HARPER'S WEEKLY REVIEW

[Kire]

John G. Roberts, Jr. was sworn in as Chief Justice of the
United States, 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." Japanese scientists photographed a
giant squid and managed to tear off one of its
tentacles. A New York judge ruled that several suppressed
photographs of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq must
be released, and the U.S. Army was looking into claims
that its soldiers had traded digital pictures of burned
and dismembered Iraqi and Afghani bodies for online
access to amateur porn. Senator Bill Frist was under
investigation for insider trading, 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. Two dead goats, strangled and drained of
blood, were found in Nebraska.

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." A white South African farmer was sentenced to life
in prison for killing one of his black employees and
feeding the corpse to lions. 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." Somali pirates relinquished a ship--filled
with food intended for victims of the Indian Ocean
tsunami--that they had hijacked 98 days earlier. The
Hurricane Katrina death toll reached 964 in Louisiana, and
the search for more bodies was called off. Scientists
agreed that an "era of super-hurricanes" had started in
the 1990s in the Atlantic Ocean, but could not agree
why. Twenty-one people drowned when their tour
boat capsized in upstate New York; 62 people died near
Baghdad in a concerted triple-bombing attack; 31 suspected
Taliban members were killed in fighting in Afghanistan; 36
people were killed by exploding bombs in tourist areas in
Bali; 16 people were killed by a train crash in Madhya
Pradesh, India; 11 people were killed during a stampede at
a South Korean concert of songs popular with the elderly;
and at least 60 students at a military training school in
southeast China were swept away by typhoon Longwang.

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 a response to "gay panic." 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. Journalist Judith Miller was released from
jail and said she wanted to hug her dog. In England three
teen girls were convicted of manslaughter for bullying to
death a girl with a heart condition. A volcano erupted in
El Salvador, killing two people, 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. British scientists found
that watching television slows the development of
children's brains. The Danish Air Force paid a Santa
31,175 kroner after the noise from fighter jets frightened
his reindeer, Rudolph, to death. A suicide bomber in
Oklahoma blew himself up at a Sooners game, the Marines
were recruiting on Craigslist, and Burt Bacharach was
recording a protest album with Dr. Dre. "Burt's pissed,"
explained a friend.

-- Paul Ford

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