A Decade in Review: 2009

January

NEWS

• Barack Obama is inaugurated in Washington D.C. as the 44^th President of the United States, in front of a record crowd on the National Mall.
• Within a week, President Obama announces plans to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year and bans the use of torture.
• U.S. Airways Flight 1549 has a flock of birds fly into its engine upon take-off from Newark International Airport and is forced to land in the Hudson River. All 155 passengers are evacuated successfully as the plane gradually sinks on live television. Pilot Chesley Sullenberger is acclaimed as a hero and becomes something of a celebrity.
• Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decleares a unilateral cease fire after three weeks of intense fighting in Gaza. However, Israeli Defense Forces remain in Gaza for a few more weeks. International observers are mostly frustrated, but at least 1,000 are estimated to have been killed.
• Gov. Rod Blagojevich is impeached and convicted in the state legislature on corruption charges and is removed from office. His Lieutenant Governor, Pat Quinn, assumes office as Governor.
• Slovakia becomes the 16^th nation to adopt the Euro as its currency.
• The Sri Lankan army captures the city of Klinochchi, long a stronghold of the rebel Tamil Tigers. By May the government declares victory in the lengthy Sri Lankan Civil War.
• New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdraws from Barack Obama’s nomination for Secretary of Commerce after corruption charges come to light.
• The Minnesota Senate race between incumbent Norm Coleman and former comedian and liberal radio host Al Franken ends in a virtual tie and enters a protracted, disputed legal process.
• The State Department announces it will not renew the contract of private military contractor Blackwater, much used by the Bush administration, amidst a variety of congressional investigations.
• Michael Steele becomes the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee.
• The U.K. announces a 300 pound bailout of its national banking industry, and Germany announces its own 50 billion euro economic stimulus package.
• The Icelandic government collapses as a result of the economic problems in that nation.
• 598,000 Americans lose their jobs this month, the worst single-month total since 1974.
• The number of unique worldwide internet users reaches one billion for the first time.

ARTS

• Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You” has the best title of the year and becomes a #1 hit.
• John Updike and Ricardo Montalban die.
  

SPORTS

• The Florida Gators win their second straight NCAA football National Championship over the Oklahoma Sooners.

February

NEWS

• President Obama’s early appointments experience some difficulties. Former Sen. Tom Daschle withdraws as Secretary of Health and Human Services over tax issues and is replaced by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius. Republican New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg is nominated for Secretary of Commerce by soon decides his differences with the President are too irreconcilable and withdraws, going on to become on the administration’s biggest critics.
• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a massive economic stimulus package, is passed by Congress and signed by the President.
• President Obama announces he will withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq by summer 2010. Meanwhile, he authorizes the dispatch of 12,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
• Southeastern Australia experiences a massive heat wave. Nearly 200 die in bushfires in the state of Victoria that destroy several towns. A hundred thousand are without power for an extended period.
• 651,000 more jobs are lost in the United States this month.
• The number of worldwide connections to the cellular network reaches four billion.
• The U.K. Conservative Party admits to altering Wikipedia’s article on the painter Titian for political purposes.

ARTS

• Slumdog Millionaire wins eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Danny Boyle. Heath Ledger receives a posthumous Best Supporting Actor award for his role in The Dark Knight. Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, and Penelope Cruz win other awards. There is some controversy after popular and critically-acclaimed films like The Dark Knight and WALL-E are left out of major categories in favor of smaller Oscar-bait films like The Reader and Frost/Nixon.
• Joss Whedon’s latest SF series Dollhouse debuts on FOX. It will end within a year despite critical acclaim, though it receives two full seasons.

SPORTS

• The Pittsburgh Steelers win their record seventh Super Bowl 27-23 over the surprising and high-flying Arizona Cardinals. Santonio Holmes makes an all-time great catch of a Ben Roethlisberger pass in the corner of the end zone as time expires to win the highly entertaining game.
• Reports surface that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids after MLB instituted a testing policy in 2003. Those that tested positive at that time were never supposed to have been revealed. He admits wrongdoing within a few days but says he has not used banned substances since that time.
• USA Swimming suspends Michael Phelps for three months after photos surface of him smoking a bong at a party.

