Weekly Review

By Chantal Clarke

The Republican candidates for the presidency debated at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas said that the day Roe v. Wade was repealed would be “a glorious day of human liberty and freedom” and that the current tax system “ought to be taken behind a barn and killed with a dull ax”; Senator John McCain of Arizona claimed that he would “follow [Osama bin Laden] to the gates of hell”; Texas Congressman Ron Paul said that not going to war in Iraq would have been “conservative,“ because ”it’s a Republican, it’s a pro-American, it follows the Founding Fathers. And besides, it follows the Constitution.” California Congressman Duncan Hunter took responsibility for the border fence in San Diego. “It’s a double fence,” he said. “It’s not that little straggly fence you see on CNN with everybody getting over it.” “No one on this stage,” said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, ”probably knows Hillary Clinton better than I do,” to which former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani replied: ”Oh my!” Collectively, the candidates invoked Reagan's name nearly 20 times.¹ It was announced that Reagan's diaries would be published. “Getting shot,” he wrote in 1981, “hurts.”² Hillary Clinton said at a fund-raiser that her campaign would be similar to Harriet Tubman going back to free more slaves,³ and Congressman John Shimkus (R., Ill.) said that pulling out of Iraq would be like the Cardinals leaving the field in the 15th inning to let the Cubs win.⁴ Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon, declared that his favorite books were Battlefield Earth and the Bible.⁵ Israelis were demanding that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resign due to his handling of the 2006 war with Hezbollah;⁶ British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that he will announce his resignation next week;⁷ and Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative son of a Hungarian immigrant, was elected president of France.⁸

Iran's telecommunications ministry proclaimed that it will begin filtering immoral messages sent by cell phones,⁹ and police in Tehran forbade barbers from giving men Western style haircuts or plucking their eyebrows.¹⁰ The U.N. Refugee Agency reported that more than 36,000 Afghans had been deported from Iran since late April.¹¹ The U.S. Army tightened its rules concerning blogging by soldiers,¹² and Senator Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) issued a subpoena to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for emails from Karl Rove regarding the U.S. attorney firings.¹³ President Bush vetoed an Iraq spending bill that included a timetable for troop withdrawal and threatened to use his third veto on a bill that would expand the legal definition of hate crime to include violence based on gender or sexuality.^{14 15} Officials from more than 50 countries gathered in Egypt and issued a five-year “International Compact” aimed at stabilizing Iraq.¹⁶ The Iraqi interior ministry claimed that the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq had been killed,¹⁷ and Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr called on Iraqis to paint “magnificent tableaux” on barrier walls that “depict the ugliness and terrorist nature of the occupier, and the sedition, car bombings, blood and the like he has brought upon Iraqis.” ¹⁸ The U.S. State Department announced that 40 percent more people died from terror attacks in 2006 than in the year before,¹⁹ and American officials denied reports of a plan to require entry visas for British citizens of Pakistani origin.²⁰ Twenty thousand Pakistanis rallied in Islamabad to protest the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. “The dictatorial system of government and the concept of concentration of power is now ended,” Chaudhry said. “All these are bitter lessons of history.”²¹

Sony apologized and admitted that it might have been “inappropriate” to promote a new videogame based on Greek mythology by holding a launch party in London featuring topless serving girls and guests eating offal from the stomach of a decapitated goat.²² Tommy Lee was reportedly buying the manmade island of “Greece” in Dubai's “The World” project for his ex-wife Pamela Anderson, who has accused him in the past of domestic abuse and giving her hepatitis C. ²³ Britons were enjoying a new reality television series called “Fat Teens Can't Hunt” in which ten overweight teenagers were sent to Australia's outback to live and eat with Aboriginal communities.²⁴ An Irish teenager, who has been told by doctors that her baby will not survive more than a few days after birth, appeared in the High Court in Dublin to apply for the right to travel to Britain for an abortion.²⁵ Scottish scientists were developing a pill that will simultaneously boost women's sex drive and decrease their weight. When the pill was given to monkeys, said the scientists, females displayed their feelings via “rump presentation and tail wagging” and males through tongue-flicking and eyebrow-raising.²⁶ A 68-year-old grandmother in England was the runner-up for “txt laureate” for writing a love poem to her husband. “O hart tht sorz,” she wrote, “My luv adorz, He mAks me liv, He mAks me giv, Myslf 2 him, As my luv porz.”²⁷ Guests at a wedding in Patna, India, decided that the groom had arrived too drunk and had the bride marry his brother instead,²⁸ and a farmer in eastern India beheaded one of his workers with a sword for failing to milk his cows.²⁹ Four thousand Filipina mothers in Manila tried to break the world record for simultaneous breastfeeding.³⁰