Xark!: The Xark! 100

One hundred memorable, forgettable, wonderful, horrible, brilliant, stupid things from 2005 (in no particular order)

China: Lied about chemical spills and a mysterious disease, racked by floods, yet still managed to put up 37 million blogs.
"Git-R-Done!"
"My Humps " by The Blackeyed Peas
"My Robot Humps" by Little Lost Robot
Hot enough for ya? For a while it looked like 2005 would be the hottest year in recorded history. Thank Gawd we dropped back into second place, thereby invalidating the entire global warming thesis.
Blow me: And while we were denied the all-time hottest year record, at least we won the stormiest-year superlative with 26 named storms.
"State of Fear" by Michael Crichton -- a NYT Bestseller about how a group of evil environmentalists manipulate the weather to trick people into believing in global warming and other leftist, commie, gay-marrying, pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Crichton is immediately hailed as a great scientific authority by leading thinkers like Sen. James Inhofe, R-OK, who took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Jan. 4 to praise the novel: "For those who do worry, or induce such worry in others," said Inhofe, "State of Fear has a very simple message: Stop worrying and stop spreading fear."
Steve Earle sells the rights to his song "The Revolution Starts Now" to Chevrolet for use in a truck commercial, causing me to go on a nasty drunk and lose all hope. Bastard.
Chicago White Sox win the World Series for the first time in 88 years and absolutely no one gives a shit.
Boston Red Sox lead-off caveman Johnny Damon signs with the New York Yankees and cleans up his image. Media circus ensues.
The ViPod.
The Bush-Clinton tsunami tour. WTF???
What's at the top of your Netflix queue?
Hurricane Katrina: Some hurricane hits the Gulf Coast while Janet, myself and President Bush are on vacation, and really kinda ends our respective holidays on a down note. Nobody wants to see our trip photos from North Carolina, and the country is less-than-impressed by Bush's "But I toured the devastation from above in Air Force One" claim to empathy. The storm ultimately exposes the cronyism, incompetence and callous arrogance of either the White House or the Media, depending on whatever you believed before the disaster occurred. In a related story, more than 1,000 people died.
When the White House finally did wise up and take an interest in Katrina's victims, its first instinct was to stage-manage its concerns to emphasize political points. This included Potempkin Presidency classics like comforting storm victims who weren't actually storm victims, borrowing newly arrived firefighters for a photo op, holding up relief flights and constructing non-existant distribution centers as backdrops. But the worst Bush-gaffe of all may have come from his mother, who, when interviewed about refugees in the Astrodome, told an interviewer: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (chuckle)--this is working very well for them." Methinks Kanye West is a master of understatement.
"Liberality for All" comic book published: "It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. It is up to an underground group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City ...And wake the world from an Orwellian nightmare of United Nations- dominated ultra-liberalism."
Anderson Cooper: The ambi-sexual CNN actor/journalist/Byronic hero scales the cable news heights with his Katrina coverage, which includes filming his innermost thoughts with a Sony Handycam. Cooper's rise later displaces anchor Aaron Brown, who clearly lacked the qualifying abdominal muscles.
Pat Robertson issues a Christian fatwah against Venezula President Hugo Chavez.
European Union falls the fuck apart, annoying all sorts of televangelist Second-Coming prognosticators in the American Southeast.
Germany elects first woman chancellor, Frau Whats-Her-Face.
24.1 million blogs indexed at Technorati.
Britney Spears and husband Kevin Federline have white trash baby. Nation notices distinct loss of charm.
Gas prices spin wildly out of control. Oil industry officials blame the increase on storms and unavoidable pass-through costs.
Oil companies report record profits.
The UNC Tar Heels win the NCAA tournament under coach Roy Williams. Within hours of cutting down the nets, half the team is drafted by the NBA and the remainder are abducted by aliens from New Jersey wearing dark blue "Duke" sweatshirts.
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Culture-war proxy and Florida state vegetable Terri Schiavo dies. She is survived by her husband, her parents, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Bush brothers, Karl Rove, FOX News and the rest of the Republican Noise Machine.
Frist is probed by the Securities Exchange Commission for being a scumbag. Which is kind of ironic, because it isn't every day that a doctor gets probed, if you know what I mean.
