Monday, December 31, 2007

Last Post of the Year: 2007

The clock is ticking down, soon, here on the east coast of the United States, it will be 2008. I can't think of a better way to ring in the New Year than to look back and see just how damn lucky we were to have survived the previous one.

2007 was a year of ups and downs (and apparently a year of flagrant usage of cliches), mostly downs though. We watched at the beginning of the year with hopeful hearts as North Korea swore to suspend nuclear activities. They still haven't. US President Bush told us that a "surge" in the numbers of US troops in Iraq may be our answer. It seems it was. As February came, psychics hired by the Ministry of Defense failed to find Bin Laden but did get three of the five lottery numbers right, a judge gave custody of Anna Nicole Smith's body to her 5-month-old daughter and Britney Spears started her inevitable downwards spirial into madness by shaving her head. Yup the year was off to a nice start.
March came in like a lion, Nancy Pelosi, the US House Speaker, visited Syria for some odd reason. She accomplished pretty much nothing at all. Iran took British soldiers captive, which ended almost like any soap opera playing on daytime television, Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales was stricken with amnesia about the firing of federal prosecutors and a pizzeria in NYC offered a $1,000 pizza for anybody with enough money that they long ago lost all common sense. As April rolled through we were treated to Imus almost being stoned to death over calling the Rutgers Women's basketball team "nappy- headed hos". It was blown way out of proportion and after being suspended and cancelled, Imus is now back on the air. The Duke Lacrosse players where finally cleared and the DA faced Ethics charges. Virginia Tech. was shot up by a student, Boris Yeltsin died, someone threatened to kill a baby polar bear in Berlin and a man cut off his own penis in a crowded restaurant.
Skipping to May we were subjected to Paris Hilton going to jail but then leaving cause it was no fun, then going back, a terror plot to attack Fort Dix in NJ and Tony Blair said goodbye.
June and the beginning of summer has us reading along as Sunni's in Iraq began turning against al-qaeda and other insurgent groups, a plot to blow up JFK airport was thwarted and Salman Rushdie was knighted, Muslims got mad.
July, worms fell from the sky in Lousiana, a fat guy got stuck in a river and India named their first woman President. Oh, and the UK almost drowned in the worst flooding they've had in decades. Handled it well though, much better than some other countries handle disasters.

So now comes August and what's in the news? Well Barry "Injector Man" Bonds beat Hank Aaron's all-time record. He's in trouble for lying to the Feds now. Russia accused Georgia of using dead pigs as biological terrorism and Egypt found the oldest footprints ever. Yay!
September brought us the US Air Force accidentally flying armed nuclear warheads over just a couple of US cities. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University and made an ass of himself by proclaiming there were no homosexuals in Iran.
October, or as I like to call it, free-candy-month, brought us plenty of information in ways of the beginning of a trend of people being killed by taser-packing-police, a meeting between North and South Korea which amounted to the same dialogue one can expect when meeting the new neighbors that just moved in and Pope John Paul II made a return from the grave in the form of fire. Many were left wondering where he actually went after he died.
November had a British teacher in the Sudan almost killed by angry Islamists because she let her children students name a teddy bear Mohammed. A 10-year-old tried to poison his teacher, a 13-year-old girl killed herself over some nasty MySpace messages sent from the mother of a schoolmate who should have her legs broken and Prince Harry got dumped. Not a good month to be a youngster.
And this month, well, just scroll the page down.

As the years pass I've come to notice that nothing changes much. Sure, Iraq's going better for the US and other countries involved and for the Iraqi citizens but now Afghanistan is turning into a clusterfuck. Muslims the world over are angry and I'm not sure exactly why, don't think anyone is really all that sure, including themselves. But as the world keeps spinning dangerously out of control, I'll keep writing about it, hopefully you'll keep laughing about it and I'll see you here next year for another depressing recap. Enjoy the night and have a safe, healthy and happy New Year.

Be good to one another.

Mad Man

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