Leave it to Charlie Sheen to turn an addiction into an obsession.

The actor's drug-addled shenanigans made headlines in 2010, so when Sheen was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center complaining of "severe abdominal pains" on January 27, 2011, it looked like one more step toward a total meltdown. The next day, production halted on his hit CBS show, "Two and a Half Men," as its 45-year-old star entered rehab.

Except this time, TV's highest paid actor wouldn't go meekly through that rehab revolving door. Angered by the delayed production, he hurled choice insults at producer Chuck Lorre. The stunt got him suspended and, ultimately, fired from the show.

Then came the stuff of tabloid legend (or a fascinating cable-only sitcom).

Open season on his producer
Sheen declared open season on Lorre, uploading erratic online rants and filing a $100 million wrongful dismissal suit. He invited media into his home, the Sober Valley Lodge, where he lived with his "goddesses," porn star Bree Olson and former nanny Natalie Kenly. He dismissed the worries of his famous father, Martin Sheen (who said "This disease of addiction is a form of cancer") as "bollocks."

He plunged into the media circus, throwing out lines with the high-speed patter of an infomercial pitchman: "I am on a drug -- it's called Charlie Sheen," he told "20/20." "It, uh,  it's not available, because if you try it once you will die. Your face would melt off and your children would melt over your exploded body. Too much?"

Then things took a turn for the (even) weirder. Estranged wife Brooke Mueller filed an emergency restraining order in March. The move prompted Sheen to utter one of his many famous new catchphrases: "winning." That, plus "tiger blood," "Adonis DNA," and "warlock" would enter the public lexicon -- and break a Guinness World Record when Charlie's Twitter feed reached one million followers in just over 25 hours.

Torpedo of truth
With material like that, the next logical (in the Sheen universe) destination was standup. On April 2, the Emmy-nominated actor launched his Torpedo of Truth tour, earning more jeers than cheers.

By spring the tide had turned: The goddesses left the building ("Sheen dumped" trended for days on Yahoo!), and Ashton Kutcher was announced as Sheen's TV replacement.

Thus began Sheen's "torpedo of damage control" tour. The actor publicity apologized, settled his lawsuit, and even reconciled with his estranged ex-wife, who was by his side when Comedy Central roasted the actor in its highest-rated special ever. The special also reunited son and dad in the teaser spoof, "Charpocolypse Now."

Sheen confirmed a return to the big screen in the title role for "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charlie Swan III," directed by Roman Coppola (son of Francis Ford Coppola), about an irresistible graphic designer whose life goes into a downward spiral. Meta is not new for Sheen, who played himself in "Being John Malkovich," as Malkovich's best pal. FX picked up his new show, "Anger Management," for a summer 2012 start. And Sheen profited from his Halloween popularity. Looks like a winning-winning situation.

Jordana Divon is a blogger with Yahoo! Canada's The Daily Brew. Vera H-C Chan is the global editorial lead for Yahoo! Year in Review, which covers 16 countries. Canadians and Americans alike are still trying to figure out Charlie Sheen.

The end of the world came on May 21, 2011, and again on October 21.

Tough times can beget obsessions with end times. Natural disasters, for instance,  shake the doomsayers loose online, as do political shifts, blockbuster thrillers, Mayan prophecies, and a Dolly Parton song.

Those two 2011 dates, though, figured in a Biblical calculation of when the rapture would come. Radio evangelist Harold Camping had been broadcasting his beliefs on his Family Radio network, based in Oakland, California, since 1959. The nonprofit enterprise with stations nationwide has earned about $80 million between 2005 and 2009, although Camping himself always claimed to be an unpaid volunteer.

Guaranteed, no-money-back apocalypse
Camping, who turned 90 between the two doomsday dates, believed that May 21 marked 7,000 years since Noah's flood, based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. This wasn't the first expected second coming of Jesus Christ. The former civil engineer had previously settled on September 6, 1994. His initial calculations were off, but he did sign up more followers.

