It’s that time of year again. Time for my year end review, where I go back and pull out the best of what I came up with in the previous year.

Now I know that my blogging has been light as of late, but there’s still good stuff going on here at the samaBlog. But maybe I’ll make a New year’s resolution to blog a bit more here.

So, in rough chronological order:

• I began the year by writing about the net neutrality debate. In all seriousness, I still haven’t seen anything written on the subject that encapsulates the issues as well as what I wrote back in January.

• I wrote a rather unintelligible essay called Schrödinger’s War.
• I wrote about problems in intellectual property law with respect to the Blackberry case.
• I wrote about the Hamas election victory, likening it to walking in on a cheating spouse.
• I wrote about why Shaw’s Supermarkets suck.
• I posted some of Calzone’s World Trade Center replacement prototypes. Unfortunately, we’re going to wind up with some post-modern mess at the site, rather than something elegant like what Calzone proposed.
• I wrote a great essay about the relationship between the press and the far left, likening it to the relationship between Arthur and The Tick. Read Crazy Talk!
• I made some rather incorrect predictions about what would be announced at Macworld last year. I’ll probably do the same thing again next week.
• I wrote about the Howard Stern lawsuit.
• I wrote about the success of World of Warcraft, and it’s connection to their decision to release for the Mac simultaneously with their Windows release.
• I made some unusual speculations about the state of the economy today.
• I took a trip to Brazil. Follow the link for pictures.
• I caught Rush Limbaugh Stealing again, this time from Instapundit. I followed up, detailing up Limbaugh’s insults of the blogosphere here and here.
• I came up with a great idea for an identity theft scam.
• I argued that Bill Gates should run for President.
• I wrote about the War on Food.
• I went to Block Island, and took lots of photos (warning: this page takes some time to load).
• I developed a plan to make money by melting down old pennies and selling off the respective metal components at a profit.
• I made the single best pun of 2006.
• I wrote about Lance Bass being gay.
• I wrote about the need for missile defense in light of the Hezbollah missile attacks against Israel.
• I wrote about the Emerge Massage Parlor.
• I gave my review of Snakes on a Plane.
• I wrote about the degree to which real estate prices are inflated today, and tried to calculate by just how much prices are inflated.
• I wrote about Tom Cruise and Viacom.
• I became Chinese.
• I wrote about Lear Financial advertisements.
• I also wrote about Deb Golderg’s silly advertisements.
• My Iranian friend has some theories about Khatami and Cheney, which I presented.
• I celebrated Talk Like a Pirate Day with the best pirate video ever.
• I developed the “Free Them All Deval” campaign.
• I wrote about piggishness among home sellers.
• I released the Rob Sama Iraq Study Report, as an alternative to Jim Bakers’.
• I gave some ideas about how to unwind Social Security.
• I hosted the Carnival of the Capitalists.
• I gave some thoughts on Pinochet passing.
• And I celebrated Christmas.

So, there goes 2006. Unless I feel inspired to post one last thing before the new year is upon us (hint: I just might), we’ll see you all next year. Thanks for sticking with the samaBlog.

On the eve of Saddam’s death…

His meeting with Rumsfeld.

He’s about to be hanged. My take: this is step 1 in Bush’s “New Way Forward” or whatever his stupid slogan is. Point is to take some of the wind out of the sails of the Sunni insurgency. Apparently, there are rumors on the ground, hopes really, that Saddam will eventually come back to power. Killing him squelches that. Following up with martial law in Sunni neighborhoods backed up by a surge in troops will seal the deal.

I hope this is a sign that the Bush administration is going to start getting tough over there. But it’s probably not.

(via j-walk)

She’s an old friend and stand-up comedian. And she now has her own blog.

You can check out some of her routine here, but it might not be safe for work, so use headphones.

Watch more of Amber here.

I have nothing particularly important to say this Christmas. So instead, a few random bits of Christmas cheer:

• Looking to celebrate Christmas like an Australian? How about an upside down Christmas tree?

• Looking to tell someone else what to do for a change? Try Simon Sez Santa. He seems to be able to do damn near anything you tell him, including dance, jump, have sex, kill rudolf, burn the christmas tree and get drunk. Try it out.
• Speaking of a drunk Santa, try playing the Sober Santa game. Keep him off the railroad tracks or else he gets electrocuted.
• Of course, there’s the perinneal favorite, Ding Fries Are Done!
• and last but not least, yours truly as a dancing elf.

Well, that’s it. Have a Merry Christmas. Hopefully, I’ll be back to blog again before the year is out.

Prior year’s Christmas entries:
2005
2004 – oops, forgot Christmas that year
2003

Did Time Magazine just run a flattering photo essay on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Yep, they sure did.

Am I mistaken, or is “You’re Gonna Miss Me Babe” by the 13th Floor Elevators playing as the background music for a Dell laptop commercial running on TV?

I’ll try to find the commercial online.

Pinochet has passed, and he stirred up an enormous amount of emotion on the left. I specifically remember as a kid, watching Saturday night Live news, and them predicting that after Marcos, Pinochet was sure to be the next dictator to hit teh skids.

