THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY AND THE RIDICULOUS...

Harper's weekly is an on-line magazine with brief thumbnail accounts of some events taking place on this crazy planet Earth of ours. In so many sentences you will learn news not shown or reported by the mainstream media. Please read below the review (with pictures I've added from the Internet, plus some enlightening or entertaining links attached) and learn, a few good, bad, ugly, ridiculous and doleful facts from around the world. thinkingblue

HARPER'S WEEKLY
June 13, 2006

WEEKLY REVIEW

United States forces succeeded in killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, with two
five-hundred-pound bombs that were dropped on a safe house north of Baghdad. Zarqawi reportedly survived the bombing at first and even tried to get away but was strapped to a stretcher, where he died. The U.S. military denied reports that American soldiers had beaten the dying terrorist. "He died while American soldiers were attempting to save his life," said General George Casey. Al Qaeda promised to
respond with "major attacks." Tom DeLay, the former Republican majority leader who was forced to resign
because he is corrupt, said farewell to the House of Representatives. Dozens of Democrats walked out during his speech. "I did a good job," DeLay said. "I helped build the largest political coalition in the last 50 years." Texas executed an axe murderer, and it was reported that scientists have created a new type of synthetic snakebite antivenom. Florida's wildlife officials decided to remove the manatee, which has a mild taste that readily adapts itself to recipes for beef, from the state's endangered-species list. A new Gallup poll found that Muslim women are generally happy with their lot and think that Western values lead to moral decay, pornography, and promiscuity. New computer viruses were exploiting World Cup fever, and British scientists claimed that men drink heavily at sporting events in order to compensate for their masculine shortcomings.

President George W. Bush traveled to Artesia, New Mexico, to address the Border Patrol Academy and suggested that immigrants had better learn to speak good American. "I knew I was in pretty good country when I saw all the cowboy hats," he said. "And I think I saw one guy spitting in a can." Three detainees at the American prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, committed suicide using nooses made from clothing and bedsheets. "They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own," said Navy Rear-Admiral Harry Harris. "I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against
us." All three men had been in the camp for about four years and had recently engaged in a hunger strike. The attorney for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, one of the marines charged with the Haditha massacre, asserted that the massacre, though "tragic," was nonetheless "lawful" and was the result of following "the rules of engagement and standard protocol."

It was reported that the Pentagon has decided to remove a reference to Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions from a new edition of the Army Field Manual on interrogation. That article bans torture and cruel treatment as well as "outrages on personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." The change, which would reverse decades of military policy, follows President Bush's declaration in 2002 that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to "unlawful combatants" such as terrorists.

A report by the Council of Europe charged that European countries (including Germany, Spain, Sweden, Greece, and Italy) served as a "global spider web" for the CIA's secret abduction and unlawful transfer of terrorism suspects to its network of torture camps around the world. The United States issued a report on the global sex trade and rebuked Germany for being "a source, transit, and destination country" for prostitutes. Donald Rumsfeld, the American secretary of defense, traveled to Vietnam, where he complained that Russia is a bully and China is secretive; he also observed that when Vietnam's first university was founded in 1070 American Indians were still living in mud huts. "That's impressive," he said. Indonesia's defense minister scolded Rumsfeld for being overbearing. President Vladimir Putin of Russia had lunch with Henry Kissinger, who said afterward that he has
confidence in "Russian evolution." "What if my grandmother had certain sexual attributes?" Putin asked a reporter. "Then she would would be my grandfather." A new study found that the quality of men's sperm deteriorates as they grow older and could lead to an increase in dwarf babies.