A 1992 San Diego Tribune article noted Camping blamed "the breakdown of morality -- divorces, abortions, sexual perversion, birth control, women 'disobeying God's law insofar as their place in the church is concerned,' and no longer honoring the Sabbath" for incurring such judgment. This year, the father of six and grandfather of 28 expanded the failings to include gay rights, Israel's rebirth, and its dismissal of Jesus. And he offered a "guarantee."

Breakdown of morality
Followers, some selling their worldly possessions, did their best to alert the faithful via 5,000 billboards and RVs broadcasting gaudy messages across 30 countries. The fair warning cost about $100 million, reported the Los Angeles Times, also "financed by the sale and swap of TV and radio stations" that would be moot on May 22.

The apocalypse, Camping claimed, would take the form of a massive earthquake starting in  New Zealand. The world would self-destruct over five months, enduring "plagues, quakes, wars, famine, and general torment before the planet's total destruction in October." End times, of course, have an upside, called the rapture, when the righteous -- 2 to 3% of mankind -- get delivered up to heaven and the nonbelievers get left behind.

Latter days spurred online searches for "judgment day," "May 21 2011 rapture," "May 21 2011 end of world," "Harold Camping May 21 2011," and even competing end times like "Mayan calendar 2012." They also provoked secular counter-programming: The American Atheists threw rapture parties on May 21 and 22, the biggest in Oakland, a hop, skip, and a jump away from Family Radio's offices.

Camping out
When May 22 dawned and nothing happened, Camping said he was "flabbergasted." But conversations with documentarian Brandon Tauszik revealed the leader's own doubts just five days shy of "the end." Camping and his wife shut down press communications, especially after October 22. Those who had believed Camping weren't just flabbergasted; they were irate.

Camping, though, had suffered a stroke June 10. On October 30, he apologized for the false predictions, then resigned after 52 years.

A few weeks later he made another special announcement. He again acknowledged his mistakes but pointed out, "If six months ago we had all of the information that we have now, there would not have been the spectacle of the whole world learning about the Bible: Learning about the fact that God some day is going to bring a judgment upon the world."

Camping, always keeping up Family Radio's motto and feeding God's sheep.

An earlier version of this article was written by Claudine Zap for Buzz Log. In addition to writing for Buzz Log, Claudine contributed to team coverage of the royal wedding and the 10th anniversary of 9/11. This article was updated by Vera H-C Chan, the Yahoo! Year in Review editorial lead for five years running. On Yahoo!, her articles can be found in News, TV, Movies, and her Shine blog Fast-Talking Dame. Across the Net, there are remnants of contributions to a cultural travel guide, martial arts encyclopedia, movie criticism, business profiles, and A&E/features reporting.

What song comes before Saturday and after Thursday? Why, the "worst song ever,"according to countless critics, bloggers, and online viewers across social media. The inane lyrics, nasal vocals put through Auto-Tune, and hilariously awkward acting in the music video made Rebecca Black's song "Friday" one of this year's most unexpected obsessions.

For those of you who somehow managed to avoid the Internet sensation, Rebecca Black was a 13-year-old girl whose mother paid $2,000 for a song and video to be made for her. The cheesy video became almost instantly omnipresent. Everyone had an opinion, from Lady Gaga and Simon Cowell to Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly. But the online masses put Black under some of the fiercest and most widespread scrutiny in recent memory. "Friday" surpassed Justin Bieber's "Baby" as the most hated video on YouTube. Black even had to be pulled from school after multiple death threats forced the FBI to get involved.

Discovered on YouTube
What may have first sparked the viral sensation: when comedian Michael J. Nelson (who had 19,000 Twitter followers at the time) and TV show "Tosh.0" (known for featuring the most ridiculous videos on the Net) both posted links to "Friday." Since then, the video has amassed more than 200 million views (before it was pulled, per Black's request, then reposted).

