Weekly Review

By Genevieve Smith

A Christian martyr.

President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress and implored Democrats to pass their own health-care legislation. During the speech, the president noted that the bill would not extend health insurance to illegal immigrants, at which South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson shouted, “You lie!” Afterwards, Wilson received $1 million in campaign contributions. Shares in health insurance companies went up, and the number of Americans without health insurance rose to 46.3 million.^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9} Tens of thousands of people gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol to protest health-care reform, the expansion of government, illegal immigration, abortion, the size of the national deficit, limitations on gun ownership, the linguistic plurality of the United States, the Wall Street bailout, the energy bill, and the appointment of White House czars. Signs carried at the protest depicted Obama as Adolf Hitler, as Che Guevara, as the Joker from the most recent Batman movie, and as an African witch doctor. “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy,” read one sign. “Joe Wilson for president” read another.¹⁰ Samoans began to drive on the left side of the road in spite of a late appeal by the People Against Switching Sides (PASS).¹¹

The Treasury Department announced plans to phase out its bank-bailout programs. “It is clear,” said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, “that we have stepped back from the brink and that we are pointed in the right direction.”¹² Three more banks closed, adding to the 89 that failed so far this year,¹³ and investment firms revealed plans to buy life-insurance policies from elderly and sick people and package them into securitized investment products. “We're hoping to get a herd stampeding after the first offering,” said a banker. ¹⁴ In Pakistan, at least nineteen women trying to collect free handouts of flour were killed in an actual stampede.¹⁵ A developer in London was found guilty of murdering his tenant so he could move ahead with plans to flip the property,¹⁶ and a group of men in Florida were holding up pawn shops in various costumes, including hospital scrubs, child safety-seats, and sinks.¹⁷ The U.S. was growing more pot. “The need to... distract yourself is pretty much a constant in human behavior through good times and bad,” said one marijuana-eradication official.¹⁸ Scientists at Stanford University determined that stem cells could be made from fat cells removed during liposuction.¹⁹

Jim Carroll died, as did Nobel Prize-winning agronomist Norman Borlaug, and Gertrude Baines, who at 115 was the world's oldest person.^{20 21 22} A 107-year-old woman in Malaysia was looking for her 23rd husband.²³ Authorities in Sudan were planning to lash a woman for wearing tight pants.²⁴ A German AIDS awareness campaign was criticized for portraying Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Joseph Stalin having sex with naked women. ²⁵ Police in Turkey rescued nine women from a villa where they had spent the last two months being made to fight each other, wear bikinis, and dance by a swimming pool for what they falsely believed was a reality-TV show. ²⁶ California state legislator Mike Duvall, a Republican, resigned after he unwittingly bragged about having sex with much younger women--including one who wore “little eye-patch underwear”--into a hot microphone before a hearing.²⁷ A former jail deputy in Ohio was charged with two health-code violations after he fed a prisoner a bologna sandwich that had been rubbed on another prisoner's penis.²⁸ A man in Wales was sentenced to prison for murdering his partner after she changed her relationship status on Facebook to “single.”²⁹ Walmart employees beat a shoplifter to death,³⁰ and two Massachusetts teenagers were killed in a dispute over a parking space.³¹ After successfully praying for his release from a stuck elevator, a devout Catholic in Vienna went directly to church, where, giving thanks to God, he embraced an 860-pound altar, which fell over, killing him instantly.³² Canadian scientists discovered the smell of death.³³