StopSylviaBrowne - Your Help With 1996 Predictions

HEALT-2: A preliminary vaccine for AIDS is tested on a control group; findings are favorable.

I did find this from from 1994:
http://www.iavi.org/viewfile.cfm?fid=1045

Currently there are more than 50 HIV-1 vaccines in exploratory development; 16 of these have been tested in human volunteers, and three (two subunit and one peptide vaccine) have moved into Phase II trials in at-risk individuals (see Figure 1). No vaccines, however, have moved forward into Phase III trials, and there are no plans to do so in the immediate future. Of the vaccines in production for human trials only 2 are based on replicating or non-replicating complex immunogens.

So guess by the time SB made the "prediction," it was old news.
 
DrewD said:
WRONG!

Colorado ranked 40th out of 57 in snowfall in 1996. This is from record tracking of snowfall in Colorado from 1948 to present. Hardly a year of excessive snow and moisture.

Reference:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/Boulder/rank.pl
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Thanks DrewD, but the link appears to be about "January maximum temperature" rather than snowfall. The two are related of course, but a list of annual snowfall in inches would be better. And the link is specifically about Boulder, which may or may not be indicative of the higher mountains, which is where the bulk of the runoff would originate. Good start, though!
 
Last one for now.

INATL-2: A nuclear test moratorium is imposed on France.

Imposed on France assumes an outside source. Didn't happen. They did, however, self impose a ban which was ratified in 1998. Very partial credit could be given for the fact that she predicited that France did what France said it was going to do but it's not anything that would have required any superior knowledge than paying attention.

A bit of history first. France had a self imposed ban for some time and came out and said they were going to test 8 bombs for boomage. They were doing it near New Zealand who were a bit miffed about the whole thing.

cnn.com/WORLD/9510/france_test/index.html
cnn.com/WORLD/9601/france_nuclear/france_slammed/index.html
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEEDC173CF937A3575BC0A963958260

fas.org/nuke/control/ctbt/chron.htm

The highlights:

13 June 1995: RESUMPTION OF FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTING - French President Jacques Chirac announces that France will resume nuclear testing in September, with a series of eight tests in the South Pacific to last until May 1996, and be ready to sign a CTBT in the fall of 1996.

6 April 1998: United Kingdom and France become the first declared nuclear-weapon states to submit their instruments of ratification for the CTBT
 
Drat. I found over 900 articles that describe Dole as the clear GOP front-runner but none that cite a poll, except the Iowa straw poll which was actually not very favorable toward Dole and good news for Gramm.

Here's the best poll I could find about it:

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/polls/cnn.time/120695.shtml

Wait! Here's a published 1995 Gallup Poll about it (page 101 will be of particular interest to you) : http://books.google.com/books?id=QJ...E7h&sig=rkD3dE7ceecqdxEeXPm0V_GB_Vs#PPA101,M1
 
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CELEB-1: Sandra Bullock gets married, it only lasts 4 months. She then goes away to a retreat to regroup.

CELEB-3: Sylvester Stallone marries a woman not in modeling whom he meets at a horse ranch.
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ctress Sandra Bullock wed her bad-boy boyfriend, tattooed reality TV star Jesse James, at a horse ranch Saturday in California wine country.
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Looks like she got her predictions crossed :rolleyes:

This is a great idea RSL. Please be sure to find some way to alert us to which ones are already done to save time as well.
 
POLIT-5: More states will accept Gay marriages. Supreme Court issues a favorable ruling.

The opposite happened. As far as I can tell, only Massachusetts did this, but not until 2004. There is an article called "50-state rundown on gay marriage laws," which lists how most states have actively tried to enforce the opposite (link below). I think it's only very recently that this has begun to turn around a little.
http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=15576

Unfortunately, for SB, 1996 was 11 years ago.
 
And...last one for tonight:

QUAKE-1: Mexico has another large earthquake in December, near 6.9 magnitude

Found this site which seemed to detail the earthquake activity during the mid to late '90s in the areas surrounding Mexico City. Lots of earthquake activity in 1995 all over Mexico, one in '97, '98, even '99, but...rotten luck for Sylvia, I didn't see mention of even one in 1996.

http://www.tomzap.com/seismic.html

tomorrow I'll look some more and see what other sources I can find
 
HEALT-3: A new type of pneumonia virus is found that seems impervious to drugs.
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This is going to be impossible to prove. Even if you could say there was no incident in the US or Europe, there could have been an instance in a small village in some remote area of the world. So you may want to class this as Unknown.

In any case I will continue to look for information. That it's specifically pneumonia helps make searching at least a little easier.

From: http://gentlebirth.org/vre/vreBayArea1996.html

TheSan Francisco Examiner, Sunday, Sept. 14, 1997 · Page C 1...

