VBVW for January 26, 2007:
Budgets, Bluster & Blasphemy

• The Very Best

A team of adventurers, using only skis and kites, reached the Pole of Inaccessibility at the center of the Antartic. No one else has ever completed the 1093-mile trek without using vehicles. And the four man team did it to raise money for a UK-based charity. It looks like the indomitable human spirit may not be dead after all.

A rare deep sea frill shark was discovered off the coast of Japan. The creature, which lives thousands of feet below the surface, has rarely been seen alive. Coupled with last year’s first-ever discovery of a live giant squid, this proves that Japan isn’t necessarily turning everything in the ocean into sushi.

The Congressional Budget Office predicted that the federal deficit would actually shrink this year, despite the cost of the Iraq War. The deficit is expected to decline to about $200 billion, which Bill Gates and Warren Buffett could cover if they wanted to. The federal budget is all smoke and mirrors, however, so we shouldn’t be uncorking the champagne just yet. Maybe a beer or two . . .

• The Very Worst

Twenty aid workers in Sudan were detained and beaten by police. The workers’ heinous crime, in addition to trying to bring some relief to a country that even God has given up on, was having alcoholic drinks at a social function. And that, according to the Muslim police, is reason enough to beat people with rifles and sexually molest them.

Israeli president Moshe Katsav stepped down from his post amid allegations of rape and sexual harrassment. Katsav and his cronies could no longer dismiss the accusations as a smear campaign when eight women came forward to testify against him.

Vice President Dick “Shooter” Cheney took offense to a question Wolf Blitzer asked about his gay daughter, and Blitzer visibly recoiled in fear. This is what our once strong media has been reduced to? Cringing in the face of a government stare down?