VBVW for October 24, 2008: Lost And Floundering

• The Very Best

Iran announced that it will stop executing children convicted of crimes. Children are identified as those under 18 years of age, and six have been executed in 2008 alone. At this rate, Iran should pull itself out of the Middle Ages sometime in the next 400 years.

Abducted six-year oldCole Puffinburger was found safe, wandering a Las Vegas street. The kidnapping may have been a message to his grandfather, who police believe may have stolen millions of dollars from Mexican meth traffickers. Bad move, Gramps.

A new examination has revealed severaladditional amino acids in vials from the 1953 Miller–Urey experiment. The original test was an attempt to show how life could have developed on Earth from common elements. Interestingly, no accompanying instructions from God were found in the vials.

• The Very Worst

India launched a moon rocket. Start counting the days till we outsource NASA to Bangalore.

Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan admitted that he made a “mistake” in expecting that Wall Street would behave itself without regulation. Not many people make a “mistake” worth trillions of dollars, Alan. Perhaps “phenomenally colossal and unimaginably stupid screwup” would have been a better choice of words.

A 43-year-old Japanese woman was jailed after she killed her “online husband” when he divorced her in a virtual game. It is not known if the two ever met in real life, but she has been arrested for hacking into the man’s account and killing his virtual self, who can no longer play the game. Of course, he’s not really dead but he was married to her online, although she isn’t married in the real world, so there has been no response from her husband, who exists only online, but . . . you know what? Even we can’t figure this one out.