It’s the end of the year and time for our annual review of professional psychic’s predictions for 2014 to see how many came true.

Well, admittedly, some did — but you don’t have to have super powers to predict things like this:

Trouble in Lebanon.  (Seriously, that’s the entire prediction.  You could make that prediction every year for the past thousand years and be correct.)

The stock market will hit a new high.  (I mean, most economists predicted that as well, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have supernatural powers.)

A comedian legend will die.  (Since there are hundreds of these, this one is sure to come true.  Why not just say which one?  I’m sure the psychic who did this one will point to Robin Williams to prove he was right, but if Williams hadn’t died, he’d point to Joan Rivers.  Or Sid Caeser.  Or David Brenner.  There’s always a famous comedy legend who will die every year.)

Garlic will be in the news.  (Wow, what a shocker.  Here in my little hometown, we have an annual Garlic Festival and sure enough, garlic was in the news!  How could he have known that?!!)

Lots of the predictions seem to be about celebrities and the Oscars.  The celebrity ones are almost always wrong, and the Oscar ones are almost always right — because by now, just about everyone knows what will probably win.  There are dozens of web pages devoted to looking at expert predictions and minor awards, so that even I can make an accurate prediction on what might win an Oscar this year.  (“Boyhood” for Best Picture; Michael Keaton for Best Actor; Julianne Moore for Best Actress; Richard Linklater for Best Director.  There.  Remember, if I am right, it means I have supernatural powers.)

But here are some of the predictions that were just absolutely wrong to the point of absurdity.

A nuclear attack will hit New York.

Civil war will break out in the United States.

Mt. St. Helens will erupt again.

Vladimir Putin wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

Pope Francis will appoint the first woman cardinal.

Raul Castro will die and communism in Cuba will end.

A strange luminous plankton will be seen under the sea that cannot be explained by scientists. This may be linked to a strange cosmic event – such as a Stella explosion and light in the sky – that changes animal behavior patterns.

Sometimes they hedge their bets by using words like “could” or “might.”  Seriously?  What kind of lame-ass prediction is that?

The ghost of Nelson Mandela could appear during a national holiday or major public event in South Africa.

A possible landing of a spaceship.

Erratic weather patterns and recorded earth shifts, together with unusual paranormal events could be the result of us having been watched by other species in different dimensions.

I could find not one surprising one, where someone actually predicted something exactly right that was more than just a general guess.  There was one prediction that Chelsea Clinton would be pregnant and have a baby boy.  In April, she announced she was pregnant so that wasn’t bad.  Then she had a baby girl.

Just for kicks, let’s look at the top stories of 2014 and see if any were predicted by these people:

The Top Ten Yahoo News Searches of 2014

1. Ebola
2. Robin Williams
3. Republicans take the Senate and win big
4. Leaked photos of celebrities
5. Malaysia Airlines
6. Ferguson
7. Jodi Arias
8. ISIS and Syria
9. Ray Rice
10. Obamacare

Nope.  You’d think they’d at least predict the celebrity one.  In fact, there are predictions that are completely the opposite of what actually happened. (“Texas will turn blue in the next election!”)

Every once in a while, one out of every hundred predictions made by these people will come true due to the vagueness of the prediction and the law of probabilities, and that’s the one they remind everyone about so people keep giving them money.

If a con artist scams someone out of their money, they can be prosecuted. That’s a crime.  How these people get away with the same sort of thing is beyond me.

Next:  Maybe we should look at Republican predictions for the year, which were just about as accurate.  (The economy will fail!  Obamacare will be a disaster!  Gas prices will rise!  Ebola will kill thousands in America!)