You could quibble, punch up the lead (a Johns Hopkins report has Iraqi civilian deaths surpassing 650,000), but this wins the year-in-review prize for tone alone:
Thousands of people died in the Iraqi civil war, which was
costing the United States $100,000 a minute. U.S. forces
began to negotiate with Sunni insurgents, and the
Pentagon, short of buglers who can play taps at military
funerals, ordered 700 automated digital bugles. Oil
companies announced record profits; President George
W. Bush said that America is “addicted to oil” and also
asked Congress to pass laws outlawing human/animal
hybrids. Scientists in Taiwan bred three glowing pigs.
Samuel Alito was confirmed to the Supreme Court, and a
study found that Antonin Scalia is the funniest of the
Supreme Court justices. Robert Grenier, director of the
CIA counter-terrorism center, was fired for opposing
“excessive” interrogation techniques like waterboarding,
and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney shot and severely
injured a fellow hunter while aiming at quail. Osama bin
Laden released a tape in which he warned of new attacks on
the United States; he also called on his followers to
travel to Sudan and fight against the U.N. forces in
Darfur. Al Qaeda members were communicating via social
networking website MySpace.com, and the Taliban
established a “mini-state” in Peshawar. Iran announced
that it had successfully produced low-grade enriched
uranium; to celebrate, men in traditional dress danced
with uranium samples. U.S. senators insisted that
attacking Iran must remain an option. “I can drink beer
out of my leg,” said Matthew Braddock, a 25-year-old
National Guardsman who lost his left foot and nine inches
of his left leg to a mine in northern Iraq. “How many
people can do that?”…
from Harper’s