Good week, bad week

Good week for:

Lead-foots, after Texas took steps toward raising the speed limit on some of the state’s highways to 85 mph, the highest in the U.S.

Hoarding gold, after Scrooge McDuck topped Forbes’s list of the wealthiest imaginary characters. The rich Disney duck’s fortune, which is mostly in gold coins, soared 30 percent to an imaginary $44.1 billion. On the strength of rising oil prices, Jed Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies placed fifth, with $9.5 billion.

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Birthers, after a poll of Republican voters elevated real estate mogul Donald Trump to a first-place tie with Mike Huckabee on a list of possible 2012 presidential candidates. A gleeful Trump, who’s been questioning President Obama’s citizenship, said he’d run as an independent if he doesn’t get the GOP nomination.

Bad week for:

Internet security, after authorities arrested a 75-year-old woman for allegedly cutting off the Internet in Georgia, neighboring Armenia, and Central Asia when she tried to dig up a fiber-optic cable for scrap metal. “I have no idea what the Internet is,’’ said a shaken Aishtan Shakarian.

Ryan James Stephen of Mason, Ohio, who was charged with a misdemeanor for barking and snarling at a police dog, after telling police, “The dog started it.”

Do-it-yourself repairs, after a British woman tried to even out a chipped rim on an old Chinese vase by hitting it with a hammer. She later discovered that the vase was from the Qing Dynasty, and that her repair work had reduced its value by $326,000.