Predictions for the beginning of 2020 (Reddit post by carc 04/01/10)

National unemployment rates start to fall early May of 2010 The recession will be "officially over" come summer of 2010 Republicans get very close to, but don't win, a majority in both the house and senate in 2010 despite pundit expectations War in Iraq "ends" with the official withdrawal of combat troops, but about 6 months late because of bullshit "security concerns." I predict February of 2011. Afghanistan withdrawal will begin July of 2011, as promised, but a full withdrawal will crawl until early summer of 2012. Palin runs for president in 2012, loses the republican nomination to Mitt Romney Mitt Romney chooses Huckabee as his running mate to appease Evangelical Christians Obama squeaks by re-election in 2012 December 21st, 2012 passes without incident -- with the possible exception of non-stop media whoring Iran will develop a crude fission nuclear weapon by 2013. Israel will launch airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. Marijuana is decriminalized or legalized in the majority of states by 2014 Gay civil rights will reach full national acceptance by 2017 We'll have a new bubble burst in 2017 and a short-lived recession through 2018 In 2019, funding and work begins on a fledgling lunar colony, similar to the ISS. However, this will not come to fruition until many years later. By 2020, we have 32TB Solid-State Hard Drive Disks and 64-core processors. SSDs will be fast enough to replace RAM entirely. Sometime in this decade, another Duke Nukem game is announced, apparently it's no longer going to be called "Duke Nukem Forever" McCain dies of natural causes before Obama's second term is up, casting credence to the terrible 'what-could-have-been' scenario of a President Palin A nuclear weapon will be detonated somewhere in the world