Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

Under the presumed influence of White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, who collects photographs of President George W. Bush's hands, Karl Rove was relieved of his position as presidential policy adviser in order that he might focus his energies on the November midterm elections, and White House press secretary Scott McClellan resigned. “One of these days,” the President said of McClellan, “he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days.”^{1 2 3} In Iraq, three U.S. soldiers were killed by a bomb and at least 27 Iraqis were killed in other violence. President Bush phoned the newly elected Iraqi prime minister-designate Jawad al-Maliki, parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, and president Jalal Talabani to urge them to form a coalition government. “They have awesome responsibilities,” said the President, “to their people.”^{4 5} Via audiotape, Osama bin Laden called on his followers to travel to Sudan and fight against the U.N. forces in Darfur.⁶ Chinese President Hu Jintao visited with President Bush in Washington, D.C. A Falun Gong protester interrupted the welcoming ceremony; President Bush apologized to Hu, and also called on Hu to appreciate the value of the yuan.^{7 8} British doctors criticized China for harvesting organs for transplant from thousands of executed prisoners.⁹ In Florida, a beehive with 15,000 bees was removed from a tree,¹⁰ and a man was arrested for keeping his mother at home for months after she died so that he could keep cashing her Social Security checks.¹¹ Pawn-shop owners in Texas noted that more people were pawning their belongings in order to buy gas.¹² The New York Stock Exchange was considering a merger with the London Stock Exchange.¹³

Representative Alan B. Mollohan (D., W.Va.), whose real estate holdings and other assets reportedly rose in value from $562,000 to at least $6.3 million between 2000 and 2004, temporarily stepped down from the House ethics committee after being accused of misusing funds.¹⁴ Singer Mary J. Blige said that she had found God. “My God is a God who wants me to have things,” she said. “He wants me to bling.”¹⁵ A member of MiniKiss, a KISS tribute band made up of dwarves, denied that he had tried to sneak past security at a Las Vegas concert of Tiny Kiss, a KISS tribute band made up of three little people and a 350-pound woman.¹⁶ An Oakland, California, carpenter named Percy Honnibal was in trouble for carpentering naked.¹⁷ In Toluca, Mexico, a priest admitted to strangling and dismembering his pregnant lover after Easter mass,¹⁸ and in Acapulco, Mexico, the heads of a police chief and a police officer were found in front of a government building. A sign next to the heads read: “So that you learn respect.”¹⁹ An elderly Miami man was in trouble for going door-to-door offering free breast exams,²⁰ and a woman in El Salvador was in trouble for allegedly attempting to smuggle a live grenade and marijuana into a prison via a container stuffed into her vagina.²¹ In the Netherlands authorities fined an advertiser for placing advertisements on sheep blankets. “If we start with sheep,” said Bert Kuiper, the mayor of Skarsterlan, “then next it's the cows and horses.”²²

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said that almost 100,000 people were working for the U.S. intelligence services,²³ and the recently-completed “campaign plan for the global war on terrorism” was approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The new plan calls for “special mission units” to be engaged in continuous warfare around the world; such groups will be permitted to invade a country without the approval of the country's U.S. ambassador.²⁴ The National Counterterrorism Center announced that there had been over 10,000 terrorist incidents worldwide in 2005 but noted that, because the study methodology had changed, this should not be seen as an increase over the 3,192 terrorist incidents of 2004. “Technically,” said a State Department spokesman, “you could say that there might be a larger number of incidents from one year to another, but it’s comparing apples and oranges.”²⁵ It was reported that firms performing contract work for KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary that provides basic services to the U.S. military in Iraq, were violating human trafficking laws and confiscating the passports of their employees.²⁶ The CIA fired Mary McCarthy, a senior analyst, for leaking information about the CIA's network of secret prisons in Eastern Europe to a reporter from the Washington Post.²⁷ Greenpeace estimated that over the last 20 years 93,000 people have died from the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,²⁸ and over 20 years after a gas leak at the Bhopal chemical plant killed thousands of people, India agreed to fund a cleanup of the site.²⁹ Scientists reported that ichthyoallyeinotoxic fishes--such as mullet, goatfish, tangs, damsels, and rabbitfish--could produce LSD-like hallucinations in those who ate them.³⁰ In England a man drowned after diving into the river Ouse to rescue his girlfriend's shoes,³¹ and Belgian researchers found that men lose their decision-making skills when exposed to an attractive woman.³² In Hawaii a new law was passed that allows a mother to take home her placenta, or “iewe,” and bury it under a tree,³³ and Malaysian wildlife officials denied reports that they had captured a baby Bigfoot.³⁴ Brazil was planning to open a uranium-enrichment center,³⁵ a woman in Los Angeles was hospitalized for bubonic plague,³⁶ and researchers discovered that the buried lakes of Antarctica are connected to one another by secret rivers.³⁷