In keeping with the spirit of last year's kick-off to the year-end lists, I've decided to create another yearly review of the events that have shaped all of our lives over the course of the past 12 months. Instead of a devastatingly long recounting, I've decided - this year - to list only 2 or 3 moments from each month (courtesy of Wikipedia) accompanied by scathing commentary and exemplary wit. Enjoy I'm at the mercy of your jests.
January
-Price of Oil hits $100/barrel for the first time. The big three automakers are too busy polishing their jets to hear their own death knell.
-Stock markets around the world
plunge amid growing fears of a U.S. recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. Unbeknownst to the the rest of the world, the US was already, secretly, in a recession. Shhh, don't tell anyone. No one has to know our little secret.
February
-The
British government introduces emergency legislation temporarily to
nationalize Northern Rock, the fifth largest
mortgage bank in the UK, due to the bank's financial crisis. First the abolition of slavery now this. Damnit, the British are always one step ahead of us.
-
Fidel Castro announces his resignation as President of Cuba, effective on February 24. Fidel Castro actually died February 24th 1996.
March
-
Rising food and fuel prices trigger riots and unrest in the
Third World. Rising Gas prices and raw material costs trigger sighs in the First World which may soon be the new Third World, but the First World doesn't know it yet but when they do it will trigger riots and unrest in the first world. But in actuality isn't the third world really the first world, since civilization began in what is now the third world? And while we're on the topic, who makes up the Second World? Australia, I guess.
- An
exploding star halfway across the visible
universe becomes the farthest known object ever visible to the naked eye. Exactly how does one know where the halfway point is in the visible universe using only one's, supposed, "naked eye?"
-
Presidential and
parliamentary elections in
Zimbabwe. Observers from the
European Union or the
United States were not admitted, but Zimbabwe invited 47 observer teams, including observers from the
Southern African Development Community (SADC), the
African Union,
China,
Russia, and
Iran. All agree that the nations invited are the true beacon's of Democracy.
April
-Surgeons at London's
Moorfields Eye Hospital perform the first operations using
bionic eyes, implanting them into two blind patients. The patients are still blind, but they have bionic eyes, which is cool.
-
India sets a world record by sending 10
satellites into orbit in a single launch. Not to be outdone China sends 800 satellites into orbit in a single launch, but it's later found out that they were computer generated satellites. The attempt was seen as a success and plans went into place for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
May
-Over 133,000 in
Burma/Myanmar are killed by
Cyclone Nargis, the deadliest
natural disaster since the
Boxing Day Tsunami in
2004-Over 69,000 are killed in central south-west
China by the
Chengdu quake, an earthquake measuring 8.0
Mw. The epicenter is 90 kilometers (55 miles) west-northwest of the provincial capital
Chengdu,
Sichuan province.
-A series of bomb blasts kills at least 63 and injures 216 in
Jaipur,
India.
-The continent of Asia declares that May was a very bad month.
June
-
Ireland votes to reject the
Treaty of Lisbon, in the only
referendum to be held by a
European Union member state on the treaty. The referendum was held because the EU would not recognize U2's "Elevation" as the Eurozone's national anthem.
-President
Robert Mugabe is reelected with 85.5% of the vote in the
second round of the controversial
Zimbabwean presidential election. Mugabe runs on a platform of Non-Change and his slogan is "No we can't."
-After three decades as the Chairman of
Microsoft Corporation,
Bill Gates steps down from daily duties to concentrate on
philanthropy. "Philanthropy" is a new program made by Microsoft that calculates tax deductions for charitable contributions.
July
-
World Youth Day takes place in
Sydney,
Australia.
Pope Benedict XVI appears at the event. Aides later inform the pope that he is not 8 years old, but rather 81. Pope disagrees. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is reported to be loosely based on Pope Benedict's condition of reverse aging.
-
Radovan Karadžić, the first president of the
Republika Srpska, is arrested in
Belgrade,
Serbia on allegations of war crimes, following a 12-year long
manhunt. Actor Gary Busey is the reported capturer. Busey who starred in the film "Surviving the Game", which involved game hunting a homeless Ice-T for sport, stated that he was able to use the techniques he learned from filming for his role in this latest "Manhunt."