But almost every human infection - including malaria, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, pneumonia, even leprosy - is now resistant to at least one major class of antibiotics, conference researchers report.
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So this one is from 1997 though, so it doesn't really apply...

From: http://www.wsws.org/science/1998/jun1998/germ-j25.shtml

But in 1995, the US Federal Department of Agriculture (FDA) approved two types of fluoroquinolones for use in poultry. The drugs are put into chicks' drinking water to prevent a flock-destroying disease.
Exposure to the fluoroquinolones caused the bacteria, campylobacter, the leading human food poisoner, to mutate rapidly. ... In 20 percent of the samples, the bacteria were fluoroquinolone-resistant.
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This one is from 1995 but it doesn't specify pneumonia.

From: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=8559622

In 1992 drug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae was cultured with increasing frequency from aspirates of middle ear fluid from children with acute otitis media in a rural Kentucky community. To determine the prevalence of carriage of drug-resistant S. pneumoniae in the community, we obtained nasopharyngeal swabs from 158 (70%) of 227 children attending a child daycare center and from 82 children attending the county health center. S. pneumoniae was isolated from 126 children. Among 123 isolates tested 65 (53%) were penicillin-resistant, including 41 (33%) strains that were highly resistant; 61 (50%) were multidrug-resistant. Serotypes 19F, 6B, 23F and 6A comprised 89% of the penicillin-resistant isolates. Detection of a variety of serotypes and drug resistance patterns among nasopharyngeal isolates of S. pneumoniae suggests that multidrug-resistant pneumococcal strains are endemic in this community.
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This is from 1992 and notes pneumonia resistance already happening. Though the pneumonia is not "impervious" to drugs, just resistant to some of them. As a result you could call her prediction Common Sense as well.

Ultimately I'd say either Common Sense or Wrong. Common Sense because there had been information for years before her prediction that pneumonia was already developing resistance to drugs. Wrong if you interpret "impervious" to mean resistant to ALL drugs, because cases of pneumonia have been shown to only be resistant to SOME drugs, but not all.
 
QUAKE-2: Southern California has two small quakes, one in January and another in October.
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From: http://www.scecdc.scec.org/monthly/bymyear.php?year=1996

Southern California Earthquakes 1996 Monthly Seismicity

January 1996
diamond.gif
MAP
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GRAPH

By far the largest earthquake, and the seismic highlight of January 1996, was a magnitude 5.2 aftershock which struck the Ridgecrest area on the 7th. It produced two immediate aftershocks over magnitude 4, both on the 8th of the month. Another sizable aftershock (M 4.2) struck the same area of the 26th. Not surprisingly, the Ridgecrest sequence kept the rate of earthquakes considerably high this month -- over 2360 earthquakes can be seen here, and at least 1300 of those are Ridgecrest aftershocks.
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As you can see there were thousands of quakes, not one, and not all of them were small.

From the same link ealier...

October 1996
diamond.gif
MAP
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GRAPH
The largest earthquake of October 1996 was a magnitude 4.2 near Ojai (east of Santa Barbara) on the 23rd, which produced a small aftershock sequence. Also notable was a magnitude 4.1 which struck the area near the Pisgah fault on the 19th. Like the event in August, this was considered a Landers aftershock. The seismicity rate for this area fell somewhat from the previous month, as 1070 earthquakes were recorded during these 31 days.
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Same as before. Not just one quake, and not all were small.

End judgement: Wrong or common sense. Wrong if you are taking her mention of two earthquakes to literally mean just two total for both months. Common sense if you want to dumb her prediction down to "there will be quakes in southern california in january and october.
 
I'm particularily proud of myself on this one.

QUAKE-3: Northern California has a small quake in February, near Livermore or Modesto.
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From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livermore,_California
And: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/geo/geohack.php?pagename=Livermore%2C_California&params=37_41_8_N_121_45_51_W_type:city

It gives you the global coordinates of Livermoor.
Latitude: 37.68 degrees
Longitude: -121.76 degrees

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modesto,_California
And: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/g...ornia&params=37_39_41_N_120_59_40_W_type:city

It gives you the global coordinates of Modesto.
Latitude: 37.66 degrees
Longitude: -120.99 degrees.

Then you use these coordinates along with this website...

http://www.data.scec.org/catalog_search/date_mag_loc.php

Which lets you input the starting and ending year, month, day, and time, as well as the location by coordinates to search for earthquakes.

I put in the dates of 1996, february 1st, to 1996 february 28th, with the coordinate range from Latitude 37.0 to 38.0, and Longitude -122.0 to -120.0, and event type: local. This is what it came up with.

No events were found
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I cannot post the link because the way the online earthquake application works it doesn't have a specific url for each search result, just one for all. So if I included the link, when you click on it, nothing would come up. You are free to input everything yourself though to double check.

