2014 Ehrlich Awards For Wrong Predictions

This supposedly annual end-of-year feature is a little overdue, which I blame partly on the snap Queensland election and partly on the field being uninspiring compared to the 2012 and 2013 ensembles.  But while I wait for another poll to shed light on public response to what seems to be a ragged week for the LNP in the Queensland campaign, here we go. This site awards the Ehrlich Award early every year (unless I decide not to) to the "wrongest" public prediction I observe in or relating to the previous calendar year.

There are a few groundrules, for instance predictions need to be meaningful (in terms of being able to assess factually whether they have come to fruition), and predictions that carry a stated chance of falsehood are not included unless that chance proves to be ludicrously low.  The first of these, for instance, excludes Tony Abbott's pledge that in 2014 his government "every day [.. ] will keep building the stronger, more prosperous country that all Australians want and deserve" - not only are the terms of such platitudes undefinable, but those making them will continue maintaining they were true.  Likewise, I have so far been unable to find an empirical unit for measuring whether or not the President of Russia has been "shirtfronted".