December 28, 2006

Well, it now is pretty clear who the “third of the three” is going to be. “Saddam to Be Hanged by Sunday.” And while All The Media is no doubt annoyed that it’ll further mess up the pre-written pre-produced Year in Review features, it’s also a rare gift to get 48-hours to prepare for a momentous news event. Which I’m sure was what John Edwards was trying to do when he announced that he was going to announce his candidacy for that job nobody in their right mind should really want, which says volumes about everybody who wants it. But I digress. The MetaFilter comment thread for the Edwards pre-announcement is the most entertainingly schizoid thing I have ever seen on the Web. One half a “What’s wrong with John Edwards/What’s right with John Edwards” argument, and one half the reaction to longtime MeFite ‘dobbs’ commenting “I stand a better chance at being the next President of the USA than he does” and very new member “Dizzy” setting up the “Dobbs for President campaign” and handing out high-level positions in the Dobbs Administration.

By the way, tomorrow I will announce the date on which I will announce my plans to announce my intention to announce that I am running… out of sour cream. But I digress again.

My problem with the Saddam execution (besides what is apparently the ‘slow strangulation’ method of hanging used in Iraq which is certainly cruel and unusual, even if the Butcher of Baghdad is among those most deserving of cruel and unusual punishment) is that it’s going to screw up the first of my 2007 Predictions, because even if I were serious about Bush making announcement “three hours after,” that would make it while it was still 2006, but Bush would never make such an announcement in the middle of a holiday weekend, but I had considered saying “within a few days” in my Prediction, and decided “three hours after” was just funnier, so now I have to choose between supporting the joke and keeping up the illusion of seriousness and, you know, sometimes it’s no fun being a humorist, and BOY do I digress!

My contribution to the endless “Year in Review” features is up at MSNBC.com, as I did a run-down of TV series ended or canceled in 2006. The formatting forced the omission of an introduction I’d written for it, so, I’ll drop it here:

The Academy Awards always makes time in its interminably long ceremony to pay tribute to anyone even slightly associated with the movie business who had died in the past year. So it seems appropriate to recognize not the people, but the 50+ TV series that ended this year, either by natural causes or at the hands of murderous network executives. (Will their reign of terror never end?) Unfortunately, every director to whom I proposed a video montage of cancelled shows had me thrown out of his-or-her office, home or booth at Denny’s. So, instead, we offer a succinct review of the year’s most notable cancellations.

What the heck. Everybody else does, so here goes…

• Hours after Saddam Hussein is hanged, President Bush will announce that all American troops will be withdrawn from Iraq, declaring “everything’s done that I thought needed to be done.” Celebrations will be muted when it is learned that the withdrawal route is set up to go through downtown Tehran.
• A secret plan by Karl Rove will be uncovered in which the White House made plans to trigger a Constitutional Crisis with the Democratic Congress once every 28 days to correspond with Nancy Pelosi’s PMS. The plan will be abandoned when a staff member points out that the 66-year-old House Speaker/Grandmother is well past menopause. That staffer will be immediately fired.
• The G.O.P. will fail in their efforts to get Senator Lieberman to change parties, and so will the Democrats in trying to get Rep. William Jefferson to do the same. However, as a result of the “Political Brain Damage” law quietly passed at the end of the last session, Senator Tim Johnson’s stroke will automatically change his affiliation to Republican.
• In response to threats against Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison, he will be offered his own Military Security Detail but will turn it down when he discovers one of the soldiers assigned to the squad is Corporal Lynndie England.
• After months of Wall Street analysts complaining that Google has too much unused cash, the web giant will use it to buy the New York Stock Exchange. Microsoft will respond by starting its own stock exchange, accessible only through Microsoft Money.
• The Next Big Thing on the Web will be a site designed to attract the 100 million plus web users who don’t want to be part of a social network, tentatively called “DamnKidsGetOffMyLawn.com” A rival site, “AndIWouldHaveGottenAwayWithItIfNotForThoseDamnKids.com” will be frequently criticized for attracting illegal activity.
• The creators of Digg.com will introduce an upscale version of their site, called “Excavatte.com”. A mainstream newspaper will attempt a Digg-like site, but in a total misunderstanding of the concept, call it “Graave.com” and only use it for obituaries.
• Apple will partner with GM to introduce the iUV, a car with a single ‘click wheel’ control and trips sold through iTunes for 99¢.
• HP will capitalize on its ‘spying’ scandal by introducing a pocket device that allows you to listen to other people’s iPods. But the only “iPod killer” product to have any sales success in 2007 will be one from Smith & Wesson.
• As the ratings for CBS News continue to decline, Katie Couric will take the unprecedented action of doing her daily newscast while not wearing panties. The FCC will decline to cite the network for indecency because she’s just so damn perky. Still, her ratings will not improve, so by the end of the year, Katie will be replaced by Rachael Ray.
• Ted Turner will use a portion of his fortune to establish the “Ted Turner Home for Delusional Cable News Personalities Who Think They’re Doing Something Important.” Lou Dobbs will be the first to be admitted, but by the end of the year, the facility will be full. There will be a serious ‘incident’ when the admissions clerk puts O’Reilly and Olbermann in the same room.
• More than one famous pro athlete who should have retired years ago will test positive for Preservatives.
• The umpteenth revamping of the Bowl Championship Series will result in the NCAA’s #1 Womens Volleyball team being picked for one of the New Years Day 2008 games. And an obscenely high sponsorship offer will finally convince one of the major bowl games to be renamed the “Ti-D Bowl”.
• NewsCorp will hire Chris Hansen and his “To Catch a Predator” team away from NBC and replace the shows on its “MyNetwork” with 10 hours a week of “The Perverts of MySpace”.
• In response to the success of ABC’s “Ugly Betty”, the Fall 2007 schedule will include NBC’s “Plain Jane”, FOX’s “Homely Hillary”, the CW’s “Deformed Debbie” and CBS’s “Agnes With the Great Personality.”
• The Time Person of the Year for 2007 will be “That Guy Who Was Out of Town When We Gave Last Year’s Award to Everybody Else”.