Commentary: Joe Bob's Week in Review

Francoise Ducros, an aide to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, called President Bush a "moron" in a private meeting that leaked to the press, then decided to resign her position because the publicity made her job impossible. Canadian spin doctors pointed out that in Canada, being a moron is not necessarily a bad thing, and that morons are entitled to special health subsidies and parking privileges.

Harvey John "Jack" McGeorge of Woodbridge, Va., was pressured to resign as a United Nations weapons inspector after being slammed by the tabloid press for his kinky sado-masochistic sexual preferences. We at The Joe Bob Report think this would be a mistake. If ever we needed a person in Iraq who knows the meaning of "Beat Me, Hurt Me," this would be the time.

Henry Kissinger was named to investigate what went wrong before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and, while he's at it, investigate what the hell he was doing in Cambodia.

On the first day of United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq, one team got lost, one "surprise" visit was interrupted by an air-raid siren, and two of the 50 vehicles carrying journalists crashed into each other. Then, while inspectors toured the facilities, agents of Saddam Hussein placed whoopee cushions on the seats of their Jeeps.

Fistfights have been breaking out between surfers and kayakers in Santa Cruz, Calif., over proper wave etiquette. The City Council is divided on the issue, reflected in a recent debate that is reproduced here in its entirety: "Dude!" "Duh!" "Lame!" "Uncool!" "Whatever!"

A white couple in Britain gave birth to black twins in what courts are blaming on a mix-up in a fertility clinic, but which could make an excellent sequel to the 1970 blaxploitation classic "Watermelon Man."

Paul Kelleher walked up to the 2-ton marble statue of former Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher, recently installed in London's Guildhall, and used a cricket bat and an iron pole to knock its head off. Kelleher told police he did it as a protest against capitalism and a woman who had "endangered the world." A theater director, Kelleher has obviously staged Bertolt Brecht one too many times.

John Lennon fans were bitterly disappointed when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg refused their request to restore the all-night Dec. 8 vigil at Strawberry Fields in Central Park. From 1981 to 1992, the faithful gathered on the anniversary of Lennon's death and remained until dawn, but the practice was stopped with the election of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who ordered them to leave the park by 1 a.m., the normal curfew. They had hoped that Bloomberg would restore the tradition, but he cited bureaucratic park policy and refused to give freedom a chance. Sic Yoko on him.

Miss Cleo agreed to get out of the psychic business, pay $5 million, and forgive $500 million in uncollected bills in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission -- but she already knew that.

More than 200 people in Nigeria were killed in riots over the Miss World pageant, causing contestants to pack their bikinis and heels and scurry out of the country. Even Miss Congeniality?

More than 30,000 people had their identities stolen by a ring operating out of Brooklyn and the Bronx. Most of the victims will receive their identities back, but at least a thousand are requesting new identities because they're sick of the old one.

More than 500 passengers and crew members were infected with a nasty virus aboard the Holland America Amsterdam cruise ship, spending most of their cruise suffering from diarrhea and abdominal cramps. The ship was pulled out of service for 10 days in an attempt to disinfect it, partly because souvenir vendors who meet the ship when it docks in the Bahamas were starting to call it Columbus's Revenge.

The California Highway Patrol apologized for killing six cattle that got loose in a lettuce field near Lompoc, Calif. Two officers were disciplined for what they called a "mistake." The Albert Silva family, guardians of the cows, said all their livestock was in the country legally, unarmed, and had no ties to al Qaida.

Pederpes finneyae, a toothy 3-foot-long creature that resembled a salamander, has been reclassified as the earliest known animal able to walk on land. Investigators at the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology say that a fossil found in 1971 was originally believed to be a fish, but now we know that it lived from 348 million to 344 million years ago in the area around Dumbarton, Scotland, where it crept up out of the water and clomped around like it owned the place.

Depressed people filed a class-action lawsuit against Walgreens, a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, three doctors and Eli Lilly, maker of Prozac, for mailing out a "Dear Patient" form letter that read, "Enclosed you will find a free one-month trial of Prozac Weekly. Congratulations on being one step closer to full recovery." The incident was so depressing that several people switched to black-market Zoloft.

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is being remade as a two-hour TV movie on the Fox network, but Tim Curry is not available. He's starring in the remake TV series "Family Affair," playing Mr. French. Let's hope Buffy doesn't look in his closet.

Scenes from domestic life:

Karen Brand, vice president of the Alaska state Chamber of Commerce, was upset over being dumped by the retired Alaska commissioner of public safety, Glenn Godfrey, so she waited for Godfrey at his home in Eagle River. When he drove up after midnight with his wife, Patricia, she shot her ex-lover dead, wounded his wife, then killed herself. Those Anchorage tourism brochures will be a little late.

(Joe Bob Briggs writes several columns for UPI. Contact him at [email protected] or through his Web site, joebobbriggs.com. Snail mail: P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, Texas 75221.)