The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

The annual frenzy of psychic prophesizing in the supermarket tabloids is in full swing. Help yourself to some free samples:

"A nationwide anti-smallpox inoculation program will have the astonishing side effect of increasing the average life span by eleven years."

"A chorus of 1000 angels will appear over the Pentagon."

"Pope John Paul II will be miraculously cured of Parkinson's disease while conducting a special memorial mass at the World Trade Center."

"An attempt to clone terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden from one of his beard hairs will be thwarted by U.S. troops in Afghanistan."

"It will be revealed that the Taliban has been kidnapping American children and selling them on the white slave market."

Tabloid prognostication has its intellectual counterpart at the University of Alabama, currently in its 23rd year of issuing forecasts. Spokesperson Chris Bryant told the Birmingham Post-Herald, "We ask the faculty to speculate within their areas of expertise, to go out on a limb and make predictions of what will happen in the next 12 months."

For example, last January, Donald Snow, professor of political science and an expert in military and political affairs, predicted that George W. Bush would lose his bid for reelection if the United States were to go to war against Iraq in 2003. He placed the likelihood at two to one in favor of a military strike. "Even if the war itself goes well," he said, "the post-war will not, and that's what's going to do him in. Post-War Iraq is going to be an extraordinarily messy place that we are going to have to occupy for a long time. We will become the recruiting poster for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations."

The previous January, Snow predicted that bin Laden would be captured in a matter of months but outside of Afghanistan. "I think he's left the country, but eventually we will catch him. Somebody will rat on him. Someone will see him going through a village and will have dreams of sugar plums in that $25 million reward and turn him in. Islamic brotherhood is one thing, but $25 million in cold cash is another."

That same year, Nick Stinnet, professor of marriage and family studies, predicted that there would be a mini-baby boom in June or July 2002, directly correlated with the attacks of September 11, 2001. "In times of stress and crises," he explained, "people often draw closer to one another for comfort and consolation as an antidote to uncertainty and loneliness. And in couple relationships, that drawing closer may involve sexual activity and consequently the possibility of pregnancy. Some people regard sex as a good stress reliever."

Robert Robicheaux, director of the Hess Institute for Retailing Development, predicted that computer companies would collapse: "A Midwestern United States-based entrepreneur will announce the introduction of a technology that completely makes obsolete traditional integrated computer chips. The product will enable easy and inexpensive remote Internet service via satellite transmission technology."

And so here am I, caught somewhere between the tabloids and the experts, with a selection of my own humble predictions for the coming year:

The first legally sanctioned marriage of two metrosexuals will take place in Massachusetts.

Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant will be cellmates.

Charles Manson will be released on parole and announce that he's looking forward to spending more time with his family.

Arnold Schwarzenegger will introduce a bill that would legalize the sale and use of steroids.

Fidel Castro will come out for term limits.

New York Gov. George Pataki will pardon Lenny Bruce-oops, never mind.

Counterfeit euros will flood the international market.

Wal-Mart will move its corporate headquarters to China.

The draft will be reinstated and will not exclude women, gays, lesbians, transvestites or transsexuals.

The weather will remain unpredictable.

John Ashcroft will be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and consequently change his mind about medical marijuana.

Rush Limbaugh will get arrested for purchasing his painkilling pharmaceuticals in Canada.

Laura Bush will overdose on Botox.

Saddam Hussein will be sentenced to a lifetime of community service.

Jessica Lynch will become a director.

The stunt doubles for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez will get married.

The world's tallest building, to be built at the site of the World Trade Center, will be sponsored by the Target chain, whose corporate logo of a bulls-eye a few floors below the spire will be visible for miles.

It will be discovered that Libya has been selling off its weapons of mass destruction to North Korea.

The Patriot Act will be expanded to include thought crimes.

The ACLU and PETA will combine forces to fight for the civil liberties of all animals.

The use of cellphones with cameras for the communication of instant porn will bring about pandemic performance anxiety among masturbators.

The reappearance of pubic hair will become so fashionable that bikini waxes will be outlawed.

A combination penis-enlarger and erection-stimulator patch will be invented.

A pill taken daily by men will transform their semen into a contraceptive device.

Strom Thurmond will be tried posthumously for statutory rape.

Jesse Jackson and Johnny Cochran will compete against each other in a national poetry slam.

Bottled water will be imported from Mars.

There will be an epidemic of genetically engineered crops being inundated with genetically engineered crop circles.

Particles of food will be embedded into dental floss for those who are too busy to eat between flossings.

Dick Cheney's pacemaker will fail when he tries out the microwave oven he was given for Christmas by Rudy Giuliani.

Howard Dean will lose some backing when he interrupts his presidential campaign to perform a partial birth abortion.

The Bill O'Reilly action figure dolls will all be recalled because they have a tendency to self-destruct.

Monica Lewinsky and Paris Hilton will enter a convent and become nuns for a reality-tv series.

Sen. Joe Lieberman will convert to Islam.

God will at last be given credit for creating evolution.

The Second Coming will occur, and Jesus will reveal himself as the antichrist.

And finally, you will definitely not die in 2004.

Paul Krassner can be reached at [www.paulkrassner.com](http://www.paulkrassner.com).