Dave Barry's Hilarious Review of 2009

The Washington Post published "Lowlights of a Downer Year: Dave Barry on the money, madness and misery of 2009", a hilarious review of the year's events.

Some of my personal favorites:

It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result, Washington, rejecting "business as usual," finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it, and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it.

Congress passes, without reading it and without actually finishing writing it, a stimulus package totaling $787 billion...This will stimulate the economy by creating millions of jobs, according to estimates provided by the Congressional Estimating Office's Magical Estimating 8-Ball.

The annual observance of Earth Hour is observed with one hour of symbolic energy conservation as hundreds of millions of nonessential lights and appliances are turned off. And that's just in Al Gore's house.

In other international bad news, North Korea launches a test missile that experts say is capable of hitting Hawaii, based on the fact that it actually hits Hawaii. The United States swiftly pledges to issue a strongly worded condemnation containing "even stronger words than last time."

New York is temporarily thrown into a panic when Air Force One flies low over Manhattan for a publicity photo shoot. Responding to widespread criticism, Gibbs notes that Obama inherited Air Force One from the Bush administration.