’t want a mini ice age.

ERIC POSNER: “Many of us said during the days of the Bush administration that restrictions on civil liberties motivated by the conflict with Al Qaeda would be maintained during any subsequent administration, whether Democratic or Republican, as long as the terrorist threat remained. This prediction has been amply confirmed. . . . The persistence of policies across ideologically divided administrations is good evidence that those policies are now mainstream rather than partisan and ideological. Of course, many people will continue to disagree with them, just as many people continue to object to a standing army and a central bank; but these people are now officially on the fringes. There will also continue to be arguments about interrogation practices and the like, but a wide range of Bush administration policies—indefinite detention without charges, trials by military commission, the use of military force against suspected terrorists in foreign countries, secrecy privileges that undermine litigation against government officials responsible for terrorism policies, profiling on the basis of nationality, and much else—are now politically entrenched.”

CHANGE: Social Security deficit slides to worst showing in a generation. “Maybe Barack Obama should find someone whose predictions don’t come up as consistently bad as Orszag’s to help run the budget.”

CES: Three Big Tech Predictions for 2010.

GORDON CROVITZ: Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Some Modest Obama Predictions.

Plus, a fish, a barrel, a smoking gun: “Indeed, almost everything Yglesias wrote in his short hit piece is untrue or ill-informed. . . . Such a strange phenomenon—as Obama’s polls dive, and the voters begin to see that the centrist moderate, whom they thought in 2008 that they were voting for, is in truth an ideologue, his supporters are reduced to calling critics ‘racialists.’ That is the blueprint for 2010.” I kind of hoped that Yglesias would outgrow the name-calling, but it hasn’t happened yet. . . .

MICKEY KAUS: Healthcare: The CBO’s Alternate Universe. Plus this: “Tip for Timid Pundits: The prediction that Democratic health care bill will not reduce the deficit over the long run is about as safe a year-end prediction as you could make. Even with all the budget gimmickry, it wouldn’t help cut the budget much–Jon Cohn has the unconvincing graphs to prove it!”

YEAH, I ALREADY POSTED ON THIS BUT I’M GOING TO DO IT AGAIN: Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges. If they were really worried about global warming they’d be doing this by Skype. But they live in a culture of entitlement. Energy conservation and carbon limits, like taxes, are for the little people.

Related: From ClimateGate to Carbonhagen. “For the delegates to the Copenhagen Climate Change summit, inconvenient truths abound. Not the least of which is the prediction that attendees will generate a carbon footprint equal to all of 2006 for Morocco.”

CLIMATEGATE: FROM JIM TREACHER, A friendly chat with the global warming evangelist who lives in my head.

Related: The worst scientific scandal of our generation?

Plus, the dog ate my climate change data! “SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.”

How convenient. Kinda like the “flood” that “destroyed” Michael Bellesiles’ probate records . . .

UPDATE: “Botch after botch after botch.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Investigations Beginning in the UK.

RON BAILEY eschews the term “Climategate,” but says: “Hmmm. Data not agreeing with model predictions. Very interesting. And of course, Flannery is right, science does work through ‘a robust interchange and testing of ideas.’ But interchanging ideas about how to hijack some aspects of peer review and by trying to suppress the work of researchers with whom one disagrees? Messy indeed.”

UPDATE: Reader Kenneth Hitchens writes: “Indeed, it’s Climaquiddick. Or is it too early for that?” Well, the press is playing along, which makes it more a -quiddick than a -gate so far . . . .

2009 HURRICANE SEASON a bust. You know, after Katrina they promised that global warming would be bringing us more and more super-hurricanes.

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes:

It should not pass unstated that the predictions you allude to of increasing strength and frequency of Caribbean hurricanes were based on models. These models were based in part on data acquired by the CRU and others, but are based and rely to an even greater extent on a host of other assumptions. It is one thing to model global mean temperature; it’s quite another, and more complicated matter, to mathematically model planetary climate, as distinct from weather, over long periods of time. It’s been claims regarding the later which have driven the political and policy disputes surrounding these issues. If current models have difficulty predicting or explaining the progress of global mean temperature, why should anyone have confidence in models that claim to be predictive of the more complicated system of planetary climate? This is very much the stake in “Climategate”.

Indeed.

TEN FAILED DOOMSDAY PREDICTIONS.

UPDATE: Reader Allen S. Thorpe writes that the Joseph Smith prediction story is incorrect.

RON BAILEY: How Green Are Your Nukes?

Once an opponent of nuclear power, Stewart Brand is now a big backer. With regard to the safety, cost, waste handling, and weapons potential of nuclear power, Brand writes, “I’ve learned to disbelieve much of what I’ve been told by my fellow environmentalists.” On safety, Brand notes, “year after year, the industry has had no significant accidents” in the operation of the world’s 443 civilian nuclear plants. “Radiation from nuclear energy has not killed a single American,” asserts Brand. He does look at the after-effects of the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant which released a lot of radiation over swathes of northern Europe. He finds that the dire predictions that hundreds of thousands would die of radiation induced cancers turned out to be false. Weighing the safety tradeoffs between nuclear power and man-made global warming, Brand cites this observation from environmentalist Bill McKibben: “Nuclear power is a potential safety threat, if something goes wrong. Coal-fired power is guaranteed destruction, filling the atmosphere with planet-heating carbon when it operates the way it’s supposed to.”

Al Gore disagrees.

IN THE MAIL: The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future.

ROBERT SAMUELSON: Health Care As An Exercise in Ego Gratification:

What’s driving the great health debate of 2009 is not a popular clamor for universal insurance. “Many Americans are balking again at the prospect of health care reform,” writes pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. A new Wall Street Journal poll found 41 percent of respondents opposed to President Obama’s proposals and 39 percent in favor (the rest were undecided). The underlying driver is politicians’ psychological quest for glory. . . . Americans worried about this legislation may not know its details or may even be misinformed. Still, their skepticism is justified. Grandiose rhetoric obscures unflattering reality. The proposals don’t force the major structural changes in the delivery system that might curb uncontrolled health spending, which is the central problem. The bills Congress is now considering might marginally improve Americans’ health but would worsen the federal budget outlook and squeeze other public and private spending. Whatever bragging rights result will quickly erode in the face of the health system’s continuing problems.

Yeah, my prediction is that if it passes it’ll be like the Iraq war — in five or ten years most of the people who voted for it will be pretending otherwise. Hell, they’ll probably find a way to blame Bush . . . .

