Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the forty-fourth

president of the United States and ordered the detention

center at Guantanamo Bay closed within a year. George

W. Bush gave his final press conference. “Abu Ghraib was a

huge disappointment,” he said. “Not having weapons of mass

destruction was a significant disappointment.” A federal

appeals court in Texas ruled to permit the sacrifice of

goats. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael

Steele announced an “off the hook” Republican publicity

campaign, targeting “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.” “We

need to uptick our image with everyone,” Steele said,

“including one-armed midgets.” When asked about the state

of the Republican party, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty

said, “It’s kind of like asking whether the stock market

has bottomed out.” Thirty-nine million Americans were on

food stamps, 54 percent of graduating U.S. business majors

lacked job offers, and two gunmen robbed a man of one

dollar in the parking lot of an Ohio Wendy’s. A top

Pentagon official said that “cutbacks at Best Buy” made it

easier to recruit better-qualified young people for the

military. The war in Iraq turned six; the war in

Afghanistan turned eight; SpongeBob SquarePants turned

ten. In Afghanistan, where the Taliban threatened to chop

off the fingers of anyone who votes, the government passed

a law allowing men to starve wives who refuse sex.

Sea levels continued to rise, and a 40-yard-wide asteroid

just missed the earth. The Mediterranean Sea was plagued

by blobs. Pope Benedict XVI visited Africa; in Angola he

warned against witchcraft, corruption, and condoms. Papal

archaeologists in Rome authenticated the bones of Saint

Paul the Apostle, and Jesus Christ was dismissed from jury

duty in Alabama. Toxic-mining wastes in Idaho were killing

tundra swans; a man in Munich received a two-year

suspended sentence for beating another man with a

swan. Highly aggressive supersquirrels were menacing gray

squirrels in England, where the Law Lords were replaced

with a new Supreme Court whose justices wear no wigs, and

where cosmetic nipple surgery was increasingly popular. A

London taxi driver tied one end of a rope around a post

and the other around his neck and drove away, launching

his head from the car. Anglican hymns were sung at

Darwin’s tomb. Two Yellowstone National Park workers were

fired for peeing into Old Faithful. Sarah Palin published

a book, and Sylvia Plath’s son hanged himself in

Alaska. Scientists in San Diego made a robot head study

itself in a mirror until it learned to smile.

Newspaper circulation in the United States declined to its

lowest level in 70 years. It was revealed via Twitter that

President Obama called Kanye West a “jackass” and that a

coyote ran off with Jessica Simpson’s maltipoo. The Taco

Bell chihuahua died of a stroke, and Sonia Sotomayor was

sworn in as a Supreme Court justice. Walter Cronkite,

Merce Cunningham, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy died, as

did Michael Jackson. Ariel Sharon was still alive. Hamas

and Fatah held peace talks in Cairo. Israel approved the

construction of 900 more settler homes in East Jerusalem,

and ten Florida middle schoolers were suspended for

participating in Kick a Jew Day. Chicago rats fed a diet

of bacon, cheesecake, pound cake, Ho Hos, and sausage

began to behave like rats addicted to heroin, and a

Minnesota man pleaded guilty to driving a La-Z-Boy while

intoxicated. China created a small black hole, and NASA

revealed that a mysterious streak of light spotted by

onlookers in the night sky above North America was a

fortnight’s worth of astronaut urine. Physicists said

that the aural jitters picked up by a German

gravitational-wave detector may indicate that we all live

in a giant and blurry cosmic hologram. The United States,

searching for water, bombed the moon.