Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

The peril of prediction

From BBC correspodent John Simpson, who's been roped in to do a 'this is what will happen in 2008' piece of balls for the Beeb's website:

I didn't expect that the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, for all his sharp intelligence, would make the so-called surge of American troops in Iraq look quite so successful.

True, it has only brought the level of killings and explosions down to that of two or three years ago, and it's likely to make the eventual civil war in Iraq fiercer than ever.

But it's a success, even so.

I have read it three or four times and can't understand why that might be a success in anyone's money - more US troops sent over to be killed, and to kill more Iraqis, in a move that will mean even more intense civil war, causing yet more deaths and injuries. The Titanic may be sinking, but not quite as quickly as it was, so hooray!

Simpson gambled in 2006 on Osama Bin Laden being found dead, but the old Cassandra didn't quite get that one right. But that's the problem with these prediction articles; some bastard like me will dredge them up and examine them a couple of years later, proving them entirely wrong.

Simpson also said, back in 2006:

...Even the most resistant scientist, industrialist and politician will have to accept that the evidence for the damage we are doing to our planet is overwhelming.

Ha ha! Has he read the BBC's Have Your (Reactionary) Say message boards? Or any right-wing newspaper? Or the letters page of any newspaper? Scepticism in the face of overwhelming evidence on climate change is alive and well, and it is shouting the loudest. It's miserable and it's ridiculous, but it's happening.

But, seeing as it's a bit of fun, here are my predictions for 2008. You're more than welcome to come along in a year or two's time and point and laugh at me and call me a div:

- Tabloids will keep writing shit about Madeleine McCann and implicating people against whom there is no evidence, even if/when she is found dead/alive by Metodo 3, who've been spectacularly efficient and tracked down the kidnappers/to have been hiding down the side of the settee all this time.
- A right-wing conservative warmonger will be elected president of the United States. Whether it's Obama, Clinton II, McCain or anyone else is beyond my guesswork. But it doesn't really matter tremendously much, I feel.
- The new president will say a lot about climate change, but do fuck all.
- There'll be shit about WAGs, footballers and Billie Piper in the papers as it's much more important than the growing inequality under a Labour government, rising prices, looming credit disaster, recession, war, death and misery.
- The Mail and Express will lie, and lie, and lie about immigration. Labour and the Tories, and even the Lib Dems, rather than exposing these vile racist lies for the vile racist lies they are, will meekly part their cheeks and do whatever the racist liars say.
- The concentration camp in Guantanamo will carry on as usual with its torture. Politicians will grumble about it possibly being a bad thing. But will do nothing about it.
- Everyone in this country becomes miserably fed up with 'general election fever' by January 2.
- War will carry on against the brown folk across the world on behalf of massive corporations and 'freedom'.

Happy 2008.

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