Reading the paper, so you don't have to

Because the paper is dying anyway, and taking my chances of gainful employment down into Davy Jones' locker with it...

–France is burning because Villepin and Sarkozy are having a cock-size contest over who will succeed Chirac in the next presidential election.
–The GOP was dealt a clear message by gubernatorial asskickings in the Garden State and the Commonwealth of Virginia; the political capital dries up, at last.
–The Keystone State sees four of it's antediluvian school board lunkheads denied another term, having been dealt losses in local elections. The case for Intelligent "Jesus and the Holy Spook Built Euglena-tails with Drywall from Home Depot" Design will more or less go by the wayside in Dover County, Pa.
–Not so good in Kansas: The school board in Topeka is allowing a drastic gutting of evolution teaching, allowing the Discovery Center's book "Of People and Pandas" to take hold. A precedent is set, folk (singular).
–Ahmed Chalabi is back! Visiting his old friends in Washington who won't talk to him anymore (because he helped sell a false reason for war), he's here in the capacity of deputy somethingorother with the Iraqi gummint, so they HAVE TO TALK TO HIM NOW. "God, you guys, just one call. It's not like I want to hang out or anything."

Bad news? Burning? Honor killings? Suicide bombs in Jordan? Check, check, and checkaroonie – we gots it all.