(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

It's been an eventful year in celebrity news, and even if it has been light on scandals , stars held the attention of fans. 
    
But some big names, notably Michael Jackson and Miley Cyrus, appear to have worn out their welcome, according to a fan poll from celebrity Web site Parade.com.

Some  41 percent of respondents said Jackson, who turned 50 in 2008 with no sign of making good on repeated promises of a comeback,  should officially retire. They also said the pop star's antics are the most disturbing behavior from any Hollywood star. 

Fans chose Disney star Miley Cyrus as the most overexposed celebrity. At the age of 16.

The wedding of comedian Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi ranked as the year's most exciting nuptial, with 29 percent of respondents choosing it as their favorite. The wedding was made possible by a California court ruling allowingt same-sex weddings that voters rejected in November,  but not before several gay and lesbian stars were married.

Singers Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale clinched the year's craziest baby name spot by naming their son Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale. Some 48 percent of poll respondents called the name, which brings to mind famous Zuma Beach in Southern California, the most out-there name of the year. 
     
 Fans thought  pop diva Britney Spears had the most improved reputation. As for the relationship between singer Lindsay Lohan and celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson, only 1 percent of respondents said that couple is "most likely to succeed." 

How would you have voted?  Have Miley and Jacko really outstayed their welcome or would you still like to have them around for another few years?

A lawsuit alleging religious bias, including mandatory participation in Christian prayers, against the U.S. Department of Defense was expanded  this week, the latest twist in a story that probably won't go away in 2009.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation's (MRFF) expanded lawsuit said the U.S. military was sanctioning Christian missionary activity with Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan -- a highly sensitive issue in two predominantly Muslim countries where the United States is waging war.

We've blogged on this before  -- in September the MRFF said a non-religious Kansas soldier is suing U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the grounds that his constitutional rights were violated when he was forced to attend military events where “fundamentalist Christian prayers” were recited.

Specialist Dustin Chalker’s cause was the second such case up by the MRFF.

 In a statement this week the group said it was expanding its lawsuit "to include two additions regarding unsuccessful attempts by service members to resolve their complaints (about religious bias) through military channels."

It further stated that it had added: "five new categories of examples showing the 'pattern and practice"'of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religion by the military."

These included: "military-sanctioned missionary proselytizing of Iraqi and Afghan citizens, an official USAF sponsored evangelical motocross team ministry ... and the unbridled Christian supremacy espoused in a U.S. Army suicide prevention program." 

Prayer and military events often coincide in the United States: for example prayers are often said at homecoming ceremonies when soldiers return from overseas tours.

Some activist groups such as the MRFF say evangelical Christianity is being promoted in the U.S. military through peer pressure, calls to prayer and other means.

Critics say this violates the separation of Church and state and creates a potential diplomatic minefield with U.S. forces waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Department of Defense spokesperson Eileen Lainez said the department did not comment on pending lawsuits.

But the department says the following: "The Department of Defense does not endorse any one religion or religious organization, and provides free access of religion for all members of the military services ... There are systems in place to provide a means to address and resolve any perceived unfair treatment on the basis of race, national origin, color, gender, and/or religious affiliation, or sexual harassment."

 With President George W. Bush, conservative U.S. evangelicals have had a friend and ally in the White House for almost eight years. It will be interesting to see how the administration of president-elect Barack Obama handles these kinds of issues after he assumes office in January.

(Photo credit: U.S. soldiers pause for a short prayer during a Christmas ceremony in Baghdad's Sadr City December 25, 2008. REUTERS/Erik de Castro  (IRAQ)P

Viacom and Time Warner Cable are doing their best to make sure that television addicts around the country get a chance to go outside and stretch their legs come New Year's Day. Of course, the reason they're doing their part for physical fitness has little to do with ensuring the health of their viewers.

As Reuters reports, Viacom -- the company run by financially challenged media mogul Sumner Redstone -- provides programming to cable networks like Time Warner Cable for a fee. Now we're at a time when Viacom and Time Warner Cable are renegotiating the fee, a regular occurrence. Equally regular are the disputes that arise as the negotiators try to determine what a fair price is.

