It’s a new year, and we here at Vic Skeptics would like to celebrate this (somewhat arbitrary) milestone in the traditional skeptical fashion.
We’re going to shake up the tea leaves, gaze into the crystal ball, yank out the goat entrails and check out some psychic predictions for 2011.
Then, most importantly of course, we’ll revisit them at the end of the year and see how they did!
But we don’t want any of those annoying predictions that are infuriatingly general and non-specific.
And we definitely don’t want any silly prophecies about celebrity relationships. (Brad and Angelina are going to have a rough time? Oh noes!)
No, what we want are specific dates and detailed events.
Enter Australia’s own John Gold. Mr Gold goes out on a huge number of very impressive limbs with his 2011 forecasts.
I’ve reproduced a choice selection below the fold, or you can read the whole jaw-dropping lot here.

In mid-2011 Oprah Winfrey will announce her intention to run for the Senate. In 2012 she will become Senator Oprah Winfrey and in November 2016 she will be elected the 45th US president.
Europe will slide back into full-blown recession, resulting in four countries requiring bail-outs by the IMF.
The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, will be sacked Feb-Mar 2011. He will be unable to avoid jail despite his billions.
Julian Assange will be sentenced to a lengthy term (possibly life) in a US prison on espionage charges. He will ultimately receive a pardon, but not before serving at least 5 years.
Osama bin Laden will be captured sometime between July and October, 2011.
An earthquake will rock the east coast of Australia between Christmas Day and January 20.
Another tsunami will wreak havoc in Indonesia resulting in massive loss of life.
Former PM Kevin Rudd is working feverishly behind the scenes mustering support for another tilt at the top job sometime in late 2011. Watch out Julia!
Treasurer Wayne Swan will attempt to increase the GST from 10% to 12½%. His initial attempt will fail, but will succeed in the not-too-distant future, probably early in 2012.

Wow. Nice work Mr Gold. We’ll come back and have a look at those in a year’s time.
Have you seen some other predictions you’d like us to keep track of? If so, please put them in the comments!
 
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Update: Check out our post here where we have a look at how well Mr Gold did!