August
-The
2008 Summer Olympics take place in
Beijing,
China. The opening ceremony depicts China History and the world coming together as one.
-The
2008 South Ossetia war begins as
Georgia and
Russia launch a major offensive inside the separatist region of
South Ossetia after days of border skirmishes between the two sides.
-The
Taliban insurgents kill 10 and injure 21
French soldiers in an
ambush in
Afghanistan-A
suicide bomber rams a car into an
Algerian military academy and the resulting explosion kills 43 and injures 45.
-At least 60 die following
twin suicide bombings outside the
Pakistan Ordnance Factories in
Wah,
Pakistan.
-
Pirates hijack
German,
Iranian, and
Japanese cargo ships off the coast of
Somalia, seven of such attacks since
June 20-The
2008 Summer Olympics take place in
Beijing,
China. The opening ceremony depicts China History and the world coming together as one.
September
-
Hurricane Ike makes landfall on
Texas as
Category 2 and kills 27 in the
United States, after killing 4 in
Cuba, 1 in the
Dominican Republic, and 75 in
Haiti. Hurricane Ike is later investigated by the FBI as a seriel killer.
-
Political crisis in Thailand: The
Constitutional Court of Thailand orders
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej to resign after receiving payment for appearing on a
television cooking show. Nevermind the no-bid contracts awarded, the sex with prostitutes, and the directives to assasinate opposition leaders, Sundaravej will go down as that President on 30-Minute Meals with Rachel Ray.
-The
proton beam is circulated for the first time in the
Large Hadron Collider, the
world's largest and the highest-energy particle accelerator, located at
CERN, near
Geneva, under the Franco-Swiss border. It is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive
Higgs boson, the last unobserved particle among those predicted by the
Standard Model. Though the Higgs boson was not observed, what was observed was how McDonalds gets their hamburgers to taste so delicious.
October
-
Global financial crisis:
U.S. President George W. Bush signs the revised
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a
700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank
assets. One man's crisis is another man's "holy bejeezus, I'm going to live in the White House." Obama takes a lead that he never relinquishes.
-The
2008 World Series was the 104th
World Series between the
American and
National Leagues for the championship of
Major League Baseball. The
Philadelphia Phillies as
champions of the National League and the
Tampa Bay Rays, as
American League champions, competed to win four games out of a possible seven. The Series started on Wednesday, October 22, and, after weather delays had postponed the end of Game 5, concluded the following Wednesday, October 29. Thus begins one of the greatest weeks of my life.
November
-In the
United States presidential election,
Barack Obama is elected the 44th
President of the United States and
Joe Biden is elected the 47th
Vice President. Barack Obama becomes the first
African-American President-elect. Thus concluding one of the greatest weeks of my life.
-The
RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 departs on her last voyage from
Southampton,
UK to
Dubai,
UAE. She will become a floating hotel at
Palm Jumeirah. (Unless she's taken over by pirates. At which point she will become a floating pirate ship hotel. Quite frankly, this seems way more appealing to vacationing families than just your run-of-the-mill "Floating hotels.")
-A
series of terrorist attacks in
Mumbai,
India kills 164, and injures at least 250.
December
-The remains found in 1991 are finally identified with
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia using
DNA analysis. CSI Urals will debut on CBS this fall.
-
Sark holds its
first-ever general elections after abolishing
feudalism in
April. The first order of business for the new president, will be to advance the island's civilization from the 17th Century to, at the very least, the mid 19th Century.
-The Big Three U.S. manufacturers, (
General Motors,
Ford and
Chrysler), have indicated that unless additional funding can be obtained over the short to medium term, there is a real danger of one or more companies declaring bankruptcy. Resistence to the bailout shows that the US Congress will not negotiate with corporations that employ poor management, greed principals, and business logic that's in opposition to what's good for the American people. (Meanwhile, AIG just made another bad investment and would like a little more cash, please. Mr. Paulson says "hell yes, AIG. It's Christmas, plus I'm still living the "Brewster's Millions" lifestyle. I would love for you to take some more of this borrowed cash surplus. Thank you. No, please take some more. Seriously, buy something for your kids. Hey, haven't I seen your wife driving one of those new Chevy Malibu's? Better take some more money and buy her a foreign car, cause those 3 are going down. Seriously, take some more....")
Get your lists in.
