The year 2009 is definitely Presidential year; Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th, and first African American President of the United States, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is appointed as the new Prime Minister of Iceland, becoming the world's first openly lesbian head of government. Morgan Tsvangirai is sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe following the power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe, the President of Guinea-Bissau, João Bernardo Vieira, is assassinated during an armed attack on his residence in Bissau.

Also, in 2009, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002. The President of Madagascar, Marc Ravalomanana, is overthrown in a coup d'état, following a month of rallies in Antananarivo. The military appoints opposition leader Andry Rajoelina as the new president of Madagascar. Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.

Colonel Muammar al-Gathafi lives in a really big air-conditioned tent with cushy rugs and incredible chandeliers. How do I know? I visited the tent on the 40th anniversary of the Libyan revolution, when a 27-year-old al-Gathafi overthrew the Libya government, Che Guavera-style (his hero).

The controversial Libyan leader, who helped train and fund insurgent groups all over the world, now wants to compete in the marketplace of ideas -- and he and his supporters think his Green Book may offer a new perspective. One Green Book idea: every citizen is entitled to one mortgage-free house, or tent. That's the way it is for 5.5 million Libyan citizens.

Following al-Gathafi's recent trip to the United States, where he spoke for an hour and a half at the United Nations -- questioning the assassinations of Kennedy and King -- former U.S. Congresswoman organized a delegation to visit Libya and attend the First International Conference of the Green Book Supporters Society.

IN PRAISE OF INDECENCY: THE LEADING INVESTIGATIVE SATIRIST SOUNDS OFF ON HYPOCRISY, CENSORSHIP AND FREE EXPRESSION

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It’s time our national government at last enshrines its most critical artistic need, that of “Satirist-Laureate.” The first nod must go to the man who has pioneered the idiom in modern America---Paul Krassner.

Since the days of Lenny Bruce, Krassner (a good friend, but no relation) has been poking brilliant fun at every sacred horse’s ass in American politics and culture.

He also remains our cutting edge critic on censorship and its pornographic twin. His two recent books slash to the core of the utter hypocrisy of the government sticking its nose in what we read and write, think and smoke.

There’s no armor, it turns out, for conscience.

So our men and women are coming home from the killing fields wounded in their heads, used up, greeted only by the military’s own meat grinder of inadequate health care and intolerance for “weakness.”

“Frankly, in my more than 25 years of clinical practice, I’ve never seen such immense emotional suffering and psychological brokenness.” This is what whistleblower psychiatrist Kernan Manion wrote recently to President Obama about his experience counseling Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, as reported by Salon.

In September, Manion, having been told to “cease and desist all further correspondence with the government,” was fired by the Navy for his urgent, outspoken communiqués about the mental-health minefield the military has on its hands. Two months later, of course, the issue of PTSD was blown into the national headlines by the massacre at Fort Hood. And a day after that, according to Salon, the body of a Marine was found at Camp Lejeune and a fellow Marine was arrested for the murder.