Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

War erupted between Hezbollah and Israel after the Lebanese militia launched Operation Truthful Promise against Israel by crossing the border and capturing two Israeli soldiers. The operation was staged in response to Operation Summer Rains, in which Israel occupied Gaza and destroyed a large portion of the civilian infrastructure. Israel countered Operation Truthful Promise by staging Operation Just Reward against Lebanon, bombing roads, bridges, power stations, fuel depots, ports, and airports, and killing numerous civilians. Hezbollah bombed Haifa, surprising Israel with the range of its rockets and killing at least eight civilians. “You wanted an open war,” said Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah in a recorded message, “and we are heading for an open war. . . . The surprises that I have promised you will start now.”^{1 2 3 4 5 6} “What they need to do,” said President George W. Bush as he buttered a piece of bread at the G-8 summit, “is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.”^{7 8} Israel said it had no plans to attack Syria.⁹ Twenty dead bus drivers were found in Muqdadiya, Iraq, and two dead carpenters were found in Tikrit. Gunmen entered a market in Mahmudiya and killed at least 42 people; an explosion killed 25 at a cafe in Tuz Khurmatu.¹⁰ In Afghanistan 700 coalition troops occupied the town of Sangin in the Helmand province,^{11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18} and Newt Gingrich called on President Bush to admit that the United States is now involved in World War III.¹⁹

Bombings on trains and in train stations killed 181 people in Mumbai, India, and led India to postpone peace talks with Pakistan. The diamond industry of Mumbai was said to be particularly hard hit by the bombings.²⁰ Syd Barrett died.^{21 22} Scientists in Maryland found that two thirds of people who consumed the hallucinogenic drug psilocybin had extremely meaningful experiences.²³ British scientists found that playing with dolls can help improve Alzheimer's patients' communication abilities,²⁴ and scientists in Massachusetts implanted sensors in a paralyzed man's brain that allowed the man to check email.²⁵ The Pentagon issued a memo acknowledging that all prisoners in U.S. military custody were entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions. ²⁶ A German man, on trial for robbery, was caught stealing from the judge during his hearing,²⁷ and police in Seattle were looking for a gang of angry machete-wielding clowns.²⁸ The U.S. Army said that it would not renew its contract for logistics support with Halliburton.²⁹ Peter Coors, chief executive of Molson Coors Brewing Co., had his license revoked for drunk driving.³⁰

Scientists in Pennsylvania found that menarche occurs earlier in girls who live in homes with half- and step-brothers, without fathers, or in urban areas, but occurs later in girls who live with sisters. Such an adaptation, the scientists proposed, might help limit inbreeding.³¹ A girls' softball coach at Beaver Falls High School in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, was in trouble for having sex with a 17-year-old softball player,³² and Bill Clinton called on Sudan to accept foreign peacekeepers from Muslim countries.³³ Red Buttons died.³⁴ In Australia scientists found that mothers are less revolted by the smell of their child's feces than they are by the feces of other children,³⁵ and paleontologists found fossil evidence between 10 million and 20 million years old of large, meat-eating kangaroos and possibly carnivorous birds, which were nicknamed “demon ducks of doom.”³⁶ Researchers in Uganda announced that gorillas eat rotting wood for the sodium.³⁷ Bees killed four dogs in Florida. ³⁸ It was feared that the West African black rhino was extinct,³⁹ and Jack Kevorkian, who is dying, said that he would not choose suicide.⁴⁰ Chechen separatist leader Shamil Basayev died in an explosion.⁴¹ Scientists in Bologna, Italy, disinterred the eighteenth-century castrato Farinelli in the hope of finding what made him such a powerful singer,⁴² and the Vatican announced that, while it paid $9 million for the funeral of Pope John Paul II, it still made a $12.4 million profit in 2005.⁴³ In Mauritania, where local custom favors obese women and where girls are sometimes fattened up by being force-fed sweetened milk and millet porridge via a funnel, large numbers of women were attempting to lose weight for health reasons.⁴⁴ Saddam Hussein's hunger strike entered its ninth day, though he still drinks sweet coffee and other liquids.⁴⁵ In Chennai, India, more than a ton of camel meat from Dubai was destroyed at an airport after no one claimed it,⁴⁶ and a chicken in Kazakhstan laid an egg with the word “Allah” in Arabic on its shell. “We'll keep this egg,” said a farmer, “and we don't think it'll go bad.”⁴⁷