Now if I change the coordinate range a little wider...
Latitude: 36.0 to 39.0
Longitude -123.0 to -119.0
Event type: local (still)
It comes up with this...

Number of events: 4
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The page actually includes information about each event, such as its location, the date, time, and magnitude. Due to the way it is formatted I cannot quote that information in here without it being jumbled together and very difficult to read. So again you are more than welcome to input the information yourself.

If you widen the area one degree further in all directions you will end up with a giant list of events.

As you can also see the two cities are very close in coordinates. So with the second example I gave where it listed 4 events, this area almost certainly includes a few other cities as well as the two.

So exactly what does "near" mean in her prediction? I am going to assume the first search which specifically applies to the two cities she mentions. If she had meant a larger or different area than that, she would have mentioned other cities instead of those two.

So I declare this WRONG.

I'm glad that you are allowing others to be involved. Sometimes when I'm reading about stuff on these forums I wish I could help out somehow. This is a great opportunity to do just that. Thank you, and I hope I was of some help!
 
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RSLancastr said:
Here they are: Browne's predictions for 1996, created in 1995.
[...]

International

INATL-1: The war in Bosnia is not really squelched until late July; troops are sent in.
INATL-2: A nuclear test moratorium is imposed on France.​
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Regarding INATL-1, the wording is typically vague, allowing for quibbling over interpretation; that would give the prediction a score of UNKNOWABLE.
The prima facie wording, however, is simply wrong. The cease-fire in Bosnia started on 11-Oct-1995, and there were no significant armed clashes from that date onward. IFOR assumed its role as the peace implementation force on 20-Dec-1995, and while the implementation of the peace process (as agreed upon in the Dayton Peace Accords) did not go quite as smoothly as intended, there was at no point a resumption of open, armed hostilities, not in 1996, not in later years.
There were no events in July 1996 that led to the deployment of additional forces as part of IFOR. Thus, from the perspective of any reasonable iterpretaton, the prediction is WRONG.
(Source: BILDT, Carl, Peace Journey: The Struggle fror Peace in Bosnia, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998)

Regarding INATL-2, on 13-Jun-1995, President Chirac "announced simultaneously that France would carry out a final campaign of nuclear testing in the Pacific and that it would sign a universal and verifiable Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The last French nuclear test took place on 26 January 1996."
Thus, the score for this prediction is ALREADY KNOWN.
(Source: GlobalSecurity.org)
 
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POLIT-1: Bill Clinton will be reelected President.
Right
POLIT-2: Bob Dole will be the Republican Presidential candidate.
Right
POLIT-3: Republican party starts moving towards being moderately liberal.
Wrong
POLIT-4: Another "Million Man March" in the South to show solidarity.
Wrong
POLIT-5: More states will accept Gay marriages. Supreme Court issues a favorable ruling.
Wrong to my knowledge, even though MA now has gay marriage and the SC struck down a sodomy law, those came later

Economy

ECONO-1: Federal budget will not balance in 7 years, more like 10 years.
Didn't Clinton leave office with a surplus?
ECONO-2: Our economy improves: more jobs, more small businesses flourish.
Right/Common Sense. This was the beginning of the dot-coms, I think
ECONO-3: Stock market keeps rising until February, then levels out and begins to go down. Not a plunge, just a downward trend.
I don't know but I'll call Common Sense. Doesn't sound spectacular
ECONO-4: Interest rates go down.
Interest rates depended on Greenspan's mood.

International

INATL-1: The war in Bosnia is not really squelched until late July; troops are sent in.
Wrong. Ended in 1995 according to wiki.
INATL-2: A nuclear test moratorium is imposed on France.
France's last test was January 1996

Weather

WEATH-1: California is in for a 2 year dry spell. Some rains in February, but not much.
If right, then common sense.
WEATH-2: Colorado gets close to flood conditions due to excessive snow and moisture.
I found floods in July: http://www.assessment.ucar.edu/flood/fld_sum_loc.html
 
Thanks again, everyone! Keep 'em coming! I will comment and ask followup questions on this last batch later, but I wanted to address this:
The_Animus said:
This is a great idea RSL. Please be sure to find some way to alert us to which ones are already done to save time as well.
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The problem with that is, I do not want to discourage people from researching those predictions for which opinions have already been posted. Additional research may uncover something helpful, including additional and possibly better supporting links.

I think that once I have finished an article on a year's list, I will add a post to this thread, pointing to the thread announcing the article being added to the site.

Fair enough?
 
RSLancastr said:
2. Your "score" for the prediction. Currently, those scores are WRONG, UNKNOWN/UNKNOWABLE, RIGHT, COMMON SENSE (for predictions like "There will be earthquakes in California") and ALREADY KNOWN (Such as predicting a medical breakthrough which had already been published in JAMA). Those categories may change, but they will do for a start.
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There's a difference between unknown and unknowable: You don't know what's on my lap right now (hint: it's not a dog), but it is knowable - it is not beyond the limits of human experience. Unknowable is.

