UPDATED 11:37 AM EST: see bottom for updates...

It's New Years Eve, and the cliche thing to do is to look back on the year's events and wax philosophical about their significance. So - who am I to buck tradition? Let's review some of the major events of the past year; I'm sure there are a lot of things we've forgotten about.

The year seemed to start badly. After the death of Ted Kennedy, a special election was held to fill his seat. The assumption was that a Democrat would easily take it, and everyone was shocked when it was Republican (and erstwhile Tea Partier) Scott Brown who won the election. Over time, he has shown, however, that he is not quite as reactionary as the Tea Party had hoped, angering them by voting with Democrats on several key pieces of legislation.

There was also the horrible earthquake in Haiti, whose residents are still waiting for their country to be rebuilt. Not unlike NoLa and Katrina, if you're poor and black, the initial outpouring of sympathy quickly gives way to indifference and beaurocratic malaise.

There was also the SCOTUS ruling granting corporations the right to contribute to (ie: buy) candidates as if the corporations were private citizens. The outrage has been somewhat bipartisan, yet no legislative redress has been successfully worked out.

Speaking of legislation, there were numerous success stories with regards to important legislation this year, including:

• Healthcare reform
• Wall street reform
• START Treaty
• DADT repeal
• Unemployment benefits extended
• Food Safety act
• Strengthening economy and jobs market
• On track for removing troops from Iraq

There were also several that didn't make it through, or were compromised to ensure the passing of the previous legislation, including:

• Tax cuts extended 2 more years
• No environmental protection bills
• Net neutrality cure may be worse than the problem
• DREAM Act

And even though we are on track to remove troops from battle in the Middle East, we still have troops in Iraq, and Gitmo is still open. Hopefully, both of those will change in the coming new year.

Last year, I made a few predictions about what would happen in 2010. One of them proved to be true:

The porno scanners and gate groping are proof of that. Do I have any predictions for 2011? That one is simple: With a Republican controlled House and an even distribution of power in the Senate, we will see a lot of noise and posturing coming out of the nation's capital, but very little will actually get done.

Too easy? What are YOUR predictions?

Oh - and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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UPDATES (from comments):

Other items successfully passed/implemented this past year:

• Consumer Financial Protection Board
• Child Obesity Act
• The Fair Sentencing act
• Student Loan Reform
• 9/11 First Responders Bill
• Small Business Jobs Bill
• HIRE Act extension
• DoD WOSB
• EPA rules updates (Executive branch action)