Armed gunmen abducted more than 50 bystanders at a Baghdad bus stop, and it was announced that May was the deadliest month for Baghdad residents since the beginning of the American occupation. A total of 1,398 bodies were found throughout the city, alongside roads, in garbage dumps, and in abandoned cars, though many others have been abducted, never to be seen again. British special forces were being trained to use strap-on "batwings" rather than parachutes; the lightweight carbon wings permit the soldiers to be dropped at high altitudes and then glide for more than 100 miles before landing. The Senate failed to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and Macy's removed two gay-pride mannequins from a Boston display window after the store received complaints. It was reported that the United States carried out 750 air strikes in Afghanistan last month and that plans were being made to send United Nations troops to Darfur. Serbia declared itself to be a sovereign state. Javier Solana, Europe's foreign-policy director, formally offered Iran a package of incentives designed to persuade the Islamic state to give up its nuclear ambitions; that same day, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran restarted its uranium-enrichment program. An Israeli artillery shell killed at least seven civilians, including five members of one family (including young children aged ten, three, and one) who were picnicking on a beach in Gaza. Israeli officials expressed regret and said that the shell had been aimed at a target 400 yards away from the
picnic. Hamas declared that it would no longer abide by a 16-month-old cease-fire and fired a rocket into
Israel. The Army Corps of Engineers admitted that its incompetence was largely to blame for the destruction of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The Food and Drug Administration asked restaurants to help Americans eat less. "We must take a serious look at the impact these foods are having on our waistlines," said a health-promotion official named Penelope Slade Royall. Whole Foods was concerned about the well-being of its fresh lobsters, and the New York Times reported that tar-paper shacks have been selling briskly in South African shanty towns. A group of high school students in Florida found a real corpse at a fake crime
scene. American conservationists were airlifting endangered frogs out of Panama in their luggage. Surgeons
in Shanghai successfully removed a baby boy's third arm.

-- Roger D. Hodge
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HARPER'S WEEKLY
June 6, 2006

WEEKLY REVIEW

In Iraq, a car bomb in Basra killed at least 33 people, a mortar attack in southern Baghdad killed 9 people, and 8 U.S. soldiers died. Police found 22 bodies with bullet wounds and signs of torture in Baghdad; northwest of the city, at an improvised checkpoint, 19 civilians were dragged from their cars and shot. Twenty-one Kurds and Shiites, many of them high school students, were ordered off a bus and executed in Ain Laila. In Baquba 7 policemen were killed, and the heads of 8 Sunni men were found in Dole banana
boxes. Six more policemen were killed in Mosul. A Baghdad pet market was bombed, killing 5 people and several doves. It was reported that a U.S. Marine had been traumatized by his experiences cleaning up and documenting the alleged massacre of civilians by other marines in Haditha. "He called me many times," said the marine's mother, "about carrying this little girl in his hands and her brains splattering on his boots." A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 90 days' hard labor for threatening a prisoner at Abu Ghraib with a dog in 2003. "You can . . . end up losing the whole dang war," said the prosecuting attorney, "basically for boneheaded decisions and misjudgments." The United States announced that it would join 5 other nations in demanding that Iran immediately suspend uranium-enrichment activities, although the country would in the future be allowed to develop some civilian nuclear technologies. Iran said it would refuse to engage in talks unless all conditions were dropped, and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the United States could endanger its oil supply if it makes a "wrong move" toward Iran. Iran's military was reported to have planned a campaign of decentralized guerilla warfare in the event of a United States invasion, and oil rose to $73 a barrel. John Allen Muhammad, the Beltway Sniper, was sentenced to 6
consecutive life sentences.

It was determined that New Orleans was sinking faster than previously thought. A potent drug cocktail killed at least 48 people in Detroit, monsoon storms killed more than 40 people in and around Bombay, and an earthquake in Iran killed one little girl. President George W. Bush named Goldman Sachs Group Chairman Henry Paulson Jr as the new Secretary of the Treasury, and an Ohio coin dealer named John Noe pleaded guilty to charges that he illegally funneled more than $45,000 to Bush's reelection campaign. British police were patrolling seaports and airports in order to prevent football hooligans from attending the World Cup in Berlin, and the European Court of Justice ruled that E.U. airlines are not required to provide passenger data
to the United States. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered 1,000 National Guard soldiers to the Mexican border. The United States declared a moratorium on wind farms in Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Ted Nugent denied both poking his erect penis through a map of West Virginia and urinating on a nun. It was reported that Umberto Billo, a Venetian hotel porter, had slept with 8,000 women, and the worldwide rate of HIV infections stabilized for the first time in history. Montenegro declared independence from Serbia, and the first wild bear seen in Germany since 1835
continued to attack farm animals and elude capture. "For security purposes," said Bavarian Environment Minister Werner Schnappauf, "the permission to open fire must be maintained." Authorities said the brother of the bear had killed Swiss sheep last summer. Elizabeth Taylor denied reports that her health was failing, and archaeologists in Rome dug up a 3000-year-old female skeleton.

