Another great year. As readers may recall, this time last year I wished that 2005 would be nothing like 2004. I apparently neglected to explain that I was hoping for something better; I will not make that mistake again. Here's hoping 2006 will be a better year. Herewith, the highlights (so to speak) of 2005:

January - Bush was inaugurated. After four years in the Office of Presidency, he was finally elected to that position. Bush's first budget quickly sailed up to top the chart of New York Times Best Selling Fiction.

Donald Rumsfeld was sent to give solace to the tsunami victims.

A report found that Dan Rather was the only television media flack not on the U.S. Government payroll.

In late January, Google started indexing brains. They started with Bill Gates.

Iraq took its first step toward what, here in America, we call a "democracy."

February - Zoloft and Paxil were replaced by the "W" pill.

March - After the GOP-controlled congress went into special session to pass a special law just for Terry Shiavo, the other 293 million Americans asked to get their own laws.

The GOP, tired of "half-measures", passed a law giving everyone's money directly to the rich.

April - The Pentagon took over the food pyramid.

May - After Newsweek retracted their apparently entirely accurate story on "Koran flushing", Bush tried to retract the entirely awful Iraq war, which, it had become increasingly evident, was also in the toilet.

June - The GOP declared Paul Revere to be a despicable tattletale.

Senator Bill Frist offered to make medical diagnoses by mail.

Noting that the U.S. Army was already in place, President Bush decried the dreadfully dangerous state of things in a particular country and therefore urged us to invade Iraq again.

July - Amid signs that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation was heating up, the White House refused to confirm ever knowing a "Karl Rove".

August - President Bush, considering a Federally mandated school science curriculum, decided that things fall "because God wants them to."

Busdh extended his vacation in Texas to clear "especially pernicious" brush.

September - God heard Bush declare John Kerry to be "soft on weather" (in 2004), and ordered Katrina.

Bush later said that he would have rescued poor people if he had known they existed.

Bush was shocked at his response to hurricane Katrina and vowed to find out where he was and what he was doing.

October - Bush nominated an actual blank slate to the Supreme Court and, concerned about torture, sought limits on interrogation -- of members of the White House.

November - Ahmed Chalabi was appointed chief instructor of the new White House School of Ethics.

God (who had a busy year) smacked Pat Robertson.

December - In a story yet to be written (let's just say, "DEVELOPING"), President Bush announced that he had authorized the use of constant, innumerable and entirely illegal wiretaps in order to stop terrorist schemes such as a plan to use 100,000 tiny but extremely powerful magnets to move the earth off of its axis.

So, I ask you, 2006: what took you so long?