Joe Bob's Week in Review

Kazem al-Sahir, the "Julio Iglesias of Iraq," opened in Vegas at the Palms Casino, performing his hit song "Beauty and His Love," which is a ballad about a man who loves Baghdad more than he loves his girlfriend. He followed that up with an American tour that he hopes will prevent the equivalent of a box-cutter slash across his beloved's face.

The Rev. Freddie Quinn, a minister and electrician in Ferriday, La., announced for the presidency after killing a snake in his neighbor's yard and deciding the dead snake was a sign from God to seek the office that had been prophesied for him six years ago. "God told me to run and trained me for the position," he said shortly before setting out on a national campaign tour with 10 of his 18 children, including his newborn son, IAM Jesuschrist theSonoftheLivingod Jr. At each campaign stop Quinn will be distributing copies of his book, "Jesus Told the U.S.A. Bald-Faced Lie, I Got Proof Satan Has a Brother," and his first platform position is opposition to the war in Iraq. "I'm going to stop the war," he said. "It's two brothers fighting against each other." After an appearance at a religious meeting in Galveston, Texas, Quinn is headed for New York, where he has no idea just how welcome he'll be in the subways.

Construction is almost complete on a $30 million luxury tourist resort at Hitler's famous Eagle's Nest retreat in the Alps where he partied with Eva Braun, planned the invasion of Poland and wrote parts of "Mein Kampf." What makes us think they won't be booking Jackie Mason in the lounge?

Ulrike Meinhof, the good-looking one in the Baader-Meinhof gang, committed suicide in 1976, but her brain was secretly preserved for research at two German universities. (Those wacky Germans.) The family sued to get it back, and finally prosecutors said they could have it. So it was placed in a jar at Magdeburg University in eastern Germany and shipped to Stuttgart, where it was released into the wild.

Latest in the French government's continuing moral crusade is a 93 percent tax increase on profits from porno films. "Our aim is to make this sector financially unattractive," right-wing parliament deputy Charles de Courson told the newspaper Le Figaro. The special porn tax, combined with France's 33 percent tax on all corporate profits, will leave French pornographers with only a 7 percent after-tax profit. Could this really be the same country that created both "The Story of O" and "Emmanuelle"? Le roi est mort; vive le panique!

Brent Blake is building a 60-foot-tall lava lamp in downtown Soap Lake, Wash., in an effort to attract stoned tourists.

More than 2,700 former jail inmates in Floyd County, Ind., will be paid $1,000 to settle a lawsuit claiming that they were strip-searched for no reason. Now that's kinky.

More than 100 people have died this year on El Camino de la Muerte, or the highway of death, a single-lane dirt road in Bolivia that runs from the Andes to the jungle, featuring sheer cliffs, rock overhangs, waterfalls that spill across the road, and one place where it's only 10 feet wide next to a 1,000-foot precipice. The government was supposed to have a new more modern road built by now, but construction is two years behind schedule, and besides, backpackers think it's cool.

Louisiana is paying four bucks for every nutria you can kill in an effort to exterminate 400,000 of the giant rodents and hopefully save the coastline. The state is losing 35 square miles of soil per year as the nutrias eat dune plants that hold the beaches in place. Do you realize what kind of combination we have here, though? Four dollars per dead animal, in a state where every family has guns, and where every kid gets a .22 rifle for his 12th birthday. We wouldn't recommend any crawfish hunts in the near future.

Truong Nam Cam, better known as "Nam Cam," is going on trial in Ho Chi Minh City for murder, gambling, extortion and fraud, but since he's considered the most powerful gangster in Vietnam, no lawyer will agree to represent him, even though his family has offered millions for counsel. If no one steps forward soon, the Ho Chi Minh City Lawyer Society will appoint him a lawyer, presumably by drawing black beans. Vietnam is, of course, the home of the rare toothless shark.

Mayor Jay Lee of Virgin, Utah, charges citizens $25 every time they get up to speak at a zoning and planning meeting, but if he decides the city is too busy, he simply cancels public comment sessions entirely. Remarkably, the city hasn't been sued yet, presumably because everyone is broke from trying to speak.

Jacquelyn Clarkson, a member of the New Orleans City Council, is spearheading a crackdown on street performers in the French Quarter. Police are chasing away the famous tap-dancing children, busting unlicensed fortunetellers, and enforcing an 8 p.m. curfew for musicians. If they start arresting drunks on Bourbon Street, all is lost.

A German zookeeper barbecued five Tibetan mountain chickens and two Cameroonian sheep at the petting zoo in Cologne, but when he was caught and fired, he sued for not receiving his severance pay or being given six months' notice. A German court agreed to give him six months' severance, since he was interrupted before his planned spider-monkey dessert.

For $500 the town of Gurdon, Ark., will tear down your house and burn the wreckage. So far 20 people have taken up Mayor Clayton Franklin on his offer, because it beats counting cars on a Friday night.

The suburbs of San Jose, Calif., have been overrun with marauding wild pigs that devour lawns and chase children. Since Californians don't believe in hunting the pigs or even trapping them for use by dog food companies, it looks like the fabled Arkansas razorback has found nirvana. Most of the pigs are crossbred from farm swine brought to the state by mining prospectors in the 1850s and Russian wild boars that were introduced for hunting by William Randolph Hearst in the 1920s and 1930s. Now if we could just slip in a few javelinas from South Texas, we could do some serious suburban-yuppie herd management.

Sisir Das, of the Midnapore district in Bengal, was instructed by the goddess Kali to drink the blood of sacrificial animals, so he sucked 207 goats dry. "I feel the goddess taking possession of my body," he said, although he seemed confused by his wife's reluctance to kiss him.

Scenes from our secure republic:

Vasiliy V. Ryjov of Lewisboro, N.Y., lost his wife, Tatiana, in the World Trade Center attack, and on the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, he was informed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service that he is being deported back to his native Georgia. The reason: there's a fake marriage claim on the immigration papers filed for him by a shyster lawyer in 1993, when he didn't speak English and gave the man $4,000 to take care of his permanent residency. Although trained as an engineer, Ryjov has worked construction jobs in the United States to take care of his two sons. Four months before the death of his wife, she had won her own green card in a lottery. You can't be too careful about those grieving househusband terrorist cells.

Scenes from domestic life:

Benny Zavala of Oxnard, Calif., cut open his six-year-old daughter's guinea pig because he believed it was a robot with a government spy camera in the back of its head. Bruce Dern for the movie version?

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.