Despite the criticism that young singing hopefuls may endure, breakout stars like Charice Pempengco and Greyson Chance are just a few of the successes discovered via YouTube.  The most notable success was, clearly, Canada's Justin Bieber, who was discovered by Usher when the then 12-year-old Bieber posted YouTube videos of his singing. Bieber is among the biggest stars in the world, so the music industry has been scrambling for the next YouTube sensation-turned-superstar.

Back to black
So what was the ultimate payoff for all the abuse Rebecca Black has endured?  A few of the opportunities afforded to the viral star included: a seat at the MTV Video Music Awards, the hit TV show "Glee" covering "Friday," a 2011 Teen Choice Award trophy for Choice Web Star, a performance on "America's Got Talent," a role as Katy Perry's best friend in the "Last Friday Night" video, and a duet with Perry onstage during the pop star's Los Angeles tour. Black's song has even been a catalyst for greater good: "Late Night" host Jimmy Fallon made a bet with "Colbert Report" host Stephen Colbert that if he raised $26,000 in one week for Donors Choose, a charity that supports schools in need, Colbert would sing "Friday" on Fallon's show. Fallon raised the money in three days, and Colbert gave a confetti-, cheerleader-, and fireworks-filled performance with the Roots.

But there have been issues, namely the original video being pulled from YouTube due to copyright violations, and claims that Ark was exploiting the teen's image and song. Originally posted on Ark Music Factory's YouTube channel, Rebecca Black slapped the company with an unprompted takedown notice after Ark attempted to charge $2.99 per view. The video, with its hundreds of millions of views and comments, was then pulled down and re-uploaded to Rebecca Black's own channel, which had, thus far, seen only a paltry 6 million views. Ark has now relinquished attempts to claim all of Black's success, and is instead just looking for fair compensation.

Black has shown an almost heroic resilience in the face of her harshest critics -- no small feat, considering she's at an age when most people crumble under social pressures. Never missing a step, the singer released two more music videos and recorded a full-length album, released in November. Her second song, "My Moment," has received more than 29 million views in four months, and the surprisingly catchy "Person of Interest" gained 1.5 million views after just three days.

As the flames of the "Friday" bedlam  dimmed, Rebecca Black stood her ground to attempt a legitimate pop career. While 2011 might be the only year of worldwide fame for Black, she's done a lot more in 365 days (52 Fridays) than most of us will ever do in a lifetime.

Tiffany Lee is a Los Angeles-based writer and an assistant editor for Yahoo! Music. She has been published in several print and online publications, interviewing actors, designers, and musicians; has worked at record labels small and large; and had a weekly show as a college DJ. On the side, she designs jewelry and blogs about fashion, arts, and culture at KidViskous. Follow her on Twitter @tiffanycanfly. You also might've seen her in a few music videos, but she doesn't want to talk about it.

Five years after the housing market peaked, the obsession with mortgages rates went up, but the appetite for home ownership and home buying declined.

Throughout the year, existing home sales generally rose compared with 2010, although in the first 10 months of 2011, new home sales were off 6.9% from the first 10 months of 2010. Thanks to foreclosures, slower family formation, and the rising appeal of renting, the home ownership rate continued to decline in 2011, standing at 66.3% in the third quarter, down from the peak of 69% in the third quarter of 2006.

Major source of concern and anxiety
But that doesn't mean people lost interest in their mortgages. After all, for those with homes, mortgages represent the largest single bill, a major source of concern and anxiety -- and, in some instances, an opportunity to reduce cost in this age of muted income growth. What's more, the mortgage market is the place where personal finance, government policy, Wall Street, and the larger economy meet. So, it's no surprise that mortgage rates were one of the most frequently searched terms on Yahoo! in 2011.

Generally, mortgage rates remained low and trended lower through the year, with 30-year mortgages often heading toward the 4% market, as Bankrate.com showed. The low headline numbers attracted a great deal of consumer interest. But the devil was frequently in the details. Many borrowers simply weren't eligible for the low rates flagged in advertisements, especially if they had less-than-pristine credit or didn't have enough equity in their homes. That continued to be a major sticking point, as housing prices continued to fall throughout 2011. Zillow reported that in the third quarter, some 28.6% of home owners were underwater on their mortgages, meaning the homes were worth less than the amount of debt resting on them.

