Culture

How’d Our 2012 Predictions Fare?

We didn’t have a such a bad year making picks—here’s the list. Make predictions for 2013 here.

Yours truly picked Mitt Romney as president. A wishcast not a forecast! A retroactive wishcast for many, I’m thinking, as the next four years progress. I wasn’t the only one to make this mistake: equinox, POUNCER, bob, JJD, obiwankenobi, JakeTX, Tom Bri, John M, Schatzenberge, Joy, Doug M, Steve N., and Robert all joined me in pegging Romney.

Obama took it, as those recovering from New Year’s hangovers will remember. Not “convincingly” as faride hoped and mct guessed, but barely, by just a few percentage points. The Democrats held the Senate and the Republicans the House, meaning the country remains split, not that you’d read that in the press, which assumes any victory, however meager, is a “mandate.”

Others who got Obama right: JH, DAV, WjB, Chronus, jon shively, Luis Dias, Richard Hill, Will, reid, 49erDweet, Vinny Burgoo, Ernesto, feroze daud, Tom M, Rosco, GregO, Ken, David, and Rod picked the re-immaculation of The One.

Katie and sera said Obama would ditch Joe “Wakka Wakka” Biden and promote Hillary as running mate.

Rich had the best guess on who’d be chief executive, “The President of the United States will be a polar bear called Leslie who is currently scavenging in bins in Anchorage.” Not best in the sense of accuracy, but as that to be desired.

commieBob was on the money when he said many who voted last time wouldn’t this election. His “Some members of the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement find common cause and work to take the Republic back from the corruption in which it is mired” was wildly off the mark.

There were a number of sports predictions (something about a team called “Heat”), but none about baseball, the only sport Yours Truly follows. I can only report the sad news the Detroit Tigers did not win the World Series.

equinox was right that the DJIA never would crack 15,000; nor would the S&P bust 1500. POUNCER was right the EURO wouldn’t crap out. Most people were appropriately gloomy about the economic conditions, picking low GDP growth, continued misery and mopery.

Gary wasn’t too far off with his lone prediction, “Less than fifty percent of the legitimate predictions made here will be judged as correct.” This wasn’t good enough to take the prize. Schatzenberge showed us the necessity of using skill as a measure of goodness with his always-right “Vladimir Putin will be shirtless in at least one photo op” and “E. Coli outbreak at Taco Bell.”

Tom Bri was way off the mark when he guessed, “Under the weight of Fast and Furious, Eric Holder will leave office, to spend more time with his family.” Not only did Holder not resign, word is he’s sticking around for Obama’s second term.

Honorary mention to Greg Cavanagh who had the cleverest forecast, “England will flip over and sink beneath the sea due to the torque exerted by all the wind mills above.” This might have even happened, for all we know.

GregO was partly right when he said, “News media (print, TV) will continue to downplay CAGW. Eventually a new panic will be found to replace CAGW but not next year.” Still time to make guesses about what the next panic will be. For a few days at the end of 2012 it looked like guns, but that didn’t last. Ideas? Register them in the other thread. Rosco also guessed the media would tired of AGW.

Uncle Mike had the most intriguing prediction: “World War III will start, in Europe as usual, although it will not be recognized as such until ’13 or ’14.” We’ll have to leave it to him to see what that start was. Greek riots? France and Germany teaming up against Russia? JakeTX thought Iran would have attacked Israel by now. JJD was on board, having Iran attacking somebody.

John Morris—quite sadly—blew it when he prognosticated Obamacare would be struck down by Supreme Court.

Vinny Burgoo will have to tell use whether Bo Derek indeed visited Ecuador. Luis Dias guessed Sakrozy would win his election, which didn’t happen, but he was right to say Putin would find a way to stay in office.

Nobody batted 1.000, but some did better than others. There was one gentleman who stood out from the pack, making the most correct, interesting and difficult predictions. This was Chronus. He got Obama right, guessed correctly Gov. Christie would not be Republican VP, saw that the Syrian regime would hold through 2012, and said that “Snarky stories poo-pooing the End of the World predictions will dominate the December news cycle. Knowing how often the media is wrong, canned food sales increase 25% over 2010 levels.”

His final, and best prognostication, was, through all thus tumult, “Still, Earth abides.”

Make predictions for 2013 here.

Categories: Culture, Fun, Statistics

9 replies »

  1. Gary wasn’t too far off with his lone prediction, “Less than fifty percent of the legitimate predictions made here will be judged as correct.” This wasn’t good enough to take the prize.

    Nuts. Shoulda included a p-value with that prediction, I guess.

  2. “News media (print, TV) will continue to downplay CAGW. Eventually a new panic will be found to replace CAGW but not next year.”

    Well, maybe, but for all the wrong reasons.

    CAGW is downplayed because it has changed from ‘OMG, disaster is upon us, we must sound the alarm!’ to revealed truth which cannot be questioned. And need not be. Mission accomplished.

    It has permeated our society from kindergarden through graduate school, government (goes without saying, since it was invented as an excuse to grow government), the media, and every other aspect of society. I subscribe to car magazines and without exception they assume that cars should be designed (and operated) so as to reduce their CO2 signature and in fact CO2 signature reduction should be the prime driver for car design. It is nearly impossible to pick up a magazine on any subject without running across a comment that shows that the editors accept that CAGW is real and that only coordinated government action to regulate all energy production and consumption can prevent it. And that sane, rational people simply don’t question it.

    So yeah, CAGW is no longer ‘headline material’ (neither is sunrise or the tides, and for the same reason), but it most definitely hasn’t gone away. In fact, given the proliferation of government agencies, programs, and regulations addressing CAGW, the IRS is beginning to seem fleeting and ephemeral.

  3. Oh but I did also predict Magnus would reach 1850 elo, which he did right at the end of the year (last two weeks). That was my wild guess prediction.

  4. No love for my 90% prediction accuracy? Wasn’t quite statistically significant I suppose 🙂

  5. It is interesting to see how a victory is consider meager when the reelected president is the first since Eisenhower to receive more than 51% of the vote. While gaining seat in both chambers of congress. Democrate have also received the majority of vote in the Senate and the chambe of representatives.

    The only reason the Reps were able to keep the chamber of representatives is because they of map redistricting.

    What mandate did George W. Bush had when I won the election while receiving less vote than Gore.

  6. Don’t you read the Ecuadorian press, WMB? Bo Derek was an important guest at the (weekly) changing of the Ecuadorian Presidential Guard on Monday 18th June 2012. Also in attendance: Baki, Minns, Corbett … well, you know. The usual crowd.

    My nearest misses for 2012 were No Impact Man (he crashed his bicycle, not his rickshaw) and the meeting between a dentist and a polar bear (both survived).

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