Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

John G. Roberts, Jr. was sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States,¹ and President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers, a White House lawyer who has never been a judge, to the Supreme Court. Miers has allegedly described Bush as "brilliant."² Japanese scientists photographed a giant squid and managed to tear off one of its tentacles.³ A New York judge ruled that several suppressed photographs of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq must be released,⁴ and the U.S. Army was looking into claims that its soldiers had traded digital pictures of burned and dismembered Iraqi and Afghani bodies in exchange for online access to amateur porn.⁵ Senator Bill Frist was under investigation for insider trading,⁶ and Tom DeLay stepped down from his post as House Majority Leader after being indicted for criminal conspiracy related to campaign fundraising. "This is not going to detract from the Republican agenda," said DeLay's spokesman. DeLay was soon after indicted on a separate charge of money laundering.⁷ Two goats, strangled and drained of blood, were found in Nebraska.⁸

During his radio program William Bennett, former U.S. Education Secretary, said, "You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."⁹ A white South African farmer was sentenced to life in prison for killing one of his black employees and feeding the corpse to lions.¹⁰ Dr. David Nabarro, the United Nations representative in charge of coordinating the response to bird flu, said that a bird flu pandemic could kill from 5 to 150 million people. "It's like a combination of global warming and HIV/AIDS," he said, "ten times faster."¹¹ Somali pirates relinquished a ship--filled with food intended for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami--that they had hijacked 98 days earlier.¹² The Hurricane Katrina death toll reached 964 in Louisiana, and the search for more bodies was called off.¹³ Scientists agreed that an "era of super-hurricanes" had started in the 1990s in the Atlantic Ocean, but could not agree why.¹⁴ Twenty-one people drowned when their tour boat capsized in upstate New York;¹⁵ 62 people died near Baghdad in a concerted triple-bombing attack;¹⁶ 31 suspected Taliban members were killed in fighting in Afghanistan;¹⁷ 36 people were killed by exploding bombs in tourist areas in Bali;¹⁸ 16 people were killed by a train crash in Madhya Pradesh, India;¹⁹ 11 people were killed during a stampede at a South Korean concert of songs popular with the elderly;²⁰ and at dozens of students at a police training school in southeast China were swept away by typhoon Longwang.²¹

A Fresno, California, man who stabbed a cross-dressing man to death with a pair of scissors was sentenced to only four years in prison after his attorneys argued that the murder was the result of "gay panic."²² Karen Hughes visited Saudi Arabia and expressed hope that women in that country would someday be able to "fully participate in society." A woman in the audience countered, "We're all pretty happy." Another audience member charged that the United States had become "a right wing country" that did not allow freedom of the press.²³ Journalist Judith Miller was released from jail and said she wanted to hug her dog.²⁴ In England three teen girls were convicted of manslaughter for bullying to death a girl with a heart condition.²⁵ A volcano erupted in El Salvador, killing two people,²⁶ and novelist Michael Crichton was called before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works so that he could criticize the theory of global warming.²⁷ British scientists found that watching television slows the development of children's brains.²⁸ The Danish Air Force paid a Santa 31,175 kroner after the noise from fighter jets frightened his reindeer, Rudolph, to death.²⁹ A suicide bomber in Oklahoma blew himself up at a Sooners game,³⁰ the Marines were recruiting on Craigslist,³¹ and Burt Bacharach was recording a protest album with Dr. Dre. "Burt's pissed," explained a friend.³²