Rep. Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, R-Texas, is indicted in Austin on charges of conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws. In a related story, liberal talk show host Stephanie Miller gets audio of a plastered DeLay reading an absurdly self-righteous statement to a conservative group, and nicknames the House Majority Leader "Drunky McPukeshoes."
WMDs still missing.
The Chicago Bears win 11 games, 10 of them with a rookie starting at quarterback.
Amazingly, phony pop-creation Ashlee Simpson manages to have an even worse year than her sister, phony pop-creation Jessica Simpson. In an even more bizarre development, people actually seem to care.
Sadaam Hussein goes on trial. The suspense is killing us.
Michael Jackson aquitted in child molestation trial, vows to find "the real molestor."
Eagles WR Terrell Owens becomes world's buffest jerk.
Earthquake strikes Pakistan in October, killing 79,000 people and annoying self-righteous Americans who were still wallowing in poor-us post-Katrina kitsch.
Bird flu: Kills dozens in Asia, makes its way overland from China to Europe, and finally gets U.S. media attention when President Bush talks about it while trying to prove, post-Katrina, that he knows about threats and stuff. When human pandemic doesn't immediately break out, media outlets quickly turn on the story. Meanwhile, $7 billion federal flu plan doesn't include the one damn thing that would actually help: expanded facilities for the production of vaccine in the future.
Eight-hundred and forty-one Americans died in Iraq.
Podcasting breaks out of the shadows to become an enormously overhyped and misunderstood phenomenon, then quickly faded back into the shadows as everyone with venture capital ran off after video blogging instead. Once The Area 51 Show guys quit, it was all over for me. Podshow. Odeo. O-vanity-O.
Rocketboom. Not since Paris Hilton have so many gone so gaa-gaa over so little in the field of cheap, short video. But it's still kinda cool (I'm partial to Tiki Bar TV. Ooo-la La La).
Dave Chapelle returns for third season on Comedy Central after taking well-deserved crack break.
Bob Novak -- a whiney GOP suck-ass -- storms off the set of CNN's Inside Politics to avoid having to answer questions about his role in outing CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Man, that new Pope kinda freaks me out. Check out the dude's eyes! Creep show.
Elections held in Iraq, where things are going a lot better than what the media would have you believe, hippie.
Iraqi Army officials deny Knight-Ridder report that Kurdish officers in Iraqi units remain loyal to the Peshmerga and intend to take Kirkuk and other cities in Greater Kurdistan the minute the counry starts to fall apart in earnest, suggesting that the current falling-apart is just a warm-up.
Jon Stewart: America's Most Trusted Newsman.
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Brad and Jen. Brad and Angela. Jen and Vince. Renee and Kenny. Britney and Kevin. Jessica and Nick. Fuck and Me.
President Bush screws the pooch so bad on his second Supreme Court nomination that he has to ask for a do-over. Noboby really notices because, relative to the White House's ongoing screw-ups, the Harriet Miers fiasco barely rates a 3.5.
Passerby tells Vice President Dick Cheney to go fuck himself during live CNN Gulf Coast photo-op. Oddly enough, Cheney complies.
President Bush's approval ratings dip below 40 percent.
President Bush's approval ratings climb above 40 percent. FOX News declares Presidential victory over pro-terror media faggots.
ConvergeSouth attracts cool people to Greensboro, N.C.
After holding U.S. citizen and alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla without charges in a Navy brig in Hanahan, SC, for three years, the federal government finally (under threat of court order) reveals its charges. And they don't say a word about dirty bombs.
Afghanis riot in the streets, killing seven, after Newsweek runs item that says U.S. troops desecrated Korans at Gitmo. Newsweek later retracts the item. Right wingers across America enjoy spontaneous orgasms.
Porn star Jenna Jameson goes mainstream, pens autobiography "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star." Which is kinda ironic to us, since we started as writers and became porn stars later.
Computer-manual publisher and tech visonary Tim O'Reilly popularizes the Web 2.0 meme. Other tech visionaries, angry that they didn't cash-in on the catchy phrase first, immediately race to piss all over it.
The other O'Reilly, Bill, declares war on those secular-humanist-donkey-raping-bastards who declared war on Christmas. Nation gets even dumber.
"Able Danger" scandal fizzles because noboby can explain it less than 20 minutes.
Lindsay Lohan's breasts give new meaning to movie title "Fully Loaded".
