While you were partying

Spring break -- a time for fun in the sun, drinking, dancing and parties rife with debauchery that would make Carson Daly blush. Where was I for spring break 2004? That's right -- Lansing, Michigan. While so many of my peers were living it up in sunnier latitudes, I was visiting my parents in Spartan country and trying to find ways to distract myself from the snowfall.\nDon't cry for me, Indiana. I was well compensated with a warm bed, home-cooked meals and the chance to catch up on all of the CNN I'd been missing. This was quite a week in the world of news, and as I doubt the party stops for Wolf Blitzer down in Fort Lauderdale, I thought I'd take this opportunity to catch everyone up on what they missed. It's Tuesday, so hopefully hangovers have subsided enough by now that you can suffer to read this.\nSupreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had a difficult week as he refused to recuse himself from a case the Sierra Club has brought against Vice President Dick Cheney. Scalia has received much criticism for this decision, as Cheney and Scalia are friends and hunting partners whose personal relationship could create a conflict of interest.\nSpain was still in mourning Sunday when its citizens took to the polls to oust Prime Minister José María Aznar. The Prime Minister lost to Socialist Party candidate José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero only three days after terrorist bombings in Madrid. The bombings were the most deadly attack in Europe since World War II. The Socialist Party blamed Spanish support of the war in Iraq for sparking the attacks, and Zapatero has pledged to pull all Spanish troops out of Iraq in late June if the United Nations does not take control of operations.\nWednesday in Iraq a bomb destroyed the Mount Lebanon Hotel in central Baghdad, killing 27 and injuring another 41. The next day another two hotels in Baghdad and a hotel in the southern city of Basra were bombed. All of these hotels catered to Westerners, and the attacks coincided with Thursday's one-year anniversary of the beginning of U.S. military operations in Iraq. \nIn his speech to mark the anniversary, President Bush focused his remarks largely on the war on terror. Bush interwove comments on the war on Iraq and no less than four times listed countries that count themselves as partners with the U.S. in the war.\nThere seemed to be a turn of fortune in the war on terror Friday when Pakistan announced it believed it had surrounded Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's second highest leader. Pakistan began to back down from that claim two days later as fighting continued.\nFriday, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu both survived an assassination attempt on the eve of Taiwan's presidential elections. Chen went on to narrowly win re-election but his opponent, Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party, refused to accept the results. Lien called for the election to be annulled, and some in his party went so far as to imply the attack may have been staged. Chen's Democratic Progressive Party seeks greater independence from mainland China, and Beijing has vowed to prevent formal independence with military force if necessary.\nWhere was Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry during this tumultuous week? Skiing in Idaho. Politically speaking, it might not have been the best time to take a vacation, but it reveals Kerry shares a knowledge with all of those college students living it up on spring break -- the world and its problems will still be there when he gets back. As Ferris Bueller said, "life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"