The ultimate loser turns out to be you, the faithful TV watcher, because the last resort of companies like Viacom is to pull their programs off the air. The idea is that sends watchers into paroxysms of rage, usually directed at the cable company that they give all their money to every month. Eventually, the idea goes, the cable company cries Uncle! and agrees to pay more money to bring you the programming. Yes, your bill goes up too, as it always does.

Here's a sample of what will stop being broadcast on Jan. 1: Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Hills.

And here's a sample of the pre-packaged righteous indignation that you hear at times like this from the companies:

Viacom: Time Warner Cable has dismissed our efforts at a fair compromise... As a result, we are sorry to say that for Time Warner Cable customers our networks will go dark as of 12:01 on January 1st.

Time Warner Cable, via spokesman Alex Dudley: "It just smacks of desperation from a company that is trying to make up for a failing business model on our subscribers' backs, and we're not going to take it."

Don't worry C-SPAN will continue uninterrupted.

Keep an eye on

• Speaking of cable, the 24-hour news channels got record ratings this year, though it looks like they would have made Obama race against McCain for another year, if just to keep them relevant until the financial crisis is expected to ease. (Los Angeles Times)
• The Village Voice continues to shed the names that made its name so famous. The latest axe casualty is Nat Hentoff, the influential jazz critic who started there in 1958. Sketches of Pain, anyone? (The New York Times)
• Vicki Iseman, intentionally or not, was kind enough to wait until after John McCain lost his 2008 presidential bid to sue The New York Times over its February 2008 article that the lobbyist said suggested that she and the Arizona senator were carrying on inappropriately in more ways than one. (Reuters)

Blog Guy, Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to more absurdity in 2009.

Many thanks, italic font-using stranger! This is a good opportunity to thank our many readers, and show a holiday group shot of the whole Oddly Enough blog staff.

Wow! What do they all do?

You name it! Eddie designs our logos, and...

You have a logo?

Well, not yet. And Cleo does our publicity...

I've never seen any publicity.

And Shelby handles sponsor relations.

I don't think you have sponsors.

Ah, I think I see where you're going with this. Okay, so it's a big boondoggle for my family and friends. Shoot me.

Hey, that one guy looks like Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela!

That's Herb. He gets that a lot. We call him "Mr. President."

Okay, this is turning really stupid.

Before it does, let me thank the readers who pushed our pageviews into the millions and joined a Facebook Oddly Enough Blog Network with more than 1,100 members, and helped get this blog featured in Neatorama, Weird News, Urlesque, Mental Floss, Dumb as a Blog, Famous DC, Fark and many, many, others.

Awesome! What's the coolest thing that happened to you in 2008?

That's easy. My blog showed up on a list of "100 Blogs that will Make You Smarter."

Will it really?

Well, you've read down this far. Don't you feel smarter already?

More stuff from Oddly Enough

Above: Sporting's players celebrate their first goal against FC Basel (FCB) during their UEFA Cup third round soccer match in Basel February 21, 2008. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Below: Presidents from Latin American and Caribbean nations pose for the Summit of Latin America and Caribbean nations group photo, December 17, 2008. REUTERS/Jamil Bittar

Check Out the drop in online sales.
 
Even online retailers are ready for 2008 to end. After we heard about the abysmal holiday season at stores, comScore said online sales for the holiday period up to Dec. 23 dropped 3 percent. It was the first decline in online spending since comScore started tracking online sales in 2001.
 
The end of 2008 will also mark the first quarter that online sales fell. From Oct. 1 through Dec. 28 e-commerce spending fell 4 percent to $36.8 billion, according to comScore. 
 
So who were the biggest winners and losers in December? Through Dec. 24, Hewlett Packard's online traffic in the U.S. rose 28 percent to more than 19.4 million unique visitors.  Apple, with more than 35 million visitors, saw its traffic rise 19 percent.  Meanwhile, traffic to Circuit City's site fell 21 percent.  Presumably shoppers were spooked after it filed for bankruptcy protection and said it would shut some stores. Dell's traffic was down 17 percent.  EBay was still the most popular site, though its traffic fell 4 percent to 85.4 million visitors.
 