Feeble government response
Policy questions also helped keep mortgage rates in the news. Since the housing market started to go south, the government response has generally been feeble. Mortgage modification efforts never gained much momentum. Of the $30 billion obligated under the controversial 2008 TARP legislation to finance mortgage modification, less than $2 billion was spent. That led to calls for dramatic action. In the fall, conservative economists like Martin Feldstein and Glenn Hubbard gained lots of attention for their calls for mass mortgage modification as a way to help the economy.

Meanwhile, almost every month, a new wrinkle in policy that affected mortgages and rates rolled out. Given the increased roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned giants in the mortgage market, professionals and consumers had to keep tabs on their latest workings. In September, the Federal Reserve announced a new effort to boost the economy: Operation Twist. As part of the plan, the Fed said it would continue to buy mortgage-backed securities in an effort to keep rates down. In October, the Federal Housing Finance Authority, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, announced changes to its Home Affordable Refinanced Program, intended to make it easier for more borrowers to refinance. The changes included raising the maximum loan-to-value ratios of loans that could be refinanced.

Given the continuing problems and challenges in the housing industry, it wouldn't be surprising to see mortgage rates pop up on the 2012 Year in Review list.

Daniel Gross is economics editor at Yahoo! Finance. Follow him on Twitter @grossdm; or email him. His most recent book is "Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation."

If the daily discounts that flooded our inboxes have demonstrated anything, it's that frugality has become more than a recession watchword. In 2011 frugality was a way of life, even a calling for some.

Indeed, the recession that started in 2008 brought with it a culture of frugality. You may have heard of "austerity chic" or the catchphrase "cheap is the new black"; these ideas promised to stick around beyond the current economic slump. The country's recent thriftiness transformed traditional penny-pinching -- say, clipping a few coupons from the Sunday newspaper -- into extreme sport.

After a brief lull, coupon redemption was up 4% in the second quarter of 2011 compared with the same period in 2010, according to Inmar, a company that processes coupon transactions.

The reality show "Extreme Couponing" on TLC followed serious shoppers as they combined store sales, manufacturers' coupons, and rebates to whittle down grocery bills to almost nothing.

Scouring circulars and printing out online coupons meant financial survival for some. For others, though, the quest to save a few bucks at the cash register morphed into obsession, raising the question of whether these extreme couponers were just hoarders disguised as savvy budget-seekers. Katherine, a super-couponer featured in one episode of the show, amassed a $30,000 stockpile that included 200 boxes of pasta, 60 boxes of tissues, and her most "prized possession": 400 rolls of paper towels.

The show spawned its own mini industry. Dozens of websites allowed users to share deals, post coupons, and show off snapshots of their abundant pantries. Master couponers like the Krazy Coupon Lady taught the masses how to save like pros. There were how-to books and even classes (one $19.99 70-minute DVD promised to teach you how to cut your grocery bill by 50-70%).

The fad even drew some reality-TV star-power as single mom Kate Gosselin began blogging about her coupon experiences on CouponCabin.com in November.

Whether anyone can make a profit from discounts is still an open question. Groupon, the daily deal juggernaut (40% off on laser-hair removal, anyone?), was certainly trying. But the flaws in its business model were no secret;  one of them is how they could afford to grow so big so fast.

Groupon had its much anticipated IPO on November 4, with a $12.7 billion valuation, down from an earlier $20 billion valuation. Still, plenty have been trying to get in on the action. Facebook launched its own Deals site in five cities in the spring, but scrapped it after just four months, while user-review site Yelp scaled back its deal service in August.

All of which might mean that deal fever is wearing a bit thin. A Forrester report found that 29% of subscribers to coupon and flash-sale sites have unsubscribed because they don't want to receive so many emails. And more than half the people who redeem their deals say they would have purchased without the voucher.

