New YearÂ’s a year for taking stock of the past, so we can learn from it and look forward to the year ahead with a little more wisdom and understanding. Last year I made a few predictions which garnered a lot of criticism and some hate mail from people across the blogosphere. IÂ’m sure this year will be no different. The one prediction (made in 2004) that garnered the most hate mail was "Dan Rather would be forced to retire as a result of his overzealous (and often inaccurate) coverage/portrayal of Bush and his record."

This year I've expanded my predictions to include some items that are Odd & Humorous... so here goes:

Ohh, before I forget... the legalese: The information contained here is a by product of Michele's opinion and research. If you take what's contained herein as Gospel truth, then you should contact me immediately because there's some wonderful illegal outsider information on some bridge shares in Brooklyn that you should consider buying. Political predications:
- On the Democratic side:
Kerry will jockey for lead position against Hillary Clinton and Mark Warner to be that partyÂ’s nominee for President. Nominees who wonÂ’t make it past Iowa next year and who might turn up in the VP spot are: John Edwards (remember him) and Joe Lieberman. [Sorry Joe, unfortunately no one's ready for you yet. Your too independent a thinker and not easily bought.]

- On the Republican side:
If McCainÂ’s health allows, he will try to secure the nomination against a wide sea of lesser known candidates. The most recognized (who have some viability) are: George Allen, Rick Santorum (if heÂ’s re-elected), and Bill Frist. Republican candidates who wonÂ’t make it past Iowa Caucus: Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, Sam Brownback. Someone who wonÂ’t make it past New Hampshire (to my relief) is NY Governor, George Pataki [sorry, because of my job I can't comment on Ruddy or Pataki (darnit)].

Financial predictions:
- Superior Tech stocks like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Motorola will continue to do well. Up and coming tech stocks are: AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), and ATI (ATI Technologies) as was evidenced by their products at the CES show this past weekend.
- Energy stocks will hold their own against threats of regulation, taxation and consumer frustration.
- Digital entertainment companies will do very well, while traditional media companies such as Disney, Paramount and others will continue to struggle.
- Pork belly and soy bean futures will continue to rise (no IÂ’m not kidding), as will drug and mineral resource company stocks.
- Transportation stocks, such as Ford, GM, as well as the airline industry giants, will continue to struggle as a result of high fuel and employee benefits costs.

Odd & Humorous predictions:
- Psychologists will identify a new disease and will name it linkophilia: the obsessive compulsion to link to everyone in the blogosphere in order to drive traffic to their site (if only to have other blog authors visit, to find out who the heck you are, thereby driving traffic to your site and increasing your standing in Google, Yahoo, and the Ecosystem.
- Others will suffer from a lesser known disease known as tagophilia in the hopes to rise their Technorati standing and increase the popularity of del.icio.us and flickr, thus promoting the adoption of Web 2.0.
- Visitors to this site will go from not entertained to only mildly amused, in the same proportion that the level of technological humor increases in my posts.

Posted by: Michele at 12:01 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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