ROUGHING UP THE MIDDLE CLASS. “For decades there has been debate about how to help the poor without discouraging work, saving or marriage. Yet with almost no notice just such disincentives have crept up the income ladder, observes economist C. Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury official and expert on the taxation of families. . . . Work isn’t the only middle-class virtue that is getting punished. The system penalizes savings, too–not just through taxes, but also through programs that reward debtors, the profligate and college families that show up at the financial aid office with empty pockets. Yet another series of tax and benefit rules penalizes marriage. ‘This is a big social experiment. We really don’t know what the long-term effect of all these incentives is going to be,’ Steuerle says.”

My prediction: You’ll get more of what you reward, and less of what you punish. But maybe the political class is okay with that. “They’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please.”

OR MAYBE IT’S JUST THE MEDIA HYPE THAT’S BUSTING: Obama baby boom: Predicted surge in births goes bust. “On Nov. 4, the hope and happiness seemed boundless for supporters of President-elect Barack Obama, leading some to speculate, with a wink and a nod, that in nine months there would be a virtual Obama baby boom — a celebratory uptick in the national birthrate. But now, 40 weeks later — the average human gestation period — MSNBC is reporting the prediction has largely been nothing more than, well, false hope.” And not the last such, I suspect.

I THINK IT’S THE MOLE PEOPLE DRILLING UP FROM BELOW: Mysteriously High Tides on East Coast Perplex Scientists. “From Maine to Florida, the Atlantic seaboard has experienced higher tides than expected this summer. At their peak in mid-June, the tides at some locations outstripped predictions by two feet. The change has come too fast to be attributed to melting ice sheets or anything quite that dramatic, and it’s a puzzle for scientists who’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

UPDATE: Reader Kenneth Mitchell writes:

Your note about anomalously high tides is matched by the item about the Fermi Paradox. The answer? The aliens are here NOW, hiding in the L2 lagrange point on the far side of the Moon. Their ship is powered by some exotic drive involving a small black hole; hence the higher than normal tides.

See how it all ties together?

It all makes sense now.

MICKEY KAUS: “Here’s a safe political prediction: Despite all the innovative e-mobilization and ad campaigns and town halls, the August recess will not produce any effective groundswell of popular support for Obama’s health care reform.”

RUBBER, MEET ROAD: White House putting off release of budget update. “The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape. . . . The release of the update – usually scheduled for mid-July – has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess. The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.”

SHIKHA DALMIA: Global Warming: White Man’s Problem: Why poor countries won’t commit to binding emissions cuts. “In fact, there is a perfectly good reason developing countries are unwilling to act on climate change: What they are being asked to do is more awful than climate change’s implications–even if one accepts all the alarmist predictions.”

ONE OF ANDREW SULLIVAN’S GUESTBLOGGERS is, ironically, enough, slagging people for being too pro-war in 2003. Yeah, not like Andrew was back then. At any rate, according to a comment in the linked post, I was off by 39 for the casualty toll of the invasion through “mission accomplished.” I’m willing to admit the error. That’s better than Ted Kennedy, who predicted we’d lose “battalions a day.”

And I didn’t take a post-invasion “mission accomplished” vacation, either.

Meanwhile, The Mudville Gazette is hosting a contest.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Notice how there was no “antiwar” movement during the ‘90’s, even though we were at war the entire time in Iraq, Haiti, Kosovo, a dab here and there in Afghanistan and Sudan. Then, after 9/11, it was the “Next Vietnam” with a passionate “antiwar” movement with the NYT’s full treasonous participation, just like the good old days. And now, even though the daily death count has matched the highest daily rate we ever saw in Iraq, there is no “antiwar” movement or daily casualty count in all the newspapers. It’s like the “antiwar” movement can be turned off and on like a switch, depending on which party is in the White House.

What’s the “exit strategy” for Afghanistan? Having been there, I must ask: what’s the strategy for Afghanistan, period?

Yes, it’s as if all that fierce moral urgency was more about the urgency of regaining political power than anything else. As for Afghanistan, I don’t see solving that problem without dealing with Pakistan, and I don’t see anything particularly encouraging on that front. But perhaps I’m missing something. More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Steven Den Beste emails:

As I recall, when I answered that question I was thinking in terms of the number of casualties during the primary invasion. And based on
what some commenters on that blog say, I got it right. My prediction was “50-150″ and they say the real number was 139.

I never thought, or said, that the occupation would be bloodless. I expected it to go on for years and to involve a steady low rate of
casualties by our soldiers.

But I also thought, and said, that in the long run we’d win. I thought we’d be successful in training a new, effective Iraqi army which would
eventually take over security in Iraq, and I thought we’d be successful in setting up a representative democracy there. And I was right about those things.

How many of the people commenting on that blog predicted (and hoped) that we’d fail?

More than will admit it now. And yes, these Den Beste worries from 2003 were in some ways prescient (”After we win, and during the post-war occupation, I’m concerned about a campaign of terrorism developing (90%)”), though in others, happily, not as much.

Meanwhile, on the antiwar left, reader Douglas Mortimer emails, “Well, there’s still Ted Rall.” Good point.

MORE: Reader John Hendricks writes:

Oh, Glenn, that is too rich. I’ve been around the blogosphere long enough to personally remember where Andrew just wasn’t just in favor removing Saddam militarily but he and a few other obscure members of the blogosphere became known as the “Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse.”

Question: how can a man go from being responsible enough to know that Saddam had made his removal by force necessary to becoming so frivolously irrational as to end up the world leading expert on Palin’s birth-canal? That is a mystery to me.

What I now know it that when the next war comes, Andrew Sullivan is one of the last people I want on championing it just so he can double-cross the people who take his advice when the going gets tough.

Heh. I’d forgotten that “Four Horsemen” thing. I used to have a printout on my office door. It’s not for nothing that Andrew was “War.”

POLITICO: Some economists warn Barack Obama’s economic predictions too optimistic. “President Barack Obama’s economic forecasts for long-term growth are too optimistic, many economists warn, a miscalculation that would mean budget deficits will be much higher than the administration is now acknowledging.”

SHOULD ASPIRING LAW PROFESSORS participate in this year’s AALS “meat market?” I’d say yes. My prediction is that this year will be bad, but next year will be worse. But that’s just my guess.

DEBT AND TAXES: The CBO’s Dire Predictions.

ROGER SIMON: How Fraudulent Was The Iranian Election? I’d like to see a mass popular uprising that overthrows the mullahs, and I heard some people sounding positive about that on TV last night, but I’m, sadly, skeptical. I’ve been hearing predictions of such an uprising for years. I’d love to be wrong, though.

Meanwhile, Obama Administration officials suspect fraud. Gee, do you think?

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Harmon sends this video of protests in Tehran.

According to the comments, they’re chanting “Death to this liar government.” Works for me!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Some Tehran street photos on Flickr, via reader Nathan Branch.

