MONDAY, JUNE 7 This week of dumb thugs, doubled tragedies, and lungs full of foot dust kicks off in the Eastern District of Michigan, whose U.S. Attorney's Office today charged a father and son with conspiring to threaten, assault, kidnap and/or murder Michigan congressman Bart Stupak. Details come from the Hill, which identifies the arrested men as 73-year-old Russell Hesch and his 50-year-old son David Hesch. According to the federal complaint, father Russell wrote a letter threatening Representative Stupak and e-mailed it from his home in Michigan to his son in Denver, with instructions to print the letter and mail it to Stupak's district office with a strategically misleading Colorado postmark. "I will paint the Mackinaw Bridge with the blood of you and your family members," proclaimed the letter, which was reportedly inspired by Representative Stupak's support of U.S. health-care reform. Both father and son face maximum sentences of five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine.

TUESDAY, JUNE 8 After a heavy few weeks of flotilla fiascos, murder sprees, and course-of-humanity-altering oil spills, the week continues with a stress-busting breath of public-grooming-scented air, courtesy of Hot Tipper Megan: "Today on the number 8 bus, a toothless, potbellied old woman kept spitting into her plastic grocery bag, then setting it on the seat next to her. She'd pick up the bag, untie the handles, spit, tie the handles back together again, then set the bag back down. She repeated this every 30 seconds or so. After five or six minutes, she moved to the back of the bus, took a seat across from me, and took her sandal off. Then she spit into her bag some more. A minute later, she removed a large nail file from her purse and began filing away at the dry skin on her feet. She did this for several minutes, only stopping a couple times to pick at her toenails. I'm pretty sure I spent a good 10 minutes breathing in old-lady foot dust."

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9 The week continues with a new worst person in the world (hit the showers, Shandy Cobane!). Identified by Q13 News as Graydon Smith, he's a 31-year-old King County man whose previous conviction for domestic violence didn't deter him from allegedly repeatedly beating the crap out of his new girlfriend, a pregnant 19-year-old found by police with a smashed lip, a cut chin, and a generally banged-up head at the time of Smith's arrest. And oh yeah: "According to court documents, Smith not only abused his pregnant 19-year-old girlfriend physically and emotionally, he put it in writing, forcing her to sign a contract allowing him to 'physically assault her on any part of her body except for her pregnant belly,'" Q13 reports. Smith's attempts at lady-clobbering bureaucracy failed to impress authorities, and he remains jailed on five counts of domestic violence and assault. Among the many hoping this cartoonish case can provide some larger illumination is Barbara Langdon, executive director of the Eastside Domestic Violence Program, who told Q13, "So many victims get stuck and they think there is no hope, but for every case like this, there are hundreds of stories of women calling for help and getting out of abusive relationships, and they go on to live happy and healthy lives." True, and seriously—extended recessions make for short fuses and ready excuses, and if you find yourself mired in an abusive relationship, please override your shame/pride/fear and call the Washington State Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-562-6025.

THURSDAY, JUNE 10 Nothing happened today, unless you count the doubling of the estimate of how much oil has spewed and continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico from the out-of-control BP well on the ocean floor. "The new estimate is 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day," reports the New York Times. "That range, still preliminary, is far above the previous estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day." Also: "The higher estimates will affect not only assessments of how much environmental damage the spill has done but also how much BP might eventually pay to clean up the mess—and they will most likely increase suspicion among skeptics about how honest and forthcoming the oil company has been throughout the catastrophe." Next up: confirming if the pipe-cutting involved in last week's cap attempt diminished the flow of oil or made things much worse. Stay tuned.

FRIDAY, JUNE 11 The week continues with a refreshingly straightforward public apology from the pope, who devoted part of today's mass in St. Peter's Square to begging God to forgive the Catholic Church for committing and facilitating so much child sexual abuse. "We... insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again," said the 83-year-old pope, convincingly enough to warrant reporting by the Agence France-Presse. Still, it must be mentioned that today's papal apology comes on the heels of yesterday's papal defense of celibacy. "Some critics have suggested that the vow of celibacy may at least be partly responsible for the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church, either because it is so difficult to uphold, or because it may discourage men with normal sex drives from becoming priests," reports the Los Angeles Times. Pshaw, said the pope, rejecting calls to end the celibacy rule and praising lifelong sexual abstinence as "made possible by the grace of God... who asks us to transcend ourselves." Dear Catholic Church: Please keep your kinky deprivation/compulsion play away from the children. Thank you.

SATURDAY, JUNE 12 In much worse news: This morning in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood, a fire broke out in the two-story, three-bedroom apartment where Helen Gebregiorgis and her sister Eyerusalem had gathered their kids for a sleepover following a Friday-night screening of The Karate Kid. As the Seattle Times reports, Helen Gebregiorgis managed to flee the instantly-engulfed-in-flames apartment with her niece in her arms. Trapped inside were her sister, another niece, and her three children, all of whom were killed. Inexpressible condolences to all, including the firefighters who first arrived at the scene in a truck with a malfunctioning water pump, delaying the attack on the fire until a second (and third) truck arrived two and a half minutes later.

SUNDAY, JUNE 13 Nothing happened today, unless you count the continued search for survivors and/or victims of Friday's deadly flash flood in Arkansas. That's when, the Associated Press reports, "floodwaters rose as swiftly as 8 feet per hour, pouring through the remote valley [of the Ouachita National Forest] with such force that they peeled asphalt from roads and bark off trees." By today, the flood will have 19 confirmed victims.

Condolences to everyone, forever. Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.