Also in the basket:

Jobless claims drop by much more than expected

China dairy boss pleads guilty in melamine case

Bratz dolls to get reprieve, manufacturer says

Walmart Pulls Out of Nielsen's PRISM (Advertising Age)

(Reuters photo)

It doesn't look like 2009 is going to be a happy new year for the chemicals sector.

LyondellBasell Industries, the world's third-largest independent chemicals company, has told lenders it is considering filing for bankruptcy protection amid plunging sales and a cash crunch, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The company is one of several in the sector facing one of the worst slumps ever in chemical demand. The industry has been battered by high price tags on crude oil and natural gas, which are key components of plastics and other chemicals.  Energy prices have plunged in recent months, but demand has also been hurt by recessions in most developed countries and a sharp slowdown in emerging economies.

Profits of U.S. chemical makers, in recent quarters, have been buoyed by strong demand from developing economies but the global financil crisis is hurting international results now. And Wall Street has trimmed its 2009 expectations for the sector, expecting weaker demand next year.

LyondellBasell, which is based in the Netherlands and has large U.S. operations, has hired bankruptcy counsel and told lenders it is trying to line up as much as $2 billion in bankruptcy financing, these people say. A Chapter 11 filing may be imminent, the report said.

2009 isn't looking good for Dow Chemicals either, the largest U.S. chemical maker. The company, which earlier this month said it would close 20 facilities, divest several businesses and cut 5,000 jobs, is now facing the possiiblity of having to twist rival Rohm & Haas' arm to renegotiate its $15.3 billion takeover of the specialty chemicals company.

That deal is now in question, after Kuwait scrapped a $17.4 billion joint venture whose proceeds Dow had planned to use to pay down some of the resulting debt from the acquisition. But experts say the terms of the deal leave Dow with very limited recourse.

But hope springs eternal.  With oil prices showing signs of receding and global economies getting trillions of dollars from their governments, let's hope that 2009 ends on a better note than 2008 did. At least for the chemicals sector.

DEALS OF THE DAY

** Indian oil company ONGC said it will proceed with its 1.3 billion pounds ($1.89 billion) takeover of UK-listed Imperial Energy, to the relief of Imperial investors who feared ONGC would back out of the high-priced deal. 

** The Pininfarina family is set to sell out of its company, the designer of iconic cars for films and Ferrari, in a deal which will help the group handle its nearly 600 million euros debt.  
    
** Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Japan's third-largest bank, bought a small stake in South Korea's KB Financial Group for about $46 million from KB's banking arm Kookmin, Kookmin said.

(Photo, of a passer-by walking past an entrance in the shape of "2009" in front of shopping mall in Shanghai, by Reuters)

The year 2008 has been filled with unprecedented events and all-time lows, a financial system overhaul and global turmoil. Could the New Year herald positive re-evaluation and a positive turnaround? And in what has been a year of sleepless nights for many, will a nation steeped in debt start to curb excess?

Rate cuts figured high on the news agenda as banks undertook radical measures to stabilise the economy. Within the space of one week, Britain saw the lowest base rate since the mid-1950s, the ECB took its rate to a two-and-a-half year low, the U.S. Federal Reserve aggressively slashed rates and a 175 point reduction was made by Sweden's central bank.

The key question remains – will governments run out of weapons to boost the economy in 2009?

Gazing into a crystal ball has never been quite this tricky, and perhaps the most accurate prediction from industry experts is that policymakers will likely find themselves strapped for more tools to combat the crisis.

To the average citizen, sophisticated financial gadgetry will not alleviate fears of rising unemployment levels and inflation worries. Borrowing costs for those whose home equity and other floating-rate loans are tied to the prime interest rate may have seen some relief from rate cuts, but the gain has been negligible for others.

Early this month, the IMF’s chief economist Olivier Blanchard opined that the host of government rescue measures may have brought global economies back from the brink of the worst financial catastrophe in more than 60 years, but did not remove it from the danger zone. Progress had been made, he conceded, but insisted it was “much too early to declare a victory.”

On November 6, the IMF cut its world growth projections to a mere 2.2 percent, emphasising the need for an immediate fiscal stimulus. “At this point, the goal should be fiscal boost of about 2 percent of global GDP,” said Blanchard. He remained optimistic that this would translate into a corresponding 2 percent increase in global growth.

