Onion's Year End Wrap Up Report

Ahh ... the week before Christmas which means for those of us that are working we are either a) Cleaning out ours desk / files in preparation for 2011 (hopefully not getting fired), b)Finishing up reports, c) Compiling plans for 2011 and wondering where all the budget went, d) Wondering why its not snowing and cursing Flip Spiceland, e) eating copious amounts of candy and baked goods or f) watching TV and napping off last night's hangover

One other fun way to pass the time, read the Onion's year end report. I love the Onion and all it has to offer ... couple of my favorites on Tony, Abby and Barack below:

• Tony Hayward: Emulating the gallantry, adaptability, and dedication to duty displayed by English gentlemen throughout the imperial occupation of India and decades of adventurism in darkest Africa, former BP CEO Tony Hayward's flip, and often arrogant, response to the Deepwater Horizon's devastating oil spill this April marked, at long last, a shining, highly public return of the classic British gentleman.

  Only Hayward possessed the uniquely English unctuousness and resolve to note that the spill—the largest of its kind in North American history—was "tiny in relation to the total volume of water" in the ocean. Nobly disdaining the outrage of shrimp-boat-owning commoners whose petty livelihoods were foundering in muck from the Macondo well, Hayward, like the dukes and regents of yore, dutifully took time off to attend a yacht race, expressing the bitter regret proper to his station in life when his yacht did not win.

  As public uproar grew, Hayward refused to lower his standards, and in a moment that perfectly encapsulated the British byword "Keep Calm and Carry On," he declared, without a hint of irony, "I'd like my life back."

  A more classic example of British compassion and grace under pressure could hardly be imagined. When little people whose homelands were devastated for generations to come overreacted by demanding Hayward be fired, he put the Americans, Mexicans, and other colonials in their place after his forced resignation by saying that, perhaps if he'd earned a theater degree instead of one in geology, there would have been less outrage from a hostile public. In an era that has seen the U.K. become synonymous with social conscience, humility, and perspective, Hayward represents a remarkable hearkening back to a proud, centuries-old British tradition.

• Abby Sutherland: Few will be able to forget when 16-year-old California native Abby Sunderland set out this year to become the youngest person ever to circumnavigate the globe solo and avoid having to work a summer job just like everyone else her age. Beginning in Marina del Rey, where the lazy teen did everything she could to avoid picking up a few shifts a week as a greeter at Patagonia or—God forbid—deliver pizzas, Sunderland guided her 40-foot sloop Wild Eyes southward until malfunctioning power generators forced her ashore in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. On her second attempt, timed precisely to avoid the months when all the local landscaping places were hiring, she rounded Cape Horn and crossed the Atlantic. After a rogue wave destroyed her ship's mast in the middle of the ocean, Sunderland was rescued from an honest week's work some 2,000 miles east of Madagascar, and more than 5,000 miles from the nearest grease trap. After a summer spent trying to prove that exhausting physical obstacles are no match for human will, Abby Sunderland doesn't even have a decent line on her resumé.

• Barack Obama: Barack Obama, the first black president, proved to millions this year that he is either trying his best to lead the nation during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, or he is the modern-day incarnation of Adolph Hitler. One of the two.

  In 2010, Obama made a number of political compromises while still trying to pursue many of the reforms laid out during his 2008 campaign. Also, he was a totalitarian monster comparable to the perpetrator of one of the worst genocides in history. He is either a president who passed a comprehensive health care measure despite staunch opposition from powerful private interests, or a radical-Islamist sympathizer bent on systematically dismantling American democracy and eradicating all human liberty. He either lowered taxes for most Americans while failing to communicate that effectively, or he is pure evil. Whichever.

  Barack Obama, two of the most important people of 2010: the one who was elected to be president of the United States and execute laws to the best of his ability, and the one who murders senior citizens and hates all white people. Only history will say which he is for sure