2008 has not been a very good year economically or politically, with I suppose the one exception that it marks the end of the Bush presidency. Nevertheless, we still must press forward and review all the good stuff that I have blogged in the previous year, and perhaps add a few things to the Best Of samaBlog blogroll. So let’s get on with it, in some semblance of chronological order:

• I likened Ron Paul to Bababooey.
• I discovered the slang term “Cougar.” It’s apparently commonplace now.
• I gave a good roundup of what I thought of each of the candidates for President before the New Hampshire primary began.
• I likened the Republican Party to the Christian Democratic parties of Europe.
• I felt bad for Mitt Romney briefly and likened Hillary to an evil villain out of a Disney movie. I likened Hillary to a Disney Villain again here.
• I remembered Robert Burns Day. I won’t be able to celebrate this year as I’ll be recovering from surgery. More on that later.
• I wrote about Colin Powell’s speech at the JP Morgan debt conference I attended.
• I somehow got Glenn Reynolds to comment on a post of mine.
• I concluded that Wiccans are weird.
• I voted for Obama in the Massachusetts primaries.
• I pontificated about the value of a Canadian quarter.
• I celebrated Leap Year for the first time in the history of the blog. I also pontificated about Leap Second.
• I raged about the war on salt.
• I took on the Wall Street Journal in their war on Net neutrality.
• I made a gratuitous joke about Kansas.
• I celebrated 5 glorious years of the samaBlog. It really has been ever delightful…
• I laughed as Don Harrold fisked Jim Cramer.
• I marked the day that Rush Limbaugh jumped the shark. I later commented on the implications of his new contract with Clear Channel.
• I called out Geraldine Ferraro for calling Barack Obama an affirmative action candidate.
• I ranted an awful lot about inflation and the Fed’s actions. There are other rants from the early part of the year, but that one is pretty good.
• I called McCain anti-business.
• I encouraged Pennsylvania voters to vote for Obama.
• I discovered gay Mr. Spock.
• I called out Microsoft on how they disrespect their customers.
• I decried the state of American political debates.
• I marked the passing of Chantal Sebire.
• I incorrectly surmised that Ted Kennedy was faking his seizure. Ironic in light of my health issues, to be discussed at a later date.
• I inquired as to the various names for differing shapes of wood.
• I continued to speculate as to the movement of the fault line in American politics.
• I speculated that Steve Jobs may in fact be anorexic.
• I received a patent.
• I likened a belief in the free market to a belief in Newton’s laws of physics.
• I went to wine country in California.
• I noted that Camile Paglia sounded an awful lot like the samaBlog.
• I invented a new show called American Shatner.
• I discussed the demise of Brahman culture.
• I talked about the history of the now infamous Massachusetts 1913 law.
• I explained the problem with New Yorker cartoons.
• I railed against Republicans looking to re-institute a national speed limit.
• I got an iPhone.
• I declared that it’s time for men to start wearing ascots again.
• I told John McCain to grow up.
• I noted that real life imitates The Onion.
• I decried Stinky The Hutt.
• I marked the passing of 8/8/08.
• I noted this year’s list of the 100 hottest women according to lesbians.
• I invented a dog poop locator decive, or at least I thought it up.
• I celebrated Oktoberfest.
• I took George Will to task again, this time over employee discounts.
• I invented Spray Peanut Butter.
• I celebrated Talk Like A Pirate Day.
• I declared that the new Wall Street Journal layout sucks. I stand by that assessment.
• I discussed technology that does not yet exist.
• I developed a conspiracy theory.
• I ranted about the simple mindedness of the press.
• I discussed the Bush Doctrine.
• I noted the passing of 9-11.
• I got a dog. More pictures here.
• I noted sequential weirdness in this year’s Presidential election.
• I provided a detailed analysis of our current economic situation, with a followup here.
• I made some campaign endorsements.
• I discovered why so many dudes were walking around with Obama stickers on their lapels.
• I interpreted St. Malachy’s prophecy in light of this year’s election.
• I took a trip to Argentina.
• I celebrated the 75th anniversary of Repeal Day.
• I celebrated Christmas.

Well that’s it from the samaBlog for 2008. Thanks for sticking with me, and we’ll see what happens next year. And don’t forget to read my Google Reader Feed, where I post lost of short links that don’t make it to the main blog. Bye for now…

So apparently, an extra second is being added on to the year this year to account for minute inaccuracies in our normal measurement of time. This second is called a Leap Second, and will be added at the exact end of the year, this year.

Apparently, Leap Seconds are normally added either on June 30 or December 31. I have two questions about this:

1. Why can’t we wait until June 30 2009 to add the extra second this year? Do we really want to give George Bush another second in office more than is already necessary? I certainly don’t.
2. When they do the countdown at Times Sq, how will they deal with the extra second? Will they start the countdown one second late, or will they count down to -1 instead of the usual zero? (thanks Calzone for bringing this to my attention).

I’d appreciate any thoughts you may have on these matters.

Thanks.

I had no good links saved up for you for Christmas this year, so I decided to look up photos of office Christmas parties and make snarky comments about them instead. Let us go forth and rape flickr:

“Hello, Clause residence.” No, seriously, you’re too old to be a sexy Mrs. Clause.

No, Sully, nobody’s taking you up on THAT invitation…

Merry Christmas Evil Snow-Witch

House BLANKers Sing For Their Masters: DING Fries Are Done!

Gay chinese guy, “I’m getting laid tonight!” Bi-white guy, “I’m getting laid tonight!” Uptight white woman, “I feel so uncomfortable…”

This got me:

This caption is actually unusual in using the moderately distancing “what Catholics believe.” But would a story about a recent sighting of Abraham Lincoln at a Los Angeles K-Mart, say, leave the matter with a “what Lincoln fans believe was Lincoln’s appearance to party faithful?” Unlikely. The allegation of Lincoln’s presence would be balanced at the very least by something along the lines of: “There has been little independent verification of this claim, however.”

I swear I saw Elvis passed out on a park bench on my way home last night.

Read Heather MacDonald.

If I haven’t sent you a Christmas card and you’d like one, let me know in the comments. I have extras.

So Kim Crawford got nominated for a silly award by Andrew Sullivan because he wrote an insanely funny piece about Barack Obama (also, read the follow-up piece). Frankly, I’m totally jealous.

Please take the time to go and vote for Kim Crawford. Getting one of those awards is supposed to be a badge of shame, that in this case should be worn with honor.

So get to it.

He is deeply confused

Worth noting:

WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton’s foundation has raised at least $46 million from Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments that his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton may end up negotiating with as the next secretary of state.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave $10 million to $25 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit created by the former president to finance his library in Little Rock, Ark., and charitable efforts to reduce poverty and treat AIDS. Other foreign government givers include Norway, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Italy and Jamaica. The Dutch national lottery gave $5 million to $10 million.

The Blackwater Training Center donated $10,001 to $25,000. The State Department — to be led by Hillary Clinton if she is confirmed — will have to decide next year whether to renew Blackwater Worldwide’s contract to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq. Five Blackwater guards have been indicted by a U.S. grand jury on manslaughter and weapons charges stemming from a September 2007 firefight in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square in which 17 Iraqis died.

The foundation disclosed the names of its 205,000 donors on a Web site Thursday, ending a decade of resistance to identifying the sources of its money.

Read more here. Unfortunately, the news article doesn’t link to the website where the donors are listed, and I don’t have time to go hunting right now. If you find it, drop me a line.

Sully agrees with Velociman.