VBVW for May 11, 2007:
Totally Blown Away

• The Very Best

The brightest supernova ever seen was viewed through the NASA’s x-ray Chandra telescope. Stars of this one’s super-massive size are extremely rare in the universe, and they usually usually collapse into black holes rather than exploding. And usually we don’t catch that Kodak moment.

Scientists have announced plans to document sounds, images, and info of all the world’s 1.8M species online in the Encyclopedia of Life. And like real life, it’s free.

There were two great archaelogical finds this week. The first may be the tomb of everybody’s favorite Baby Jesus hunter, King Herod. Who’d have guessed they would find it in the town of Herodium? Next were paintings in a Nepalese cave, discovered when a shepherd was taking shelter from a storm in cave high up in a sheer 14,000 foot rock cliff.

• The Very Worst

Another tornado, another US town destroyed, and still not enough stateside National Guardsmen to help. Heckuva job, Bushie.

A study in the journal Health Affairs found that uninsured patients wind up paying over 2.5 times the amount billed to health plans, and more than 3 times billed to Medicare. No wonder our healthcare system remains “broken.” No one can afford the cast.

While the press educated America on etiquette in greeting the visiting Queen of England (men, bow from the neck), President Bush accidentally said her first visit to the US was in 1776, then winked at her (he’s so folksy!). Why are U.S. citizens bowing to the queen of a country whose ass we kicked so we wouldn’t have to keep kissing that ass?