Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called for the United
States to increase its propaganda efforts in the Middle
East, as riots over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad
continued around the world. In Nigeria 16 people were
killed in rioting and 11 churches were burned; in Libya at
least 10 people were killed; and in Pakistan at least 5
people were killed. In Volgograd, Russia, officials closed
the city newspaper after it published a cartoon that
showed Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, and Buddha watching TV
together. Fifteen thousand people protested the cartoons
in London. "We have to speak up," said a Muslim
demonstrator, "to prevent something like the Holocaust
from happening." The Arab European League website
published cartoons mocking the Holocaust. One showed Adolf
Hitler in bed with Anne Frank; Hitler says: "put this in
your diary, Anne." New photos of the torture at Abu Ghraib
prison were released, and at least 19 people died in
bombings across Iraq. The U.S. Army was worried that Abu
Ghraib was becoming, according to one commander, "a
graduate-level training ground for the insurgency."
U.S. President George W. Bush said that Americans should
not be discouraged by slow progress in Iraq. "We've seen
democracy change the world in the past," he said. The
United States and Israel were working together to
destabilize the Hamas-led government of Palestine. "It's
not possible," countered Hamas spokesman Farhat Asaad,
"for the U.S. and the world to turn its back on an elected
democracy." Israel froze its $50 million monthly tax
payments to Palestine, and sheriffs from 10 different
U.S. states visited Israel to learn more about
homeland-security techniques.

The United Nations issued a report calling on the United
States to either try the approximately 500 inmates at the
Guantanamo Bay prison for their crimes or release
them. Another person died from bird flu in Iraq. The flu
was also found in poultry in Germany, France, and Egypt,
and 50,000 chickens died from the disease in India. In
Guinsaugon, Philippines, at least 1,371 people were buried
in a mudslide. Imelda Marcos promised to visit the region
soon. Two Homeland Security guards in Bethesda, Maryland,
were in trouble after they accused a man of using an
Internet terminal in a public library to view
pornography. An official said the guards had "overstepped
their authority" and had subsequently been given other
duties. The Supreme Court of Italy, considering the case
of a man who forced his 14-year-old stepdaughter to
perform oral sex, ruled that molesting girls who have
already had sexual experience is not as bad as molesting
virgins. "The real problem," commented Mussolini's
granddaughter, "is that there are no women in the supreme
court." A study found that unattractive people commit more
crimes, and Australian cane toads were out of control.

People were dying of thirst in southern Somalia; some were
walking up to 45 miles to find water. In Harare, Zimbabwe,
twenty newborn babies and fetuses were being pulled from
the sewers each week. Author Margaret Atwood was planning
to avoid book tours by signing books via remote-controlled
robot. A man in Texas was sentenced to 30 years in prison
for raping his former girlfriend, then branding her, and a
woman in Minnesota was arrested for biting off part of
another woman's nose. Police obtained a search warrant to
recover the nose, which was then reattached. An Illinois
man was suing his ex-wife to keep her from having their
8-year-old son circumcised. Toxoplasma parasites, found in
cat feces, were causing deadly brain disease in
U.S. otters, and researchers in Australia found that tiger
feces repel wild goats. The U.S. Army was using a computer
game called "Tactical Iraqi" to teach Marines how to
interpret Iraqis' gestures; "Tactical Pashto" and
"Tactical Levantine" are in development. Scientists in
Italy found that the effects of Ecstasy on rats were
intensified when the rats were made to listen to loud
music, and NASA researchers found that the ice from
glaciers in Greenland was flowing into the sea at double
the rate of 10 years ago. A British nurse was in trouble
for slapping her co-workers with a frozen trout, and Texas
attorney Harry Whittington apologized for the trouble he
caused when he was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney.

-- Paul Ford

http://www.harpers.org/WeeklyReview2006-02-21.html

It is not enough to be compassionate; you must act.
-- The Dalai Lama