March

NEWS

• President Obama lifts George W. Bush’s restrictions on funding for stem cell research.
• North Korea detains two journalists working for Al Gore’s CurrentTV channel and sentences them to hard labor, causing an international incident.
• Hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu wins election as the next Prime Minister of Israel.
• Rick Wagoner resigns as CEO of General Motors after the company posts nine billion dollars in losses in the most recent quarter.
• AIG announces its lost $61 billion since receiving its last bailout and receives additional federal funds.

ARTS

• Zack Snyder’s almost obsessive-compulsive film version of the Graphic Novel Watchmen debuts in theaters.
• Dreamworks animated film Monsters vs. Aliens is a box office hit. It is released, as are many major films this year, in 3D, leading much debate as to whether this is a fad or the next big thing in movies.
• Battlestar Galactica airs its controversial final episode.

SPORTS

• Martin Brodeur becomes the winningest goalie in NHL history while playing for the New Jersey Devils.
• Japan wins its second World Baseball Classic, defeating a surprising South Korean team in the final.
• Syracuse defeats Connecticut in a record-setting six overtime endurance contest during the Big East Conference basketball tournament. Syracuse goes on to earn a surprise bid to the national tournament.
• Connecticut completes their third undefeated season by winning the school’s sixth national title.

April

NEWS

• “Swine Flu” breaks out, first in Mexico, where it shuts down the capital, and then spreading quickly around the world. The disease is not as bad as first feared but does seem to be more deadly than usual for normally healthy demographics. Hundreds die worldwide.
• Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, long one of the more liberal Republicans in Congress, defects to the Democrats.
• The so-called “Tea Party” movement, a larger-than-expected coalition of various extreme right-wing elements opposed to government spending and President Obama in general, bursts into the public eye in a series of large demonstrations around the country on Tax Day. It is debated whether this is a great moment for democracy or makes Republicans just look really extra silly.
• President Obama announces plans for worldwide nuclear disarmament.
• Chinese and Russian hackers allegedly infiltrate the U.S. electrical grid.
• Piracy off the Somalian coast intensifies and makes international headlines with the hijacking of a French naval yacht. The French Navy eventually rescues the hostages and kills the pirates. In a separate incident, a U.S. ship is taken hostage, and President Obama orders the pirates executed in a successful raid.
• The U.S. Consumer Price Index experiences its first year-on-year deflation since 1955.
• The White House announces it will not pursue charges against CIA operatives who tortured terrorism suspects.
• Chrysler Motors declares bankruptcy, after several months of media reports that the Big Three automakers are about to go under.
• The United Kingdom officially ends combat operations in Iraq.
• Iceland elects a lesbian Prime Minister, the first nation to have an openly gay leader since the Roman Empire.
  

ARTS

• ER airs its final episode.
• Lady Gaga has her second straight #1 single, “Poker Face”. It is the biggest hit of the year, vaulting the theatrical and controversial singer to superstar status.
• Run-DMC and Metallica are inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
• The fourth film in its series, Fast & Furious is a surprise smash in theaters.
• Susan Boyle’s performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” on Britain’s Got Talent becomes an international sensation after it shows up on YouTube.

SPORTS

• North Carolina beats Michigan State in the final of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.
• Famous NFL announcer and video game guru John Madden retires.
• The New York Yankees open their new stadium.

May

NEWS

• President Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. She is eventually confirmed and is the first Hispanic-American to serve on the Court.
• The European Union levels a 1 billion euro fine against Intel for anti-competitive practices.
• Maine legalizes same sex marriage.
• Blackwater ends its operations in Iraq.
• General Motors and Chrysler announce nearly 2,000 dealership closings across the U.S.
• Manmohan Singh is elected for his second term as Prime Minister of India.
• The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes the final service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
• A scandal in the British parliament causes several cabinet ministers to resign. It turns out they had been charging unreasonable expenses to the government such as moats for their estates to the government. Americans make fun of British MPs for having moats.
• Dr. George Tiller, a well-known provider of late-term abortions, is assassinated in Kansas, becoming a symbol in the ongoing American dispute over abortion.
• Gen. Stanley McChrystal replaces Gen. David McKiernan as the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. He becomes a controversial national figure after repeated public face-offs with President Obama over more troops being sent to the region.
• Former Vice Presidential candidate and NFL quarterback Jack Kemp dies.