Researchers studying a shipwreck off Cape Cod discovered the remains of a nine-year-old pirate named John King, the Vancouver Zoo was charged with cruelty to a hippo, and officials in south India said that they had captured an alcohol-abusing, homicidal rogue elephant named Master Killer. In China doctors were trying to determine which left arm to remove from a three-armed baby. In New Jersey a 13-year-old girl was arrested for attempting to kill her 91-year-old neighbor; in Washington, D.C., a 13-year-old girl won the Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling "Ursprache"; and in New York City a 13-year-old girl (who may be an exotic dancer) abducted a 3-year-old boy. Dutch pedophiles founded a political party that will push to lower the Netherlands' age of consent from 16 to 12, and eventually to scrap it altogether. "A ban," said a party co-founder, "just makes children curious." British scientists powered a small fan by feeding chocolate to bacteria, an Ohio man was awarded a patent for a cordless jump rope, and a Japanese acoustics expert recreated the voice of the Mona Lisa. "My true identity," said the virtual Mona Lisa, "is shrouded in mystery." Pakistan banned "The Da Vinci Code." "Degradation of any prophet," said Minister of Culture Ghulam Jamal, "is tantamount to defamation of the rest." Two people died when a plane owned by Pat Robertson
crashed off the coast of Connecticut, and a snake bit a woman at a Wal-Mart in Florida. "Thank goodness for sweat pants with elastic," said the woman, "because he tried to climb up my britches' leg."

A woman married a cobra in the Indian state of Orissa. "Though snakes cannot speak or understand," said the bride, "we communicate in a peculiar way."

A senior citizens' community in Washington was overrun by marmots. A cave in Israel was found to contain a complete ecosystem that had been sealed off for millions of years, geologists identified the impact site of a giant meteor that is suspected of having wiped out most life on earth a quarter-billion years ago, and an international team of scientists announced that the North Pole was once an ice-free area with tropical temperatures. "Basically," explained palaeoecologist Appy Sluijs, "it looks like the earth released a gigantic fart of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere." It was declared that Batwoman will be a lesbian.

-- Rafil Kroll-Zaidi

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HARPER'S WEEKLY
May 30, 2006

WEEKLY REVIEW

In Iraq over 66 people were killed in attacks, including two CBS News employees when their convoy was struck by a car bomb; a CBS correspondent was seriously injured in the same attack. In Baghdad two tennis players and their coach were killed for wearing shorts, and a Marine helicopter was shot down over the Anbar province. Soldiers were developing emotional relationships with their bomb-defusing robots. "Please fix Scooby Doo," said one soldier, "because he saved my life." Senator John Warner called for hearings into the killings of more than 20 civilians in Haditha by U.S. Marines in 2005, and it was reported that, since 2003, 8,600 British troops had gone AWOL in Iraq; 929 were still missing. Riots broke out in Afghanistan after a U.S. military truck went out of control and killed some civilians. Osama bin Laden released an
audiotape in which he claimed that convicted terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was not involved in the September 11 attacks. "Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events," said bin Laden, "and if he had known something--even very little--about the September 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohamed Atta, and the others . . . to leave America before being discovered." British MP George Galloway said that an assassin would be "morally justified" in killing Prime Minister Tony Blair. Seventy-five prisoners were on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay prison, and a charity organization published a report claiming that 60 minors ages 14 and older have been held at the prison. President
George W. Bush signed into law the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act, which limits protests at military funerals. In Ontario, Canada, a man was arrested ten minutes after stealing a hand-held vagina. "He had used it," said a constable.

