Did everyone make it safely and securely through the holidays? I sure hope so, I know (or at least I believe) I did. Let’s hope 2007 is a good one for everyone out there.

Over at Red State, the staff is making their annual predictions for the coming year. Me? I’ve got a few of my own – some whimsical, some serious, none of which I would encourage y’all to sell the family farm on. But here I go:

Sports:

1. The New Orleans Saints do not win the Super Bowl. (Sorry, Rob.) I do believe they can get there, though, but they’ll lose to the New England Patriots.

2. Michelle Wie fails to make the cut on a men’s tour event. She does, however, win her first women’s tour event, and – believe it or not – it is a major.

3. Tiger Woods wins 3 of the four, of the men’s majors, falling short by one stroke, surprisingly enough, at the PGA.

4. The Oakland Athletics stun the baseball world by winning the World Series.

5. Someone will win the NBA and NHL championships, but The Great White Shank will not be able to remember who it was days later.

World Events

1. The Middle East is thrown into even more chaos as: a) Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf’s government is overthrown in a military-supported al-Qaeda coup, b) Iraq’s government falls, and c) Syria’s Bashad Assad is also the victim of a coup.

2. Teetering on collapse, Iraq’s government is reorganized by Iraqis without U.S. involvement; negotiations begin towards separate provinces belonging to the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds.

3. A devastating earthquake (8.2 on the Richter scale) hits a major city on the West Coast.

4. Cuba’s Fidel Castro finally dies and a ragged civil war breaks out in Cuba, thereby increasing hostilities between the U.S. and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.

5. There is no relief from the suffering in Darfur, as the U.N. fails to agree on an aid and peace package acceptable to all parties.

Politics:

1. President Bush’s popularity drops to historic lows for any president in history as attempts to improve the state of things in Iraq fail and he agrees to limited tax increases in a concession to congressional Democrats on Social Security reform.

2. Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are the only major GOP candidates remaining to run for President, as Rudy Giuliani and John McCain first enter, then withdraw for a variety of reasons.

3. The off-shoring of American jobs overseas becomes a major campaign issue heading into the 2008 presidential election.

4. Democrats and Republicans agree to sweeping Social Security and immigration reforms.

5. Barack Obama and John Edwards emerge as the major candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, as Hillary Clinton’s campaign sputters, and then falters.

Miscellaneous:

1. Despite a number of nagging household problems, The Great White Shank finally (and successfully) pays off his credit card debt. The dollar falls against the Euro as a result.

2. Rosie O’Donnell is fired from “The View” for one-too-many outrageous remarks, this one involving the First Lady and her marriage.

3. In a historic move, the worldwide Anglican Communion declares and recognizes a separate, co-existant province in North America for orthodox parishes in both the U.S. and Canada.

4. It’s another quiet year on the hurricane front in the Atlantic, leaving experts perplexed and confounded over whether “global warming” is, in fact, suppressing cyclonic activity. However, a rare meterological event occurs when a dying hurricane moving north from Baja California impacts San Diego with tropical-force winds.

5. Goodboy Ron “Cubby” Myerow successfully stashes enough money away to pronounce himself ready for his fellow Goodboys’ 2008 Las Vegas weekend.