MONDAY, JUNE 29 This week kicks off with a long-awaited day of reckoning for the perpetrator and beneficiary of what the New York Times hailed as "the largest, longest, and most widespread Ponzi scheme in history": Bernie Madoff was sentenced today on an array of federal crimes including securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, perjury, and making false filings to the SEC. Condemning Madoff's crimes as "extraordinarily evil," Federal District Judge Denny Chin pointed out that no friends, family, or other supporters had submitted any letters on Mr. Madoff's behalf before giving the disgraced financier the maximum sentence of 150 years in prison. Various victims were on hand to twist the knife, including Michael Schwartz, who said Madoff had stolen funds he'd set aside to sustain his disabled brother and expressed hope that "[Madoff's] jail cell will become his coffin," and Burt Ross, who lost $5 million to Madoff's fraud and cited Dante's Divine Comedy, sharing his dream that when Mr. Madoff dies—"virtually unmourned"—he will find himself in the lowest circle of hell.

TUESDAY, JUNE 30 Speaking of American sociopaths: The week continues with Sarah Palin, the failed vice-presidential nominee/not-yet-failed governor of Alaska (the week is young) who today made headlines as the subject of Todd S. Purdum's Vanity Fair profile "It Came from Wasilla," a kaleidoscopically damning portrait of the politician as a proudly ignorant loon with a deep persecution complex, a hair trigger for perceived betrayal, and shockingly little regard for what lesser people call the truth. As countless readers were thrilled to discover, Purdum is unafraid to broach the big subjects. Palin's questionable political prospects: "Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice presidency? How could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life's injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?" And her questionable mental state: "More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin's extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of 'narcissistic personality disorder' in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—'a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy'—and thought it fit her perfectly. When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig's condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God's, and signed it 'Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father.'" Thanks to Purdum and Vanity Fair for their invaluable piece of Palinalia—now let's never speak of that woman again.

••Also today: The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state's second U.S. Senate seat be filled by Democrat Al Franken instead of Republican Norm Coleman, putting an end to an eight-month election battle and giving Democrats a rare, filibuster-hobbling supermajority in the Senate. Congratulations to Senator Franken, who's made it clear to every child in America that making fun of Rush Limbaugh is as good a way as any to launch a political career.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1 Nothing happened today, unless you count the death of Karl Malden, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning star of A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and The Streets of San Francisco, who passed away today at age 97, or the horrification of Hot Tipper Super Jive, who was riding this morning's 271 Metro to Bellevue when she was assaulted by the sight of a young woman assiduously scraping out her facial pores with her bus pass.

THURSDAY, JULY 2 In much better news, today New Delhi became the first Indian city to legalize homosexuality, with the Delhi High Court striking down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code—created in 1861 by the British and making consensual sex between same-sex adult partners a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison—as a violation of fundamental rights. As New Delhi's NDTV reports, today's repeal of Section 377 will also mean changes in New Delhi's civil laws pertaining to inheritance, property, and adoption. Hurrah and onward.

FRIDAY, JULY 3 Today brings Sarah Palin's cuckoo, wacko freak-out on national television, 18 rambling minutes of Alaskan flattery, persecution paranoia, tortured sports metaphors, junior-high journaling, and random lip-flappings that ultimately communicated Palin's abrupt resignation as Alaska's governor. The closest thing Palin gave to a reason for quitting: the Democrat-and-liberal-media-fueled "politics of personal destruction"—a rich allegation from a politician who had no trouble charging Barack Obama with "pallin' around with terrorists" while straining to bury all evidence of her family's extensive connections to the secession-seeking Alaska Independence Party. But as today made clear, expecting constancy or even sanity from Palin is a fool's game. Whatever she does next, it will be highly mockable and lightly terrifying.

SATURDAY, JULY 4 The week continues with Independence Day, which we'll celebrate by acknowledging the seven ballistic missiles fired off the eastern coast of North Korea today. "Our military is fully ready to counter any North Korean threats and provocations," stated the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Happy birthday, USA, and back the fuck off, North Korea.

SUNDAY, JULY 5 And now for an update on the revolution in Iran, with this weekend bringing what an Iranian scholar called "the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic." The Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, an influential group of Iranian religious leaders, yesterday denounced the country's disputed presidential election and new government as illegitimate, directly defying the "supreme authority" of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As the New York Times reports, "The announcement came on a day when [favored presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi] released documents detailing a campaign of fraud by the current president's supporters... [accusing them] of printing more than 20 million extra ballots before the vote and handing out cash bonuses to voters." Meanwhile, a "close associate" of the supreme leader denounced would-be president-elect Moussavi as a "foreign agent" who should be treated as a criminal. Stay tuned.

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