Accidental Blogger

Here are some of my observations on the events of the past year – related mostly to the political and social happenings in the US. To scrutinize events of the entire world would have been a daunting task. I won’t bother to provide links – please google if in doubt. All the stories are well known and many have been addressed here on A.B.

• The most positive event : The Democrats’ win in the mid-term elections.
• The most negative event: Bush remains president for two more years.
• The most overrated political figure: Karl Rove. He had the "math" but lost the elections.
• The most underrated political figure: Howard Dean. His leadership of the Democratic Party and 50 State strategy actually worked and no one thanked him.
• The most overrated political event: The Iraq Study Group’s recommendations and the killing of Abu Mousab Zarqawi
• The most overrated public figure: Laura Bush
• The most underrated public figure: George Clooney. He has done more to bring attention to the tragedy in Darfur than all the TV networks’ reportage put together.
• The best media moment: Bill Clinton chewing out Chris Wallace on Fox TV
• The worst media moment: Rush Limbaugh taunting Michael J. Fox
• The most influential media moment: George Allen’s macaca slip on You Tube.
• The most riveting media moment: Zinedine Zidane headbutting Materazzi in the World Cup Soccer final.
• The worst 15 minutes of fame: Representative Mark Foley of Florida, President Kim Jong Il of Korea and Kevin Federline (tied)
• The worst moment in public: Mel Gibson and Michael Richards caught spewing racist rants
• The worst marksman: Dick Cheney
• The fastest rising star: Senator Barack Obama
• The fastest falling star(s): Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Dennis Hastert and the entire corrupt and power drunk Republican Congress.
• The best come back from oblivion: Al Gore
• The best science / medicine news: Sharp decrease in women’s breast cancer rates
• The worst science news: Global warming is real and it is affecting the earth in alarming ways
• The most boring science news: NASA plans to send men (women) to the moon
• The worst misses: The National Weather Bureau’s predictions for hurricanes (high) and December snow fall (low) in the Rockies and the midwest
• The best expenditure of money: Warren Buffett’s philanthropic gift to the Bill Gates  Foundation.
• The worst expenditure of money (and human lives): The Iraq war
• The best political drama: The five US generals criticising Rumsfeld publicly
• The worst political drama: Hugo Chavez’s "The Devil was here" speech at the UN and all of George Bush’s misleading speeches about the situation in Iraq
• The most sinister political development: The Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan
• The most dishonest moment: US claims that Saddam Hussein’s death by hanging was purely an Iraqi decision (really, almost all claims about Iraq made by the Bush administration)

Can’t think of any thing more and these are my personal opinions. (I don’t feel adventurous enough to make predictions.) Please feel free to add to the list.

A very happy New Year to all.