VBVW for May 30, 2008: Flush ‘Em All
• The Very Best
Nepal has become a new country, its political parties having voted to abolish a 239-year-old Hindu monarchy. King Gyanendra has been ordered to vacate his palace and send everyone new hats.
An Ontario, Canada high school junior got tired of seeing the plastic garbage bags in his house pile up, so he developed a microbe combination that would cut the decomposition time of plastic bags in landfills from 1000 years to three months. Sixteen-year-old Daniel Burd may have overcome an environmental hurdle that the EPA, the World Heath Organization, Greenpeace, DuPont, and Monsanto could not.
Former presidential press secretary Scott McClellan wrote What Happened, an exposé of the Bush White House that shows an entire administration out of touch with reality. The book hit #1 on Amazon.com, which means there are people in America who think McClellan’s disclosures are news.
• The Very Worst
There is only one toilet in space and it’s out of order.
25,000 policemen are currently deployed to fight a burgeoning drug trade in the Mexican region of Sinaloa. Seven police officers were gunned down on Tuesday, the latest casualties of a bloody drug war. Buzz kill….
Sharon Stone angered the entirety of China by saying the recent earthquake that claimed over 68,000 lives was “bad karma” for the country’s past policies in Tibet. It had been almost two weeks since Sharon Stone said something stupid.
VBVW for May 23, 2008: Eat or Get Gas
• The Very Best
An 11 year old won the National Geographic Bee by correctly identifying locations around the world that most people couldn’t find even with a map. Congratulations to Akshay Rajagopal for a perfect performance. Anybody who knows the correct answer to “Cochabamba is the third-largest conurbation in what country?” is aces in our (geography) book.
Syria and Israel have begun peace talks mediated by Turkey. Guess they didn’t know that peacenik George Bush was just in the region and could’ve helped out.
Astronomers have released the first photos ever of a supernova as it exploded (well, it happened 88 million years ago but just became visible here). Regular readers know of VBVW know the very best stuff happens 88 million light years from Earth.
• The Very Worst
Pummeled by skyrocketing oil prices, American Airlines has announced it will start charging passengers $15 to check a bag on a domestic flight. And that’s the first bag. The third bag you check will cost $100. Soon the only way to afford a flight will be to travel inside the luggage.
Some farmers in Tennessee have converted their tractors so that they can pulled by mules. Farmer Robert Raymond claims that it’s cheaper to feed mules than to buy gas, saying, “it’s the way of the future.” Close. Back to the future is more like it.
Gas prices across the U.S. are averaging $4 per gallon. The real shock is that buying gas has finally become almost as expensive as buying bottled water.
VBVW for May 16, 2008: Weather Or Not
• The Very Best
The California Supreme Court ruled that a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. While that’s a big leap forward, we’re mostly amazed that any work at all has been getting done in any state government since the presidential primary season began.
Lori Drew, the mom who tormented a neighbor girl to the point of suicide, has been indicted and faces 20 years in prison. Thirteen year old Megan Meier killed herself in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages from Drew, who was posing as an online friend. Contrary to conventional wisdom, in MySpace someone can hear you scream.
Federal prosecutors have charged Barry Bonds with 14 counts of lying to a grand jury about his steroid use. Can we just throw this guy in the slammer, strip him out of the record books, and be done with him already?
• The Very Worst
More than two dozen people were killed by tornadoes in the United States in the deadliest storm season on record. If this keeps up, Toto and Dorothy will be using the yellow brick road as a route to the morgue.
China’s Sichuan province was rocked by a 7.9 earthquake. Some 50,000 are feared dead, which is really pretty grim for a country hoping to be all happy and smiley when the Olympics arrive this summer.
Representing a new low in getting high, two men near Houston confessed that they dug up a grave, removed a head from a body, and used the skull as a bong. What the hell ever happened to raiding the fridge and watching cartoons?
VBVW for May 9, 2008: Big Brothers
• The Very Best
Dmitri Medvedev has been sworn in as president of Russia, replacing Vladimir Putin, the paradoxical leader who set the country on course while overseeing a corrupt government. Putin was immediately appointed Prime Minister so he can keep the country on course while overseeing a corrupt government.
When New York taxi driver Mohammed Khalil returned the $4 million Stradivarius left in his car by concert violinist Philippe Quint, the fiddler said thanks by performing for a gathering of cabbies in a Newark Airport parking lot. Apparently not a single driver knew the way to Carnegie Hall.
The Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, successfully sued to keep the FBI from obtaining customer information without a judge’s order. Federal agents sought user data from the library’s Wayback Machine, fearing it took users back to a time when citizens freely questioned government.
• The Very Worst
As if the post-cyclone situation in Burma (aka Myanmar) weren’t bad enough, with death-toll estimates soaring to 100,000, the ruling military leaders have been slow to compromise their isolationism and accept international aid. Its like the junta are wearing bracelets that say, What would Kim Jong Il do?
Goldman Sachs has predicted that the cost of oil will see a “super spike” by the end of the year and hit an incredible $200 per barrel. This wouldn’t be so worrisome if Goldman hadn’t been so spot-on last time around, predicting the $100 per barrel breach well in advance.
Remember when MTV was a great channel? Me neither. But now the network is awful in a whole new way, producing short shows that intentionally fool viewers into believing they’re watching real content though the spots are solely designed to sell product. I want my MTV. To go off the air.
VBVW for April May 2, 2008: Mayday! Mayday!
• The Very Best
Stimulus checks arrive in your mailbox as tax rebates this week, and Wal-Mart is cashing them for free. Want to help stimulate the economy? Spend your check on goods made in the U.S.A. or sold at a locally owned store instead of at Wal-Mart.
The FDA rejected Cordaptive, a cholesterol drug developed by Merck. A “not approvable” letter doused billion-dollar dreams for the Rx company but encouraged the public that FDA regulators don’t always do their work while zonked on Ambien.
George Bush has said that the American economy was in a “slowdown” and not a recession. According to the Commerce Department, he’s right: the economy grew at .06 percent. George has got to be feeling pretty pumped at being right for the first time in the past 48 months.
• The Very Worst
A man in Austria has confessed to holding his daughter captive for 24 years. He kept her in an underground room with three of the seven children he fathered with the woman, now 42. None of the 3 children had ever seen sunlight. And father/grandfather/husband Josef Fritzl should never see the sun again.
Chinese authorities are trying to send an Olympic torch up Mount Everest, where it stands slightly less chance of being extinguished by protesters. While the torch awaits clear weather, all other climbing expeditions have been blocked from the Tibetan side of Everest, and teams at southern base camps have had communication gear confiscated.
The 81 deaths attributed to Heparin may have been the result of intentional contamination, according to the FDA. This would make Heparin the biggest drug tampering case since the Tylenol scare of 1982. Or the since the production of Vioxx.