Lance Armstrong wins yet another Tour de France, bangs Sheryl Crow, retires, vows to drink beer and relax. Show-off.
Weblogs, Inc., sells to AOL for $25 million.
Popular non-fiction title "Freakonomics" finds connection between legalized abortion and falling crime rate. Fortunately, Red State attention is clearly focused on latest Paris Hilton dust-up.
VP chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby is indicted in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose identity was leaked to reporters as part of a White House smear campaign against her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson. Still under investigation: White House senior advisor Karl Rove. Fortunately, Red State attention is clearly focused on debate over whether movie remake of the 1970s TV show "The Dukes of Hazzard" is faithful enough to the spirit of the original series.
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan embarrasses President Bush outside his Crawford, Texas, dude ranch. Attempts by the Right Wing Noise Machine to destroy her reputation are less than successful. Fortunately, a blonde girl is missing in Aruba, demanding round-the-clock team coverage by FOX.
President Bush launches his own diversionary campaign, endorsing the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools as a means of distracting people from his other, possibly illegal, acts of calculated idiocy. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones eventually drives a stake through the heart of this undead ideological monster by ruling against the Dover, Pa., school board. Fortunately Pat Robertson is there to declare that God is going to get Dover, although he stops short of giving the town the Chavez treatment. Demise of the I.D. ruse is assured when The Onion publishes its piece on the anti-gravity theory called Intelligent Falling.
Alarmed by the failure of its "Global War on Terror" to rally public opinion at home, the Pentagon trots out a new phrase in July: "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism." It polls poorly, and is quickly abandoned.
Extreme heat, adult stupidity and White House cluelessness turn Boy Scout Jamboree into Bataan Death March.
Patriotboy, blogging as Gen. J.C. Christian, heterosexual, at Jesus' General.
Terrorist bomb London metro. The English aren't even particularly freaked out about this, since they aren't a nation of self-righteous, victim-head pansies.
World of Warcraft online gamemaker Blizzard steals, then brainwashes, all our children. Which would be fine, if Blizzard was going to pay their way through college.
Daniel Radosh obsessively covers the continuing ascendancy of the manufactured girl-group Huckapoo.
Singer-songwriter-sexy-soulful-genius Alana Davis self-publishes her CD "Surrender Dorothy," autographs a copy to me under the personal message "With Love and Respect." Proving once again that chicks dig me.
The Arthur Ravenel Bridge over the Cooper River between Charleston and Mount Pleasant opens, followed by the almost-as-cool explosive destruction of the bridges it replaced.
In an almost-equally cool development, Africa native John Saunders opens Kudu Coffee at 4 Vanderhorst St., just off upper King Street.
Adobe purchases Macromedia.
The NYT innovates in the wrong direction with its Times Select paywall plan.
Jimmy Wales' Wikipedia project becomes the largest encyclopedia on Earth, causing people around the world to notice it and work feverishly to destroy the project, the concept behind it, the people involved, etc. Next up: Salting Wales' lawn.
When senators in his own party threaten to thwart President Bush's appointment of John Bolton as our ambassador to the United Nations, the White House waits until the Senate goes on a break and puts him in office without confirmation. Because he's a uniter.
President Bush, claiming political capital from his 2004 reelection victory, vows to reform Social Security. It was fun while it lasted.
Violet Blue joins the staff at Fleshbot.
Sept. 9, 2005: "Impeach Bush" is the No. 1 search term at Technorati.com.
In April, I received shaktipat (literally the descent of divine energy) from an Atlanta-based guru named Chris. Very cool thing. That shakti is now working its way around my body, burning up my old karmas, activating my chakras and stoking up my kundalini. Oh, and I also got my Reiki I certification. I shit you not.
A team of physicists fails to find the elusive pentaquark in particle-smasher experiments at Virgina's JLab.
The Clovis-First consensus in early American archaeology was effectively replaced by a pre-Clovis consensus during the Clovis in the Southeast Conference in Columbia, SC, this October. This could mean that the first people to settle North America came here by boat before the glaciers retreated during the last ice age.