An earthquake in Indonesia killed more than 5,000 people, flooding in Thailand killed more than 100 people, and four Russian soldiers were killed in Chechnya. The government of Burma extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for an unspecified amount of time. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority to accept the goal of establishing a Palestinian state (and thus acknowledge Israel's right to exist); if Hamas does not comply, he said that he will call a national referendum on the issue. A gay-rights rally in Moscow turned violent when activists were attacked and beaten by anti-gay protesters. "Moscow," shouted the protesters, "is not Sodom!" In Germany, at the official opening of the Hauptbahnhof, the largest railway station in Europe, a man went on a rampage and stabbed 35 people. Because one of the first people he stabbed was HIV positive, concerns were raised that some of the subsequently stabbed may also become infected. A team of researchers in southern Cameroon said that they had found wild chimpanzees carrying the SIVcpz virus, thought to be the precursor to HIV. In Washington, D.C., police searched the 50 acres of office space in the Rayburn House Office Building to find
that the "gunfire" that precipitated a several hour lockdown was actually a pneumatic hammer.

Former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were found guilty of conspiracy and fraud, and in San Diego a man named Lawrence Christopher Smith was sentenced to 84 years to life in prison for shooting and killing a man named Dom Perignon Champagne. A Nebraska judge sentenced a man convicted of sexually assaulting a child to probation because the man is too short for prison. The Supreme Court voted unanimously that police may enter a house without a warrant in order to break up a fight. President Bush
ordered that the documents seized by the FBI in a raid on the offices of Representative William Jefferson,
a Louisiana Democrat, must be sealed for 45 days, so that Congress and the Justice Department can determine exactly how material seized from Congressional offices should be reviewed. The Justice Department denied reports that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (who publicly criticized the FBI for raiding Jefferson's offices) was under investigation for his relationship with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Hastert said that the FBI was planting stories in the media to discredit him. Jack Kevorkian was very ill and reportedly had less than a year to live. In Australia, a psychiatrist named Stephen Allnutt testified that financier Brendan Francis McMahon had believed he was helping animals when he mutilated 17 rabbits and a guinea pig while under the influence of methamphetamine. "I wonder," McMahon reportedly said, "if I made a mistake because I never asked the rabbits?"

Scientists in North Carolina said that they could grow new, functional rabbit penises, and a jury in Illinois awarded a woman $5 million in compensation for her ruined vagina. In Norway a grevling, or badger, wrecked a man's bedroom. An analysis of FCC decisions found that the following terms or phrases are neither indecent nor profane: "a lot of crap," "ass is huge," "ass," "bitch," "damn," "dick," "dickhead," "fire his ass," "for Christ's sake," "hell," "kick-ass," "kiss my ass," "my ass," "pissed off," "poop," "sex with a dog," "singers that suck," "sit their asses down," "sucked," "up yours,"
"wiping his ass," and "you suck." NASA scientists claimed that they could extract oxygen from lunar soil,

Pat Robertson claimed to have leg-pressed 2,000 pounds, and Senator Bill Frist helped give a gorilla a root canal. A study found that most British men are cry babies. A Sherpa stood naked on the summit of Mount Everest.

-- Paul Ford

In the good old days people used to sit on the porch and watch the grass grow or gaze at the stars. Nobody locked the front door of their house because they knew all the neighbors. Not many people had a car, but those that did never locked the ignition (back then cars didn't even have locks). People spent their evenings sitting in the living room with their family, knitting or whittling while listening to the radio.

That was a long time ago. The enormous increase in the population and the rapid advance of technology has changed all that. Too many people on this planet has made it into a dangerous place to live. If you don't get mugged or killed by criminals you die from the stress caused by annoyances like sound, light and air pollution.

People used to work for the same company their entire life and retire with a pension. Now technology and foreign competition has made job security a thing of the past. We don't even have secure family relationships. Half of our marriages end in divorce and family members are taking each other to court over a few hundred dollars.

People today are under incredible stress, and things are not going to improve any time soon. This ebook tries to provide some advise and practical steps you can take to survive in this crazy world. From stress management and career advice to money management tips and relationship advice, help is here.

I plan to keep updating and building this ebook with new ideas and information that will help you not just survive, but thrive in todays crazy world. We humans are strong and adaptable and can handle any thing life throws at us. So enjoy this ebook, while I go sit on the porch and watch the grass grow.

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