BUSTING THE ECONOMIC BODY COUNT GAME:

Watching Fox News Sunday, I caught a panel on which Obama economic advisor Austin Goolsbee conceded that the administration had previously predicted unemployment would top out at around 8%, that it was now up to 9.4%, and that double-digit unemployment was a distinct possibility in the near future. Goolsbee didn’t resort to the administrations’s blather about “saving or creating jobs,” but he did repeat its fustian about how last month’s loss of 345,000 jobs (resulting in a half percentage point jump in the jobless rate) is somehow good news because it beat predictions (I don’t recall him sayind whose) of even more dire loss numbers. It made me wonder why, if those predictions either existed or were serious, the Obama administration would have previously predicted that unemployment would top out at 8%?

I’m waiting for the press comparisons with McNamara’s Vietnam number-juggling. . . . .

COMPARING THE MAY UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS with predictions.

THE NEXT STEPS FOR SWINE FLU: Predictions, Protection and Prevention. ” Federal health officials will probably recommend that most Americans get three flu shots this fall: one regular flu shot and two doses of any vaccine made against the new swine flu strain. Having had annual flu shots for the last several years gives ‘little or no immune benefit’ against the new virus, the officials said on Thursday as they released more details of blood tests briefly described on Wednesday.”

HEALTH CARE AND COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS STUDIES: “The FDA used the lightest possible statistical test on a pretty important medication for millions of asthmatics. Do you want Medicare denying your mother a possibly effective treatment for her otherwise terminal cancer with the same kind of test?”

My prediction: Soon it won’t be the same kind of test. It’ll be one that’s deliberately cooked to produce the results that save money. Though there’s some suggestion that in this case, the test was deliberately cooked to produce the result the EPA wanted.

HAS ANYBODY SEEN SANDY BERGER LATELY? Sensitive Data Missing From National Archives. “The National Archives lost a computer hard drive containing massive amounts of sensitive data from the Clinton administration, including Social Security numbers, addresses, and Secret Service and White House operating procedures, congressional officials said Tuesday.” Nothing in the story to suggest that there’s any connection to Norman Hsu’s conviction. But some people should be fired based on what it says about data security. Prediction: No one will be.

PREDICTIONS TESTED: Unemployment numbers and the “recovery plan.” Apparently, we’re right where Obama’s economists said we’d be without the recovery plan. Except, you know, that we’re a lot deeper in debt.

MICKEY KAUS: Chrysler + Fiat = Chooch! “Prediction: It will either fail or suck up continuing annual taxpayer subsidies in the billions. In the process it will keep flooding the market with cars and make it harder to save GM and Ford. It didn’t have to be that way. … And there is something creepy in the way many analysts simply accept that, of course, banks receiving TARP funds must now do Obama’s bidding on unrelated matters like the Chrysler bankruptcy. This is a long way from JFK using his presidential power to face down a steel price hike–a long way toward an unpleasant economic model that creates at least the potential for political thuggery, that preserves capitalism’s inequalities without its freedoms and efficiencies. Let’s not give it a name.”

THIS IS TROUBLING: Mexico’s Calderon Declares Emergency Amid Swine Flu Outbreak. And this is also troubling: “The first case was seen in Mexico on April 13. The outbreak coincided with the President Barack Obama’s trip to Mexico City on April 16. Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported.” Luckily, though, I expect that if President Obama were going to catch this, he would have gotten sick by now so I guess he’s in the clear.

UPDATE: The World Health Organization is worried: “Experts at WHO and elsewhere believe that the world is now closer to another influenza pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the previous century’s three pandemics occurred.”

More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Felipe Solis story is questionable. AP says he died “a week later,” not the next day. And reader Michael Waters emails that Mexican press reports say the cause of death was a heart attack. So stay tuned.

MORE: Drudge is going pedal-to-the-metal on this one, but I think it’s a little early for panic just yet.

STILL MORE: Not everyone agrees with me: Swine flu spreads panic in Mexico City.

The Mexican capital was a fearful place on Saturday, as residents donned surgical masks, avoided shaking hands or simply stayed home amid a swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 20 people and perhaps as many as 81 across Mexico.

Mexico City has become the epicenter of the sickness, which is suspected to have infected 1,324 people nationwide by Saturday night. Mexican President Felipe Calderón issued a decree allowing the federal health department to enter homes and forcibly quarantine people, and the authorities ordered all schools closed until May 6 in the capital and neighboring Mexico State.

Is this an overreaction, or an underreaction? At this point, it’s impossible to say. The most likely outcome is that this will just be a flu outbreak. But we’ll see.

MORE STILL: Reader Chuck Pelto writes:

I don’t think he’s in ‘panic’. Otherwise, we’d be seeing NOTHING, as he had fled to the proverbial hills.

Instead, he’s providing useful information. More useful than I’m getting from other sources. Indeed, it’s as in my days as a young officer in the 82d. The neighbor across the carports from me in the duplex, on-post, married officers’ housing was with the division intelligence battalion. Over beers he intimated that he got better information from the wire services than he did through official channels. I saw the initial reports on Drudge and forwarded the links to my local public health department. They were pleased to get the ‘heads-up’, as I get the impression that their ‘official channels’ were still sort of ‘asleep’.

Late, yesterday, they were working and sent out a one-over-their-world press release alerting everyone to ‘get ready for trouble’. That’s 60 hours AFTER Drudge started carrying this information.

Whether people ‘panic’ over it is THEIR problem. Not Drudge’s. Nor mine.

Good point.

Plus, reader Michael Greene sends this Swine Flu google map.

FINALLY: Reader Santiago Valenzuela writes:

It seems to me to be much ado about nothing. True, swine flu is a little more deadly than the flu that goes around, but it doesn’t have me worried like the avian flu did before. For the avian flu I actually started stocking up long-term food (though rice, beans and jerkey for months on end never seemed like a good life, it at least meant I wouldn’t have to depend on infrastructure that seems remarkably fragile in these instances) and I ordered antivirals from Russia (sadly, it went bad a year or so ago and I disposed of it properly.) Had a whole little plan worked out.

To be honest, though, this one doesn’t seem nearly as bad as the avian flu, lethality-wise. So I’m not worried about it in particular.

It has reminded me to restock on antivirals, but for a different reason. I think far too many people are simply unprepared for any sort of emergency – even a short term one. I had some antibiotics and antivirals and stores of food on hand not just for pandemics, but because I think it was a generally useful inventory to have. For any number of emergencies – either social or personal (losing a job, riots, pandemic, whatever) I was prepared to batten down the hatches and ride it out alright.

