In legal news...

I was watching the CNN coverage of Saddam Hussein's trial this morning. I'm sure it would have interesting, if I spoke any Arabic. I'm certain I wasn't getting it all through the translation. Not just because of the nuances of the language but because CNN's anchors kept talking over it and because the judge would say a bajillion words, and then the translator would only say, like, three. Seriously, you'd hear: "[Talking in Arabic for 30 seconds]" and then the translator would say "How do you plead?" There's no way that's all that was said.

I'm sure it's really difficult to translate live like that, and I should really keep my mouth shut (or my typing hand still) since it's not like I speak Arabic. I suspect that keeping up the running commentary on a piece of footage that most viewers probably don't want to sit all the way through is difficult too. I don't know if I'd do very well. But the CNN commentary was not impressive. At one point they refered to the fact that Saddam had plead not guilty as "suprising". I call shenanigans on that. What the hell did you expect him to say? "Yes, yes, I'm guilty. Yeah, you guys got me. Boy is my face red. Heheheheh...oh, man, I was just remembering the time I massacred this one town. You should have heard the children scream, and Chemical Ali was all like, 'WTF?' and I was all, 'I know, man.' Oh...good times...good times. Phew! It's good to get it off of my chest, you know. It's like how after you read the newest Harry Potter book, you can't talk to anyone about the ending unless you know they've read it too. Of course I don't read Harry Potter because it is the decadent product of the infidel." I mean, if he is found guilty he will be executed within 30 days of sentence, of course he plead not guilty. I would have plead "I'll buy you a house and be your best friend" if I was up against that kind of penalty. (Which is great to hear because it really proves to me that we have successfully brought modern democracy to Iraq and supplanted the threat of brutal Islamist domination: unappealable death sentences to be carried out within 30 days. That just tastes like freedom doesn't it?)