Weekly Review

By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi

“Into the palace parlor they stepped; her hand in his paw the old bruin kept,” 1875

The U.S. director of national intelligence released a declassified version of a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq; the report found that “the term 'civil war' accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict” and that “widespread fighting could produce de facto partition.”¹ Iraqi refugees were flooding Syria and Jordan, where they now account for 5 and 12 percent of those countries' total populations,² and a massive bombing in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad killed 130 people, making the attack the second deadliest in the country since the March 2003 invasion. ³ In Hillah, where a further 45 people were killed, a police officer attempted to smother the blast from a suicide bomber. “He hugged him” said a witness, “and the explosives tore apart both bodies.”⁴ The U.S. military announced that insurgents had shot down four helicopters in the past two weeks in Iraq,. ⁵ former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski warned that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack Iran,⁶ and President George W. Bush asked for an additional $100 billion to fund the United States's wars through the end of the current fiscal year.⁷ Detainees at Guantánamo Bay complained of “infinite tedium and loneliness,”⁸ and a German court issued an arrest warrant for 13 CIA operatives involved in the abduction and torture of a German citizen.⁹ Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. “Al Gore,” said a Norwegian lawmaker, “has made a difference.”¹⁰ President Bush staged an impromptu visit to the Sterling Family Restaurant in Peoria, Illinois, but few of the diners wanted to talk to him. “Sorry to interrupt you,” said Bush. “How's the service?”¹¹

Taliban forces were on the rise in Afghanistan,. ¹² Maoist rebels were taking over coffee plantations near Ooty, India,¹³ and Moro rebels in Jolo captured a number of senior Philippine military officers including General Dolorfino, Colonel Ramon, and Colonel Baboon.¹⁴ Delaware Senator Joseph Biden praised Illinois Senator Barack Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” said Biden. “I mean, that's a storybook, man.”¹⁵ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced that global warming was expected to heat up the atmosphere by 4 to 7 degrees within the next century,¹⁶ and the Bush Administration suggested that scientists find ways to counteract greenhouse-gas emissions by blocking out the sun. “Possible techniques include putting a giant screen into orbit,” read one newspaper's paraphrase of the suggested U.S. recommendations. “[Or] thousands of tiny, shiny balloons.”¹⁷ “Hot” patients who had recently received medical treatment using radioisotopes were setting off Homeland Security radiation detectors,¹⁸ and the U.S. market for female-arousal liquids continued to grow.¹⁹ A mob of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem overpowered policemen and stole a woman's corpse to prevent an autopsy but later gave it back.²⁰ Japanese Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa apologized for calling women “birth-giving machines,”²¹ hospital staff in Yekaterinburg, Russia, were gagging crying babies,²² and in Cambodia a Briton named Bowel Anpaul was arrested on charges of pedophilia.²³ Rubber genitals were stolen from the set of the new “Hannibal” movie,²⁴ an Argentine soccer fan who asked for a tattoo of his team's logo received instead a tattoo of a large penis,²⁵ and a Chinese man whose genitals were eaten by a dog when he was a child was said to be happy with a new penis built from his chest muscles and hip bones.²⁶ Wang You-theng, a fugitive Taiwanese tycoon, was seized by U.S. immigration officials.²⁷ HIV, said scientists, can avoid destruction by hiding out in the testicles.²⁸

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan was awarded France's highest civilian honor, the Legion d'Honneur, and was kicked in the head by a camel. ^{29 30} Terri Irwin, the widow of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, urged her late husband's fans to respect stingrays, which she described as “cute little pancakes in the ocean.”³¹ Britain's top female paraglider was mauled by eagles. “Eagles,” said a colleague, “are the sharks of the air.”³² The Indian Army was preparing to hunt down man-eating leopards in Kashmir,³³ and elephants in Thailand were head-butting and robbing trucks.³⁴ New Jersey warned its residents against eating heavy metal-contaminated squirrels,³⁵ roboticists announced the creation of a teddy-bear robot that will help men meet women,³⁶ and an Australian man sold his life on eBay.³⁷ New York Governor Eliot Spitzer told Republican Assemblyman James Tedisco, “I am a fucking steamroller and I'll roll over you or anybody else,” ³⁸ and James Taylor was about to go on tour.³⁹ After it ransacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Washington, D.C., residence, a small black bird was captured in a brown bag and released. “She kept thinking to herself,” said a spokesman, “‘Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”’”⁴⁰