The week begins (and the year ends) with a life-affirming story from Canada, where the national transport ministry has unveiled plans to make it harder for Canadians to kill themselves. Each year, several hundred Canadians consign themselves to the seventh circle of Hell via the colorless, tasteless, odorless killing power of carbon monoxide, found most commonly in car exhaust. Today Reuters revealed the particulars of Transport Canada's anti-suicide-by-exhaust stance, which employs Last Days' favorite, the three-pronged approach. Prong #1: Requiring car makers to install suicide-resistant tailpipes, which foil would-be suicides by re-routing fumes through hidden venting under the auto when a hose is attached to the exhaust pipe. (Ford and Nissan have already developed prototypes of such pipes, which would cost around $2.50 per car.) Prong #2: Educating people about the deadliness of exhaust fumes. (Uh, isn't the deadliness the point?) Prong #3: Doing nothing, and hoping people stop sucking fumes on their own. Transport Canada has given car makers, importers, and public safety groups until February 1 to comment on its prongs; as one for whom suicide by exhaust has frequently been a reasonable and comforting Plan B, Last Days unequivocally plumps for prong #3.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 1

Today brought the beginning of a new year. To celebrate, Last Days offers this cautionary tale from Christchurch, New Zealand, where a schoolteacher learned a chemically enhanced lesson about the dangers (and pleasures) of sweets from a stranger. "I thought you'd enjoy these. I know they're your favorites!" So read the note on the box of chocolates found by a New Zealand schoolteacher in his residential mailbox. Never mind that the package sported a British postmark and was addressed to a stranger--our hero wasted no time in scarfing three of the mystery chocolates before giving one each to his sister and brother-in-law, who soon after began feeling "weird." Inspecting the candy, the family found small round tablets encased in plastic wrap inside eight of the remaining chocolates, which authorities later confirmed to be the teeth-clenching, affection-boosting party drug Ecstasy. Reuters reports that the family was "extremely worried" after its accidental E dosings, but family members have since received clean bills of health from their doctors, and clean bills of crime from the police. "Obviously, the three people who ate the chocolates are not going to be charged with possession," said Christchurch constable Greg Sutherland. "They'd never even heard of Ecstasy."

··Also today: Hot on the heels of Winona Ryder's shameful Saks shoplifting spree comes another tale of superfluous thievery, this one from Vancouver, BC, where police are on the lookout for a legless man wanted for allegedly stealing 10 pairs of pants from the Gap. Reuters reports that a number of witnesses saw the wheelchair-bound man flee a West Vancouver Gap store carrying $1,600 worth of tastefully casual pants and jackets. Police are still searching for the differently-abled pants bandit, who authorities say escaped the scene of the crime in a car that had previously been reported stolen.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2

Just when you thought it was safe to leave the house, today brought news of a ghastly public grooming incident in Queen Anne. This evening at Uptown Cinemas, Hot Tipper Trish was just settling down to enjoy Wes Anderson's Salinger-gone-slapstick opus The Royal Tenenbaums when her eyes fell on a sight almost too gruesome to report. "I was waiting for the movie to start," writes Trish, "when I noticed this girl holding her bare feet in her lap. When I looked again [fragile readers, stop now], she was rubbing lotion on them." Trish concludes her Hot Tip with the age-old question: "What the fuck was that hippie bitch thinking?" Dear Trish: Unfortunately Last Days is unable to tell you what was going through Ms. Lubriped's mind when she executed her atrocity. But we can tell you what was going through ours when we read about it: Fatwa.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 3

Today Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivered a national address on the United States' continuing military action in Afghanistan. Last Days watched the televised address in its entirety; unfortunately, all we can recall is Rumsfeld's mirthful smirk upon entering, his sonorous drone while speaking, and his curious pronunciations of the words Taliban, which rhymed with "Cinnabon," and bin Laden, which rhymed with "Iron Maiden."

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4

Speaking of would-be Satanists (Iron Maiden, not Donald Rumsfeld--there's nothing would-be about him): Today the Independent UK told the bewitching tale of Josephine Gray, the 55-year-old Maryland woman currently under investigation for insurance fraud. However, swindling State Farm is perhaps the least of Ms. Gray's deeds. Since 1974, two of Josephine Gray's husbands and one of her lovers have been shot dead, with each of the deaths followed by allegations that Ms. Gray used "dark powers" to enlist accomplices to kill them. In each case, incriminating evidence against Ms. Gray evaporated when witnesses abruptly refused to cooperate amid spooky stories of incantations, potions, and voodoo spells. "I do not practice voodoo and I do not practice witchcraft," said Ms. Gray when she was charged with her second husband's death. "Just because I go and buy a lucky charm to play the lottery and buy herbs, or take olive oil and anoint myself, that's in the Bible." What isn't in the Bible are the insurance policies Gray took out on each of the deceased, from which she collected $165,000. Prosecutors now say that Gray's insurance settlements violated a Maryland law banning a person from receiving benefits if they caused or participated in the death of the insured. Armed with enough evidence to prove that Josephine Gray was at least involved in the killings, prosecutors are confident they can finally secure a conviction against the murderous would-be witch.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5

Today in Tampa, Florida, a 15-year-old boy flew a Cessna plane into a 42-story Bank of America building, killing himself and baffling everyone else. The facts of the young kamikaze's life reveal little with regard to motive: A high-school honors student, Charles Bishop largely kept to himself, enjoying the company of his terrier and his dream of one day owning a Honda Civic. (It's true; he told a classmate.) But never mind the mystery. In this age of relentless murder-suicides, Charles Bishop is just the kind of wacko we need--clean, direct, quiet, and hurting no one but himself. Congratulations to Mr. Bishop on a psycho deed well done.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 6

To conclude the week, Last Days ventured to the scene of Wednesday's heinous foot-rubbing crime, Queen Anne's Uptown Cinemas. And while we were mercifully spared the sight of a patchouli-drenched lassie oiling her hooves, we were quite unmercifully dragged into a moral and emotional hurricane by In the Bedroom, the beautiful new film by Todd Fields, and the finest tribute to American understatement and cinematic good taste since The Last Picture Show. Last Days apologizes for going all Larry King on your asses, but we simply must inform you that In the Bedroom is the best movie we've seen this year, and demand that you go see it right now.

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