Now I’m married (just a few weeks ago!) but my wife is very amenable to my survivalist tendencies. So its back to stocking up for me. The investment is tiny (I think antivirals and enough food and water to last a human a month ran just a couple hundred bucks!) and the payoff in terms of peace of mind, if nothing else, is tremendously valuable.

Just a thought. All this pandemic worry would be a lot less sensational if the majority of the population was prepared for simple emergencies like this.

Well, as I think I mentioned, my brother got a letter from the State of Ohio a while back advising him and all residents to have a months worth of food and necessaries stored against an avial flu outbreak. Ready.gov has similar recommendations. I think it’s too early to panic on this, but it’s never too early to make sensible preparations, most of which will protect you against the disaster no one expects as well as the one everyone is worried about at any given moment.

On the other hand, you want your gloomy predictions, here’s one. Can’t vouch for its accuracy, and in fact I think it’s unlikely to be borne out. Hope I’m right, of course. . . .

Plus, reason to take a breath and relax. And a roundup from Jules Crittenden.

YOU DON’T SEE THIS EVERY DAY: Judge Orders Investigation of Stevens Prosecutors: “A furious federal judge on Tuesday took the extraordinary step of ordering that the prosecutors who bungled the case of former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska be investigated for possible criminal wrongdoing. . . . The judge appointed the attorney Henry Schuelke as special prosecutor to investigate possible criminal contempt charges against the prosecution team.” But here’s a prediction — having been unfair to Stevens, the DoJ will make up for this by being bending over backwards to be fair in dealing with the likes of Murtha, Visclosky, Dodd, or Frank. Related item here.

PUBLIC POLICY THAT MAKES US ALL GUINEA PIGS:

Suppose you wanted to test the effects of halving the amount of salt in people’s diets. If you were an academic researcher, you’d have to persuade your institutional review board that you had considered the risks and obtained informed consent from the participants. . . .

But if you are the mayor of New York, no such constraints apply. You can simply announce, as Michael Bloomberg did, that the city is starting a “nationwide initiative” to pressure the food industry and restaurant chains to cut salt intake by half over the next decade. Why bother with consent forms when you can automatically enroll everyone in the experiment?

And why bother with a control group when you already know the experiment’s outcome? The city’s health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, has enumerated the results. If the food industry follows the city’s wishes, the health department’s Web site announces, “that action will lower health care costs and prevent 150,000 premature deaths every year.”

But that prediction is based on an estimate based on extrapolations based on assumptions that have yet to be demonstrated despite a half-century of efforts. No one knows how people would react to less-salty food, much less what would happen to their health.

Can we sue them and jail them if it doesn’t work out, the way we would if they worked for the private sector?

NEWT GINGRICH ON TEA PARTY PROTESTS:

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, the tea parties that they’re having around the nation — April 15, a number of states are going to have tea parties — that just sort of a passing fancy, or is that a grass-roots movement?

GINGRICH: No, I think the tax day tea party movement, which is actually Americansolutions.com, is helping with a great deal. Over 300 cities have people signed up already. And I think these tea parties — remember, the House and the Senate will pass the first round of a really bad budget next week. They will then go home for two weeks. These tea parties come right in the middle of that congressional recess.

And my challenge is, to every member of the House and Senate, have the courage to go to a tea party in your state or your district and listen to your citizens. My prediction is there’ll be over 300,000 Americans at the tea parties, and I think it’s the beginning of a huge movement of fundamental reform not just for Washington but for places like Albany, New York, Sacramento, California, Trenton, New Jersey, all the places where the lobbyists, the politicians and the bureaucrats have been running over their citizens.

Some readers are unhappy about this — but I think that’s a glitch in the transcript, and that Gingrich is not actually trying to claim that the tea party movement is actually his Americansolutions outfit. Others think that he shouldn’t be the face of the movement. I think it’s fine if he wants to encourage it, but he’s climbing on the bandwagon — the movement was viral, grassroots, and self-organized before he even noticed it.

UPDATE: Dan Kotman of American solutions writes:

I saw your post about Newt and the Tea Parties.

You are correct that the transcript does not accurately portray what Newt was saying. If you watch the video, it’s pretty clear that he’s saying American Solutions is helping with the Tea Party movement and not the actual movement itself.

We recognize it is a viral grassroots effort, and we are not trying to be the face of the movement or take credit for starting it. Our involvement as a sponsor has been to help promote them and encourage our members to attend.

I hope this clears things up.

I think that’s exactly the right way to look at it.

TEA PARTY UPDATE: “On his FOX News show tonight Sean Hannity just announced that he will be covering the Atlanta Tea Party live on Tax Day. He will also be checking in on other such parties around the country.” This means major coverage on Fox, which means that other networks will have to offer at least grudging coverage. My prediction: They’ll make a huge deal out of these protests, regardless of size, while downplaying the tea parties.

UPDATE: Reader Wendy Cook writes: “Isn’t CNN in Atlanta? Hannity’s show is not my favorite but it’s kinda funny that he would choose to cover a Tea Party so close to the headquarters of a network that mostly ignores these protests. And I just noticed on Drudge that CNN doesn’t even have any programs in the top 6-rated cable news shows. Hmmm.” Yeah, I think he’s baiting them.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Will Collier writes: “Regarding your reader’s question, not only is CNN’s HQ in Atlanta, it’s about half a mile from the Tea Party site at the state capitol. If they show up at all, I predict it will be to air a fear-mongering piece about these vicious right-wingers who want to take healthy organic juice away from The Children.”

Well, CNN President Jon Klein* is bragging about CNN’s straight-news coverage, so this’ll be a good test of whether they can live up to his claims.

* Coiner of the whole bloggers in pajamas line. I believe, however, that Klein has since changed his position.

A.I.G. PROTESTS VS. ANTI-STIMULUS PROTESTS: Who’s got the real energy? “I’m sure the MSM won’t report this, but the far bigger demonstration was of fiscal conservatives , not anti-business radicals. . . . Now, let me remind you. This is suburban CT on a not so warm day we are talking about. We don’t do protests and ginning up a crowd of any size is tough. But they showed in Ridgefield today. And I can’t remember ever hearing about Dodd being protested before. . . . We have 300 folks outraged at Dodd. They got 40 upset at AIG executives. I like our odds”

Maybe some of that press mob should have been retasked to Ridgefield? But that would assume that they saw their job as covering actual news, rather than advancing the proper political narrative.

Meanwhile, Don Surber makes the comparison, too.

Photoshop courtesy of reader Dark Eden.

UPDATE: ABC News notices.

ANOTHER UPDATE: In the comments at the ABC item, I’m noticing some lefties making unsubstantiated claims of “violence” at the tea party protests. In keeping with Robert McManus’s prediction, I guess this is a sign that someone’s getting worried. Next they’ll be calling them “hate rallies.” Hey, it’s not like they’re marching on people’s homes with preprinted signs . . . .

