Free Republic

Full title: "What a year it’s been, and we're just getting started. Together, we are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Happy New Year!!" 3 1/2 minute year-end summary video at the link.

President Obama will hold a press conference Friday before departing on a 17-day Hawaiian winter vacation. "You can put on your calendar that the president will convene his traditional end-of-year news conference," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday. The White House said the event would likely come in the afternoon, although logistical details are still being ironed out. It will be Obama's first White House press conference since he addressed reporters a day after the November midterm elections. The president is likely to face questions on a range of issues, including his recently announced effort to normalize relations...

2011 was a great year for music, IMO. What have you purchased or listened to this year that you liked? My list is mostly Americana-type music and were all released in 2011-- but feel free to add anything. I haven't listened to a large volume of music, but these are the ones I keep coming back to. Some are obscure, some are well-known. 1. Tristen -- Charletons at the Garden Gate 2. Eilen Jewell -- Queen of the Minor Key 3. Zoe Muth & the Lost High Rollers -- Starlight Hotel 4. Ray Manzarek & Roy Rogers -- Translucent Blues...

Excerpts: JANUARY...The No. 1 item on the agenda is fixing the economy, so the new administration immediately sets about the daunting task of trying to nominate somebody -- anybody -- to a high-level government post who actually remembered to pay his or her taxes. Among those who forgot this pesky chore is Obama's nominee for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who sheepishly admits that he failed to pay $35,000 in federal self-employment taxes. He says that the error was a result of his using TurboTax, which he also blames for his involvement in an eight-state spree of bank robberies. He is...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N.-established panel that investigated the Iraq oil-for-food program will stay open until the end of the year to allow prosecutors access to its documents, the United Nations said on Friday. Investigators and prosecutors from 28 countries have already requested documents from the Independent Inquiry Committee since it released its final report on October 27, said Michael Holtzman, spokesman for the IIC, whose Manhattan office has been reduced to a skeletal staff. The IIC had been scheduled to close at the end of this month. The panel, headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker,...

Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI recalled the "fright" he felt at being elected pope, telling cardinals during his year-end speech Thursday that he never imagined he would be chosen and only agreed to it because he had great faith in God.Benedict reviewed what he called the "great events" that affected the Roman Catholic Church in 2005, highlighting the suffering and death of Pope John Paul II, the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the World Youth Day celebrations in Cologne, Germany.He left the April 19 conclave that elected him pope to the end of the lengthy speech,...

I think we can agree on this: 2004 was not the best year that ever was. There was precious little to recommend 2004 as "my favorite year." Election results - In the US, Afghanistan and the Ukraine - pretty much cover the positive news. In January, when I was in Baghdad, a huge explosion killed dozens of people just outside one of the main gates leading into the Green Zone. As the year ended a wave of Biblical proportions killed so many people that - that it defies comprehension. In between it was like the 1959 Kingston Trio song, "The...

This is sort of a quiet time of year for most people. Most news organizations do that tired old “that was the year that was” review, telling you all the stuff that you went through in the previous twelve months, as if your attention spans had been MTV’d down to around the goldfish level. You’re still sorting through all the wrapping paper you used at Christmas, hoping that your local Earth Liberation Front cell doesn’t get back at you for your blatant destruction of the forests by burning your house down. You’re still recovering from having relatives come and visit...

There have been the usual number of year-end threads, some vanity, some taken from the media, regarding the events, and people of 2002..but it's time for your nominations for THE BEST THREAD OF 2002......