PREDICTIONS

I predict that President Bush will win the popular vote by 2-3% and win the Electoral College by a comfortable margin. After the initial shock (and not enough soul searching), the Democrats and the NYT will begin whining about fraud, racism, anti-vegetarianism, conspiracies, and a desire to emigrate to Canada, France or Berkeley.

Yasser Arafat will be dead shortly, most likely of one of the diseases his "doctors" have denied he suffers from. However, Arafat's underbosses won't release the news of Arafat's death until they have had a chance to internally fight over his stolen money and position themselves for power. I anticipate that for a transitional period, the PA will be run by a series of Arafat's aged former cronies. Much as in the former Soviet Union, these old men will eventually be replaced by younger faces who are (slightly) less blood thirsty. Complicating all of this will be Hamas and Hezbollah (and their Iranian masters) who will probably inflict a civil war upon the Palestinians before the dust settles. Hopefully for a while they will be too busy killing each other to kill Israelis. Whatever happens, look for the BBC, NYT, CNN et al. to blame . . . . Israel.

The Yankees will sign lots of high priced free agents (but no left handed pitching) and do their best to raid the Red Sox for their best free agent players. I expect Herr Steinbrenner to make strong moves for Varitek (who will stay with Boston) and Martinez (who may go to New York, where he will suffer either an Ed Whitson-like meltdown or resurrect his career as Roger Clemens did). I expect Theo Epstein of the Red Sox to refuse to over pay for anyone but to make moves whose brilliance becomes apparent next August.

Shortly after the election, I expect the U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq to make a major offensive to wipe out the various terrorists. It will be bloody and massive. Iraqi elections will follow in January and the U.S. will declare victory and begin disengaging from Iraq. Osama Bin Laden will be captured (or more likely pulverized) early next year somewhere in Pakistan. France will offer him asylum and Arafat's widow will woo him.

Feel free to post your comments and own predictions!