The Zeitgeist Checklist

SADR EVERY WEEK Last week: 1 Weeks on list: 25

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1. Iraq. With violence escalating, and his approval ratings dwindling to the low 30s, President Bush finally agrees to seek a diversity of opinions about Iraq, as long as they all coincide with his. Bush apparently plans to send even more troops to Iraq, and if that doesn't get him down to single digits, he plans to ask Mark Foley to send more text messages to congressional pages.

WE ALSO CARE ABOUT JUSTICE STEVENS Last week: -- Weeks on list: 1

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2. Illness. Republicans and Democrats send their best wishes to Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), whose condition after brain surgery may determine control of the Senate. They all insist that they're not even thinking about politics, that they only care about Sen. Jackson, or Johnston, or whatever his name is. After watching a videotape of the patient, physician and outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) issues his diagnosis: The GOP lives!

WHO'S DISAPPEARED NOW? Last week: -- Weeks on list: 1

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3. Death. Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the corrupt dictator renowned for making dissidents disappear, dies before he can face trial. The Zeitgeist has a feeling Pinochet is going somewhere that won't

be Chile.

SIGN OF THE APOCALYPTO Last week: -- Weeks on list: 1

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4. Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosts a conference for people who think the Holocaust never happened -- not that there would have been anything wrong with that! Afterward, he insists he never said that Israel should be destroyed, never served as a consultant to James Baker on the Iraq Study Group and never warned Mel Gibson to watch out for Jews on the California Highway Patrol.

FAILURE OF INTELLIGENCE Last week: 3 Weeks on list: 12

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5. Democrats. Incoming Senate Appropriations chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) stuns his colleagues by accepting a one-year moratorium on earmarks. It will be known as the Robert C. Byrd Earmark Moratorium, and scholars will study it for decades at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Earmark Analysis. Meanwhile, incoming House intelligence chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.) flubs a quiz on Iraqi sects. Here's a quick primer, Congressman: The Sunnis hate the Shiites. The Shiites hate the Sunnis. And they all hate us.

POLITICAL FOOTBALL Last week: 6 Weeks on list: 6

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