During the first few days of a new year, it’s customary for newspaper financial and editorial columnists to make fiscal and political predictions for the coming months. Such speculation usually proves to be woefully off base. Even successful business tycoons and scientists, who have attempted to forecast the future within their own fields of expertise – people like Bill Gates – have frequently missed the boat.

Nonetheless, poor odds of success have rarely stopped this bumbling writer from plunging blindly into risky arenas, as evidenced from my choice of “games” at the Muckleshoot casino. So, with apologies, I offer my predictions for 2012.

People will quit looking for work because they’ll realize work isn’t any fun, anyway.

A dust-storm will bury Phoenix under 5 feet of dirt and, except for people who have immediate family living there, no one will even know it’s gone.

Republican presidential candidates will schedule a debate every other day until the summer convention.

A Catholic nun will sue Herman Cain for sexual harassment.

Toby and Annie Larson will win the $230 million dollar Powerball jackpot.  They’ll buy a new lawnmower and give the rest away.

The Supreme Court will declare Obamacare is constitutional, but his presidency isn’t.

A complete international collapse of the Internet will destroy all the financial records in U.S. banks. Al-Qaeda claims responsibility, but a government investigation reveals that Bank of America actually instigated the crash because it wanted to start over with a clean slate.

The Wall Street Exchange will go into such a sharp, downhill slide, the New York Times will list my stock in the obits section.

A woman in Mississippi sees the face of the Virgin Mary in the bark of a 800-year-old oak, but her discovery is short lived because an anarchist cuts the tree down.

An NBC investigative reporter will discover that Iran’s holiest cleric has the world’s largest collection of pornography.

Obama wins re-election by default. The Republicans will never decide who to run against him.

iPhone will market another 230 apps that you can’t possibly live without, including one that will turn on your living room TV from a parking lot in Portland.

A hand-held, foreign language translator will instantly translate Mandarin Chinese and even decipher Republican John Boehner’s babble.

Our mayor will ask the state to declare Enumclaw a historic site and the entire town will become one huge antique mall.

There you have it, friends. It all seems plausible to me.

And, in the meantime, you’ll find me around town toasting the end of civilization as we know it. Cheers!