End of 2010: Lessons Learned

What have we (or I) have learned during the last year of the Aughts or the first year of the Teens, depending on how one counts?

• Failure seems to be the best way to get ahead (see Sarah Palin).
• George Bush has more class than Rumsfeld or Cheney, by staying off of the scene.  Of course, he could just be engrossed in a really good comic book.
• 3D is not going to work as profit sauce, added to movies that do not need it to increase the ticket prices.
• Obama might be really smart after all.  Was the burst during the lame duck session too little too late or was it a showcase in how to get the Republicans to hang themselves?  I don't know, but I do think that the Republicans are going to have a hard time since the institutions and expectations will be working against them now, rather than for them.
• Karzai is corrupt.  Oh, we knew that.  We have learned that there are few, if any, levers to get Karzai to help out much. 
• I am a sucker for a superhero tv show/movie/whatever.  While The Cape is getting mixed reviews, I am very much looking forward to it.  
• I am really going to miss current research project when it ends hopefully sometime in the middle of 2011 as it kicks ass, not just in terms of the substance, but in terms of where I get to go to do the work (2010: Canberra, Sydney, Wellington, Copenhagen; 2011: Brussels, The Hague and in between) and to talk about it (2010: Konstanz, Northwestern, Mt. Holyoke, Laval; 2011: Monterrey).
• Concussions are changing football and will continue to do so.
• Quebec nationalism is not going to away anytime soon.
• There is much, much more to learn about beer.
• My efforts to coin terms do not go very far.
• The Zombie fad is not just hard to kill, but seems to be spreading.  Even scholars are attempting to understand the International Relations of Zombies.
• Narcissistic crusaders can be really annoying, especially when they are so hypocritical as to demand openness everywhere except by themselves (yes, Assange is a db and then some).
• That using a list of past posts is always an easy way to come up with a blog post when one is lacking imagination or simply lazy.