Dave Barry's "2006 Year in Review"

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Humorist Dave Barry's annual year in review column is online. Excerpts:

February: The big sporting event is the Winter Olympics, a glorious quadrennial celebration of world-class virtuoso athletic accomplishment in sports nobody has ever heard of. Surprise winners include Latvia in the 500-kilometer Modified Nordic Combined; the Republic of Irvingkahnistan in the 2,300-meter Slavic Personified; and U.S. skier Bode Miller in Most Nike Commercials Featuring A Competitor Who, In the Actual Competitions, Mainly Falls Down.

March: In the Academy Awards, the overwhelming favorite for best picture is Brokeback Mountain, the story of two men who discover, while spending many isolated weeks together in the mountains, that they enjoy exchanging instant messages with Mark Foley. But in a stunning upset, the Oscar for best picture instead goes to Crash, a documentary about Bode Miller.

July: In another troubling international development, rogue state North Korea test-fires seven ballistic missiles, including two believed to be potentially capable of reaching U.S. soil. World tension goes back down when the missiles, upon reaching an altitude of 200 feet, explode and spell HAPPY BIRTHDAY. American military analysts caution that these missiles "could easily be modified to spell something more threatening."

October: In baseball, the New York Yankees, despite being clearly the best and most expensive team the world has ever seen, fail to even get into the World Series, leaving Yankee fans to spend yet another bitter off-season wondering why their team can't simply be awarded the championship, and not have to play these stupid games against clearly inferior teams from dirtball cities that don't even have subways.

November: As the campaign lumbers to the finish line, the Republicans desperately hope that the voters will not notice that they -- once the party of small government -- have turned into the party of war-bungling, corruption-tolerating, pork-spewing power-lusting toads, while the Democrats desperately hope that the voters will not notice that they are still, basically, the Democrats. The actual voters, of course, are paying no attention, having given up on politics months ago because every time they turn on the TV all they see are political ads accusing pretty much every candidate on either side of being, at minimum, a child molester.