If a psychic says something that is unknown, it can be checked and verified. If a psychic says something that is unknowable, it can not be checked and verified.

If a psychic can get away with the latter, but have it perceived as the former, then all the more power to the psychic.
 
ECONO-4: Interest rates go down.

Still have to provide your own www and whatnot:

federalreserve.gov/datadownload/default.htm

Once. In Feburary. The prime rate month by month according to the Fed:

1996-01 8.5
1996-02 8.25
1996-03 8.25
1996-04 8.25
1996-05 8.25
1996-06 8.25
1996-07 8.25
1996-08 8.25
1996-09 8.25
1996-10 8.25
1996-11 8.25
1996-12 8.25

So it did go down.

ECONO-3: Stock market keeps rising until February, then levels out and begins to go down. Not a plunge, just a downward trend.

stockcharts.com/charts/historical/djia19802000.html

While it's not the best chart in the world for actual numbers what it shows is that the DJIA opened around 5500, took a slight stall around June and then shot up to around 6750.

ECONO-2: Our economy improves: more jobs, more small businesses flourish.

bls.gov/data/home.htm

Not sure where to find the small business data yet but jobs are checkable via unemployment.

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual
1995 6.2 5.9 5.7 5.6 5.5 5.8 5.9 5.6 5.4 5.2 5.3 5.2 5.6
1996 6.3 6.0 5.8 5.4 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.1 5.0 4.9 5.0 5.0 5.4
1997 5.9 5.7 5.5 4.8 4.7 5.2 5.0 4.8 4.7 4.4 4.3 4.4 4.9

5.4 to 5.6 as an improvement? It's certainly more but 1 job would be more. With the way the numbers are jiggered in any given year for any political purpose I'm not sure if that qualifies with small busineses flourishing and all.
 
CFLarsen said:
There's a difference between unknown and unknowable
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This is true, Claus.

I may break them out into separate categories as I assemble the articles, but maybe not. It simplifies things in the mind of the reader, and has no effect on the "How many did she get right?" issue.

For the purposes of this thread, I am not differentiating between the two.
 
"HEALT-1: Gradual health reforms begin in consideration of the elderly and physically challenged."

I find this one particularly odd. Are we to assume that these predictions are for the US unless otherwise specified? What about specific states and/or cities? What does she mean by "begin in consideration..."? That, to me, implies that there is simply an overall health reform that may have began as an initiative for the elderly/handicapped.

So, we have a health reform that is gradual that occurs somewhere in the world. How helpful! I don't know where I would have been without Sylvia telling me this piece of information.

Unless we can make some sense out of the vagueness of this prediction, I don't know if we can even begin to research it.
 
WEATH-2: Colorado gets close to flood conditions due to excessive snow and moisture.

I found these links that appear to cover all of Colorado.
ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/snow/ads/co/wy1995/co95prec.html
ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/snow/ads/co/wy1996/co96prec.html

These show total monthly and total precipitation (which I though would be better since the prediction states snow and moisture) by region and/or area. They run by “water year” which is Oct through Sep.

To save you a little time, I did some quick math:
Grand total for wy1995: 3248.9 inches
Grand total for wy1996: 2566.7 inches (this table also has 2 additional locations. Subtracting those gives a total of 2512.8)

These links cover snow pack
ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/snow/ads/co/wy1995/co95sntl.html
ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/snow/ads/co/wy1996/co96sntl.html

I also dumped the info from these links into an Excel spreadsheet. I can send it to you if you’d like.
Hopefully, this will be helpful to you Robert.
 
WEATH-2: Colorado gets close to flood conditions due to excessive snow and moisture.

More on Colorado, from http://dola.colorado.gov/dem/public_information/drought.htm:

"Since 1981, Colorado has seen a sustained overall wet period. A few localized exceptions include a significant, but brief drought in southwest Colorado from 1989 to 1990; a growing season drought in 1994 in northeast Colorado; and a localized drought in southwest Colorado from late 1995 into 1996. La Niña influenced weather patterns in the winter of 1999, leaving the statewide snowpack abnormally low in the spring. While many parts of the country were experiencing drought conditions, abundant moisture in the second half of 1999 resulted in wet conditions over almost all of Colorado. The drought of 2000-2003 in Colorado led to many agencies working together on water conservation. The dryness and lack of precipitation led to the worst wildfire season in Colorado's history in 2002.

Drought is clearly a common occurrence in Colorado, but drought rarely encompasses the entire state at any given time."

Note the reference to drought in 1995 to 1996. Seems to me that no flood conditions were noted and drought conditions were experienced in southwest Colorado that year. I have a letter out to try to find more information on this.
 
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