ARTS

• Blockbuster season begins with Star Trek. Director J.J. Abrams completely re-energizes the franchise with this franchise reboot, casting Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty, and Karl Urban as McCoy.
• Pixar’s Up achieves widespread critical acclaim, though it is probably the least successful computer animated Pixar film at the box office.
• Angels & Demons, Terminator Salvation, and Night at the Museum: Escape from the Smithsonian are among a rash of forgettable big budget sequels.
• Green Day releases their album 21^st Century Breakdown, which is met with a generally underwhelmed response.
• Jay Leno leaves his hosting duties at The Tonight Show after 17 years, instead hosting a show five nights a week for NBC at 5pm in an attempt to save money by the network. He is replaced by Conan O’Brien.
• FOX debuts Glee, possibly the first musical series to be successful for a major network.

SPORTS

• FC Barcelona upsets Manchester United to win a high-profile Champions League final. Barcelona, led by Argentinean World Player of the Year Lionel Messi, goes on to win six major trophies this year, a record.
• Mine That Bird wins the Kentucky Derby as a 50-1 long shot.
• Manny Ramirez is suspended 50 games after testing positive for a hormone usually given to pregnant women. Everyone seems to forgive him immediately and some news stories start to run that people are tired of the steroids controversy.

June

NEWS

• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is re-elected as President of Iran despite suspicious circumstances and mass opposition rallies. Supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi stage mass protests, resulting a great deal of violence. The attempted revolution is at least partly organized and popularized on Twitter, but is rather brutally put down by the government. A woman named Neda is shot and killed at a rally by government troops and becomes an international symbol after video of the incident appears on the internet.
• General Motors declares bankruptcy.
• President Obama gives a much-watched speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, praised by some and criticized by others for its admissions of American fallibility.
• Everyone goes a little nutso after it becomes clear that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is “missing”. His staff eventually says he went to hike the Appalachian Trail, but this story doesn’t hang together, and it turns out he flew to Argentina to see his mistress after having marital problems. He returns and gives a long, rambling confession. He never actually resigns.
• An elderly white supremacist attacks the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., shooting at least two.
• Al Franken is finally officially certified as a Senator from Minnesota, and Norm Coleman concedes. With this victory, the Democrats finally reach the magical “60” number needed to pass legislation through the Senate without opposition… in theory, anyway.
• Air France Flight 447 disappears off the coast of Brazil. A few days of searching turns up a few pieces of wreckage and it is assumed that the plane crashed, killing all on board.
• New Hampshire legalizes same sex marriage.
• Italian Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi is embroiled in scandal after nude pictures of him and various young women at his villa in Sardinia are published in a Spanish newspaper. It is soon revealed that he routinely slept around and tried to appoint women he’d slept with to the European Parliament.
• Palm launches its Palm Pre smartphone, as everyone else catches up to the iPhone all of a sudden.
• Chrysler is purchased by Italian automaker Fiat.
• The World Health Organization declares that Swine Flu has reached the level of a worldwide pandemic.
• New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is quarantined on Shanghai on the suspicion he may have Swine Flu. He does not.
• Rather hilarious political theater breaks out in New York after two Democrats switch parties to swing the State Senate to the Republicans. Both sides try to hold meetings in the Senate chamber simultaneously, and at another point Democrats lock themselves inside the chamber. Gov. Paterson eventually forces things to proceed.
• A Red Line train derails on the Washington D.C. metro, killing nine. There is speculation that the driver, killed in the crash, was texting at the time.
• China decides to block Google.
• The President of Honduras is exiled by his opposition, leading to a smaller, Latin American political crisis that gets pushed off front pages by news from Iran and Los Angeles.
  

ARTS

• Michael Jackson dies from cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles. Worldwide mourning ensues, though a few of us just don’t get it. Tabloids go into overdrive, and many feel that the fact that internet celebrity news organization TMZ broke the story is significant. There is speculation that Jackson’s death was brought on by a cocktail of drugs he was taking from a rather shady doctor.
• Farah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and David Carradine die, too.
• The raunchy comedy The Hangover is released in theaters. It surprisingly becomes the highest grossing adult comedy in box office history.
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen directed by Michael Bay is among the year’s most critically reviled films but becomes the year’s highest-grossing film in the U.S.
• Television broadcasts in the U.S. switch from analog to digital.

