Good week, bad week

Good week for:

Customer service, after al Qaida’s branch in Iraq and Syria set up a complaints department for “anyone who might have a complaint against any element of the Islamic state.” The organization promised “accountability.”

Really prompt delivery, after Domino’s asked a British company to test the feasibility of delivering pizzas by drone. “We’re serious about it,” said Tom Hatton, the founder of the company, which just used a small drone to test-deliver two pepperoni pizzas.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Brevity, after Germany killed off an arcane law, thus retiring the longest word in the German language: Rindfleischetikettierungsue-berwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz. It meant, “the law delegating beef label monitoring.’’

Bad week for:

Failing to scoop, after the Spanish town of Brunete drastically cut the amount of dog poop on its streets by mailing offending deposits back to the owners in boxes marked “Lost Property.”

Gaming the system, after a North Carolina postal worker receiving workers’ compensation payments for a shoulder injury suffered nine years ago was forced to admit she was a fraud. The worker gave herself away by appearing on TV’s The Price Is Right and spinning the “big wheel” twice without difficulty.

Doomed romances, after a confused young moose bull became obsessed with a life-size, metal statue of a moose in a Colorado garden, repeatedly nuzzling it and trying to mount it. Said a witness to the moose’s ardor: “He’s in love.”