DC Up Close

June became the deadliest month thus far for coalition
forces in the Afghan war, with at least 80 killed,
including 46 Americans. General Stanley McChrystal
resigned in disgrace after a magazine article quoted him
mocking the civilian leadership and revealing that his
favorite beer is Bud Light Lime. President Barack Obama
nominated General David Petraeus to replace McChrystal;
anonymous sources in the Pentagon said that Petraeus would
revise McChrystal’s policy of “courageous restraint,”
which had been implemented to reduce the killing of Afghan
civilians. Anonymous soldiers at one unnamed camp in
Afghanistan rejoiced at the news of McChrystal’s
departure. “I joined the Army,” explained one junior NCO,
“to find and kill the people who blew up our buildings.” A
civilian employee of the U.S. Army was arrested in Weiden,
Germany, after threatening to kill his neighbors for
blowing their vuvuzelas too loudly during the
Netherlands-Cameroon World Cup game, and the Detroit
Institute of Arts decided to sell an American flag carried
by Custer’s troops at his last stand.

Sales of new homes had fallen 33 percent since last month;
average 30-year fixed-mortgage rates fell to a record low
of 4.69 percent; and it was revealed that 241 prison
inmates serving life sentences had claimed and received
first-time homebuyer tax credits. The U.S. House and
Senate finalized a watered-down, 2,000-page
financial-reform bill. The bill will limit investments in
hedge funds and certain risky derivatives made by banks,
which currently hold derivatives valued at $212.8
trillion. Banks and investors welcomed the bill, which
analyst Dean Baker called “a fig leaf,” and the S&P’s 500
Financials Index rose 1.1 percent on the
news. Credit-default swaps on Greek government bonds hit a
record high, and police arrested over 900 protestors at
the G-20 summit in Toronto, after relatively light riots
in which four police cars were burned. “This isn’t even a
sideshow,” said John Kirton, director of the G20 Research
Group at the University of Toronto, of the protests. “This
is a Sunday picnic with a few bad elements.” Security
arrangements at the summit were the most expensive in
Canadian history, requiring a police force roughly five
times as large as the one deployed at last year’s G-20
meeting in Pittsburgh. North Korea claimed that the
U.S. owed it $65 trillion, or roughly the value of global
GDP, for damages relating to the Korean War, and Kellogg
recalled 28 million boxes of cereal (with an
“uncharacteristic wax-like off taste and smell”) that
could cause diarrhea.

Confirmation hearings began for U.S. Supreme Court nominee
Elena Kagan. Infamous Jamaican drug lord Dudus Coke was
arrested, despite being cunningly disguised in a black
afro wig; a pink wig and women’s glasses were also found
in his possession. Senator Robert Byrd (D., W.V.), the
longest-serving member of Congress in U.S. history, died,
as did Manute Bol, who was until 1993 the tallest player
ever to play in the NBA. At Wimbledon, John Isner beat
Nicolas Mahut in the longest tennis match ever, playing
more than 183 games in 11 hours over the course of three
days, then quickly lost his next match. “I just didn’t
have much in the way of my legs,” said Isner. Oscar, a
British cat, mowed down last year by a combine harvester
while napping, received new bionic feet. Oil from the
wellhead of BP’s exploded Deepwater Horizon rig made its
first landfall on Mississippi shores, in the form of tar
balls and so-called mousse patties, as Tropical Storm Alex
threatened to spread oil and delay cleanup. The House
voted 420-1 to give subpoena powers to a presidential
commission investigating the spill, with Rep. Ron Paul
(R., Tex.) casting the lone “no” vote, and it was revealed
that New Orleans federal judge Martin Feldman, who
recently struck down the Obama Administration’s moratorium
on deep-water drilling, owned shares in at least 17 oil
companies as of 2009. Connie Everitt of Kitimat, near
Vancouver, hit and killed a moose while driving to the
hospital to visit her sister Studley, who was seriously
injured when she hit and killed a pregnant moose last
month. “My first thought was, ‘Are the moose going out [on
a] hunting season for my family?’” she said. “So far, we
win three because we got three of them dead.” The
poisonous wind on the exoplanet HD209458b continued to
blow, according to scientists, at 3,000 to 6,000 miles per
hour.

– Sam Stark