magid

As if the market for predicting terrorist acts weren't enough for one week, here are some highlights from the July 29 Harper's week in review

Deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz warned Iraq's neighbors not to meddle with the American occupying forces, proclaiming, "I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq."
[Nothing like taking your own advice.]
French police evacuated an airport in Toulouse and blew up a bag of puff pastry.
A Belgian botanist announced that the banana as we know it will be extinct within a decade.
[Breakfast cereal would not be the same without the possibility of banana! And what would Bitty do for shakes?]
British officials instituted a National Foreplay Day after a study found that many Britons were avoiding it.
Austrian surgeons conducted the first successful transplant of a human tongue.
A mayor in southern Spain banned men from going out on Thursday nights; the mayor, who will deploy brigades of women to patrol the streets and issue fines to errant males, proclaimed that "in future, Thursday will be a day for women."
[I suppose it'll be single women patrolling the streets, so the married ones can enjoy their husbands' company? Or is it making Thursday girls night out?]
Northern Europeans were protesting Greek plans to license more brothels in time for the 2004 Olympics.
[Always good to be prepared...]
The Canadian government released a 59-page user's manual for marijuana.
[I hadn't realized how complicated it is to use; all those people who managed to use it without the manual should get a prize for figuring it out!]
Scientists in Rome concluded that pizza prevents cancer.
[Mmmm... more pizza....]
Mortuary workers in Zimbabwe were renting cadavers to motorists who wished to take advantage of the priority given to hearses in gas-station lines.
Japanese police replaced their sirens with the recorded sound of church bells, in hopes of soothing agitated criminals.
['Cause you know police sirens are just used to agitate criminals. And church bells are such a soothing sound. Of course, I wonder whether young kids will get some interesting associations between the church and police...]
The NAACP called for an inquiry into the death of a black man who was found hanging from a tree with his hands tied behind his back; local police had concluded that the man, who had been dating the daughter of a white police officer, had committed suicide.
Two FBI agents interrogated a bookstore employee who was observed reading an article entitled "Weapons of Mass Stupidity."
A folksinger was banned from performing at a Border's bookstore in Fredericksburg, Virginia, after she opined between songs that President Bush has "chicken legs" and would be well advised to lift weights.
German scientists announced that vacation lowers your IQ.
[I suppose I should be glad I'm back, then.]