Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

Visiting Scotland for the G8 summit, President George W. Bush fell off his bicycle after running into a policeman. Bush was hurt, but not badly. The policeman hurt his ankle. “I should act my age,” said Bush.^{1 2} Terrorists set off bombs on three trains and a bus in London, killing fifty-two people, despite the fact that in 2003 Dick Cheney said that “our military is confronting the terrorists, along with our allies, in Iraq and Afghanistan so that innocent civilians will not have to confront terrorist violence in Washington or London or anywhere else in the world.”^{3 4} President Bush condemned attacks on innocent folks by those with evil in their hearts. “The war on terror,” he eulogized, “goes on.”⁵ Several London hotels increased their rates in response to the bombings.⁶ British MP George Galloway said that “London has reaped the involvement of Mr. Blair's involvement in Iraq.”⁷ In Iraq, a suicide bombing killed twenty-one people, eight members of the same Shiite family were shot and killed, and suicide car bombs killed seven people near the Syrian border. ⁸ Iraqi police detained twelve suspected militants inside a metal box under the Iraqi sun; nine died from the heat, and one of the survivors complained that he had been given electric shocks by the police.⁹ Silvio Berlusconi announced that Italy would start pulling its troops out of Iraq in September,¹⁰ and in Afghanistan, the Taliban beheaded ten Afghan soldiers and killed a Navy SEAL.¹¹ The commander of Guantánamo Bay was fired,¹² and a nine-year-old boy fell into a hot-spring pool at Yellowstone National Park and was burned on over 40 percent of his body.¹³

A South Carolina courthouse was vandalized by a goat,¹⁴ and New York Times journalist Judith Miller was sent to jail in Virginia for refusing to appear before a grand jury in connection to the Valerie Plame case. At the jail, where Zacarias Moussaoui is also an inmate, she had to sleep on the floor. Karl Rove's lawyer acknowledged that Rove spoke about Valerie Plame to Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper; Rove released Cooper from his promise of confidentiality, allowing the journalist to testify and avoid jail.^{15 16} Leaders at the G8 meeting decided to give $3 billion to Palestine.¹⁷ They also decided to double the aid sent to Africa to $50 billion. “Too little,” said a Uganda aid activist, “too late.”¹⁸ Israel planned to ask the United States for $2.2 billion to help them pull out from Gaza.¹⁹ The European Parliament voted 648 to 14 against software patents.²⁰ Seattle's new energy-efficient city hall building was found to be using 15 to 50 percent more electricity than its larger predecessor.²¹ Polar bears were dying in greater numbers due to global warming,²² and a man was arrested for paying children to yell at him because he is fat.²³ McDonald's corporation asked Russell Simmons, P. Diddy, and Tommy Hilfiger to redesign the company's uniforms. ²⁴ The United Church of Christ endorsed same-sex marriage.²⁵ Four teenagers were charged with urinating into the holy water at the Saint Pius X church in Rochester, New York,²⁶ and Cedric, a seventy-year-old turtle prone to attacking drainpipes and lawn mowers, was wandering loose in Borrowash, Derbyshire.²⁷

U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said that Canadian oil was important to American security.²⁸ Bulls gored four people in Spain,²⁹ cats were suffering from plague in Wyoming,³⁰ and Air Supply played the Karl Marx theater in Cuba.³¹ Hurricane Dennis killed thirty-two people in the Caribbean.³² Both factions in the Ivory Coast war agreed to disarm by October.³³ Paula Jones announced that she would visit the Clinton Library,³⁴ and a study found that circumcised men are less likely to contract HIV.³⁵ The Godfather was being made into a video game.³⁶ It was announced that up to 4,700 birds, including burrowing owls, red-tailed hawks, and golden raptors, were being killed each year by a wind farm in Altamont, California.³⁷ A Hungarian-speaking parakeet was loose in Vermont,³⁸ and a Massachusetts parrot appeared to understand the concept of zero.³⁹ Scientists found that taking regular showers could cause brain damage,⁴⁰ four hundred sheep killed themselves in Turkey,⁴¹ and at a funeral in Pennsylvania a corpse was given a pack of cigarettes, a beer, and a remote control and allowed to watch football.⁴²