2006 in Review

You can find these lists and stats in various places on the web. Every year I like to put together my own list. I'll bring this to the party tonight.

Top News Stories:

• Sago mine disaster - 12 miners perished after explosion and a 41 hour rescue attempt. One man survived.
• Immigration protests - Hundreds of thousands of protesters turned out in 140 cities in 39 states, demanding the estimated 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants get a chance to live the American dream. Congress responded with approval of a 700 mile long fence.
• McCartney-Mills separated - Heather Mills claiming abuse and a large share of Sir Paul’s fortune
• Britney Spears and Kevin Federline split up
• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt went to Namibia to have their baby
• Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had a child and got married
• Madonna sparked controversy by adopting a Malawian baby.
• Enron trial - Jeffrey Skilling and founder Kenneth Lay were found guilty of conspiracy and fraud. Lay, 64, died of coronary disease on July 5 while awaiting sentencing. Skilling was sentenced to 24 years in prison on October 23.
• Al-Zarqawi killed – after catching two 500 lb. bombs
• Mumbai train explosions - A series of seven explosions killed at least 186 people and wounded about 700 others on crowded commuter trains and stations during evening rush hour
• Israel-Hezbollah war - About a million people on each side of the border were displaced. The conflict left 908 dead and 3,877 wounded in Lebanon, and 159 dead and more than 1,000 wounded in Israel.
• Tainted spinach - E. coli bacteria in spinach killed at least three people and sickened 199 others in 26 states.
• Trans-Atlantic terror plot foiled - Terrorists were in the "final stages" of a plot to simultaneously blow up as many as 10 jets leaving Britain for the United States when British and Pakistani authorities teamed up to thwart the attacks, officials said. It was believed the plotters planned to mix a sports drink with a gel-like substance to make a potent explosive that could be ignited with an MP3 player or cell phone.
• JonBenet Ramsey arrest - John Mark Karr was arrested in Thailand in connection with the murder of JonBenet. Karr, told reporters he was with JonBenet the night she died and that her death was an accident. Karr was extradited to Colorado, but his admission only deepened speculation about whether he committed the crime. Two weeks later, officials abandoned their case against Karr after DNA tests failed to link him to the case.
• Iran nuclear standoff - Iran defied a United Nations deadline calling for the Islamic republic to halt its nuclear activities or face sanctions. Tehran insists its program is for peaceful purposes only, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed not to give in to Western interests.
• Amish school shooting - A heavily armed truck driver barricaded himself in a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, killing five girls execution-style before killing himself, police said. The killer told his wife he had molested children 20 years ago and was dreaming about doing it again.
• North Korean Nukes - North Korea's official news agency reported the country had performed a successful underground nuclear test. Five days later, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on North Korea as punishment for the test. North Korea rejected the resolution and walked out of the Security Council chamber.
• New York Yankees' pitcher Cory Lidle was killed when his plane crashed into a Manhattan high-rise and burst into flames.
• Megachurch scandal - The Rev. Ted Haggard was forced to resign as leader of the Colorado megachurch he started more than 20 years ago after its investigative board said he was guilty of "sexually immoral conduct."
• Democrats win mid-term elections - Democrats took control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the first time in a dozen years in the 2006 U.S. midterm elections. Referendum on Iraq and corruption scandals. Rumsfeld stepped down.
• Ex-Russian spy poisoned - Former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital on November 23; large doses of polonium-210 were found in his body.
  

2006 Sport Champions:

NFL: Pittsburgh Steelers 21 - Seattle Seahawks10

NBA: Miami Heat won in 6 games over the Dallas Mavericks.

NHL: Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup, defeating the Edmonton Oilers.

MLB: St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers in a five game series.

Golf: Tiger Woods $9,941,563.00; Jim Furyk $7,213,316.00

NCAA Football: Texas 41 - Southern California 38

NCAA Men’s Basketball: Florida 73 - UCLA 57

NASCAR Nextel Cup Champ: Jimmie Johnson #48, 6475 pts.

FIFA World Cup Soccer: Italy over France 5–3 in a penalty shootout.

Tennis:

US Open Men's Singles; Roger Federer
US Open Women's Singles; Maria Sharapova

Wimbledon Men’s Singles; Roger Federer
Wimbledon Women's singles; Amélie Mauresmo

French Open Men's Singles; Rafael Nadal
French Open Women's Singles; Justine Henin-Hardenne

Australian Open Men's Singles; Roger Federer
Australian Open Women's Singles; Amelie Mauresmo

Boxing: (WBA)

Heavyweight; Nikolai Valuev 45-0-0-1 (33 KO)
Cruiserweight; O’Neil Bell 26-1-1 (24 KO)
Middleweight; Mariano Natalio Carrera 30-4 (21 KO)
Welterweight; Miguel Angel Cotto 28-0 (23 KO)
Lightweight; Juan Díaz 31-0 (15 KO)
Featherweight; Chris John 38-0-1 (20 KO)
Bantamweight; Wladimir Sidorenko 19-0-1 (6 KO)
Flyweight; Lorenzo Parra 27-0 (17 KO)

