Commentary: Joe Bob's Week in review

NEW YORK, June 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Jehovah's Witnesses can knock on any door they want without registering with local officials. The little town of Stratton, Ohio, had tried to regulate door-to-door proselytizing, but the court was influenced by receiving 17,000 free issues of The Watchtower, which Justice John Paul Stevens called "a hell of a good read."

In the Arthur Andersen trial, a Houston jury deliberated ten days before deciding that, yes, shredding documents is definitely obstruction of justice. The jury was dismissed by the judge, but four days later jurors were still filing out of the courtroom. Financial records were released showing that Bill Clinton received $9.2 million in fees for 59 speeches in the year 2001, charging a top fee of $350,000 per speaking engagement and sometimes speaking four times in four days in four different countries. His spokeswoman was quick to point out that he made several dozen free speeches as well, including talks to AIDS groups, civil rights organizations, school music programs, charities, and the entire chorus line of the Folies Bergere.

The Justice Department filed a brief arguing that military prisoners, even if they're Americans, have no right to a lawyer and can be held forever in prison. The filing in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen captured with Taliban forces, relies on the rarely invoked Amendment 16C of the Constitution, which Solicitor General Paul D. Clement discovered in a culvert over the weekend and pasted back into the document in its proper place.

The Supreme Court ruled that executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional, but postponed a ruling on the legality of executing people sentenced to death by mentally retarded judges.

Terry Lynn Barton, a "recreation technician" in Pike National Forest, says she started a campfire to burn a letter from her estranged husband and burned up 136,000 acres of Colorado instead. None of the 33 destroyed homes were believed to belong to the estranged husband, who is presumably refusing to reignite the marriage.

Twenty years ago the United States spent millions on textbooks for Afghan schoolchildren filled with calls to jihad, pictures of Kalashnikov rifles, and passages about a Muslim's right to make war on his enemies. Those textbooks were still being used as late as January, when they were replaced with a NEW load of American-financed textbooks, this time telling Afghan schoolchildren that Islam is a peaceful religion, with all references to jihad removed, and with the weapons replaced with sketches of pomegranates and oranges.

Legal experts say that ANY mention of religion in textbooks paid for by the government is an absolute violation of U.S. law, but how can we just ABANDON our commitment to the Afghan child? After all, a first-grader who read about jihad in his American-sponsored textbook in 1980 would be just about old enough now to . . . uh . . . fight with the TALIBAN?

The habitual truancy rate in the Milwaukee public schools last year was 40.2 percent, and at some schools it was as high as 80 percent. And they were giving out gold stars for perfect attendance, too!

Arizona legislators debated a resolution creating an official state policy of "treating others as you would like to be treated." Anyone violating the policy would be forced to sit in the corner.

A retired Scottish hairdresser lured a woman to his home by offering her a free haircut, then scalped her. Leonard Bowie, 62, has had a fetish for female hair since the age of 19, so he used a razor to cut strips of hair and flesh from the head of Mary Mullady, 51, who was so disfigured that she needed skin grafts. Bowie was sentenced to eight years in prison, despite his lawyer's assertion that he suffers from "a deteriorating brain condition" caused by alcohol abuse. The scalp was sent to the British Museum and added to its famous Colonial Atrocities

Collection.

Thieves have hit six different Starbucks on Chicago's North Side, stealing espresso machines. They're described as jittery and saucer-eyed.

Jim Albright, a bodyguard and one of Madonna's former lovers, is trying to sell her underwear, nude Polaroids and hot-chat letters she sent him ten years ago. "This is the reality about her horny past," Albright told London's News of the World. "I'm not concerned about what she thinks or feels." Fans were shocked to find out that she WEARS underwear.

Robert McDonough, a Staten Island bouncer, arrived home at 5 a.m. to find a suitcase on the curb with a dead body stuffed inside. Yes, it was the kind with wheels.

Erik Aude, a 21-year-old actor who appeared in "Dude, Where's My Car?," was arrested at Islamabad Airport with 3,600 grams of opium. A Pakistan court can give him anywhere from 10 years in prison to the death penalty, causing him to wonder, "Dude, where's my ass?"

(This column reflects Joe Bob Brigg's view events that occurred during the past week. They are not necessarily those of United Press International. You can read Joe Bob Briggs' not so serious look at events of the past week every Friday.)