Gathering around the TV at work, Inconvenient truths

Good week for:

Gathering around the TV at work, after trading on Wall Street mysteriously fell 71 million shares—or 9.2 percent—on Monday, the day Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open by one stroke in a dramatic 18-hole playoff.

Gorgeous, rail-thin foreigners, after New York Congressman Anthony Weiner introduced a bill setting aside 1,000 “highly skilled worker” visas for international fashion models. Weiner, who is single, said he hoped to give a boost to the garment industry.

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The devil you know, after a Romanian village re-elected Mayor Neculai Ivascu even though he died shortly before the election. Ivascu had been mayor for nearly 20 years. “I know he died, but I don’t want change,” said one voter.

Bad week for:

Tightening up on bad credit, after 6-year-old Bennett Christian­sen of Illinois was approved for a credit card with a $600 limit. The boy had accurately filled in an application, listing his birth date as 2002 and his income as $0.

Further blasphemies, after the Vatican forbade the makers of a sequel to author Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code from filming on its grounds or in any Catholic church in Rome. “Usually we read the script, but in this case it wasn’t necessary,’’ said spokesman Rev. Marco Fibbi. “Just the name Dan Brown was enough.”

Inconvenient truths, after it was revealed that Al Gore’s energy consumption at his spacious Tennessee home rose 10 percent in 2007, despite the installation of solar panels and more efficient light bulbs. Gore still consumes 50 percent more electricity every month than the average American does in a year.