SPORTS

• LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, with what most fans think is their best team ever, are upset in the Eastern Conference Finals by Orlando Magic. The Magic go on to lose in the Finals to the Kobe Bryant-led Los Angeles Lakers.
  The Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby reverse their defeat of the previous year with a Game 7 victory over the Detroit Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup.
• Sammy Sosa is the latest baseball superstar to revealed to have tested positive during the 2003 round of drug testing. Most people feel like they already had figured this one out.

July

NEWS

• The first vaccine for swine flu is created in Germany.
• Sarah Palin rather inexplicably resigns as Governor of Alaska, citing how the “liberal media” hounds her. It seems to many like she’s resigned so she can have more time to be a celebrity and/or run for President.
• Widespread riots break out in the Chinese city of Urumqi between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese.
• Current CIA chief Leon Panetta accuses former Vice President Cheney of hiding various CIA programs from Congress, including a group of “secret assassins”.
• The Sears Tower in Chicago, once the world’s tallest building, is renamed the Willis Tower.
• It’s announced that the recession has ended in Canada, causing many to wonder how they got out of it and nobody else has.
• A car bomb goes off at a Spanish Guardia Civil barracks on Mallorca, killing two. Travel is completely disrupted in the area after authorities close ports and airports in order to prevent the attackers from escaping.
• Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates is arrested for “breaking into” his own house, seemingly because police assumed he was a criminal because he was black. This causes a media sensation and results in President Obama inviting both Gates and the arresting officer to the White House to “work things out over beers.”
• The “Cash for Clunkers” program, involving massive federal rebates to all cosumers buying more fuel efficient cars, results in the first up month in forever for the American auto industry.
• Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara dies.

ARTS

• Michael Jackson’s memorial service is held before 17,000 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and is broadcast around the world.
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is released in theaters. It is another huge box office success and is considered by most to be the best film of the series thus far.
• The Sci-Fi Channel changes its name to SyFy amidst much geek complaining.
• Author Frank McCourt and my childhood hero Walter Cronkite die.

SPORTS

• Steve McNair, Tennesee Titans QB in probably my favorite Super Bowl, is found dead in his Nashville apartment, apparently shot in the head by his mistress, who then killed herself.
• President Obama throws out the first pitch at the baseball All-Star Game in St. Louis, but gets booed. Republicans assume this is because people don’t like the President, but it’s probably because he insists on wearing a White Sox jersey.

August

NEWS

• The last surviving Kennedy brother Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, dies of brain cancer. Paul Kirk is eventually appointed to replace him.
• Former President Bill Clinton arrives in Pyongyang and secures the release of two American journalists who had been held in North Korea for months, seemingly in exchange for a photo-op with Kim Jong Il.
• The War in Iraq continues apace. A series of car bombings in Baghdad kills 100 on a single day.
• Yukio Hatoyama is elected as the next Prime Minister of Japan as elections throw out the previous government. His wife gives a speech within a few days describing her experience riding a UFO to Venus.

ARTS

• My childhood favorite Reading Rainbow airs its final episode after 26 years.
• After years of threatening, Noel Gallagher finally leaves Oasis.
• Disney buys Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion.
• Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” becomes the longest-running single in the history of the Hot 100, with 71 straight weeks on the chart.
• Paula Abdul announces she’s leaving “American Idol”, the first major change since the mega-hit program began.
• District 9 is released in theaters. It becomes a hit despite its seemingly difficult subject matter, a science fiction, documentary-style take on alien-human relations in South Africa.
• Another surprise box office success is Quentin Tarantino’s latest, Inglourious Basterds, in which he explores revenge fantasies and cinema’s relationship with the Nazis.
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman becomes the first book to win both the Newbery Medal and the Hugo for Best Novel.
• Les Paul and John Hughes die.

SPORTS

• Brett Favre unretires again and signs with the Minnesota Vikings, arch-rivals of the Green Bay Packers who he spent most of his career with.
• Usain Bolt sets yet another 100 Meters record.

September

NEWS

• President Barack Obama gives a speech to Congress laying out his plans for health care reform. The speech is infamously interrupted by Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who shouts “You lie!” after Obama says his plan won’t cover illegal immigrants.
• Pittsburgh completely shuts down for several days out of fear of mass protests when it hosts a G20 summit. There are some protests, but nothing like what Pittsburgh seemed to be fearing.
• President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize, seemingly for not being George W. Bush. Republicans go apoplectic.
• Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says he believes the worst U.S. recession since the 1930s is about to end, though “job growth may be a lagging indicator”.
• Over 100 die in the Samoan islands after an earthquake and the ensuing tsunami.
• Thailand and the U.S. army announce that they may have discovered a vaccine for HIV.
• Ireland bans samurai swords in an effort to reduce crime.
• Two Bangladeshi newspapers apologize after publishing an article from The Onion, believing it to be real.
• Tea Partiers protest President Obama’s message urging school children to study hard and stay in shool, saying it is politically motivated.

