VBVW for September 12, 2008: Bangin’ Away

• The Very Best

The Big Bang particle smasher (known by science as the Large Hadron Collider) has completed its first real test. The world did not get sucked into a black hole, much to the chagrin of Creationists, and the rest of us may learn what a black hole really is.

Jury selection began this week for the robbery and kidnapping trial of OJ Simpson. OJ, shown here estimating the size of his hubris, may face life in prison if found guilty on all charges. Prosecutors are just hoping Johnnie Cochrane stays dead.

Darius Rucker has become the first black man since the days of Charley Pride to top the country music charts. When he was fronting Hootie & The Blowfish, Rucker was the whitest black man to top the rock music charts.

• The Very Worst

When you read that the government has “bailed out” Fannie May and Freddie Mac, it means that taxpayers, many of whom were bankrupted and foreclosed upon due to the usurious lending practices of Fannie and Freddie, will now pay many billions of dollars to keep the two in business.

A 22-year-old calling herself Natalie Dylan is auctioning off her virginity to finance her education in Women’s Studies and Family Counseling. Dylan says she lives in a capitalist society and is capitalizing on her virginity. Whatever her rationale, we don’t think a prostitute should be counseling anybody’s family.

With more than 27,000 machinists on strike from Boeing, the world’s top-selling maker of airplanes, the U.S. economy will take another blow as it loses business to global trade. Gee, and the economy had been on such an upswing.