The Year that Was...

• The planet-formerly-known-as Pluto (now affectionately designated 134340) got demoted from planet to, well, not-planet. So, the mnemonic for our solar system is now M-VEM-J-SUN (sans P). Don't I have enough to remember?


• I, er we, got named Time Person the Year. Looking at the cheap mirrory-thingy they put on the cover and noting that, by squeezing the mag, I could turn my image into a kind of fun-house, horrible long, skinny me, I thought: "That's about right."
• Big Brother arrived in all of his terrible glory. He can be seen sporting a cameraphone and its aimed at you, so behave (or at least dress nicely).


• Ken Lay escaped prison...by falling over dead.


• "Dead Eye" Dick Cheney shot his best friend in the face, casting a permanent pall on networking events forever. The golf outing: now a venue for certain death.
• Dick Cheney's best friend apologized...for getting shot in the face.


• President Bush, well, never mind.


• Trans fats got the boot in NYC and elsewhere.


• Foreign babies of color were all the rage. Angelina and Madonna sported these kids like new Prada bags. Now, if we can learn that our domestic, melanin-enriched, materially impoverished babes are mighty fine, too...


• China, afraid, I'm sure that marauding packs of celebutants will soon descend on them looking to adopt, have instituted new policies to prevent adoption by fat, old, poor, stupid insane, single people (I'm not making this up).


• Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, is a funny guy. Sure made Jon Stewart giggle like a kindergartner. Who knew?


• Michael Richards, poor baby, learned an important lesson: "Nigger," no matter what Generation Hip Hop says about "keeping it real" (rope, a tree and people shouting "nigger" was about as real as real gets) is never, ever (listen to me everybody), ever OK to say. Don't even think it.


• The Midterm Elections shifted us due Left as people struggle to figure out if we're finally, really in a four-party system (the Dems, the GOP, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Cluster -- "party" is way to liberal a term for these good people).


• An front-runner (George Allen) ran off the rails because of an, um, racial (?) slur and YouTube.


• Jack Abramoff, though he claimed that God sent him 1,000's of hints that he was running afoul of the law, still landed lightly on his feet in the pen...and his friends are sure to follow.


• After centuries of speculation on his identity, Hugo Chavez has finally determined the name and location of Satan: Bush, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I guess all of those burning viburnums should have been a hint.


• Black Republicans stepped it up, telling us that our Civil Rights heroes were Republicans....and Black people didn't care.


• We remain a nation at war: on terror, on drugs, on democracy, on principles, on religion, on the poor, on constitutional rights, on the Geneva convention, on habeus corpus, on environment, on good sense.
• Saddam Hussein's getting ready to try on a new tie.
• Pappa's Got a Brand New Bag -- in heaven (God save you if you don't know the reference).


• and, worst of all, we lost Lou Rawls.

Now, it's your turn. What were your fave (or not so favorite) moments of 2006?