Regardless of whether bargain-junkies are OD-ing on deals, some merchants certainly are getting sick of the trend. The Kroger supermarket chain, for example, rolled out a new coupon policy at some of its stores as a way to cut down on those shelf-clearing shoppers armed with sackfuls of coupons. Krogers now limits shoppers to five coupons for the same product and to one manufacturer's coupon per item. And no more double couponing.

Lisa Scherzer is producer and editor at Yahoo! Finance, focusing on personal finance. Before Yahoo!, she was a writer and copy editor at SmartMoney.com. Scherzer once used a Groupon for yoga classes.

Pickle-green pig faces meet their matches in the form of wingless, decidedly non-aerodynamic birds. Said birds are hurled through the air by slingshot, sending them crashing into bricks and blocks. A proper trajectory that causes a proper collapse ends all oinking.

If you have no idea what any of that means, you've somehow managed to avoid the phenomenon that is the app known as Angry Birds. Even if you haven't played it, anyone with access to electronic media should have a vague notion of what the game involves.

Cottage industry
But let's talk a few specifics so we're all on the same page. How phenomenal has the game been? In early November, the game's maker, Finland-based Rovio, said Angry Birds had been downloaded 500 million times since its release on the Apple iPhone in December 2009.

That's right: half a million downloads. Women and men are addicted. Young and old can't put it down. While it's not for everyone, Angry Bird-flingers don't have to be convinced that there's something pure, fascinating, and downright fun in pitting species vs. species in a little wholesome destruction.

The incredibly successful run has inspired an entire cottage industry. Toys have followed. Movie deals are in the works. Venture capitalists had to woo the makers to take $42 million in funding. One of the avian cast members had a side gig as an unofficial mascot for St. Louis Cardinals fans during this year's playoffs. Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter played a real-life version on set. People dressed as them on Halloween. They have a taxonomy.

Pop culture giant
Explaining the extraordinary popularity of Angry Birds isn't easy. If you're a player and you try describing it to someone who isn't, you probably know this. If you've never tried, do it. And don't be surprised if you're met with an "I just don't get it." A year ago, in a profile on the game, the Wall Street Journal asked, "Why do smart people love seemingly mindless games?" Maybe we should just agree that it's OK to not know and to say that what's fun is fun.

Serious gamers will never confuse it with Modern Warfare. It isn't Madden, it's not Zelda, it might not even be Frogger. But in terms of the video games that have become forces of nature, Angry Birds is one of a handful that have become pop culture giants, not entirely unlike another game three decades ago that was strangely simple, exceedingly difficult to quit and massive in its popularity: the yellow, dot-munching, ghost-fleeing Pac-Man.

Chris Nichols is the assistant managing editor of news and investing at Yahoo! Finance. He has been a business journalist for more than 15 years. Before joining Yahoo! in June 2009, he worked for Dow Jones Newswires, Bloomberg, and TheStreet.com.

Photo by walkerspace/Flickr

In the fitness world, a "plank" is a move designed to work your core. The 2011 planking trend, however, did nothing for our cores (or our dignity), but it was addictive.

Lying face-down on the ground may sound more like a police procedure than a fad. Yet curiously, the position riveted the public's imagination around the globe. Being prone was cool --  supine, not so much.

Planking's origins: taking it lying down
The fad came from Australia, like boomerangs, black-box flight recorders, and planes' inflatable escape slides. Gawker traced the trend back to a 20-something man named Sam Weckert, who planked on dance floors as a prank. His Australian nightclub act, though, may have been a riff off the English Lying Down Game, which, its founders pointed out, had a copyright and a logo.

Miffed Brits notwithstanding, planking -- like a stiff board, get it? -- sounded so much catchier than the Lying Down Game. And credit for its global popularity should be given to Aussie radio-show hosts always looking for a shtick (in this case, a planking contest).

