Twenty days left of the Bush administration... a Happy New Year.

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Oh what a year!

Scandals like John Edwards, Elliot Spitzer and the latest of course: Rod Blagojevich.

Notables: Sarah Palin and Tina Fey, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, the Dalai Lama, Paul Krugman, and almost anyone except Joe the Plumber.

People I will miss: Eartha Kitt, Issac Hayes, Heath Ledger, Bo Diddley, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Jim McKay, Paul Newman, Sidney Pollack, William F. Buckley, Bobby Fischer and Suzanne Pleshette.
This isn't a thorough list of those we lost in 2008, there were many. The two I will definitely miss the most: Tim Russert, the moderator of Meet the Press and George Carlin, a great comedian and social commentator.

There were many disasters ranging from the earthquake in Sichuan Providence, China; terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India; Israeli/Hamas/Gaza strip crisis to the cyclone that hit Myanmar. A tough year for many places in the world. The USA had floods, hurricanes, fires, tornados, ice storms and those are just the "natural" disasters.

Best line of 2008:
A Sarah Palin response in the Katie Couric interviews: "As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state."
All I remember saying to myself after that response was "Wow that sounds like a really bad sci-fi movie." Then laughing later when SNL with Tina Fey had fun with that one.

There were some good tv shows (think House or CSI) and bad ones (like Do Not Disturb).
Music had a good year not a great one, but in 2008 Chinese Democracy was released finally despite Axl Rose.
Movies: Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr., The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger as the Joker, and of course WALL-E.

The Bush presidency draws to a close after the 2008 election of Barack Obama for the next four years.
The economy craters, Madoff scams, Paulsen bails out some banks, and Letterman and McCain make nice again.
Angelina and Brad are still together so all must be on the right track for the future... right?

But with no regard to humans, time continues to march on and once again the Holiday season draws to a close and a new year begins.
There is still great possibility for 2009.
Let's all come together and require our elected officials to get to work.
We need them to pay more attention to the needs of our country and begin problem solving instead of creating new problems.

Happy New Year everyone.
Stay safe and sane.
I shall have a quiet night nursing my horrible cold.

G'night

Laura

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