MONDAY, JANUARY 30 This week of national disgrace, civic excitement, and dramatically foiled sports aspirations kicked off in West Virginia, where today brought the surprise discovery of more than 250 illegally dumped animal carcasses in a wooded area near the town of Capon Bridge. Details on the 4,000-pound heap of death—featuring the carcasses of mice, rats, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, hawks, and deer—come from the Associated Press, which reports the majority of the corpses belonged to cats and dogs, some of which were decapitated, while others sported ID and vaccination tags, indicating they once were pets. As for a culprit: Virginia authorities believe today's carcass dump to be tied to an unnamed facility in Fairfax County, which remains under investigation. Fun fact: Illegal carcass dumping carries a fine of $25,000 for every 24 hours the carcass heap remains. Not-so-fun fact: Wednesday will bring the deaths of two more West Virginia miners, kicking the state's mine-accident death toll to 16 within the past 30 days. (Considering the deadly dangers of coal mining, can't we get robots to do it? And can't the displaced miners move to jobs installing and repairing the coal-mining robots?)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 Speaking of brilliant ideas: today, Democrats in the U.S. Senate had none. They stood idly by—among the ruins of their failed "filibuster attempt"—while the Senate voted 58-42 to confirm Judge Samuel Alito's placement on the U.S. Supreme Court. Speaking of hideous tragedies whose meanings may take decades to assess: Today also brought the saga of Brett T. Arnes, the 35-year-old Ellensburg man whose life came to an abrupt and mysterious end several hours after midnight tonight in the eastbound lanes of I-90. Details, as usual, come from the Associated Press: After crashing his pickup into an I-90 guardrail around 4:00 a.m., Mr. Arnes—who owned three Eastern Washington McDonald's franchises—exited his vehicle, took off all his clothes, and stood in the second eastbound lane, where he was soon struck and killed by a truck. Authorities have no idea why Arnes removed his clothing—temperatures remained around freezing until daybreak—and were further baffled by the discovery of a dead dog, whose fresh carcass was found straddling two eastbound lanes near Arnes's truck. Was the pooch the nude McDonald's owner's pet? Or had it come to feast on his naked remains? Did the McDonald's owned by Arnes pay him tribute on their outdoor signage ("RIP MR. ARNES MCFLURRIES 99¢")? Or did his weird nudity disqualify him from such public commemoration? We may never know. But Last Days promises you this: No more stories involving animal carcasses for the rest of the week.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1 Today brought President George W. Bush's State of the Union address, a nationally televised publicity stunt Last Days simply couldn't bear to watch—not even as monkey performance art, not even baked out of our skull. There's no escape from the fact that for the next three years, we're stuck with the stupidest and most dangerous president the nation's ever known. As for tonight's speech, word on the street says Dubya made unprecedented remarks about "America's addiction to oil" (how brave is the second-term president; maybe now he'll get around to admitting there's such a thing as global warming), urged the Palestinians' newly elected Hamas government to refute its Israel-obliterating founding principles, and dished up plenty of shit about freedom. "Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer," said our President, without laughing. "And so we will act boldly in freedom's cause." For a final word, Last Days turns to Robert Borosage, codirector of the Campaign for America's Future: "The show is over," writes Borosage in TomPaine.com. "For Americans, what is left is a matter of assessing the losses and trying to figure out what can get us out of the mess. For that we'll need an opposition movement offering a dramatic change of course, not the feeble timidity revealed in the current Democratic slogan of 'We can do better.'"

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2 Speaking of failures of democracy (alleged homicidal-hate-crime division): Tonight in New Bedford, Massachusetts, all hell broke loose after 18-year-old Jacob D. Robida entered the gay nightclub Puzzles, then went crazy. As an eyewitness bartender told the Associated Press, Robida entered the club with a fake ID, after which he soon produced a hatchet, which the 18-year-old reportedly used to attack a pool-playing patron, severely cutting the man's face. After being tackled by bar patrons, Robida produced a gun, shooting one man in the chest and another in the back before fleeing into the night. While authorities searched for the on-the-lam teen, reporters searched for clues to his motive. According to the AP, officers searching Robida's bedroom found Nazi regalia and anti-Semitic writings on the wall, while friends described Robida as a high-school dropout who glorified Nazism but never expressed any specific hatred for the gays. On Saturday, Robida's run from justice will come to a close after a deadly shootout in Gassville, Arkansas, during which Robida will fatally shoot a police officer as well as the female passenger in his getaway car before being critically wounded by two police bullets to the head. The next day, at a hospital in Springfield, Missouri, Robida will die, handily escaping charges of murder, attempted murder, assault, and assorted civil rights violations.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3 Speaking of alleged hate crimes: Today Last Days turns to the stinky wad of shit that is Tim Eyman, the compunction-free fucktard who this week capped his splashy pseudo-career of ballot-initiative mongering by filing a referendum and initiative to put the freshly passed House Bill 2661 on the November ballot. As readers will remember, HB 2661 outlawed discrimination against homosexuals in matters of employment, housing, and banking. Should Eyman have his way, the rights of gays and lesbians to claim the same protections as other minorities would be put to public vote. Never mind the inherent stupidity of deciding minority rights though majority opinion; for now, Last Days is simply content to envision Eyman roasting on a spit in Hell.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4 Nothing happened today, unless you count the aforementioned fatal wounding of the gun- and hatchet-wielding teen from that Massachusetts gay bar.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5 The week ends with the motherfucking Super Bowl, wherein the Seattle Seahawks battled the Pittsburgh Steelers, and, unfortunately, lost. Still, congrats to the Seahawks on a most thrilling season, which gave this sleepy burg a much-needed jolt of civic pride in a year of chronic suck. (See Wednesday.) In closing, may the Super Bowl referees roast on the same Hell-spit as Tim Eyman and that gay-bar hatchet kid.

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