Rules for a good plank
Planking is not as simple as it sounds. The "official site" laid down six rules: You must lay face down, "expressionless," with legs straight, arms at your sides, fingers and toes pointed. Make your planking known, and name the plank. The unspoken rule: Take a photo or video and post it online.

Alright, maybe planking was as simple as it sounded. The challenge, however, was to plank in unusual places, perhaps atop peculiar objects, and, preferably, in great numbers. Favored positions ranged from lying atop a dead deer (a macabre hunter's preference), a police car (daring authorities), against a scenic backdrop, in a precarious perch, or in some kind of funny position like headfirst in a dryer.

Celebrity presence, rather than sullying the whole amateur enterprise, actually heightened and legitimized the experience in 2011, whether it was Hugh Hefner and his Playmates or foul-mouthed chef Gordon Ramsey lying in repose on a ship or a jet. (Then again, the celebrity plank might have just been an opportunity to show off their possessions.)

The real first rule of planking was to talk about planking, whether you were for or against it. Gizmodo uncharitably dubbed the practice "a stupid Internet phenomenon ... that's really stupid." Gawker dismissed it as a viral craze, pointing out that ancient mediums like radio supported it, and then a police crackdown inflated media coverage, which in turn drew new planking recruits.

Out of thousands of acts, there has been a single death, a 20-year-old man who attempted the trick off a seven-story balcony after drinking. That prompted a warning from the Australian prime minister.

Still, a World Planking Day took place on May 25, and supporters claimed it would be an annual tradition. Then again, that's what people said about what's-that-sport and whatever-that-other-fad-was.

Owling and other acts of suspended animation
Of course, there have been variations, like owling, in which one squats in a perched position and turns the head 270 degrees. (OK, never mind the head-turning.) Then there was "horsemaning" (which involves two people, clever camera angles circa 1920, and an affection for the headless horseman legend), hanging upside down in "batmanning," and a brief unhygienic foray into coning, or seizing an ice cream cone (at the top, by the ice cream portion) at a drive-through. All equally confounding, yet not as contagious as planking.

What crazy feats lie ahead in 2012? Maybe we'll catch even more impressive planks, such as the one performed in September by 71-year-old Betty Lou Sweeney, who broke a Guinness World Record by holding an abdominal plank for 36 minutes, 58 seconds. Perhaps leaning? And there's always the flipside, aka, supine, and its corollary, the catnap.

The Yahoo! Year in Review editorial lead for five years running, Vera H-C Chan dissects news events, pop-culture idiosyncrasies, and online behavior to probe the "why" behind what's hot online. On Yahoo!, her articles can be found in News, TV, Movies, and her Shine blog Fast-Talking Dame. Across the Net, there are remnants of contributions to a cultural travel guide, martial arts encyclopedia, movie criticism, business profiles, and A&E/features reporting.

Photo by 5chw4r7z/Flickr

If you focused only on the literary side of things, 2011 would have been a fantastic year for George R.R. Martin's series, "A Song of Ice and Fire." The epic fantasy saga began in 1996, with Martin -- a veteran of both fiction and television writing -- penning thousand-page tomes that led some fans to herald him as the American Tolkien. Set on the fictional continent of Westeros, Martin's series mixed in a little magic with a lot of good old-fashioned medieval warfare and palace intrigue. After a long wait, the fifth book in the series, "A Dance With Dragons," was released in July, selling nearly 300,000 copies on its first day.

But 2011 ended up being the year a new audience found its way into Martin's fictional world, as HBO premiered the drama "Game of Thrones," named after the first book in the series. Following in the hallowed Sunday-night footsteps of "The Sopranos," "Deadwood," and "The Wire," "Thrones" was a commercial and critical success. HBO ordered a second season after only one episode had aired, and the number of viewers increased during the season, eventually totaling 8 million.

