Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

The U.S. State Department issued a report criticizing human rights abuses in China, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. It also criticized the rights records of Jordan and Egypt, two countries where the United States has sent detainees to be interrogated. The report noted that the United States' "own journey towards liberty and justice for all has been long and difficult," and is "far from complete."^{1 2} A bombing at a Shiite market in Sadr City, Iraq, killed at least 50 people; Shiite vigilantes responded by abducting four men, beating and executing them, and hanging them from lampposts.³ In Baghdad 37 corpses were found, including 18 bodies stacked in a minibus. The corpse of American peace activist Tom Fox was found in a trash heap in western Baghdad; Fox and three other members of Christian Peacemaker Teams had been kidnapped in November 2005 by the Swords of Righteousness Brigade.^{4 5} The Iraqi government hanged 13 insurgents,⁶ and it was reported that Iraq's Shiite party had ordered the Health Ministry to stop recording deaths that resulted from execution-style shootings.⁷ Americans had nearly $800 billion in credit-card debt.⁸ U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow warned Congress that the United States was about to exceed its debt limit of $8.2 trillion,⁹ and a five-year study into alternative methods of managing hog waste produced no feasible alternative to the current practice of filling massive lagoons with excrement.¹⁰ In rural Nepal fathers were being paid in piglets if they agreed not to sell their daughters into servitude,¹¹ and a farmer in Germany said that he got the idea of feeding a friend's corpse to pigs from a lecture about Buddhism.¹² The Sheaf, a University of Saskatchewan campus newspaper, was criticized for publishing a cartoon showing Jesus Christ fellating a talking pig,¹³ and the House voted to renew the Patriot Act.¹⁴ A New Zealand miner drowned in a flooded shaft,¹⁵ and photographer and director Gordon Parks died.¹⁶ After 213 years as a nonprofit, the New York Stock Exchange became a public company.¹⁷ A new species of blind, furry, lobster-like crustaceans was discovered in the South Pacific.¹⁸

Former Texas Governor Ann Richards announced that she had been diagnosed with cancer.¹⁹ Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) won the Republican primary for his congressional seat,²⁰ and scientists were investigating a family of mentally retarded Kurds in Turkey who walk on all fours. "However they arrived at this point," said a scientist, "we have adult human beings walking like ancestors several million years ago."²¹ The House passed legislation that, if approved in the Senate, will make it far more difficult for states to put warning labels on food; under the new rules all warnings will be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. "What's wrong," asked Representative Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), "with our system of federalism?"²² Britain planned to kill one third of its wild badger population--about 100,000 badgers--in order to slow the spread of bovine tuberculosis; critics of the plan argued that slaughtering badgers will speed the spread of bovine tuberculosis.²³ Mad cow disease was found in Alabama,²⁴ where three college students were arrested for setting nine churches on fire. One of the students, Benjamin Moseley, was planning to appear in a school theater production called "Young Zombies in Love."²⁵ A sociology professor at Suffolk University, Boston, was suspended after being caught browsing Internet porn sites while teaching a class; he was unaware that his computer was connected to a display behind him.²⁶ In Licking County, Ohio, a man was accused of making 2,623 obscene phone calls over 20 days,²⁷ and in Arizona a 52-year-old Deputy Fire Chief named Leroy Johnson was seen dragging a lamb into a neighbor's barn. The lamb’s owner, Alan Goats, entered the barn to confront Johnson. "You caught me, Alan," said Johnson, zipping up his wet pants. "I tried to fuck your sheep." Police described the victim as small, gray, three feet tall, and four feet long.²⁸ Two British preschools were criticized for having children sing "Baa baa rainbow sheep." "There are much better ways," said a representative of another preschool, "of addressing these issues."²⁹ Details from recently released Guantánamo Bay transcripts continued to emerge. "We lost our goats," explained one prisoner. "That's why we were looking through binoculars."³⁰ Yanni was arrested for allegedly hitting his girlfriend.³¹

The Cassini spacecraft, said NASA, found what appeared to be water on Saturn's moon Enceladus.³² The Nigerian government, hoping to avoid the panic and rioting that broke out during the eclipse of 2001, warned its citizens that they may experience "psychological discomfort" during the eclipse of March 29.³³ Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack in prison at the Hague; it was unclear whether his death was a murder, a suicide, or from natural causes.³⁴ Venezuela debuted a new flag. "The white horse," explained President Hugo Chavez, "is now liberated, free, vigorous, trotting toward the left."³⁵ In Chicago between 300,000 and 500,000 people marched to protest a House bill that calls for increased border protection to limit immigration,³⁶ and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano ordered more soldiers to patrol the Mexican border. "We are not," she said, "at war with Mexico."³⁷ Two more bodies from the Hurricane Katrina disaster were found in New Orleans.³⁸ A Dutch study found that 50 percent of the products returned to stores for malfunctions actually work fine but are just too complicated to use.³⁹ Al Qaeda was communicating via social networking website MySpace.com,⁴⁰ and a Pentagon-funded medical consortium, researching techniques to regenerate body parts, was hoping to create a working finger within five years.⁴¹