On July 13, U.S. military officials released a statement on a Baghdad bombing that included the following: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the children and all of Iraq,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified. 'They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and i will now take the fight to the terrorists.'" Less than two weeks later, the same quote appeared in another press release from the same military organization. A July 25 item on the apparent propaganda effort concluded:"Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, spokesman for the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, said use of the quote was an 'administrative error.' He said the military was looking into the matter." By December, the Pentagon was trying to contain controversy about its "information operations" in Iraq.
But George wasn't the only elusive Bush: USC running back Reggie Bush won the Heisman Trophy and drew comparisons to former Chicago Bears star Gale Sayers.
A team of physicists put a string of a half-dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat-state" in which the atoms were simultaneously spinning to the left and the right. This was the one didn't make many Top Science Stories lists, but you know: Screw 'em.
Senate Majority Leader Frist, who started 2005 as the frontrunner to succeed Bush as the GOP's presidential nominee and ended it trying to avoid criminal charges, started his stunning decline by threatening to use "the nuclear option" to prevent Democrats from filibustering confirmation of the White House's appointments. Once somebody figured out that the term "nuclear option" didn't cast the GOP in the best light vis-a-vis the whole fair-play/statesmanship thing, the leadership tried pretending that Democrats had coined the term and started calling their power-play threat "the constitutional option," which -- despite being utter bullshit -- had the benefit of polling much better.
Democrat activist Sally Kohn argued that Democrats should use the SUPCO nomination fight to advance a George Lakoff-style set of values and announced that her organization was setting off to find the best 10 words that would define the Democratic mission. Unfortunately, she never interviewed Xarkers. We boiled it down to seven: 1. Integrity; 2. compassion; 3. honor; 4. freedom; 5. fairness; 6. respect; 7. honesty. In retrospect, I'd like to add an eighth: SEXY!
Texas Hold'em and The Poker Craze. I fold.
Dead People: Richard Pryor, Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisolm, Hunter S. Thompson, Scottie, Vassar Clements, Gilligan, Nipsey, Agent Maxwell Smart, Oliver "The Hothead" Douglas, Luther Vandross, Shelby Foote, Arthur Miller and Saul Bellow.
Lobbyist and criminal Jack Abramoff. The GOP is counting on you to be too stupid to understand just how corrupt the Republican-led Congress has become since they ran off the corrupt Democratic-led Congress. A judge may not be as easy to fool. Watch this space.
Crooks and Liars, which lets you download the most choice video absurdities from Right Wing World without having to watch all of it yourself.
Judith Miller -- a lying neo-con propagandist at The New York Times who helped sell the invasion of Iraq with fraudulent reporting and went to jail to protect Scooter Libby. Her future looks bright.
Bumperstickers: What Did President Cheney Know and When Did He Know It? and Republicans for Voldemort.
Torture: Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, stood his ground to demand limits on torture by American servicemen, while Dick Cheney argued the administration's case for state-sponsored sadism. Eventually the White House caved to the pressure, but not before making our country look like Germany in the 1930s.
The Bush Bubble. Pop.
Jeb Bush "unleashes Chang."
Jeff Guckert/Gannon, White House correspondent/male prostitute gives us "Man-gate." Republicans, with a straight face, chastize Democrats for pointing out that the GOP's favorite fake reporter is a gay hooker, saying that his sexuality is his own business. "Bulldog" signs off from his "news" website with a drama-queen flourish: "The voice is silenced." Admittedly, I have had entirely too much fun with this story.
Not content to make use of the special secret wiretapping court Congress gave the executive branch to expedite its War on Terror, the White House unilaterally authorized illegal, warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens until The New York Times exposed the program on the eave of a vote to extend the provisions of The Patriot Act. The GOP fought back with a variety of weapons: Clinton Did It First; It's Just The Media; We Have To Do This To Protect You; We Only Do This To The Bad Guys; Bush Has The Right To Do This Because We're At War. None of it convinced anyone besides the Kool-Aid Drinkers and the rest of the Bush Cult, leaving millions of traditional conservatives -- believers in the rule of law -- to defend power-lust and laziness. It was about as sad a state of affairs as one could imagine for sincere conservatives, but after years of listening to their parsing, I'm done feeling sympathy for them. Hey, y'all elected him. Have fun defending fascism in 2006, boys!

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101. The Thickety Quick Quacks obliterate the Manly Football League record book and most of the members of the MFL, proving yet again that nothing beats a good, fast duck.

Posted by: The Commish | Monday, January 02, 2006 at 18:37