Two weeks ago, Bank of England Deputy Governor Charles Bean said zero interest rates were a future possibility for Britain. Both the Fed and the Bank of Japan have adopted a near zero interest rate policy, with the former stating a willingness to keep rates low for an extended period.

It is worth noting however, that the co-ordinated round of rate cuts by central banks worldwide in October did not have the desired immediate impact on the state of the financial system.

Until market risk aversion eases, lowered interest rates may not impact the economy to the extent that governments would like. Additionally, as banks further their attempts to deleverage, we may very well see small bursts of stability, but a period of sustained growth seems unlikely to return in 2009.

In the interim however, we can certainly hope that some confidence is returned to both frazzled consumers and strained financial markets alike. And while extensive borrowing and emergency measures will increase countries’ debt, shoring up resources to prop up the global economy is set to be the overriding priority for a long time to come.

Obama, daughters cause stir on Hawaii outing

HAWAII KAI, Hawaii,  Dec 26 (Reuters) - Barack Obama, trying to enjoy the last semblance of normal life before he becomes U.S. president on Jan. 20, caused a commotion when he took his daughters to a shopping mall in Hawaii on Friday.

It made for a surreal scene -- the president-elect, daughters Malia, 7, and Sasha, 10 and family friends eating at a table at the mall watched by a crowd of onlookers and surrounded by anxious-looking Secret Service agents.

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a "Happy New Year" message to colleagues: be ready for action when the new U.S. Congress convenes next week.
 
"The 111th Congress will hit the ground running ... with an ambitious schedule that corresponds with the opportunities and challenges that we face as a country," Pelosi wrote Wednesday in an open letter to her "Democratic colleagues."
 
"The opening days of the Congress will be intense," Pelosi added. "I know that we will be ready."
 
The House and Senate will convene on Tuesday, Jan. 6 -- 14 days before Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th U.S. president. It will mark the first time in 14 years that Democrats have controlled both Congress and the White House.
 
In the November elections, Democrats expanded their majorities in the House and Senate with a stack of campaign promises.
 
They included ones to: withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and redeploy many of them to Afghanistan; expand health care coverage; move the U.S. toward energy independence; curb global warming and bolster regulation of the troubled financial industry.
 
Among the first measures to be considered will likely be one that could total $775 billion or more in spending and tax cuts to stimulate the economy and stem a deepening recession.
 
In her letter, Pelosi wrote that the Democratic Steering Committee, which helps set party policy, will hold a hearing Wednesday on the need for an economic recovery plan.
 
Pelosi added that by the time Obama takes office in two weeks, she expects the House to consider a number of bills, including one to pump new life into the economy.
 
She ended her "Happy New Year!" letter with a holiday note: "Best wishes to you and your family."

For more Reuters political coverage, please click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas (Pelosi at a news conference Dec. 2)

CRAWFORD, Texas - President George W. Bush, in the sunset of his presidency, plans to welcome in the New Year with a sunrise stroll accompanied by wife, Laura, at their Texas ranch. 
 
"It's something they've always enjoyed doing and look forward to doing tomorrow," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
 
Some New Year's Eve revelers might struggle at the prospect of waking up at dawn after partying past midnight, but not Bush since he's an early-to-bed kinda guy.
 
"I think he's more likely to be an early riser for the first of the New Year rather than to see the old year out," Johndroe said.
 
Bush will return to Texas for good after handing over the  White House keys to Barack Obama on Jan. 20. He plans to live in Dallas, but was also expected to spend time at the Crawford ranch on weekends and holidays.
 
In his final New Year's Day presidential message, Bush said 2009 was an "exciting time for our country" as it prepares for a peaceful transfer of power.
 
"As my time in office comes to a close, I thank the American people for trusting me with the honor of serving our great country. It has been a tremendous privilege, and together we have accomplished a great deal," Bush said.

"Earlier this year, I promised that I would sprint to the finish of my time as president," he added. "We are working hard to keep that promise."

For more Reuters political coverage, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (President and Mrs. Bush arrive in Waco Dec. 26)