Yet Pinochet was no Marcos. He was a dictator to be sure, but one who saved his country from Marxist poverty (ala Cuba) and while he killed people, the number of deaths were relatively small compared to similar revolutions elsewhere in the world, for causes we believe noble and just. And Pinochet eventually relinquished his power back to the people, leaving them a prosperous, capitalist democracy, really the only one in South America.

So I dug up this essay that encapsulates him better than I could do or have the time to do. If you’re interested in the topic, read more on Pinochet here.

Come one, come all to the who knows what number of the Carnival of the Capitalists. I am your host, Rob Sama, and for the 4th year in a row (God, have I been blogging THAT long?) I am hosting the Carnival in honor of my birthday, which is Thursday of this week. For those not in the know, you can submit to the carnival via this link here.

So on to the entries. In no particular order, (well, I put my entry first):

• I write about an idea for fixing Social Security right here at the samaBlog.

• Adam Shostack writes about the bacon of the month club at Emergent Chaos.
• Tom Blumer presents Weekend Question 4: When Is Ford Going to Have Its “Wal-Mart Moment”? posted at BizzyBlog.
• Andy presents Passive Income Snowball posted at ThoughtfulConsideration.com.
• Brandon Peele presents The RealChange Sustainability Expedition posted at GT.
• Laura Young presents The Trouble with Happiness: Understanding the Difference between Joy and Pleasure posted at Dragon Slayer’s Guide to Life.
• Charles Green writes about troubles at Pfizer at Trusted Advisor.
• Laurie Bluedorn presents The Homeschool Marketer – Marketing: The Language of Permission – Homeschoolblogger.com posted at PRMama.
• abnu presents Cocaine Energy Drink on YouTube posted at Wordlab.
• cehwiedel presents Digital SLRs Boom posted at One Man Band.
• Pawel Brodzinski presents Knowledge Distribution posted at Software Project Management.
• David Maister asks, “If you know you’re going to have to lay off a large number of people, what’s the best way to do it? Short and sweet or slow and thoughtful?”
• James D. Brausch presents Traffic Lies posted at jamesbrausch.com.
• John B presents A highly fortunate *cough* mistake posted at The Sharpener.
• David Daniels presents Turning Products into Stars posted at Business & Technology Reinvention.
• John Bambenek presents The Truth About Lawsuits and Liability Insurance posted at Part-Time Pundit.
• Michelle Cramer presents Hiring an Employee – The Interview Process posted at The Small Business Buzz.
• Super Saver presents Five Rules of Financial Success posted at My Wealth Builder.
• Big Cajun Man presents So High Taxes Are Good For Me? posted at Canadian Financial Rants.
• FMF presents Ways to Save on Your 2006 Taxes posted at Free Money Finance.
• Henry Stern, LUTCF presents Is Fair, Fair? posted at InsureBlog.
• Victor presents Dare To Dream « Towards Better Life posted at Victor Fam.
• Lynn Cognito presents The Business of eBay posted at Wise Bread.
• Trent presents Six Yahoo! Finance Columnists Are Worth Reading. The Other Six … Aren’t. posted at The Simple Dollar.
• Michael Dawson writes about the Impact of the Dollar’s Decline at the Time and Money Blog.
• Steve Bainbridge presents High Executive Compensation Saved American Business? posted at Professor Bainbridge’s Journal.
• Dan Melson presents Searchlight Crusade Changes in Lender Attitudes: The Push Towards Bigger Loans posted at Searchlight Crusade.
• Nina presents The Great Divide in Compensation posted at Queercents.
• Leon Gettler writes about Coke’s next Chief Operating Officer, who ten years ago was investigated for insider trading, at SoxFirst.
• Yvonne DiVita asks, “Is it the end of management as we know it?” over at Lip-sticking.
• Joe Kristan presents Roth & Company, P.C. – Tax Updates – GOING OVER THE AMT CLIFF posted at Roth & Company Tax Update.
• Wayne Hurlbert writes about search engine optimization over at Blog Business World.
• Jack Yoest presents Self-Interest Rightly Understood: The Rotary posted at Reasoned Audacity.
• Sagar Satapathy (Manager) presents Fattening Credit Card Cos On Money Meant For Donation posted at Credit Card Lowdown.
• Tom Hanna presents The Week Ahead: Your Financial Roadmap for December 11 to December 15, 2006 posted at Financial Options.
• Jeffrey Strain presents So You Want to Be Rich? Here’s The Secret posted at Personal Finance Advice.
• Carmine Coyote writes about facing burnout over at Slow Leadership.
• James Hamilton of Econbrowser reviews the latest employment data in Employment remains strong
• Shuchetana presents Joining a new job, Part 1: 4 ways to work hard posted at Corporate Life.
• Jim Logan presents Which Is Best, More Customers Visiting Once or Fewer Customers Visiting More Often? posted at Jim Logan.
• Free the Drones Blog presents Job Interview Question: What’s Your Biggest Weakness? posted at Free the Drones.
• Jeff Burkey presents Transparency posted at HedgeFundDomain.net.
• nickel presents Establishing Credit With a New Taxpayer Identification Number posted at fivecentnickel.com.
• Rob presents a networking guide for introverts over at BusinessPundit.
• David B. presents How to Save Money when Shopping Online posted at How Do People Get Rich?.
• And Finally Allen Holman writes about 5 Reasons Why You Should Treat Your Employees Like Dogs.