Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

North Korea launched six rockets over the Sea of Japan, including a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile, which apparently was aborted after just 40 seconds. One thing we have learned, said President George W. Bush, who strongly dislikes North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, “is that the rocket didn't stay up very long.” The president, who expressed annoyance when a reporter pointed out that Kim Jong Il had on all accounts increased his nuclear potency since Bush took office, claimed that his antimissile system, which has failed repeated tests, had a “reasonable chance” of intercepting the Taepodong.¹ India tested its long-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile, the Agni-III, in the Bay of Bengal. That test also failed.^{2 3 4} Airliners crashed in Russia and Pakistan, killing hundreds, and⁵ a British military report concluded that Trident nuclear missiles, which are regularly transported on public highways in the United States and Britain, are vulnerable to terrorist attacks or even severe traffic accidents that could trigger a nuclear explosion.⁶ Israel continued its push into Gaza in search of an abducted soldier. “We want to use an iron fist,” said Isaac Herzog, a Labor Party minister, “but cautiously, with a lot of consideration.” Palestinians, who did not cease to fire missiles into Israel, were busy counting their dead.⁷ New research confirmed that smoking and obesity increase the risk of erectile dysfunction.^{8 9} U.S. tax revenue was up.¹⁰

The Iraqi civil war continued to escalate as Shiite militiamen invaded a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad and executed at least 36 young men, apparently in response to the bombing of a Shiite mosque; later that day, two car bombs exploded next to another Shiite mosque, killing 19 and wounding 59. ¹¹ Saddam Hussein's lawyers decided to boycott their client's trial,¹² and Iraqi prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki denounced the immunity of American soldiers in Iraq in connection with the rape and murder of a teenage girl and three of her relatives, including another child. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said that there was no apparent connection between the rape-and-murder case and the killings of two soldiers from the unit under investigation.¹³ “I'm going to make you this promise,” President George W. Bush told a crowd of soldiers in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, “I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who have died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done.”¹⁴ President Bush also said that he was “willing to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court” in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which held that the administration's scheme to try prisoners at Guantánamo in military tribunals is illegal. “It didn't say we couldn't have done—couldn't have made that decision, see?” Bush added. “They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo—whether we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made.”¹⁵ Five more American soldiers were charged in the Iraqi rape-and-murder case;¹⁶ an Army reserve colonel offered to plead guilty to charges that he engaged in bribery, conspiracy, and money laundering while he was stationed in Iraq;¹⁷ and it was reported that Senator Orrin Hatch intervened to get a record producer out of a Dubai jail after he was sentenced to four years for possession of cocaine.¹⁸ The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security claimed to have foiled a plot by foreign terrorists, in Lebanon, to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York,¹⁹ and three people were arrested for plotting to sell Coca-Cola secrets to PepsiCo.²⁰ President Bush denied that the closing of the CIA's Bin Laden unit was significant. “We got a lot of assets looking for Osama bin Laden,” he said. “It's a matter of time, unless we stop looking.”²¹ Prosecutors declined to press charges against Rush Limbaugh for possession of Viagra.²² Ken Lay died.²³

A megachurch called the World Overcomers congregation in Memphis, Tennessee, unveiled a 72-foot-tall replica of the Statue of Liberty (with the Ten Commandments under one arm, a tear on her cheek, and “Jehovah” inscribed on her crown) holding a cross of gold.²⁴ Felipe Calderon, the candidate of Mexico's conservative National Action Party, was apparently elected president, though Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist mayor of Mexico City, refused to concede and demanded a complete recount.²⁵ Italy won the World Cup after France's Zinedine Zidane was ejected from the game for head-butting Marco Materazzi,²⁶ and an Italian judge ruled that former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi should stand trial for fraud.²⁷ The prime minister of Spain snubbed the pope,²⁸ and a sheikh in Mogadishu said that Muslims who do not pray five times a day should be put to death.²⁹ A United Nations official in Sudan lamented that violence in Darfur has gotten worse since the signing of a recent peace accord.³⁰ It was reported that Melinda Gates is more comfortable than her husband Bill when it comes to holding AIDS babies in Africa or talking to male prostitutes in India.³¹ The world's oldest crow died in Bearsville, New York,³² and astronomers observed what they said might be a strange glowing blob of dark matter sucking in gas.³³ The high courts of Georgia and New York both upheld bans on gay marriage.³⁴ Poland's president appointed his twin brother to serve as prime minister.³⁵ President Vladimir Putin of Russia explained that he had recently kissed a young boy on the stomach because he “wanted to stroke him like a cat.”³⁶