Predictions 21-30
- In 2001, you probably don't want to count on that bastard HAL to open the pod doors.
- The monopoly-friendly Republican administration will make the Department of Justice case
against Microsoft fade away. One amusing side-effect will occur when the Microsoft Xbox --
a game machine designed to compete with Sony's Playstation -- finally hits the streets.
Each Xbox will include a high-end game called TPJackson. The object of the game will be to
use a mallet to pound sharp-cornered boxes labeled Anti-Trust into the backside of a pudgy, white-haired
judge. To Bill Gates' chagrin, the Xbox -- which will include a normal computer
subsystem and hard drive -- will quickly become hackers' inexpensive Linux box of choice.
- With new developments in the field of artificial intelligence, video game manufacturers will introduce a
line of virtual girlfriends. These will become extremely popular in the computer geek community,
tired of locating and downloading static porn and grainy video clips. These computerized
'friends' will be capable of intelligent conversation on a broad range of subjects, while
also knowing when to shut the hell up and start taking off their clothes. Virtual boyfriends
will also be available, but not particularly popular among female geeks.
- When his administration begins to aggressively finance the Colombian government's war on National
Liberation Army guerillas and drug traffickers, US President George W Bush will be
commissioned as a lieutenant in the Colombian Death Squad Reserve. (For years, these assassins
have been responsible for
three-quarters of the annual political killings that keep the current Colombian government
in power.) In 2007, Bush will be discharged from the Death Squad Reserves, after missing
drill weekends for most of his last year.
- Former US Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and William Jefferson Clinton will be
arrested while visiting Europe together. They will be hauled
before an International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague in the Netherlands. Bush will be
accused of violating Article 54 of the Geneva Convention when US-led combatants deliberately
destroyed Iraq's water supply during the Gulf War, leading to thousands of civilian deaths.
Clinton will be accused of engineering the 1998 missile attack on a pharmaceutical plant
in Khartoum, Sudan which -- the US admitted a year after the attack -- had no links to
terrorism. While the war crimes trial will drag on for months, the presiding judge will assure the
accused that -- in spite of the seriousness of the crimes -- if found guilty, they'll won't do
any more time than an American marijuana smoker would get for his third conviction.
- Internet users in public schools and libraries (where the only Web access will be
censorware-'enhanced') will find themselves unable to access sites that offer political
opinions, medical information or social commentary that offends the makers of CyberSitter,
NetNanny, SurfWatch, et cetera. Since even Congress will be unable to think of a good
excuse to further limit speech and create more market share for anti-First Amendment
companies by requiring censorware on non-graphical browsers, school and public librarians will
begin installing the text-only browser Lynx. This will lead to its huge comeback.
- In retaliation for US government pressure on Caribbean nations to pass laws that would be
unconstitutional in the US (shifting the burden of proof in money-laundering cases from the
prosecution to the defense, for example -- part of the US War on Drugs) St. Vincent, Dominica,
St. Kitts-Nevis and Aruba will send dozens of witch doctors to Washington D.C. Their
task will be to turn the State Department into a group of mindless, human-flesh-eating zombies.
Although the witch doctors' efforts will be largely successful, few will notice any particular change in the
behavior of State Department officials.
- The City of Los Angeles will begin distributing payments ahead of time to families of mentally
ill, homeless people. Each check for $1 million will have to be picked up at a local police
station before LAPD officers can be dispatched to shoot each victim in the chest. Los Angeles
Police Chief Bernard Parks will tell the press that, although the previous method -- killing
innocents first, then paying for it -- had been "in policy", pre-paying will help restore the
public's confidence in the police department.
- Former East Palo Alto, California police officer Shawn Wildman will finish his
six-month jail term in
2001. He had been sentenced as a result of a traffic stop, during which he accused four young
women of carrying alcohol and drugs, and -- under the pretense of a search -- groped them for
over an hour. During the first day of
Wildman's freedom, while his way to register as a sex criminal, he will be literally molested
by a group of aggressively randy, gay muggers.
- A UPS airplane taking off from Memphis will fail to gain sufficient altitude and will crash into
a neighborhood adjoining the airport. Dozens of people will suffer injuries, but the only
fatality will be a 42-year-old self-employed man working in his home office. The victim will never know
what hit him as he prepares to send out the sixth unsolicited commercial email (spam) of the day to
over a million addresses. Weeks later, FAA will announce that the primary cause of the accident
was that the airplane was overloaded with those stupid coupon books traditionally sold
though telephone solicitations.
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