J. Michael Andresen

Entry deadline is 3:30 p.m. CST on  Saturday, January 14, 2017 . Send fifteen answers and one tie-break to jmandresen at gmail.com. Anyone with an email address is welcome to enter! 1. Freedom (January) Freedom House is an international organization that studies democracy and freedom in the world, publishing an annual report on how many countries it calculates to be free, partly free, or not free. The 2016 report calculated that 86 of the world’s 196 nations were free in 2015. Will freedom advance, stay stagnant, or retreat in this year’s report, covering 2016? Note: the seven  worst  free countries (with the highest likelihood of being downgraded) are Botswana, El Salvador, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Peru, and Suriname. The nineteen  best  partly free countries (with the highest likelihood of being upgraded) are Albania, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ecuador, Fiji, Georgia, Indonesia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Paraguay, P...

13-15. Death (December 31) Which of these celebrities will pass on in 2016? You get THREE guesses on this one. Amazingly, A through Y were on last year's quiz and survived to tell about it. Z is the only fresh nonagenarian meat this year. (The 2016 birthdays are indicated. Actuarial tables suggest that a 90-year-old has an 86% chance of surviving the year while a 99-year-old has a 74% chance of seeing 2016. If you pick someone who kicks it before the entry deadline, you will be asked to pick again.) PLEASE PICK THREE ANSWERS! Who will not survive 2016? c. Zsa Zsa Gabor, Actress and Amputee (99) h. Henry Heimlich, you know his maneuver (96) Some people say deaths come in threes, but that is almost never true for the Prognostication Quiz. Yet here we are, with three deaths in the same calendar month. First M. John Glenn, and then C. Zsa Zsa Gabor and H. Henry Heimich. As with John Glenn, only one person picked Henry Heimlich: Aiden M. Meanwhile, since Zsa Zsa has been si...

10. POTUS The steadily improving economy seems to bode well for the incumbent Democrats, while the Republicans seem to be having trouble finding a charismatic candidate. Will the Democrats have an easy win, or will those scrappy Republicans regroup and consolidate? What will become President and Vice President of the United States? a. The Republican ticket b. The Democratic ticket c. An Independent ticket You may not have noticed, since the overall press coverage has been very light, but we have a new President-elect. After a crazy campaign that started two years ago, the Republicans are back in the White House, meaning the answer to Question 10   of the  2016 Prognostication Quiz  is A. Kudos to the six people who predicted that after eight years of a Democratic administration would make enough people want a change. An impressive 37 people picked the Democrats but came up three states short. All Trump, All the Time Stacey C. Chris M. Ron D. Larry A. John ...