VBVW for January 11, 2008: Driven To Tears

• The Very Best

A 15-year old Boy Scout foiled an assassination attempt on the president of the Maldives. Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim grabbed the blade of an attacker’s knife as it was being thrust at President Maumoon Gayoom. The would-be assassin was subdued — and all of a sudden that whole Webelo-Eagle Scout thing doesn’t seem quite so dorky as it used to.

The Tata Nano, a production car from India’s Tata Motors, debuts at the remarkable price of $2,500 dollars. Officially the world’s cheapest car, the cost for the entire vehicle is a fraction of the interest payment on a GM Hummer.

Bucking for an early ‘08 Darwin Award, a man in Grand Rapids, MI, stabbed himself in the abdomen. He was shoplifting $300 worth of hunting knives by hiding them in his pants, and he tripped.

• The Very Worst

A British study ranked 19 industrialized nations according to how effectively their healthcare systems prevent deaths due to treatable diseases. The U.S. ranked dead last. The study concludes there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the U.S. if our healthcare system performed as well as that of France, Japan, or Australia.

Smog and smoke resulting from a controlled brush fire resulted in a 70-vehicle pileup in Florida in which four people were killed. Turns out that similar “controlled burns” by state officials have resulted in highway closings and accidents in years past. Apparently Florida is sick and tired of California getting all the out-of-control fire attention and has taken matters into its own hands.

When a New York City man’s 66-year-old roommate died, he and a friend propped the body up in an office chair and wheeled it down the street to collect the corpse’s Social Security check. He got stiffed when a detective enjoying a sandwich saw the “Weekend at Bernie’s” party rolling by.