VBVW for Oct 26: Nobody Walks in LA
• The Very Best •
Louisiana elected Bobby Jindal as its first non-white governor in over 100 years. Maybe those Southerners are finally thinking of putting away the Kingsford-brand crosses.
The dollar falls to a record low against the euro. This is fantastic news for consumers . . . as long as they don’t live in the United States.
President Bush walked the ground in Southern California scorched by fire storms, which some have called So Cal’s Katrina, instead of flying over it.
• The Very Worst •
According to a new Associated Press report, sex abuse of students by teachers is rampant in America’s public education system. This should quiet all those naysayers who claim that public schools can’t compete with Catholic schools.
Over a million people have been evacuated from their homes in Southern California as wildfires march across the state. The lack of water to fight the blazes has caused residents and politicians to recall that “Oh yeah, this was all built on a desert.”
In Amarillo, Texas, pit bulls killed a pony that was given to a terminally ill boy by the Make-A-Wish foundation. We encourage everyone who still believes that pit bulls are just misunderstood pets to adopt as many of them as you can. Then our wish would come true.
VBVW for Oct 19: Good Enough For Government Work
• The Very Best •
Congrats to Ms. Kathleen Casey-Kirschling of New Jersey, the first baby-boomer to start collecting Social Security. The government should be able to pay at least another five or six boomers before coffers are empty.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has proposed a plan that recognizes Aborigines in the country’s constitution. While British-descended whites have been in Australia for barely two hundred years, it’s touching that they’re just now getting around to acknowledging the indigenous people who predated their arrival by more than 10,000 years.
Evolution-naysayer Sam Brownback dropped out of the presidential candidate race. One idiot down, 15 to go.
• The Very Worst •
Libya, which recently accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie airplane bombing, has been named to the United Nations Security Council. No word on when the name of the council will officially be changed to the United Nations Kangaroo Court.
Is the chemical phthalate, used to soften the plastic in pacifiers, rubber ducks and baby teethers, responsible for developmental problems? The debate heated up this week with a call to ban phthalate in California. “A thousand rubber duckies and no science. I’ll take the science,” said Stevan Allen, spokesman for the American Chemistry Council. He’s phtho phthilly.
The Yankees offered manager Joe Torre a 23% pay cut to stick around for one more year. After leading the Yankees to 12 straight post-season appearances and four World Series, Torre obviously doesn’t deserve a raise, or thanks, for doing such a crappy job.
VBVW for October 12, 2007: Oral Medication
• The Very Best •
The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new high of 14,163 while the Standard & Poor’s 500 hit its own new record. And just last month, people were predicting that blood would run in the streets as the market came crashing down.
40-year-old Jason Lewis completed a 13-year round-the-world journey, covering over 46,000 miles in his pedal-powered boat. He is the first person to circumnavigate the globe on human power alone. And we’re pretty sure he did it without steroids.
You don’t know it but Gerhard Ertl has singlehandedly improved your car, your computer, and your planet’s chance of survival. On Thursday, Ertl’s 71st birthday, he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for work that helped determine how catalytic converters clean car exhaust and why iron rusts.
• The Very Worst •
Five countries are already laying claims to the oil deposits becoming accessible beneath polar ice as glacial chunks break off and melt into the sea. Let that sink in for a minute.
Marion Jones gave up the five steroid-fueled medals she won at the 2000 Summer Olympics. At this rate, statistically speaking, all sports cheaters will be exposed in the next five years . . . which may also mean the end of all professional sports.
Former professors of Oral Roberts University are suing the pants off university president Richard Roberts. Among the accusations is that he flew his family around on the university jet (their university has a jet?), had students campaign for Republicans (students vote Republican?), and otherwise darkened the good name of his father, university founder and televangelist Oral Roberts (televangelists take it orally?).
VBVW for October 5, 2007: I, Me, Mine
• The Very Best •
South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean nutjob Kim Jong-Il signed a declaration calling for a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War. It’s technically been over for 50 years, but at least now it might not need an asterisk.
After nearly two days, all the 3,200 miners trapped during a South African mine accident made it to safety. These days, any time a miner lives to tell the tale of surviving horrific working conditions it’s a good day all around.
General Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s very own Satan, was sly enough to kick off last year before he could be tried for crimes against humanity, but at least his extended family and friends are now being tagged for $27 million in embezzlement.
• The Very Worst •
South African white guy Mark Scott-Crossley, who was convicted of killing South African black guy Nelson Chisale by severely beating him and then throwing him into a lion’s den at a breeding center, has had his conviction overturned. The court stated that since all that was left of Chisale once the lions got through was bones and shredded clothing, that there was no proof that Chisale was dead when Scott-Crossley tossed him into the pit.
Shannon Whisnant of North Carolina, who found John Wood’s amputated leg stored in a smoker, refused to give the leg back to its rightful owner. Whisnant has been charging children and adults to see the leg, and wants to hold onto it until Halloween, when he can raise the prices for viewing. We swear to God, we did not add a single line of commentary to this story.
Inspiring the new category here at VBVW — Very Worst Grifts – a Boston couple had a long-running scam in which they’d eat glass and then claim it came from food in restaurants and grocery stores. Then they’d get treated for shredding their insides and not pay the hospital bills. Mary Evano is still on the run, but husband Ronald is on his way to prison. If there’s one guy in the jailhouse shower with built-in protection, it’s Ronnie.