Accolades, surprises
At the 2011 Emmys, "Thrones" was nominated for 13 awards, with Peter Dinklage taking home Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for his work as wisecracking fan favorite Tyrion Lannister. One of the most beloved features of the new series was the opening credits, an orchestra-themed journey through Westeros that spawned YouTube covers with more than a million views.

New watchers discovered what fans of the book series had known for years: Martin weaves original characters into myriad story lines and then suddenly kills off key people. There was some outrage from TV viewers when a beloved character was axed near the end of the season, but those familiar with the series just laughed -- the only thing Martin seems to enjoy more than creating characters that readers love is getting rid of them.

Inside joke, inside praise
Perhaps one of the greatest tributes a television show can receive is to be acknowledged in another one only a few months after it hits the air. On an October episode of NBC's "Parks and Recreation," a character suggested that "Game of Thrones" was possibly being canceled. An incredulous Ben Wyatt, played by Adam Scott, replied, "They would never cancel 'Game of Thrones'! It's a crossover hit; it's not just for fantasy enthusiasts. They're telling human stories in a fantasy world."

The second season premieres on HBO in April.  There is no release date for the sixth book in the series, "The Winds of Winter."

Chris Wilson is an editor at Yahoo! who has previously been involved in team coverage of World Cup 2010, the royal wedding, and the September 11 Memorial page.

The national debt hit $14.9 trillion in 2011 and threatened to bring the government to a halt.  As long as the U.S. operated at a deficit, spending more than it was taking in, the government had to borrow -- and how much it could borrow was limited by the debt ceiling, one of the biggest search terms of 2011.

Determining how much of a bill we should be allowed to amass for our children's children became a major political priority -- so much that politicians risked a government shutdown and a default while they experimented with the math, ultimately sparking a controversial downgrade to the U.S. credit rating.

By September 30, 2010, Congress was supposed to pass a budget for fiscal year 2011, which ran from October 2010 to September 2011.  A string of so-called continuing resolutions -- legislation to fund government agencies and avoid a shutdown if a budget hadn’t been reached -- kept things operating through early April.  On April 8, with just about an hour before a shutdown would begin, lawmakers agreed to a compromise to keep the  government open through the end of the fiscal year.

"We didn't do it at this late hour for drama; we did it because it's been very hard to arrive at this point," Senator Harry Reid  (D-Nev.) said. But there was one hard choice lawmakers didn't figure out: They passed a budget without voting to increase the debt ceiling. Despite hours of negotiations in closed rooms, President Obama refused to agree to the Republicans' demands for steep spending cuts, and Republicans threatened to hold their Montblancs until the government defaulted.

Again, Americans were strung along until the last minute. On August 2, the deadline by which the U.S. would default on its debt if the ceiling wasn't raised, lawmakers passed the Budget Control Act of 2011. It added $2.1 trillion in head space to the ceiling, but the law also called for discretionary spending caps to trim the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years and created the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, charged with finding $1.5 trillion more in cuts (or new revenue).

There weren't immediate consequences to raising the debt ceiling, so why wait until the verge of default? Both sides thought the threat would bring the other to its senses. But politicians' tactics and inability to work together was a disturbing glimpse into Washington political warfare.

The Obama administration dubbed the agreement "a win for the economy." But Daniel Gross, Yahoo! Finance's economics editor, cautions that "the impact is likely to be larger in the coming months on the markets, the economy, consumers, and taxpayers than on politics."

Some of that impact hit about three days after the bill passed, when Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating. And it's not over yet. The bipartisan committee on deficit reduction -- the "super-committee" -- was ordered to provide a recommendation to reduce the debt by $1.2 trillion over 10 years. That recommendation was due by November 23, and was to be put to a vote by December 23. The committee said on November 21, however, that it could not reach an agreement. Without Congressional approval of a package, automatic cuts will start in 2013, split between defense and domestic spending.

The potential for a shutdown continues to reemerge: Dozens of federal agencies were reportedly preparing Thursday, December 15, for a partial shutdown of government operations, with a Friday deadline looming for lawmakers to reach an agreement on a spending measure to keep the government running and a bill to extend the payroll tax cut. Senate leaders were optimistic ...