SOME CHEERFUL ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS from Nouriel Roubini.

SO WILL THE ECONOMY WIND UP LOOKING LIKE Bretigne Shaffer’s predictions?

My prediction: By the end of Obama’s first four years in office, the US economy will be in much, much worse shape than it is now. Specifically:

1. The US will have massive inflation. The dollar will lose at least 50% of its value against most goods and services, and certainly against the goods and services most people use every day. This is a very conservative estimate. It will probably be much worse.

2. Unemployment in the US will be worse than it is now. It will be at least in the double digits.

I hope not.

SAMIZDATA: Kinsella Sues Levant But Levant Is Not Bothered. “What is Adscam, I wonder? Something that makes Kinsella look bad, presumably. I ask this to show how right Levant is about how this bizarre and way-over-the-top lawsuit causes faraway people like me with no direct interest in any of this to get drawn into the story. Levant is asking for donations. Defending against lawsuits like this, thanks to the internet, can now be paid for by sympathisers.” From what I know, Kinsella is something of a bully, but I think he’ll regret tangling with Levant. Everyone else has. Here’s Levant’s entry on the subject, with this prediction: “It’s going to fail spectacularly, and hurt the Liberal Party.” If you’re curious about AdScam, here’s the Wikipedia entry.

More background here and here. As I say, Kinsella seems a bit of a bully, but a rather ineffectual one.

SOME POLIWOOD OSCAR PREDICTIONS, from Roger Simon and Lionel Chetwynd.

Plus, does anyone care about the Oscars anymore?

GOING AFTER CHRIS DODD with a Peter Schiff “moneybomb.”

Web-savvy Libertarians in California have launched a nationwide movement to draft a New Haven-born celebrity pundit to take on Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd. Their first big test comes Saturday.

The pundit is Peter Schiff. He has been a fixture bashing the federal bank bailout and stimulus efforts on national TV news (FOXNews, CNBC, CNN) panels because of his early predictions of the Wall Street meltdown. The campaign has an online “headquarters” and assorted rallying cries, including: “Stop the Bailouts.” “Stop the stimulus!” It has Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter presences, too — even though Schiff insisted in an interview that he has had nothing to do with the effort and would almost definitely not heed a call to actually run.

That’s right. Almost definitely.

Well, we’ll see. Somebody should run against Dodd.

THE KILLER QUESTION ON THE “STIMULUS:” What’s the rush? A week or two won’t make a difference. Heck, a month wouldn’t.

As reader James Burns emails: “President Obama’s act now or it will be too late shtick sounds an awful lot like the type of high-pressure sales tactic that the Eliot Spitzers of the world like to bring lawsuits over.”

“All sham, no wow.” And with that, a prediction that has come true.

UPDATE: An auto tax break: “So government is now the marketing arm of the auto companies offering discounts to entice buyers? Do these critters have any idea of how foolish they look?” Nah. If they could see that kind of thing, they’d lose the toupees.

FRANK TIPLER: Macroeconomics ‘Experts’ Apply Astrology, Not Science. “Macroeconomists should realize that the inability of their theories to make accurate predictions means that they do not know what they are talking about. We non-economists should realize this also, and realize that our leaders, who are being advised by macroeconomists, haven’t got a clue where they are leading us.”

BOB WOODWARD PREDICTS more scandals in the Obama Administration.

Sounds ominous — but, really, isn’t that a safe prediction at the beginning of pretty much any administration? Or, for that matter, the middle, or the end?

L.A. TIMES: A record crowd for inauguration? Hard to say. “More than 1 million spectators convened on the National Mall to watch Barack Obama take the oath of office Tuesday, but it was unclear if the crowd surpassed the record thought to have been set at Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 inauguration. Though early estimates ranged as high as 2 million people, satellite images of Obama’s swearing-in suggested the crowd was probably about half that, said Clark McPhail, who has been analyzing crowds on the National Mall since the 1960s.”

If not, I’d blame Adrian Fenty, whose prediction of 5 million in attendance must have scared off a lot of people. And, of course, some people who showed up were turned away due to screwups.

A SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES REPORT AND PREDICTION:

He also said the show will become more serialized and more “science fiction” for the rest of the season (Woo Hoo!). Surely that means we’ll get nine awesome new episodes then Fox will immediately cancel it and replace it with something that has the word “Dancing” in the title.

Ouch. Well, it’s happened before. Possible minor spoilers at the link.

5,4,3,2,1 MILLION: The incredible shrinking inauguration crowd. “Maybe Obama is just another run-of-the-mill Democrat president. After all, Lyndon B. Johnson had 1.2 million people show up for his inauguration in 1965, and that was 44 years ago.” But nobody’ll be counting, so the narrative won’t suffer too much. Related item here.

UPDATE: Inaugural Rentals Begging for Takers. “”I’m blown away by how little demand there is . . . Initially, we were flooded with calls from people looking for [inaugural] housing. For about four or five days, the phone would not stop ringing. . . . But now we have apartments as low as $150 a night that we can’t get rid of.” When I was in DC, I talked to a cabbie who said he would take off a couple of days around the inauguration, because with all the crowds, traffic and blocked streets he wouldn’t make any money. I wonder if Adrian Fenty’s overoptimistic predictions might actually encourage people who would otherwise have gone to stay home, rather than face the kind of gridlock that 5 million people would have produced. The WaPo article suggests that this is the case.

THAT WAS FAST: “Last fall I said that one good reason to hope for an Obama victory was that it would remove Biden from the Senate, where he was still capable of causing harm, and burying him in the obscurity of the Vice President’s office. I’m delighted that that prediction, at least, has come true so quickly.” Let’s just hope Obama stays healthy — for which I suppose Biden is some sort of insurance . . . .

MICHAEL HIRSCHORN: “Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print—the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. . . . But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?

UPDATE: Some thoughts in response, from Steven den Beste.

A QUESTION for JPL.

UPDATE: Stephen Gorevan of Honeybee Robotics emails:

The article you linked to about JPL’s missions used the Spirit and Opportunity rovers as the prime example of mission life understatement. But many observers forget that the 90 day lifetime for the Spirit and Opportunity surface ops was based mainly on a prediction that the solar panels on the rovers would take on enough wind blown dust such that the rovers would no longer be able to recharge their batteries. We did not know the Martian winds and dirt devils would regularly clean the panels enabling years of battery life. I know this to be so not only because I am a member of the MER science team but also because my engineering company had a contract to devise a mechanism that would clean off the solar panels for future missions. No one knew such a device would not be necessary!

Very interesting.

RANGEL UPDATE: Rangel Ethics Probe Incomplete, Despite Pelosi’s Prediction.

