Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, pleaded not guilty to charges of obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements.¹ Senator Harry Reid and Representative Nancy Pelosi called for Karl Rove to be stripped of his security clearance.² Judith Miller was expected to return to her job at the New York Times.³ Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to the United States, said that the Iraq war was inspiring acts of terrorism: “God,” he said, “it does not look good.”⁴ The FBI, under the Patriot Act, was issuing 30,000 “national security letters” a year, 100 times as many as it has issued historically. The letters, which recipients are ordered never to discuss, often demand the release of banking data, credit reports, and other private information.⁵ U.S. and Iraqi forces launched Operation Al Hajip Elfulathi (Steel Curtain) in Husaybah, a town on Iraq's Syrian border that serves as a transit point and staging area for militants. The offensive began on the third day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan. “Instead of having my family for a picnic in an amusement park,” said a refugee named Omar Obaidi, “I am taking them out of the town, walking and expecting death every moment.” A statement promising retaliation for the offensive, purported to be from Al Qaeda, was posted on a local mosque. In Baquba the spokesman for the Iraqi National Dialogue Council was shot five times.⁶ A South African woman tried to help a seal back into the sea only to have it bite off her nose.⁷ It was reported that the CIA had set up a secret system of prisons, called “black sites,” around the world. Originally intended solely for Al Qaeda leaders, the prisons now detain a number of people whose link to terrorism is less certain. “It's just a horrible burden,” said an intelligence official.⁸ Vice President Dick Cheney was pressuring Republican senators to grant the CIA an exemption from a proposed ban on torturing terrorism suspects. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, suggested that Cheney was ultimately responsible for the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere. “There was a visible audit trail,” he said, “from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense down to the commanders in the field.”⁹ The mayor of Las Vegas called for vandals who deface freeways to have their thumbs cut off on TV. “They would get a trial first,” he offered.¹⁰

Louisiana was told that it owes FEMA $3.7 billion for the aid organization's help after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.¹¹ President Bush asked Congress for $7.1 billion to fight bird flu.¹² In Ethiopia, 23 people were killed during protests over government vote-rigging;¹³ the same number of people had died in Brazil from rabies transmitted by vampire bats.¹⁴ Oregon officials forced a father and son to give up the pet bear, Windfall, that had lived with them for two years. While at their home the bear showered, had her hair blow-dried, and slept in a bed. “The only thing we did wrong,” the father said of the bear, “was love one another.”¹⁵ In Maryland the first kill of bear season was credited to Sierra Stiles, an eight-year-old girl, who shot a 211-pound bear twice in the chest with a .243-caliber rifle. “They won't eat now,” Sierra said of bears. “They won't eat a thing.”¹⁶ In Japan a 16-year-old girl was found to have rendered her mother comatose by dosing her with rat poison over several months. The girl kept track of the poisonings on her blog: “To kill a living creature. The moment of sticking a knife into something. The warmth of the blood. The little sigh. It is all a comfort to me.”¹⁷ A study found that over the last 15 years the breasts of the average American woman had swelled from a 34B cup to 36C; D-cup breasts, it was pointed out, are equivalent in weight to two small turkeys.¹⁸ Chefs in Michigan baked a 600-pound pumpkin pie.¹⁹

Rioters near and around Paris set thousands of cars and dozens of buildings on fire after two teenagers of African descent were electrocuted while trying to escape the police.²⁰ Off the Somali coast, pirates fired a rocket launcher at a cruise ship filled with American and British tourists. The ship's crew scared the pirates off with loud noises, and no one was injured.²¹ In Finland a dog named Sonar sniffed out her 95th drowned corpse,²² and Dr. Phil said that he had information that Natalee Holloway, a teenager who went missing in Aruba, is alive; he seemed to imply that she might have been sold as a sex slave.²³ In Maryland, $75,000 worth of bull semen was stolen from a farm,²⁴ and 47 schoolchildren were stung by bees.²⁵ Emails showed that in 2002 U.S. Representative Tom DeLay asked lobbyist Jack Abramoff to raise money for him through a charitable foundation.²⁶ It was revealed that Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito once led a student conference that called for sodomy to be legalized.²⁷ Wal-Mart released a study showing that Wal-Mart is good for the U.S. economy.²⁸ A tornado killed at least 22 people in Indiana.²⁹ In the Philippines five U.S. Marines were arrested for raping a woman they met at a karaoke bar,³⁰ and a U.S. Army captain stationed in Germany was sentenced to five years in prison for forcibly sodomizing three U.S. soldiers; the soldiers had asked him for counseling in his capacity as an Army chaplain and Roman Catholic priest.³¹ Democratic leaders called for a closed session on the Senate floor, which they used to force the creation of a bipartisan committee; the committee will report on the ongoing Congressional investigation (which the Democratic leadership believes is being purposefully delayed) into the Bush Administration's misuse of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. “They have no convictions,” Senator Bill Frist said of the Democrats. “They have no principles. They have no ideas.”³² President George W. Bush ordered his staff to take a refresher course in basic ethics,³³ and he visited Argentina, where tens of thousands of people protested his presence and policies.³⁴ He also visited Brazil, where he looked at a map with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “Wow,” said Bush. “Brazil is big!”³⁵ A poll found that 58 percent of Americans doubt President Bush's honesty,³⁶ and another poll found that 53 percent of Americans want Congress to consider impeachment if it turns out that Bush lied about his reasons for going to war.³⁷ Construction began on the new World Trade Center building in downtown Manhattan.³⁸ Scientists confirmed that Sagittarius A, the object at the center of our galaxy, is indeed a black hole.³⁹