Elizabeth Trotta is a news and investing editor for Yahoo! Finance. Before joining Yahoo! in October 2010, she wrote for SmartMoney, TheStreet.com and Investment Dealers' Digest.

If the Wall Street Journal hadn't titled its January 8 interview with Amy Chua "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," the Yale professor's book ("Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother") might have never hit a nerve.

But such a Murdochian headline was bound to get attention -- pricklish, divisive, and heated attention. That supercilious claim of cultural superiority came at a time when war-weary superpower America was battered from economic implosion. It didn't help that China owned $1.154 trillion of our debt (incidentally, that number has dropped since January). Compared to other developed countries, the U.S. scored below average in international standardized tests. (Shanghai kids took the tests for the first time in 2010 and stomped into global first place in science, reading, and math.) Then there was the broader tiger theme that would develop in 2011, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Anyone can be a tiger mom
Chua unveiled the militant expectations of filial piety as interpreted by Asian Americans. She said that the Chinese mother was just one trope that could be substituted with the Irish blue-collar dad, the Polish mother, or Stephen Colbert. Still, playing the race card had an effect: Thousands of comments poured in from Wall Street Journal readers -- not necessarily readers of Chua's book -- who praised and condemned the audacity, the stereotyping, the humor, the obsessive-compulsiveness. Reaction was also divided in the Asian diaspora, from PTSD flashbacks to bristling resistance to yet another dragon lady stereotype.

The publicity launched a thousand memes. But all good books jump-start thoughtful, impassioned discussions. "The Help" -- the book and the movie -- inspired similar reactions about race, parenting, and domestic servitude in the American household. The tiger mom was a flash point that led us to talk openly about "our fears about losing ground to China" (Time magazine), and how American kids could be tough if parents let them be (per Atlantic magazine's "How the Culture of Self-Esteem Is Ruining Our Kids").

As one NPR book critic put it, "Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't." A London Telegraph columnist went further: "Amy Chua's philosophy of child-rearing may be harsh ... but ask yourself this: Is it really more cruel than the laissez-faire indifference and babysitting-by-TV which too often passes for parenting these days?"

Immigrant experiences, universal issues
Chua outlines the many times her mothering instinct has been wrong: Her book's long subtitle ends with "How I Was Humbled By a Thirteen-Year-Old." Notwithstanding her Jewish husband, Chua selectively retained what she considered to be Chinese parenting traits. However, a model scholar in China is one who masters calligraphy, poetry, song, painting, perhaps even martial arts -- potentially frivolous pursuits in Chua's Americanized eyes.

Chua's book turned out to be about the American immigrant experience -- looking from the outside in. As Chua wrote about growing up, "[My family] started off as outsiders together, and we discovered America together, becoming Americans in the process."

China is grappling with similar questions about what success means for its "little emperors." A "wolf dad" in China, who says that wielding a feather duster got his three kids into Peking University, garnered public outrage in November and a condemnation from the Ministry of Education about how "absolute obedience" leads to "slavishness." By comparison, Chua looked like a pussycat.

The kids are all right
For all the uproar, though, Chua's kids seem fine (a Facebook executive calls them "phenomenal"). Her eldest daughter started a blog to defend her mother. Not that Chua needed it; she made Time's Most Influential list and charmed crowds at book appearances. But maybe instead of evoking the founding fathers, she could have avoided all the fuss -- and still retained meme leadership -- by partnering up with "$h*! My Dad Says."

The Yahoo! Year in Review editorial lead for five years running, Vera H-C Chan dissects news events, pop-culture idiosyncrasies, and online behavior to probe the "why" behind what's hot online. On Yahoo!, her articles can be found in News, TV, Movies, and her Shine blog Fast-Talking Dame. Across the Net, there are remnants of contributions to a cultural travel guide, martial arts encyclopedia, movie criticism, business profiles, and A&E/features reporting.