2008 Review

The United States marked the five-year anniversary of thewar in Iraq. Over four million Iraqis had fled the countryor been internally displaced, and the total cost of thewar, currently about $650 billion, was expected to rise to$2 trillion over the next five years. Oil rose above $147a barrel, and Abu Dhabi bought New York City's ChryslerBuilding for $800 million. Somali pirates stole a Saudisupertanker. President George W. Bush announced that NorthKorea was no longer a state sponsor of terrorism. The CIAexpanded its covert operations in Iran. Bozo the Clowndied, as did Jesse Helms, William F. Buckley Jr., PaulNewman, Heath Ledger, Indonesian dictator Suharto,comedian George Carlin, didgeridoo master Alan Dargin,and, at age 110, Louis de Cazenave of the Fifth SenegaleseRifles, one of the last two living French veterans ofWorld War I. "War," he once explained, "is somethingabsurd, useless, that nothing can justify." Ariel Sharonwas still alive, and Israel bombed Gaza in retaliation forongoing rocket attacks. Tom Jones insured his chest hairfor $7 million.Australian police tasered a ram. France banned TV showsfor babies. Pope Benedict XVI toured the United States,and the Vatican released a list of seven "social"sins--including littering, genetic tampering, and creatingpoverty--to complement the seven cardinal vices. The WorldHealth Organization announced that virtually untreatabledrug-resistant tuberculosis could now be found in 45countries. Japanese men began to wear bras. The cost ofrice increased by 30 percent, and food riots broke out in30 countries. The United Nations expected the number ofstarving people in the world to rise to 950 million. NorthKorean hunger scientists announced a new noodle. In anexpanding thousand-square-mile low-oxygen zone growingalong the coast of Oregon and Washington, every fish,crab, and sea worm was dead. A 7.9-magnitude earthquakecentered in China's Sichuan Province left tens ofthousands of people dead and millions homeless. The SummerOlympics were held in Beijing, heralded on television byfake, computer-generated fireworks. Structures built forthe 2004 Athens Olympics were falling into ruin. A man inSwansea, Wales, died from eating too much fairycake, andan elderly German woman filed a lawsuit against a hospitalin Bavaria after she went in for a leg operation and wasinstead given a new anus. Paddington Bear turned 50; boththe cubicle and the assassination of Martin Luther Kingturned 40; Viagra turned 10. One in 100 American adultswas behind bars.The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that detainees held as "enemycombatants" by the United States at Guantanamo Bay have aconstitutional right to challenge their detention throughhabeas corpus petitions in federal courts. Scientistslocated the part of the brain responsible forunderstanding sarcasm. Global stock markets lost $3.1trillion in four days, and the Dow Jones IndustrialAverage fell below 10,000 for the first time in fiveyears. The real estate boom in Dubai slowed. NobelLaureate V. S. Naipaul declared that there are "no moregreat writers," and Bob Dylan won a Pulitzer Prize.Illinois Senator Barack Obama was elected President of theUnited States. Gunmen terrorized Mumbai, and inflation inZimbabwe reached 23 million percent. Iceland wentbankrupt. Zookeepers across the United States put theiranimals on diets, feeding gorillas according to a WeightWatchers point system and offering polar bears sugar-freeJell-O. The thoughts of a monkey in North Carolinacontrolled the actions of a robot in Japan. New Yorkresearchers used carbon nanotubes to create the darkestmaterial known to man. Two teams of physicists, one inCalgary and the other in Tokyo, successfully storednothing within a gas in the form of squeezed vacuumcomposed of uncertainty.