SOME software predictions for 2009.

AT THE FUTURIST, an I-told-you-so on Iraq. “One of the boldest predictions ever made on The Futurist was back in May 2006, when I made a detailed case for why victory in Iraq would arrive precisely in 2008, not sooner or later. There was also a half-time update in September 2007 to the initial May 2006 prediction over here. This was an unusually bold prediction to make, given the state of Iraq in May 2006, which was before the Surge was even discussed. “

SOME THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW YEAR, from Fabius Maximus:

As we start a New Year I find it useful to review my core beliefs. It is easy to lose sight of those amidst the clatter of daily events. Here is my list:

1. We are a people with a great past.
2. The challenges ahead are no greater than those behind us.
3. The American people can surmount these challenges if we work together.
4. We will be what we wish to be, if we but make the necessary effort.

Everybody expects the next year to suck. Given the record of recent predictions, that means it’s got a decent chance of being pretty good . . . .

JOHN TIERNEY:

Does being spectacularly wrong about a major issue in your field of expertise hurt your chances of becoming the presidential science advisor? Apparently not, judging by reports from DotEarth and ScienceInsider that Barack Obama will name John P. Holdren as his science advisor on Saturday.

Dr. Holdren, now a physicist at Harvard, was one of the experts in natural resources whom Paul Ehrlich enlisted in his famous bet against the economist Julian Simon during the “energy crisis” of the 1980s. Dr. Simon, who disagreed with environmentalists’ predictions of a new “age of scarcity” of natural resources, offered to bet that any natural resource would be cheaper at any date in the future. Dr. Ehrlich accepted the challenge and asked Dr. Holdren, then the co-director of the graduate program in energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, and another Berkeley professor, John Harte, for help in choosing which resources would become scarce.

In 1980 Dr. Holdren helped select five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — and joined Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Harte in betting $1,000 that those metals would be more expensive ten years later. They turned out to be wrong on all five metals, and had to pay up when the bet came due in 1990

Next: Paul Wolfowitz for head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

DEALING WITH BLAGOJEVICH: A prediction of “chaos” in the Illinois legislature.

NICK GILLESPIE: “When the history of this awful moment of bailout hysteria is written, there’ll be a chapter or 20 on the complete bogosity of what might call ‘the infrastructure flim-flam’—the idea that government can boostrap the economy out its funk by hiring two guys to dig a hole and a couple more to fill it in.”

My prediction: It’ll be the Big Dig taken nationwide.

ARNOLD KLING: “If Singapore were situated in Baltimore Harbor and there were free mobility, my prediction is that Maryland’s government would improve considerably.”

ANOTHER INSTAPUNDIT PREDICTION comes true!

POLITICAL PREDICTIONS: Bettors beat pundits. Something to talk about at the prediction markets conference in January, anyway.

INTERESTED IN PREDICTION MARKETS? There will be a prediction markets conference in San Francisco this January 23.

SUCKERS!

Barack Obama’s signature issue in the primaries was his “good judgment” to oppose the Iraq war. He invoked this more than any other qualification in his early battles with Hillary Clinton. She may have experience, he’d charge, but she lacked the wisdom to oppose the war. Indeed, the whole Democratic establishment was somehow corrupt or out of touch for not opposing the war, according to the Obamaphiles. So now Barack Obama is going to appoint Hillary Clinton to be the chief architect of his foreign policy. Moreover, he picked Joe Biden to be his running mate and “partner” in the White House explicitly because of his foreign policy experience and judgment. But wait: Joe Biden, too, supported the war. Meanwhile, at Defense, it looks like he will keep George W. Bush’s man, Robert Gates. Admittedly, Gates has always been more nuanced about the war than, say, Don Rumsfeld. But surely keeping Bush’s SecDef is not exactly what the anti-war Dems had in mind as “change we can believe in.” Heck, Joe Lieberman’s sitting pretty and he endorsed McCain. It will be interesting to see how long Obama’s charisma can paper over reality.

Heh. Plus, Tom Maguire on the National Security Advisor choice. More on that here.

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch emails: “The right bloggers should study all this. Should they form their own Kos contingent they can pretty much count on the same sort of treatment from a future Republican President.” I think that’s probably right and it’s one reason — one of several — why I think the Kos path isn’t the way to go.

ANOTHER UPDATE: So how’s this prediction looking now?

MORE: Bill Quick comments: “On the other hand, without a conservative version of the Kossacks, there may never be another Republican President.”

A PREDICTION: “The early twenty-first century civil libertarian critique of government surveillance and detention activities will seem as eccentric in 2025 as the early nineteenth century critique of the national bank seems to us today.”

HMM: Murdoch to media: You dug yourself a huge hole. “With newspapers cutting back and predictions of even worse times ahead, Rupert Murdoch said the profession may still have a bright future if it can shake free of reporters and editors who he said have forfeited the trust and loyalty of their readers.”

UPDATE: Following Circuit City’s lead?

FINANCIAL PUNDITRY: As reliable as the other forms of punditry! But give all those financial shows credit, they had Shiff on. There’s probably less openness on non-financial pundit shows. . . .

So what’s Shiff’s economic prediction for the Obama Administration?

“WHY OBAMA LOOKS LIKE A ONE-TERMER:” A little early for those predictions, I’d say — even if they’re really predictions about the economy, not Obama.

NICK GILLESPIE: three predictions for Obama’s America.

SOME ELECTION PREDICTIONS from the Rovian Conspiracy. One of them looks spot-on.

MICHAEL BARONE: Election Prediction: Democrats Won’t Get a Filibuster-Proof Senate. I hope he’s right.

A PREDICTION: “If Barack Obama becomes President-Elect next week, don’t expect any of the snide anti-american Brits, Aussie and others to change their tune. They’ve had a hate figure in Bush for the past eight years, and I don’t doubt that Barack Obama will become an equal hate figure within a short amount time.”

Brian Micklethwait disagrees.

RYAN SAGER: Have libertarians been driven out of the GOP? I have to say that this prediction of mine seems to have been borne out. So, alas, was this.

UPDATE: Reader Stan Brown writes:

If the libertarians are disgusted with the GOP and conservatives are disgusted with the GOP (see e.g. Mark Tapscott and others who have floated the idea of a new party), is there a theory which would explain both trends? Yes. I think you can blame the MSM. Seriously.

GOP politicians are still politicians and they learn early not to fight with those who buy ink by the barrel. Conservatives who expect that the GOP is going to step in front of the MSM-driven train to defend principle are destined for a letdown. Few are going to commit political suicide and those
who do aren’t around next term to do it again. Conservatives don’t need a new party. They need a new news media.

