Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

White House photo.

A suicide bomber in Iraq killed over one hundred people as they stood waiting to join the Iraqi National Guard,¹ and four American soldiers and thirteen Iraqis were killed in other incidents.² Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out that insurgencies tend to last from seven to twelve years,³ and the U.S. military increased its bonuses to encourage reenlistment.⁴ American forces opened negotiations with Iraqi insurgents.⁵ Canada declared that the U.S. must get permission before launching missiles over Canadian airspace,⁶ and Pakistani soldiers were ordered to shoot at U.S. troops who enter Pakistan without permission.⁷ An earthquake in southeast Iran killed six hundred people,⁸ and the Iranian military was preparing for an attack by the United States.⁹ In the U.K., Bournemouth University announced that it has developed two artificial mass graves, each containing about thirty fake skeletons, to be used to train Iraqi war-crimes investigators.¹⁰ Bhutan banned public smoking,¹¹ the president of Togo stepped down,¹² and Tom Ridge joined the board of Home Depot.¹³

The Anglican Communion was nearing a schism.¹⁴ The attorney general of Kansas demanded that clinics in his state turn over the medical records of girls who have received abortions and women who have had late-term abortions.¹⁵ Dennis Rader, an active Lutheran and a Cub Scout leader in Wichita, Kansas, confessed to six killings as the BTK (“bind, torture, and kill”) serial killer, wanted for thirty-one years. An Illinois court ruled that a man could sue his ex-lover for using his sperm, acquired via oral sex, to impregnate herself,¹⁶ and Britain's Labour party was forced to drop Christine Wheatley as a candidate for Parliament after it was revealed she had once worked as a prostitute in Paris. “It was usually only three minutes,” said Wheatley.¹⁷ The pope underwent a tracheotomy,¹⁸ and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case challenging the Alabama law that makes it a crime—punishable by a year in jail and a $10,000 fine—to sell vibrators, dildos, anal beads, and artificial vaginas.¹⁹ UNICEF reported that 180 million children aged five to seventeen are forced into the “worst forms” of labor, including the sex and slave trades.²⁰ Progressive rock was making a comeback.²¹ NASA scientists resurrected bacteria that had been frozen for 32,000 years,²² Russia agreed to sell nuclear fuel to Iran,²³ and at a summit in Bratislava, Vladimir Putin accused George W. Bush of firing Dan Rather.²⁴ A Swiss court lifted the ban on using “Bin Ladin” as a brand name. The name is registered to Osama bin Laden's half-brother.²⁵ Israel planned to build 6,391 new homes for settlers in the West Bank ²⁶ and refused to hand over security control of the West Bank to Palestinians.²⁷ West Bank settlers were given stickers to prove their residency, so that they might drive more quickly through checkpoints,²⁸ and a suicide bomber killed five in Tel Aviv. Israel blamed Syria, which hosts Islamic Jihad, for the attack. Syria handed over Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's half-brother, to Iraqi authorities,²⁹ and the pro-Syrian government of Lebanon dissolved itself.³⁰ Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he had no regrets about his past steroid use,³¹ and a New Hampshire crematorium was found to be throwing pacemakers and metallic hips into a dumpster.³²

Maoists killed fifteen in Nepal, ³³ and Nepalese soldiers killed dozens of Maoists .³⁴ The financial records of 1.2 million federal employees were stolen from or lost by the Bank of America; Senator Pat Leahy's credit-card number was among the missing.³⁵ Halle Berry received a “Razzie” award for the worst actress of 2004 for her role in the film “Catwoman.” “I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of shit,” she said. George W. Bush won the worst actor award for his role in “Fahrenheit 9/11,”³⁶ and a poll found that 57 percent of parents would not like their children to grow up to be president.³⁷ USA Next, a group with ties to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, attacked the AARP for its position against Social Security reform,³⁸ and Arthur Shawcross, a cannibal serial killer, was writing a cookbook.³⁹ Canadian scientists announced that they could treat depression by electronically stimulating the brain.⁴⁰ Senator John McCain called for permanent U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, ⁴¹ where one woman dies of a pregnancy-related illness every thirty minutes.⁴² Queen Elizabeth announced that she would not attend the wedding ceremony of her son, Charles, and Camilla Parker Bowles, but insisted this was not a snub; ⁴³ PrinceCharles complained that the British had “tortured” him over his relationship with Parker Bowles.⁴⁴ Atrocities continued in Darfur, ⁴⁵ Somalia denounced plans to deploy foreign peacekeepers, ⁴⁶ and Eritrea was facing a major food crisis.⁴⁷ An Orangeburg, New York, man beat his toddler daughter to death for refusing a peanut-butter sandwich, ⁴⁸ and in Edinburgh, Scotland, a blind man bit his guide dog.⁴⁹