Weekly Review

By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi

In Iraq, a car bomb in Basra killed at least 33 people, ¹ a mortar attack in southern Baghdad killed 9 people,² and 8 U.S. soldiers died.³ Police found 22 bodies with bullet wounds and signs of torture in Baghdad;⁴ northwest of the city, at an improvised checkpoint, 19 civilians were dragged from their cars and shot.⁵ Twenty-one Kurds and Shiites, many of them high school students, were ordered off a bus and executed in Ain Laila.⁶ In Baquba 7 policemen were killed,⁷ and the heads of 8 Sunni men were found in Dole banana boxes.^{8 9} Six more policemen were killed in Mosul.¹⁰ A Baghdad pet market was bombed, killing 5 people and several doves.^{11 12} It was reported that a U.S. Marine had been traumatized by his experiences cleaning up and documenting the alleged massacre of civilians by other marines in Haditha. “He called me many times,” said the marine's mother, “about carrying this little girl in his hands and her brains splattering on his boots.”¹³ A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 90 days' hard labor for threatening a prisoner at Abu Ghraib with a dog in 2003. “You can . . . end up losing the whole dang war,” said the prosecuting attorney, “basically for boneheaded decisions and misjudgments.”¹⁴ The United States announced that it would join 5 other nations in demanding that Iran immediately suspend uranium-enrichment activities, although the country would in the future be allowed to develop some civilian nuclear technologies. Iran said it would refuse to engage in talks unless all conditions were dropped, and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the United States could endanger its oil supply if it makes a “wrong move” toward Iran.^{15 16 17} Iran's military was reported to have planned a campaign of decentralized guerilla warfare in the event of a U.S. invasion, ¹⁸ and oil rose to $73 a barrel.¹⁹ John Allen Muhammad, the Beltway Sniper, was sentenced to 6 consecutive life sentences.²⁰

It was determined that New Orleans was sinking faster than previously thought.²¹ A potent drug cocktail killed at least 48 people in Detroit,²² monsoon storms killed more than 40 people in and around Bombay,²³ and an earthquake in Iran killed one little girl.²⁴ President George W. Bush named Goldman Sachs Group Chairman Henry Paulson Jr as the new Secretary of the Treasury,²⁵ and an Ohio coin dealer named John Noe pleaded guilty to charges that he illegally funneled more than $45,000 to Bush's reelection campaign.²⁶ British police were patrolling seaports and airports in order to prevent football hooligans from attending the World Cup in Berlin, ²⁷ and the European Court of Justice ruled that E.U. airlines are not required to provide passenger data to the United States.²⁸ California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered 1,000 National Guard soldiers to the Mexican border.²⁹ The United States declared a moratorium on wind farms in Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.³⁰ Ted Nugent denied both poking his erect penis through a map of West Virginia and urinating on a nun.³¹ It was reported that Umberto Billo, a Venetian hotel porter, had slept with 8,000 women,³² and the worldwide rate of HIV infections stabilized for the first time in history.³³ Montenegro declared independence from Serbia,³⁴ and the first wild bear seen in Germany since 1835 continued to attack farm animals and elude capture. “For security purposes,” said Bavarian Environment Minister Werner Schnappauf, “the permission to open fire must be maintained.” Authorities said the brother of the bear had killed Swiss sheep last summer.³⁵ Elizabeth Taylor denied reports that her health was failing,³⁶ and archaeologists in Rome dug up a 3,000-year-old female skeleton.³⁷

Researchers studying a shipwreck off Cape Cod discovered the remains of a nine-year-old pirate named John King,³⁸ a zoo in Vancouver was charged with cruelty to a hippo,³⁹ and officials in south India said that they had captured an alcohol-abusing, homicidal rogue elephant named Master Killer.^{40 41} In China doctors were trying to determine which left arm to remove from a three-armed baby.⁴² In New Jersey a 13-year-old girl was arrested for attempting to kill her 91-year-old neighbor;⁴³ in Washington, D.C., a 13-year-old girl won the Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling “Ursprache”;⁴⁴ and in New York City a 13-year-old girl (who may be an exotic dancer) abducted a 3-year-old boy.⁴⁵ Dutch pedophiles founded a political party that will push to lower the Netherlands' age of consent from 16 to 12, and eventually to scrap it altogether. “A ban,” said a party co-founder, “just makes children curious.” ⁴⁶ British scientists powered a small fan by feeding chocolate to bacteria, ⁴⁷ an Ohio man was awarded a patent for a cordless jump rope,⁴⁸ and a Japanese acoustics expert recreated the voice of the Mona Lisa. “My true identity,” said the virtual Mona Lisa, “is shrouded in mystery.”⁴⁹ Pakistan banned The Da Vinci Code. “Degradation of any prophet,” said Minister of Culture Ghulam Jamal, “is tantamount to defamation of the rest.” ⁵⁰ Two people died when a plane owned by Pat Robertson crashed off the coast of Connecticut,⁵¹ and a snake bit a woman at a Wal-Mart in Florida. “Thank goodness for sweat pants with elastic,” said the woman, “because he tried to climb up my britches' leg.”⁵² A woman married a cobra in the Indian state of Orissa. “Though snakes cannot speak or understand,” said the bride, “we communicate in a peculiar way.”⁵³ A senior citizens' community in Washington was overrun by marmots.⁵⁴ A cave in Israel was found to contain a complete ecosystem that had been sealed off for millions of years, ⁵⁵ gGeologists identified the impact site of a giant meteor that is suspected of having wiped out most life on earth a quarter-billion years ago, ⁵⁶ and an international team of scientists announced that the North Pole was once an ice-free area with tropical temperatures. “Basically,” explained palaeoecologist Appy Sluijs, “it looks like the earth released a gigantic fart of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”⁵⁷ It was declared that Batwoman will be a lesbian.⁵⁸