VBVW for September 21, 2007: Don’t Taser Me, Bro

• The Very Best •

Democratic fundraiser Norman Tsu has reportedly admitted to defrauding investors of millions of dollars in a Ponzi scheme just days after being apprehended. Finally, a national-influence-peddling-bribery-political-greed-in-exchange-for-favors scandal that won’t drag on for years to come.

Four fossil skeletons found in the republic of Georgia offer a new link between human antecedents and the first of our species. With lower limbs and spines more developed than that of their predecessors, the skeletons may represent primitives capable of migrating from Africa some 1.8 million years ago. That is, assuming God didn’t create us all from magic powder like Sea Monkeys.

Nuon Chea, a leader of the Khmer Rouge movement in Cambodia, has been arrested and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Chea was “Brother No. 2″ to Pol Pot, and together they oversaw the torture and murder of 1.7 million countrymen — a quarter of Cambodia’s population — in the late 1970s. Good taste prevents us from adding a litany of brotherly love, brothers in arms, and brother-to-brother quips.

• The Very Worst •

Iranian President Ahmadinejad wanted to lay a wreath at Ground Zero during his visit next week and authorities told him no, a decision noisily supported by presidential candidates including Romney, Clinton and Giuliani. Let’s see: Irani leadership is an enemy of Al Qaeda, condemned the attacks, and cooperated in US efforts against the Taliban. Not that he’s the neighborhood ice cream man, but a Muslim leader wants to pay respect — and we say no?

Censorship runs amok. A student questioning John Kerry was tasered, Walt Disney Company is banning heavy metal bands from the House Of Blues near Disneyland, and eternal cupcake Sally Field was bleeped on the Emmys for either her language or her anti-war sentiment, take your pick. Can we get an amendment to defend our amendments?

The fabled Northwest Passage connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans may be opening up as a shipping route. Arctic pack ice that had always prevented passage is now melting due to — anyone? anyone? — that’s right, global warming.