or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
•
"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
December 29, 2006
Yikes
Is Saddam headed off to hell tonight?
An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saddam would be executed before 6 a.m. Saturday, or 10 p.m. Friday EST. Also to be hanged at that time were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, the adviser said.
I realize I shouldn't be shocked by anything anymore...but I am shocked and frightened by the way this has happened. I honestly never believed the Bush administration could get away with preventing Saddam from speaking about his longtime collaboration with the U.S., which started in the late fifties. (Of course, Saddam may have had his own reasons for not, uh, emphasizing this.) And I really didn't think they could off him with no trial for the large-scale crimes we assisted with. But apparently they can. It's just a few steps short of an intra-mob hit.
This is a scary, scary world.
UPDATE: "Foodrule" writes in to make this important point:
From: Foodrule@...
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006
Subject: Re: Saddam getting what he deserves: Please choke on your own tongue
To: tinyrevolution@...Sorry to be so blunt! But on the bright side, you can add this e-mail to your self-congratulatory list of people who are responding to your self-evident moral bankruptcy. Stop breathing at your earliest convenience, dipshit.
What's particularly wonderful here is Foodrule's responding to something one inch above this. The only thing that could have made it better is if he'd used "inhuman barbarism" rather than "moral bankruptcy."
Posted at December 29, 2006 06:20 PM | TrackBackThis is a surreal moment. Our pundits and politicians are fluffing each other for the money shot, telling each other and the couch potatoes at home how awesome it would be to be there to hear his neck snap. Meanwhile Saddam is the model of grace "Try to get along. And don't hate the Americans."
Posted by: Lloyd at December 29, 2006 07:10 PMThe timing of this is just a bit suspect to me. Before 10 PM EST, George's bedtime. I suspect Mr. fucking Culture-of-life will be watching the execution "live via satellite".
Guaranteed the fluffers of the MSM will never ask.
Surreal indeed.
Posted by: orrwell at December 29, 2006 07:54 PMHmm, for some reason it doesn't surprise me at all. What is so surreal about it?
Posted by: abb1 at December 29, 2006 09:34 PM"Foodrule" is an asshole, but that goes without saying. Executing Saddam is a great way to stick it to the Iraqi Sunnis, because their winter holiday begins today. However, everybody knew this was going to happen because Bush was a great killer in Texas, never commuting a person on death row.
Posted by: Strelnikov at December 29, 2006 11:33 PMIn case there is some sort of poll/vote about it going on... please continue breathing.
The speed of this is completely shocking. And anyone actively excited about execution makes me nervous. What a weird way of making sense of the complexities of the world. Ugh. :/
Posted by: Zach at December 30, 2006 12:04 AMOne more dead added to the heap.
Bush, the man of death.
Oh yeah, worrying about why he was executed so quickly, too quickly for him to roll on the Bush Crime Family, certainly is a sign of moral bankruptcy.
And killing people means you are a good person!!!
Posted by: Biff Usually at December 30, 2006 12:29 AMsaddam and jerry sitting in a tree(in downtown hell) k-i-s-s-i-n-g
Posted by: almostinfamous at December 30, 2006 12:31 AMdamnit.
that ruined my entire comment!
of course the last should be k-i-s-s-i-n-g-e-r
Posted by: almostinfamous at December 30, 2006 12:32 AMJon, I'm deeply curious about your moral bankruptcy. The fees the banks charge are enormous once your account balance gets down to zero.
Seriously, can you explain what Foodrule's beef is?
Posted by: Aaron Datesman at December 30, 2006 07:43 AMhey, at least he's concerned about your convenience.
I'm guessing "Foodrule" prefers moral bankruptcy of a more demure sort, as opposed to the more brazen, self-evident type. This is just a guess, based on his apology for being blunt.
I just wish the great teevee lords would show us some snippets of their nightly news coverage of the events Saddam was sentenced for, from when ABC,NBC, CNN et al covered them in 1982. If foodrule does in fact take a shine to moral-bankruptcy of the teasing winsome sort, I imagine he'd also like to see how we covered said events from '82. Footage of an '82 state department press briefing regarding the event would be even more swell.
Instead we get 20 hrs a week of Nancy Grace and that Glenn Beck guy, or Katie taking 15 minutes out of a 30 minute CBS Nightly News broadcast to talk to that lady who's mountain-climbing husband died on Mt. Hood.
Posted by: Jonathan Versen at December 30, 2006 08:43 AMGreat post. I just submitted you to Reddit.
Posted by: Paul -V- at December 30, 2006 05:13 PMStrelnikov: The holiday comes about 12 days earlier each year. It is kind of like executing a Christian on Good Friday, though.
Posted by: Occulize at January 4, 2007 09:27 PM