ARTS

• Director Roman Polanski is arrested in Zurich on 31-year-old charges of sleeping with an underage girl in Los Angeles. This leads to a rather unreasonable amount of protest in the Hollywood community and Polanski ends up staying under house arrest at his Gstaad villa.
• Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV awards for Best Video is interrupted by a crazy-sounding Kanye West, declaring that Beyonce should have won for “the greatest video of all time”. A side controversy occurs after President Obama is caught on tape calling Kanye West a “jackass”.
• The final episode of 70-year-old soap opera Guiding Light airs, signaling the death of the afternoon soap.
• This Is It, a concert documentary featuring Michael Jackson’s last recorded performances, is a major hit in a limited two week run.
• A buddy comedy called Zombieland and an artsy adaptation of the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are by Spike Jonze create buzz in theaters for widely disparate reasons.
• Muse releases their new single “Uprising”, which becomes an international hit and will be played on every sports broadcast from now until the end of time.
• Major TV debuts include Modern Family, Community, The Cleveland Show, and FlashForward.
• Patrick Swayze dies.

SPORTS

• The Dallas Cowboys lose their first game in the new high-tech Cowboys Stadium on a last-second field goal to the New York Giants after an overblown pregame presentation referencing “great buildings of history”.

October

NEWS

• An earthquake strikes Sumatra, killing over a thousand.
• Ireland finally approves the Treaty of Lisbon, making the Czech Republic (where the President refuses to sign it) the final hold out before implementing the new governing system.
• Congressional debate is dominated by health care reform. Many legislators are dumb enough to hold public forums in their own districts that pretty much universally devolve into screaming by Tea Party activists and a few times into burnings in effigy. Discussion intensifies about what’s happened to the tone of the dialogue here.
• President Obama announces that he’ll end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy banning gays from the U.S. military. However, he has yet to actually do this. Thousands of protesters march for gay rights in Washington D.C. Later this month he does sign an act adding anti-gay crimes to the federal Hate Crimes law.
• GM sells its Hummer division to a Chinese company.
• Finland becomes the first nation to declare broadband internet access to be a legal right.
• A worldwide media circus surrounds an incident in Colorado where a six-year-old boy is alleged to have taken off by himself in a hot air balloon. It later becomes clear that it is a hoax perpetrated by his parents in an attempt to get a reality TV show. They both go to prison.
• The Government of Maldives holds the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting in an attempt to raise awareness of global warming.
• Yahoo! discontinues its Geocities service, on which I built my first web page.

ARTS

• The Late Show host David Letterman causes controversy by admitting on-air to having extramarital affairs with members of his staff. A lot of people don’t seem to care, except, weirdly, for Sarah Palin.

SPORTS

• A Monday Night Football game on ESPN between Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers becomes the most watched program in cable TV history.
• Rio de Janeiro is awarded the 2016 Summer Olympics.
• The United Football League, an inept-seeming attempt to create a second football league in the U.S., begins play.

November

NEWS

• The President of the Czech Republic finally signs the Treaty of Lisbon. It goes into effect soon after. Herman van Rompuy is the first permanent President of the European Council and Catherine Ashton is the EU’s first Foreign Minister.
• 13 people die and 30 more are wounded after a Muslim doctor, Nidal Malik Hassan, goes on a shooting spree at Ft. Hood in Texas. The gunman is shot by police but survives. It is at first reported to be a possible terrorist attack but is later discovered to be the doctor most likely acting alone.
• A ship carrying 100 tons of hydrochloric acid collides with another ship and sinks in the Yangtze River.
• Tea Party activists run a third party candidate in a New York special congressional election, but this ends up backfiring on them when Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava is hounded into withdrawing and endorses the Democrat, who goes on to win.
• Republicans win previously Democratic governorships in Virginia and New Jersey in off-year elections, which some take to be a rejection of President Obama’s policies.
• John Allen Muhammad, mastermind of the “Beltway Sniper” attacks, is executed in Virginia.
• President Obama visits China. He tries to hold a town hall-style meeting with students in Shanghai, but the Chinese government won’t broadcast it on television.
• The population of Africa reaches one billion.
• Healthcare reform debate continues in the U.S. Congress. It becomes clear that it will be hard to satisfy both the liberal and conservative wings of the Democratic Party with the same bill.
• It’s revealed that the government owned development corporation in Dubai is billions of dollars in debt. It is later bailed out by a similar corporation in Abu Dhabi.
• Terrorist attacks on trains in Russia kill two dozen.
• Police in Hong Kong attempt to find the founder of a Facebook group that claims all its members will commit suicide on December 21.

