Harper's Weekly Review

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a timetable for
ending the Iraq war by a six-vote margin. The bill
mandates American withdrawal in September 2008 if the Bush
Administration meets certain benchmarks, earlier if it
does not. Several Democrats voted against the timetable
because it was not sufficiently antiwar, and Republicans
derided the inclusion of domestic provisions benefiting
spinach growers, citrus farmers, salmon fishermen, and
peanut storers. "What does throwing money at Bubba Gump,
Popeye the sailor man, and Mr. Peanut have to do with
winning a war?" asked Representative Sam Johnson of
Texas. "I will veto it," said President George W. Bush,
"if it comes to my desk." British troops pulled out of
Basra; two days later, rival Shiite factions began
battling over a government building that had been been
evacuated by the military. In the Green Zone, a press
conference held by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was interrupted by a
nearby rocket attack. Ban, frightened, ducked behind a
podium, and the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to
impose new sanctions on Iran. Iranian officials claimed
that American authorities had prevented President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad from attending the Council meeting by delaying
his visa, and in the Iraqi territory of the Shatt al-Arab
waterway, Iranian forces captured and detained 15 members
of the British Royal Navy. Oil reached $62 per
barrel. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations, discussing last summer's conflict in Lebanon,
said that he was "damned proud" of U.S. efforts to delay a
cease-fire, and White House press secretary Tony Snow
announced that he would soon undergo surgery to remove a
growth from his lower abdomen.

Al Gore returned to Capitol Hill to testify that global
warming is a planetary emergency. Rep. Ed Markey of
Massachusetts called Gore a prophet, and Rep. John Dingell
of Michigan addressed him as "Mr. President." Joe Barton
of Texas, the leading Republican on the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, told Gore he was "totally wrong" and
that, if need be, Republican lawmakers would stay late for
an "all-out cat fight" with Democrats. Ralph Hall, also of
Texas, speculated that Gore's attack on the energy
industry could result in war "when and if OPEC nations
abandon the U.S.A.," and Roscoe Bartlett (R., Md.) said
that he thought it was "probably possible to be a
conservative without appearing to be an idiot.

Harper's Weekly Review

We subscribe to Harper's. It is the magazine I'm most likely to read, and they have a weekly news roundup they send by e-mail. There are always a bunch of fun and leading-indicator items I've missed, such as Al Gore being considered for the Nobel Peace Prize and diners at a restaurant in Illinois who were not interested in talking to Preznit Bush:

The U.S. director of national intelligence released a
declassified version of a new National Intelligence
Estimate on Iraq; the report found that "the term 'civil
war' accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi
conflict" and that "widespread fighting could produce de
facto partition." Iraqi refugees were flooding Syria and
Jordan, where they now account for 5 and 12 percent of
those countries' total populations, and a massive bombing
in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad killed 130 people,
making the attack the second deadliest in the country
since the March 2003 invasion. In Hillah, where a further
45 people were killed, a police officer attempted to
smother the blast from a suicide bomber. "He hugged him"
said a witness, "and the explosives tore apart both
bodies." The U.S. military announced that insurgents had
shot down four helicopters in the past two weeks in Iraq,
former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
warned that the White House was looking for an excuse to
attack Iran, and President George W. Bush asked for an
additional $100 billion to fund the United States's wars
through the end of the current fiscal year. Detainees at
Guantánamo Bay complained of "infinite tedium and
loneliness," and a German court issued an arrest warrant
for 13 CIA operatives involved in the abduction and
torture of a German citizen. Former U.S. Vice President Al
Gore was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. "Al Gore,"
said a Norwegian lawmaker, "has made a difference."
President Bush staged an impromptu visit to the Sterling
Family Restaurant in Peoria, Illinois, but few of the
diners wanted to talk to him. "Sorry to interrupt you,"
said Bush. "How's the service?"

Taliban forces were on the rise in Afghanistan, Maoist
rebels were taking over coffee plantations near Ooty,
India, and Moro rebels in Jolo captured a number of senior
Philippine military officers including General Dolorfino,
Colonel Ramon, and Colonel Baboon. Delaware Senator Joseph
Biden praised Illinois Senator Barack Obama. "I mean, you
got the first mainstream African American who is
articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,"
said Biden. "I mean, that's a storybook, man." The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced that
global warming was expected to heat up the atmosphere by 4
to 7 degrees within the next century, and the Bush
Administration suggested that scientists find ways to
counteract greenhouse-gas emissions by blocking out the
sun. "Possible techniques include putting a giant screen
into orbit," suggested the White House. "[Or] thousands of
tiny, shiny balloons." "Hot" patients who had recently
received medical treatment using radioisotopes were
setting off Homeland Security radiation detectors, and the
U.S. market for female-arousal liquids continued to
grow. A mob of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem overpowered
policemen and stole a woman's corpse to prevent an autopsy
but later gave it back. Japanese Health Minister Hakuo
Yanagisawa apologized for calling women "birth-giving
machines," hospital staff in Yekaterinburg, Russia, were
gagging crying babies, and in Cambodia a Briton named
Bowel Anpaul was arrested on charges of pedophilia. Rubber
genitals were stolen from the set of the new "Hannibal"
movie, an Argentine soccer fan who asked for a tattoo of
his team's logo received instead a tattoo of a large
penis, and a Chinese man whose genitals were eaten by a
dog when he was a child was said to be happy with a new
penis built from his chest muscles and hip bones. Wang
You-theng, a fugitive Taiwanese tycoon, was seized by
U.S. immigration officials. HIV, said scientists, can
avoid destruction by hiding out in the testicles.

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan was awarded France's
highest civilian honor, the Legion d'Honneur, and was
kicked in the head by a camel. Terri Irwin, the widow of
Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, urged her late husband's
fans to respect stingrays, which she described as "cute
little pancakes in the ocean." Britain's top female
paraglider was mauled by eagles. "Eagles," said a
colleague, "are the sharks of the air." The Indian Army
was preparing to hunt down man-eating leopards in Kashmir,
and elephants in Thailand were head-butting and robbing
trucks. New Jersey warned its residents against eating
heavy metal-contaminated squirrels, roboticists announced
the creation of a teddy-bear robot that will help men meet
women, and an Australian man sold his life on eBay. New
York Governor Eliot Spitzer told Republican Assemblyman
James Tedisco, "I am a fucking steamroller and I'll roll
over you or anybody else," and James Taylor was about to
go on tour. After it ransacked House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's Washington, D.C., residence, a small black bird
was captured in a brown bag and released. "She kept
thinking to herself," said a spokesman, "'Quoth the Raven,
"Nevermore."'"

-- News Round-up by Rafil Kroll-Zaidi