2006 Passages:

• Saddam Hussein, 69, President of Iraq (1979–2003)
• Gerald Ford, 93, 38th President of the United States
• James Brown, 73, R&B singer and bandleader
• Joseph Barbera, 95, Cartoonist and co-founder of Hanna-Barbera Productions
• Ahmet Ertegun, 83, Co-founder of Atlantic Records, head injury from a fall at a Rolling Stones concert.
• Lamar Hunt, 74, Owner of Kansas City Chiefs who coined the term Super Bowl
• Peter Boyle, 71, Actor
• Augusto Pinochet, 91, ex-president of Chile
• Robert Altman, 81, Film director (MASH, Nashville, Short Cuts)
• Milton Friedman, 94, Free-market economist, winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize
• Jack Palance, 87, Oscar-winning American actor (Shane, City Slickers)
• Ed Bradley, 65, CBS News journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent
• Red Auerbach, 89, Coach of the Boston Celtics (1950–1966)
• Freddy Fender, 69, Singer ("Before the Next Teardrop Falls")
• Buck O'Neil, 94, Baseball player and manager in the Negro leagues
• Steve Irwin, 44, Naturalist, "The Crocodile Hunter"
• Maynard Ferguson, 78, Jazz trumpeter
• Bruno Kirby, 57, Character actor (The Godfather Part II, City Slickers)
• Mike Douglas, 81, Talk-show host and entertainer
• Ann Richards, 73, former Governor of Texas
• Byron Nelson, 94, professional golfer
• Mickey Spillane, 88, Author, creator of Mike Hammer detective fiction
• Red Buttons, 87, Comedian
• Slobodan Milošević, 64, former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
• Syd Barrett, 60, founding member of Pink Floyd
• Aaron Spelling, 83, Television producer (Charlie's Angels, Starsky and Hutch, Beverly Hills 90210)
• Billy Preston, 59, Musician ("You Are So Beautiful", "Nothing from Nothing")
• Steve Mizerak, 61, champion billiards player
• Desmond Dekker, 64, Jamaican ska musician
• Floyd Patterson, 71, former boxing heavyweight champion
• Earl Woods, 74, father and former coach of U.S. golfer Tiger Woods
• Caspar Weinberger, 88, U.S. Secretary of Defense 1981-1987
• Kirby Puckett, 45, Hall of Fame MLB player for the Minnesota Twins
• Don Knotts, 81, Actor (The Andy Griffith Show, Three's Company)
• Curt Gowdy, 86, Sports broadcaster
• Peter Benchley, 65, Author best known for Jaws
• Sir Freddie Laker, 83, Entrepreneur, founder of Laker Airways
• Coretta Scott King, 78, Civil rights leader, widow of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Chris Penn, 40, Actor, brother of Sean Penn
• Wilson Pickett, 64, Soul singer
• Shelley Winters, 85, Actress, heart failure
• Lou Rawls, 72, jazz and blues singer
• 818 US servicemen in Iraq
• 15-20,000 Iraqi civilians
• 200,000-400,000 in Darfur, Sudan. As many as 2 million displaced
  

Time Magazine Person of the Year

It is a gross understatement to say that I had a big surprise last week. Time Magazine has named me "Person of the Year". I am honored to be amongst so many notables. The first "Man of the Year" was Charles Lindbergh in 1927. In 1999 the more politically and gender-correct "Person of the Year" was named. Ironically the person that year was a man, Jeff Bezos founder of amazon.com.

I looked over the list and there are some interesting and surprising recipients of this non-academic and non-objective award. F.D.R. was named three times. Hitler and Stalin went back-to-back in '38 and '39. There's been a variety of world leaders, Popes and peacemakers.

I had to do a bit of Wikipedia research to find out about these previous "winners".

Owen D. Young: An American industrialist, businessman, lawyer and diplomat at the Second Reparations Conference (SRC) in 1929, as a member of the German Reparations International Commission. He is best known for his SRC diplomacy and for founding in 1919 of RCA. Young became its first chairman and continued in that position until 1929.

Pierre Laval: Was a French politician and four times Prime Minister of France. For his role in Vichy France during WWII, he was found guilty of high treason and executed after the war. Today, Pierre Laval is generally remembered in France as a traitor.

Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh the prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953. He was twice appointed to office by the Shah of Iran. Mossadegh was a nationalist and passionately opposed foreign intervention in Iran. He was also the architect of the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry which was dominated and exploited by the British through BP.

He was later removed from power by the Shah, in a CIA orchestrated coup, supported and funded by the British and the U.S. governments. The coup was led by CIA agent Kermir Roosevelt Jr., the grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.

Interesting tidbits... no? I was intrigued by the number of times that the Person of the Year was actually a group or an abstract. In 1950 it was the American Fighting Man. In 1960 it was U.S. Scientists. 1975 was American Women, and in 1982 it was The Computer. Funny how none of us actually owned computers in 1982. Oh yeah there were a few TRS-80's and Osborne "portables", but not for us regular folk. In 2006 the PC is ubiquitous. This is the year of the PC.

I will gladly give up my Person of the Year honor to my laptop. I still have time to earn it with just my name on it. Oh yeah, congratulations to you too!