The local news came on after the college football games yesterday, and I happened to catch those precious three and a half minutes (between the fire in Bumbleville and the Dumblefoolers Convention in town and the could a missing white girl happen here? and the weather and the sports) during which the AnchorFigure recites in her/his Most Serious Voice the Extremely Condensed version of the important national/international news that the prodcuer has determined must fill the gaps between fires, weather, sports, and missing white people.

At any rate, yesterday must have featured a dearth of missing fire sports convention human interest weathers, because they included a several minute CNN feed of Nic Robertson reporting on the Saddam Hussein trial in Iraq.

The story, transcript here (scroll down a bit), featured a lawyer whose two brothers were killed by Saddam Hussein in 1979.  It also mentions that a primary reason for the initial delay in the trial were "the charges that accuse Hussein and seven former regime allies of brutally repressing a 1982 assassination attempt."

Both of which, of course, took place before ...