Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

General Motors announced that it will eliminate the jobs of 25,000 blue-collar workers in the United States by the end of 2008; the cuts amount to 22 percent of the company's hourly work force. ¹ Twenty-eight bodies were found dumped on the street or in shallow graves in Baghdad. Four U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, bringing the total U.S. casualties since the war began past 1,700.² It was reported that interrogators at Guantánamo Bay tortured prisoners with the music of Christina Aguilera; it was also revealed that American military torturers performed a satirical puppet show for one victim. ³ Two crows attacked a jogger in London, drawing blood,⁴ and a dead goat's head was found in the Maryland woods.⁵ Bombs killed ten people in Iran; an Iranian official blamed the United States.⁶ Australian officials were investigating allegations that prison guards tricked a prisoner into inserting a sausage into his rectum,⁷ and Australia won an international sheep-shearing contest. The contest was judged on speed and lack of nicks.⁸ A flash flood in China killed ninety-two people, most of them young children.⁹ Dwarves fought bulls in Mexico,¹⁰ and in the Solomon Islands a hermit who had lived in a cave for forty years decided to return to his village after his fire went out.¹¹ Scientists in California sequenced the genes of an extinct cave bear using material extracted from its teeth, and now plan to sequence the genes of Neanderthals. "I think it will work," said a scientist. "It is just a matter of time."¹²

A study showed that the world military budget was about $1,035,000,000,000 in 2004; the United States accounted for nearly half of that.¹³ Recently released emails showed that Air Force officials knew all along that a contract for leased refueling tankers was actually a bailout for Boeing. "We all know," wrote an official in the Pentagon comptroller's office, "that this is a bailout for Boeing."¹⁴ Body parts, including a leg and part of a spine, fell from a plane approaching JFK International Airport in New York City. The parts came from a stowaway who had hidden himself in the plane's wheel well. "[I] heard pounding," said the plane's pilot, "but nothing appeared wrong."¹⁵ Scientists in Los Angeles created a fusion reaction at around room temperature using a pyroelectric crystal.¹⁶ Voters in Nevada elected a former stripper to be a judge,¹⁷ officials in Dortmund, Germany, were preparing to host a game of the upcoming World Cup by setting up "sex garages" for assignations with prostitutes,¹⁸ and the Xochiquetzal home for elderly prostitutes was slated to open in Mexico City.¹⁹ An Italian court ruled that Sicilian authorities had acted improperly when they took away a man's driver's license because he was gay; the man's lawyer said that the arrest had caused his client to suffer hair loss.²⁰ Researchers found that one in five women would consider having their breasts removed if it reduced their odds of contracting cancer,²¹ that babies are soothed by suckling the nipples of men,²² and that 99 percent of women are against comb-overs.²³ A vaccine against the Ebola and Marburg viruses was found to work on monkeys,²⁴ and surgeons in Peru separated the legs of Milagros Cerron, the thirteen-month-old "mermaid baby" whose legs were fused from thigh to ankle. Some of the surgery was broadcast live.²⁵ In Augsburg, Germany, zoo officials were being criticized for a planned attraction that will show elephants and rhinos in their "natural environment" by surrounding them with black men in grass skirts.²⁶ Two women were upset when they visited a Houston mausoleum and found that the cremated remains of their mother had been replaced by a can of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips. ²⁷

Janet Reno had a fender-bender in Florida.²⁸ Plastic surgery on women's genitalia was becoming more popular; surgeons reported that they were keeping busy plumping outer labias, tightening vaginas, and restoring hymens.²⁹ Thirty-five percent of America's annual clam harvest was found to be toxic because of red tide.³⁰ Scientists studying the Devils Hole pupfish, of which only 180 remain, accidentally killed eighty of them.³¹ British pranksters kidnapped a Dalek from Wookey Hole Caves.³² Iranian companies were planning to build bicycle factories in Venezuela.³³ Pink Floyd announced that it would reunite for a concert, ³⁴ and Paul Anka released an album on which he sings "The Lovecats" by The Cure and "Eyes Without a Face" by Billy Idol.³⁵ Anne Bancroft died.³⁶ A new Bach aria was discovered in Germany,³⁷ and Israeli scientists were raising a date palm from a 1,990-year-old seed found at Masada.³⁸ Disney digitally reduced the size of Lindsay Lohan's breasts to make a film called Herbie: Fully Loaded less offensive,³⁹ and Microsoft opened a new Chinese Internet portal that forbids some users from publishing personal home pages with the words "demonstration," "democratic movement," and "freedom."⁴⁰ Michael Jackson was acquitted. ⁴¹ Police in Nigeria arrested a cow for murder,⁴² there was a wave of Canadian canola robberies,⁴³ and researchers discovered a formula to determine the humor value of a sitcom: (((R * D + V) * F) + S)/A.⁴⁴