Scoring Update

With Tiger's return to the links, a health care bill passed, and Johns Hopkins threatening to not make the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament for the first time EVER, the perspective has certainly changed from the first of the year. Accordingly, a quick peek at who might have been thinking clearly then is in order in the form of a scoring update for the Year in Preview.

The U.S. finally delivered on attacking and sinking a pirate "mother ship" off the Horn of Africa.
About half of all entries called this one.

Unscheduled changes in power: Niger (a couple predictions for Nigeria were dangerously close), Kyrgyzstan (?), Ukraine
No winners yet.

One Supreme Court vacancy: John Paul Stevens
All but two people who predicted any change anticipated this. The other two took Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They may be right yet. No entries picked two or more vacancies.

Super Bowl 44: New Orleans Saints 31 Indianapolis Colts 17
Mark Reed had both teams and the correct score, but the wrong winner.

The USA surprised the world and took the most hardware home from Vancouver. One notable exception was the gold medal in men's ice hockey, won by the hosting Canadians.

On the Pulitzer Prize front, the viable choices for a prize and bankruptcy in the same year is singular: Denver Post (Joel Schumacher). Other candidates for bankruptcy didn't manage to win a Pulitzer. Apparently nobody foresaw The Seattle Times as a legitimate bankruptcy candidate, along with its freshly-minted Pultizer.

After an uncanny performance last year in predicting Oscar and Razzie winners, film studies major Chris Fitzgerald lost his mojo. In fact, his picks were unequivocally lousy. Sandra Bullock was clearly more notable in dominating both ends of the actressing distribution. Wendy Fordyce took the title this year with correct picks for Best Picture, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role.