ARTS

• The Twilight sequel New Moon opens big in theaters. It breaks The Dark Knight’s opening day record but drops off sharply afterwards and does not really threaten the opening weekend record.
• Other box office hits include Roland Emmerich’s over-the-top disaster epic 2012 and the feel-good football story The Blind Side.
• The Original of Laura, an incomplete novel by Vladimir Nabokov, is published 32 years after his death despite his wishes that it be burned.
• Michelle Obama goes on Sesame Street for its 40^th anniversary and promotes vegetables, prompting lots of Tea Party shouting about how she’s trying to indoctrinate our children as vegetarians.
• Oprah Winfrey announces she will end her popular talk show in 2011.

SPORTS

• The mighty and controversial New York Yankees win their first championship since 2000 with a four games to two defeat of the Philadelphia Phillies. Alex Rodriguez is declared to be “redeemed” after steroids allegations after his dominance lifts the Yankees to the title. Some of us were unaware this was how you redemmed yourself for performance enhancing drugs.
• Tiger Woods is hospitalized after a car accident outside his home. It is later revealed he was fleeing from a domestic dispute and may have had at least a dozen separate extramarital affairs, some with porn stars. Many of Woods’ large corporate endorsements drop him and he eventually decides to take an indefinite leave of absence from golf.
• Controversy reigns in the European World Cup qualifiers after France defeats Ireland in a play-off where the winning goal was scored after star Thierry Henry admits to hittng the ball with his arm. Meanwhile, a victory by Algeria over Egypt in a similar playoff results in rioting.

December

NEWS

• President Obama announces plans for a “surge” in Afghanistan of 30,000 additional American troops, followed by an eventual U.S. withdrawal.
• A week or so later, President Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo with a long, eloquent speech essentially defending “Just War Theory”, which surprises many.
• The Copenhagen Conference on global warming is held, with some anticipating breakthroughs on climate change. The Conference is mostly derailed by disagreements between the U.S., China, and a coalition of developing nations.
• The Health Care Reform bill is finally passed by the U.S. Senate, though it has severe discrepancies with the House version and is thought by some liberals to be so neutered as to not be worth supporting. Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is so vilified by Liberals for his stance against the bill that it is rumored he will run as a Republican in the next election.
• A Nigerian national attempts to blow himself up on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, leading to a severe increase in security restrictions on international flights and much domestic political yelling. The wannabe terrorist is later discovered to be trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen, leading Sen. Lieberman, among others, to call for U.S. military intervention in that nation.
• Annise Parker is elected as Mayor of Houston, becoming the first openly gay mayor of a major American city.
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates admits that the U.S. has not had any information about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden for many years.
• SpaceShipTwo, the world’s first commercial spacecraft, is unveiled in New Mexico.
• Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is injured after being hit in the face by a model of a church thrown by a protester while visiting Milan.
• Mexico legalizes Same Sex Marriage and LGBT adoption.
• The death of liberal cleric Ayatollah Montazeri results in clashes between protesters and police that continue to escalate in Iran. Pro-government hackers manage to temporily shut down Twitter at one point in an attempt to forestall revolutionaries.
• Pope Benedict XVI is knocked over by a woman who jumped barricades at St. Peter’s Cathedral during the traditional Christmas Eve service.
• General Electric sells its NBC Universal holdings to Cable TV giant Comcast.
• I recap the decade on this blog.

ARTS

• Avatar, a SF epic James Cameron has been working on since Titanic, opens in theaters and has spectacular word of mouth growth due to its spectacular breakthroughs in special effects and 3D technology.
• Soap Opera As the World Turns is cancelled after 54 years.
• Roy E. Disney and Brittany Murphy die.