Lawrence.com

WHAT HATH GOD BOUGHT?

The Christmas shopping season officially kicked off with "Black Friday" last week, where retailers offer dramatic discounts in order to lure shoppers over the Thanksgiving weekend. Sales on Friday and Saturday rose 7.2 percent to $16.4 billion from the same two-day period a year ago. "Black Friday" is now traditionally followed by "Cyber Monday," when people return to work and shop online.*:Analysts predict the holiday shopping season will benefit the health of both the overall economy and of individual shoppers. "Door crashing, eye gouging consumerism in the name of celebrating Jesus' birthday is the most exercise our fat American asses get all year," said a really cynical bastard.

TIGER BEAT

Missouri defeated Kansas 36-28 Saturday night and ended the Jayhawks bid for the national title game. Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing-who hadn't thrown an interception in over 200 attempts-was picked off twice, each one leading to a Missouri touchdown. KU's Scott Webb missed two field goals in the second quarter. KU's run at the Big 12 title also ended, but KU could still play in a BCS bowl game to end the season.*:Since this was a major loss in the "Border War" between long-standing Civil War rivals, Kansas will observe the rules of engagement and now revert to a slave-owning state.

HAVE BONG, WILL TRAVEL

The Wakarusa Music & Camping Festival was denied a special event permit for next summer in Jefferson County. In the previous four years, the jam band heavy fest has been at Clinton State Park west of Lawrence. Organizers said the festival is still considering venues for June 2008 and are exploring contract options for the festival returning to Lawrence.*...Lawrence business owners were initially upset that the loss of the festival would mean a loss of potential revenue, but then they remembered that hippies don't have any money anyway.

BLACK PEOPLE ARE SCARY

A hearing on whether to renew the liquor license of downtown nightclub Last Call wrapped up last week. The city of Lawrence argued before the Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) committee that Last Call was a danger to public safety and should be shut down, pointing to numerous incidents of gun-related activity in and around the hip-hop club. Lawyers and witnesses for Last Call claim the city's efforts are motivated by race. "There's a thing called fear of a black dance floor," Topeka disc jockey Vandom Pittman told the director of the ABC. "Anyplace there are more than 10 black people, unless it is a church, there's fear."*:Lawrence's lawyers responded: "We treat every nightclub exactly the same, but Last Call is special. We prefer to think of it as-oh, I don't know-'separate but equal.'" Last Call attempted to respond, but was cut short and told to "knock it off with that angry hippity hop."

WHOSE COVER DID THE PRESIDENT BLOW AND WHEN DID HE BLOW IT?

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, in an upcoming book, blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. "I had unknowingly passed along false information," writes McClellan. "And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: (Karl) Rove, (Scooter) Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."*:President Bush, rather than denying McClellan's accusation, seemingly felt liberated upon hearing the news. He proceeded to award columnist Robert Novak with the first-ever Presidential Medal of Douchebaggery, renamed Crawford, Texas, "Scootertown" by executive order, and granted himself a pro-active pardon while snorting a pulverized copy of the Bill of Rights.

POLITICAL HACK

The Kansas attorney general's office said Lawrence Mayor Sue Hack technically violated portions of the state's conflict of interest laws for owning stock in a company to which the city awarded a major tax incentive. The AG's office said Hack created an "appearance of impropriety" by not disclosing her holdings in Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, but that she would not be prosecuted.*:Hack was so upset by the corruption allegations, she allowed Deciphera to buy her a relaxing, all-expenses-paid golf trip to Cancun.

THE DROWNED AND THE FURY

The death toll from the cyclone that battered Bangladesh last week rose to 3,243. International donors pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild Bangladesh's ravaged coast, but help wasn't coming fast enough for thousands of homeless survivors who rioted over meager rice handouts.*:Pervez Musharraf, military dictator of nearby Pakistan, blamed the cyclone on Muslim extremists and declared martial law against "subversive meteorological influences." Thousands of tropical depressions have since been rounded up and imprisoned.

LIFE-O-SUCTION

Donda West, the mother of rap superstar Kanye West, died suddenly on November 10 after undergoing cosmetic surgery. Her funeral was held last week in Spencer, Okla. Jan Adams, the surgeon who operated on West, walked off the set of Larry King Live just minutes after he sat down to talk to the late-night host about the events leading up to and following the death.*:Adams stormed out of the taping when it was revealed that, instead of performing simple liposuction on West as originally scheduled, he had inexplicably stapled a cougar to her ass.