Back from hiatus: News of note: July 24-30

Sound smart
Most of the nation dealt with a major heat wave as health officials advised people to stay inside and avoid strenuous activity.
FINALLY! A validation of my chosen lifestyle ...

The space shuttle Discovery successfully launched Tuesday and later docked with the space station. Unfortunately, while studying cosmic radiation, things went horribly awry and the astronauts' genetic makeup was altered, giving some of them superpowers and some of them superbad makeovers, and rendering them all incapable of decent dialogue or character and plot development.
Or that might have been a movie. I forget.

On Thursday, the Irish Republican Army said it would stop using violence in its quest to unify Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic. Damn terrorists -- ruining everyone else's violence.

Congress passed a huge energy bill, one of the main tenets of which was expanding daylight-saving time. Of course, whatever energy this saves will probably be expended by people trying to reset their VCRs and computers because I'm pretty sure Congress just screwed over every piece of electronics with the ability to automatically adjust for daylight-saving time.

Some astronomers claim to have found a 10th planet in our solar system -- an object larger than Pluto orbiting the sun. This has rekindled the debate over what constitutes a planet, though most agree it should be at least as big as Al Roker before the gastric bypass surgery.


Boring, but important
The nation's largest labor union, the AFL-CIO, basically fell apart when the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union took their workers and went home Monday. Other groups plan to follow suit over differences in how the organization is run. Labor union, huh? More like labor disunion! Oh, zing!



And now for some good news
Has anyone noticed that we haven't heard anything from Tom Cruise or Katie Holmes about their amazing love now that their respective movies have been playing for a bit? Hmmm ... funny that. Of course, that could also be because the Scientologists have locked Katie in a closet until she produces Tom's spawn, so perhaps I shouldn't make light just yet.

On Sunday, Lance Armstrong won his seventh and final Tour de France before retiring. Rob Corddry put it best on "The Daily Show" when he said: "Now, Americans can finally get back to not caring about cycling."


What the ...?!?
Finally an explanation for why cats are so finicky: Apparently they're genetically unable to taste sweets. This explains why they seem so indifferent to things we consider so tasty. That and the fact that sweets are just a distraction from their plot to take control of your house and the planet.

After a number of complaints, including from a congressman, the producers of the movie "Wedding Crashers" removed a printable Purple Heart from the film's Web site. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., who wants to make such a thing illegal, said: "If any moviegoers take the advice of the 'Wedding Crashers' and try to use fake Purple Hearts to get girls, they may wind up picking up an FBI agent instead."
Well, OK, but is she a hot FBI agent?