I think the libertarian discontent with the GOP is also driven by the MSM. Let’s face it, libertarians who voted for Reagan are not leaving the GOP over gay marriage. Can anyone summarize all the legislation and regulation that the GOP has enacted which has alienated libertarians? There’s nothing much there. What there has been is a constant drumbeat from the MSM and Hollywood to demonize conservatives. The standard cultural portrayal is a cartoon. But over time, it seeps into the subconscious and becomes perceived fact. I really think the disenchantment is due more to the cartoon than reality.

Well, we certainly need a new and improved news media setup.

BIDEN ON Obama and foreign policy.

UPDATE: Biden’s major gaffe: “It is rather unwise to air such predictions about your running mate’s presidency two weeks before the election, but that’s what you get when you bring Joe Biden onto the campaign. Lawyers call this ‘assuming the risk.’”

BAD NEWS FOR WHOEVER WINS IN NOVEMBER: Predictions of a several-year-long pay slump.

UPDATE: But at least consumer prices stayed flat.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Brian Leone emails:

A thought hit me this morning as I drove by the Home Depot and noticed the lack of a crowd of immigrant workers who in years past would have been gathered for hire as construction laborers by the day or piece.

The thought is: Isn’t unemployment as a function of “lost jobs” really higher than we appreciate? A huge segment of the construction field was staffed with illegal immigrant labor which, reportedly, has to a significant extent matriculated back to their nation of origin with the loss of the jobs or otherwise falls outside of statistical counting for our economic reporting.

Had these all been American workers who did not depart back to their nations of origin or fail to be counted as employees in the first place, what would the official unemployment rate be right now?

Hmm. So are these illegal immigrants serving as a sort of unemployment shock absorber? Or did their cheap labor make the housing bubble possible to begin with? Or both?

CONTRIBUTING TO FUTURES RESEARCH via massively multiplayer prediction games.

ASTEROID EXPLODES OVER SUDAN, and there was some warning that it was on the way: “While boulders of various sizes routinely hit the Earth’s atmosphere, this was the first time that astronomers saw one coming and accurately predicted the time and place of impact, UH astronomer David Tholen said yesterday.” Plus, an Army of Davids effect: “JPL and the University of Pisa have software for impact calculations, but some amateurs did their own calculations, which were ‘remarkably consistent’ with professional groups, Tholen said.”

NOT JUST AN AMERICAN PROBLEM (CONT’D): European and Asian markets plunge as bailouts in US, Europe fail to ease financial fears. And oil’s down to 90 bucks a barrel.

UPDATE: More on Europe’s problems, which seem quite severe. “Germany is now in the hot seat. The collapse of a rescue deal for Hypo Real Estate on Saturday threatens a €400bn (£311bn) bankruptcy that nearly matches the Lehman Brothers debacle for sheer scale.” The episode of schadenfreude over America’s “cowboy capitalism” problems was very short-lived, wasn’t it?

Plus this: “The European Central Bank – which raised rates into the teeth of the crisis in July – has played a shockingly destructive role in this enveloping slump. Its growth predictions this year have been, and still are, delusional. Neglecting its global role, it has vastly complicated the fire-fighting efforts of Washington.” And “a wild scramble for dollars” worldwide, suggesting that bad as things are here, investors have less faith in, well, everywhere else. Gulp.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Uh oh.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: How Paulson Just Picked the 2012 GOP Nominee. “Here is, I think, a pretty safe prediction: The Republican presidential nominee in the summer of 2012 will have come out against the Paulson-Bernanke bailout plan in the fall of 2008. Conservative rage against the $700 billion ‘rescue’ attempt, as President Bush terms it, has been stoked white hot by Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and the powerful pundits of the right-wing blogosphere such as Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg.”

Personally, I’m skeptical of the bailout plan, but willing to be convinced. Another case of me “lacking fire,” I guess. Oh, well, other people can be white-hot.

UPDATE: A reader named Eric emails: “I’m glad that while the financial world around falls apart, I can find a bit of respite and humor through your website. Here’s a toast to you from the deck of the Titanic!”

Thanks, Eric. Well, the people on the Titanic who stayed calm probably did better in the end, anyway.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Why is ACORN in line to get money?

And a reader named Matt writes:

Since when did Republicans stop believing in monetary policy? Yes, the plan is expensive…but the idea that allowing asset deflation on a massive scale is good for the economy in the short or long term because its “markets working their magic” isn’t just asinine; it’s been disproven. The Great Depression went from a correction to a Depression because the Federal Reserve applied a laissez-faire attitude to bank failures all across the country, thinking it would cleanse the bad, inefficient players from the market like any other market. Except it didn’t. All that’s different now is that no one keeps their money in banks anymore; it’s all tied up in pension funds, money market accounts, and 401(k)’s, so we need more than just the FDIC and the Fed now that we’ve been caught off-guard. This isn’t a failure of capitalism, nor is the rescue plan a form of socialism. Its monetary policy, the same kind every capitialist since Milton Friedman has articulated. Credit is not a market like any other. Credit is the lifeblood of capitalism, and America needs a transfusion.

Sorry. I’m a long-time reader, love the site, but the Republicans don’t realize the madness they’re advocating.

I favor cooler heads. Meanwhile, I note that the Wall Street guys give a lot of money to Democrats. I wonder if they feel they’re getting a return on their investment.

MORE: But is this a Martingale strategy?

And Hugh Hewitt thinks the House Republicans should chill a bit.

Plus, ‘Man, These Negotiations Could Use a Community Organizer Right About Now.’

Meanwhile, Jesse Walker notes: “At this point the dominant D.C. Democrats seem less interested in blocking the bailout than in attaching various add-ons to it. (Kinda like an ‘emergency’ war appropriations bill.)”

EVEN MORE: Reader Nathan Branch writes:

So I’m sitting here watching Harry Reid on CNBC, and he slams “the interjection of Presidential politics into this process,” saying that it has been “harmful rather than helpful” and then goes on to say that they are moving forward with Senator Obama’s proposal in that it’s the best proposal, and one that keeps in mind the troubles on Main Street and not just Wall Street.

I’m watching this with my mouth just agape . . . if I were a Republican senator, I would walk away from the negotiation table. right. now.

The clown show is on overdrive this week, isn’t it?

STEVEN LANDSBURG ARGUES AGAINST THE BAILOUT PLAN.

What’s clear is that a bunch of financial institutions have made mistakes and lost money. What’s unclear is why anyone (other than the owners and managers) should care. People make mistakes and lose money all the time. Restaurants fail, grocery stores fail, gas stations fail. People pick the wrong stocks, they buy the wrong cars, and they marry the wrong spouses without turning to the Treasury for bailouts.

