Like a moron, I kept checking the headlines yesterday for the demise of evil dictactor Saddam Hussein. Sure enough, it was a moment of convergence for the world's media, what with huge typeface on various Web sites informing us: SADDAM HUSSEIN EXECUTED.

This entire affair is sordid in the worst way, and I participated in it. At the expense of sounding idiotic, what kind of world is this when capital punishment is for public consumption? When "news" bureaus are just itching to post this ghastly story and throw out video captures of the deed?

And again, I say, why am I surprised? 2006 was the year of the execution video: various beheadings in Iraq all captured on digital tape and uploaded to the Internet. Why should news editors -- who live for death and destruction, no matter how loud they protest -- be left out of the loop? It's a business, after all.

2006 was another shitty year, and I'm glad it's over. Of course, the day of Saddam's entrance into oblivion was also marked by a rash of bombings and more killing. I guess Bush and Blair can stroke their erections over Saddam's departure, but the hell they've unleashed continues unabated. And expect more of the same, because Saddam's fate is no longer connected with the facts on the ground in Iraq.

Here in America, we have two funerals going on: one for milquetoast former president Gerald Ford and music legend James Brown. Talk about hitting the trifecta: one execution and two funerals, and just about everybody's heard of at least of one of them. Won't be a slow news weekend for the lazy fucks in the media.

So, farewell 2006: a year of hardly any distinction unless you're a Democrat who thinks controlling Congress by a hair's breadth is a mandate for their platform (news to idiots: it's not). And here's to the lame hope that 2007 won't feature even more stories with those dumb cunts Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan or those other disposable sluts who skank up the enchanted world of Hollywood.

I'm starting the party early this weekend. 2006 is a year I'd prefer to forget.

Wow. I mean, like wow. They're gonna execute evil dictactor Saddam just in time for New Year's.

Does that mean our long national nightmare will be over?

I'd like to know what the rush is to kill him. I mean, weren't there other trials that needed to be addressed? Like the campaign against the Kurds where he gassed his own people? Isn't that the standard line the rabid right-wing loves to use when they need to justify our Iraqi Expedition?

I thought this trial was a bit of a farce, what with too many distractions, lawyers killed, people threatened and the showboating Saddam did in the courtroom. But, I also thought the ostensible point of a trial was to put these crimes on the record once and for all. Saddam's gassing of the Kurds, while a fact, reads much better as an indictment, trial and verdict.

Alas, we won't get to hear any of this (Republicans must be relieved, since Saddam cannot potentially embarrass them with the dealings the American government had with him during the Iran-Iraq War while they were in power. That photo of Rumsfeld shaking Hussein's hand, anyone?) We need to now go through a public hanging in the manner of the French Revolution: loud, messy and in the middle of terror.

I'm sure the rabid right-wing will be screaming about how their fearless leader Bush made it all possible, with an endorsement by God, no less. And of course, get ready to hear this "triumph" during the 2008 presidential election: Republicans save American lives, Democracts cut and run.

Too bad the facts on the ground in Iraq can't seem to drown out their bullshit.

Sometimes I wonder if certain elements of the Israeli and Palestinian governments aren't in collusion with one another. Just a few days after Ehud Olmert has a photo op with Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and there's all this flurry of scheduling meetings, the Israelis announce they're going to build a settlement and more rockets are launched from Gaza.

Israel, of course, threatens to resume military attacks there, ending a month-long truce.

The Hamas government says it isn't responsible for the rocket attacks; that it's the work of jihadist groups. Of course, Hamas considers this par for the course so there's no condemnation in their statements at all.

So now, we go back to square one: a lot of diplomats and other assorted bureaucratic fuckers holding countless, pointless meetings and an Arab government saying it can't control its own population (where have we seen that before?). Meanwhile, the Israelis, who never met a promise they couldn't break fast enough, engage in a lot of verbal dancing about the nature of the new colony they want to build. And who's going to live there? Why, some of the hardcore fascists evacuated from Gaza.

Keep the conflict going boys, you're doing a heckuva job.

It’s quite a shame that so much time has passed in between my postings; I blame the editors of this rag with the slowdown, as they try to re-re-invent themselves and change technological gears on how these pages are put together.

But I digress, and there is indeed, so much to digress on when it comes to the political situation in this country. Considering the razor thin margin that Democrats assumed tentative control over Congress, I would hardly consider the November election a mandate. But of course, if you are the winner, you can say what you want: witness Bush’s claim of a mandate over the 2004 election.

Well, sir, it looks like that mandate was a mirage.

Our Iraqi Expedition is now being described as a civil war, which is long overdue, although the Administration won’t admit to this at all. The level of scrambling that’s going on to salvage this disaster has culminated in the Iraq Study Group’s report that said...well, exactly what people have been saying for a couple years now.

So now, we have to breathlessly wait for some big speech of Bush's outlining his big new plan for Iraq. In the meantime, more Iraqis are getting killed and this month has turned out to be yet another deadly one for U.S. forces.

Happy holidays.