Top Stories for December 22 - 31, 2008 

Yes, it's time to party like it's 2009! And what a year 2008 was. America elected its first African-American president. ("Aloha Obama, first Hawaiian President," blogged Statehood Hawaii.) The Dow shrunk to prehistoric levels, plunging by 777 points on September 29. ("I always thought when something stopped at "777" it meant we won something," said Daily Kos.) Miley Cyrus got her learner's permit. ("Be careful if you live within a drunken drive of Hollywood," says Jalopnik, unfairly.) So what the heck happened in 2008, and how do we get our money back? It depends whom you ask...

Market Oracle's top financial stories of 2008 (so many meltdowns, so little time!) honors the banks' secrecy about their bailout spending. Politico's top 10 political stories for 2008 list leads with Sarah Palin's Katie Couric interview, John McCain's houses, and Obama's "bitter" remark. HuffPo's slideshow of top political scandals features the trifecta of John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer and Rod Blagojevich. Weekly World News has a such a super-scandal-fragilistic Top Five that "Obatma," the weird bat-boy resembling Obama, achieves only No. 3. Salon itemizes the worst predictions for 2008, like Ann Coulter's Dec. 2007 forecast: "It's probably going to be Romney for the Republicans, Hillary for the Democrats." Radio preacher Albert Mohler's top 10 developments for 2008 include Prop 8 passing in California, while Liberal Rantings of a Queer New Yorker leaves that item off its top 10 political stories and makes room for "Mike Huckabee wins the Iowa caucus." Science magazine's top 10 runs "from protons to planets" and is topped by "reprogramming cells," says Ars Technica. Time's many, many Top 10s of 2008 are here but Time isn't really a blog, is it? In sports, Yes But No But Yes bucks the overwhelming media trend by putting the Giants' Super Bowl win above Olympian Michael Phelps, "for doing the thing no one thought they'd do." 

Detroit had a mixed year. The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup but the poor Lions went 0-16 and "were arguably the worst team in the history of modern professional sports," says hometown blog SideLion Report. Things got a little interesting beyond sports in Motown. While the carmaker bailout keeps growing, Auto News is running a Top 10 for the car year that contains items left out of the popular meltdown reports, like Ford's faltering F-series: "For years, the Ford F-series pickup's place atop the sales rankings was as certain as death and taxes."

With the shock of 2008 fading, it's on to new possibilities. The winning political parties in January will be inauguration parties, for which mega-celebs and mega-pastors are picking out wardrobes. After that, other seats must be filled, like in the U.S. Senate. As of today, Al Franken leads Norm Coleman by 50 votes as the Minnesota recount enters a "very messy stage," says Talking Points Memo. In New York, Caroline Kennedy seems to be sliding into Congress on a platform of "gross entitlement," says Gawker (at least the Senate seat Obama is vacating in Illinois was available for sale.)

One state pol sticking to her old job is Sarah Palin, though she's just been promoted to hockey grandmom, reports The Swamp. "Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston weighed in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces on Saturday--according to People magazine, which may well be one of the magazines that Grandma reads." Most think Palin will be return to the national stage sooner or later. Conservative AmSpec blog has a New Year's resolution for her: "Build trust and appreciation among many reasonable Americans who may not have quite gotten into the Zen of your vice-presidential candidacy." Other 2009 resolutions?  Gun Nuts: The Next Generation says in 2009 we all should strive to to "introduce someone to the shooting sports, and then nurture them." Greener Ideal suggests 10 eco-friendly resolutions including (spoiler alert) stop drinking bottled water. And Britney Spears has resolved to stop biting her fingernails, reports I'm Not Obsessed!

Next in tech? Every year in tech starts with hopeful attendees watching the NFL playoffs on giant-screen TVs at CES and with the fun at MacWorld, where Apple will stop exhibiting after 2009. For its farewell appearance Apple may unveil something cool like a teeny phone ("They are in fact working on an iPhone Nano," insists iPhone Alley) or a cheap netbook (an "oversized iPhone/iPod touch tablet idea," says Gizmodo).

Downward price pressures seem likely to persist, in tech and elsewhere, because nobody has any money and, thanks to the Net, no one wants to pay for anything. Wired started 2008 with a Chris Anderson cover story explaining "why $0.00 is the future of business," and now Anderson, famed for The Long Tail (book and blog) is writing a book called Free. BusinessWeek has closed 2008 explaining "the Web's free-labor economy"--sites and blogs getting enthusiasts and attention-seekers to submit content gratis. Bloggers have been buzzing about "free-miums" and "freeconomics." "The World Wide Web would have been totally boring if we did nothing but ran around bragging about what great professionals we were," says Profy. Concurs The Noisy Channel: "most bloggers and tweeters are unpaid...Perhaps this model will ultimately sustain the blogosphere, and attention will trump money as the currency of communication."

The way things are going, something may need to trump money. Even actual Trump money isn't a sure thing, suggests PhillyDeals. But there is hope for 2009. For downtrodden realtors. For modest growth in the restaurant industry.  For more digital and networked content for teaching. Even for...Wall Street? Says Daily Markets: "2009 is the year of the ox, also known as the bull. So there's a good sign!"  

So long, 2008. "In so many ways, 2008 both broke me and lifted me higher than I've ever gone before," blogs The Happy Misfit. "I look forward to seeing the back of it. I look forward to the dawning of 2009, and because I really don't ever stop believing, I look forward to it with hope, with impatience, with excitement. To 2009, may you not let any of us down."