Read the whole thing. And remember — just because International A.N.S.W.E.R. is against the bailout doesn’t actually guarantee that the bailout is a good idea.

Meanwhile, Christine Hurt comments on whether the bailout is a good idea: “That’s the question I was asked by my fellow conferees at my non-corporate conference. My answer has to be ‘compared to what?’ . . . Would the market be able to right itself, after breaking more than a few Wall Street eggs, eventually? Not sure.”

Plus this: “What’s the easiest prediction to make from the financial crisis? More law school applicants.”

Professor Bainbridge pulls together some other issues, and makes the Chrysler comparison.

UPDATE: Arnold Kling on crisis management: “My point is that strong leadership is bad, even though it is popular. I recently reminded readers of the bad consequences of the strong leadership of President Nixon’s Treasury Secretary John Connally. I think that the current strong leadership coming from Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson will prove similarly unfortunate. In the Presidential campaign, the candidate whose temperament is most conducive to strong leadership is John McCain. So far, Barack Obama comes across to me as cautious and cerebral. If I thought he would stay that way, then I would root for him in the election. However, my guess is that in the coming weeks his political instincts will lead him to remake his image into that of the strong, decisive leader that the public presumably craves.”

And, from Virginia Postrel: “I will also note that private equity funds and hedge funds, which aren’t subject to all this wonderful regulation, appear to be doing better than the rest of the financial world.”

Is that because they know they could lose their shirts?

JIM LINDGREN — WHO LOVES HIM SOME NUMBERS — DOES AN ANALYSIS and concludes that in spite of the press treatment, Obama’s speech included more negative attacks than Palin’s. But girls are supposed to be nice. His conclusion: “By continuing to spread false memes about the nature of Sarah Palin’s speech as if they were true, the press marches forward in the most biased season of political reporting I’ve seen since at least 1998.” Absolutely.

And a reader emails:

My casual discussions with ladies around the hospital where I work indicates that they have never heard of ACORN and have never heard of Bill Ayers. I suspect that they don’t know anymore about Tony Rezko either. But everyone seems to know about Bristol Palin’s fiance.

Has there ever been a time in the history of our presidential politics where the press has so willfully chosen to do what they can to elect a specific candidate to the presidency?

If the Obama-Biden ticket loses, this will be the final nail in the coffin of the main stream media. The credibility of the MSM will be irreparably damaged, and Americans across the board will come to trust the alternative media for real, working information.

Prediction: PJTV will easily eclipse the viewership of every one of the MSNBC talking heads within the first year of broadcasting.

That would be nice. Meanwhile, David Bernstein looks at a New York Times article and observes: “You would think that the author would at least mention somewhere in this article that the Democrats control both houses of Congress. You would be wrong.”

UH OH: Spotless:

The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted. . . . When the sun is active, it’s not uncommon to see sunspot numbers of 100 or more in a single month. Every 11 years, activity slows, and numbers briefly drop to near-zero. Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins.

But this year — which corresponds to the start of Solar Cycle 24 — has been extraordinarily long and quiet, with the first seven months averaging a sunspot number of only 3. August followed with none at all. The astonishing rapid drop of the past year has defied predictions, and caught nearly all astronomers by surprise.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Fabius Maximus notes that one observatory has found one tiny sunspot (see the update to the item linked above). He also has a big roundup on the subject.

THE DUKE AND DUCHESS of Edwards?

NOW THEY TELL US! L.A. TIMES: “Mainstream media finally jump on Edwards’ affair.”

And note this in relation to Byron York’s prediction: “While several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, had been trying to pursue the story of Edwards’ affair, the sudden burst of attention Friday after he confirmed the relationship with Rielle Hunter, who produced documentaries for his campaign website, was in marked contrast to the way news organizations had tiptoed around the original reports.”

UPDATE: Charles Austin emails:

“Do or do not, there is no try.” Yoda nailed these weasel words from the L.A. Times (via your post) a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away:

Heh. Indeed. Though I don’t think there was even much of a “try” in this case.

LANNY DAVIS: Confessions of an Anti-Iraq War Democrat: Memories of a Purple Finger. Meanwhile, reader Peter Ingemi points to his prediction of 2005 and suggests that the Grand Revision is well underway.

A PREDICTION: If Barack Obama is elected President, he’ll be far more warlike than President Bush, and far more warlike than his pre-election rhetoric suggests. Because before he’s elected President, attacks on America are just attacks on America. But after he’s elected President, attacks on America will also be attacks on Barack Obama.

And Keith Olbermann will describe the mushroom cloud over Tehran as “awesome in its rampant Technicolor beauty.”

DUDE, WHERE’S MY RECESSION? (CONT’D): “Federal Reserve officials marked up their outlook for inflation and economic growth in their latest projections. . . . At the June policy meeting, officials projected that the rate of economic growth by the end of the year would be between 1% and 1.6%, up from 0.3% to 1.2% in their April estimates.”

Are there economic issues, relating to high energy prices and idiotic loan portfolios? Yes. But does that constitute a recession? Nope.

UPDATE: A reader who prefers anonymity emails:

Glenn,

The looming recession is not a fabrication of the election-focussed MSM. It is real, and it is scary.

Start with the fact that since WWII there has never been negative YOY gasoline demand without a recession, understand that if hydrocarbon prices merely held at these levels, toal energy prices would continue to rise for 3 years due to the lags of utilities and pasing along input costs (natural gas and coal, which have both doubled in the past 6 months and haven’t taken even the first bites out of pocketbooks yet), and then realize these energy headwinds are childs’ play compared to the contraction of credit that will slow down all businesses’ investments. I fear your “Dude, Where’s My Recession” series trivializes the inevitable pain that has only been temporarily delayed by the massive 2Q08 fiscal stimulus package of tax rebates.

My profession as an energy analyst and portfolio manager prohiits me from being quoted in your blog (so please don’t attribute anything to me, even if you were so inclined to print my perspective) but I worry that in 6 months, there is a very high probability you will regret your cavalier attitude towards significant weakening of the underpinnings of our economy–namely consumer spending, available credit and accessible liquidity.

A future recession? Quite possibly. We’re overdue — and, of course, people who predict recession are bound to be right eventually. But a present recession — much less one over the past year — not so much. If there’s a recession next year, it won’t retroactively justify bogus claims of a recession last year.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts from Matt Welch. My own prediction: If Obama is elected in November, the press will spend a lot of time explaining why a recession is actually a good thing for America!

MORE: Link was wrong before — fixed now. Sorry!

STILL MORE: The inflation numbers, on the other hand, don’t look so good. (Via Newsalert.).

WELL, THIS IS COMFORTING: “Killer asteroid predictions ‘off by millions of miles’.”