Waking this morning, halfway way through my year-end trip, and at the splendid Adolphus, I turned on the goggle box and found that Saddam Hussein is now an object of particular interest and fascination in the infernal regions. What a zip that gives to morning coffee.

Actually I do not believe that there are post-death places, there being no evidence for them and they don't pass the test of Occam's razor, but in this one case I would be willing myself to risk the fires just to know that Saddam had his own personal devil, say Helen Thomas. Oh. I'm jumping the gun.

One monster down, a billion to go. Or I shouldn't say to go, for people who want us dead but don't have the stroke to do it oughtn't be meted out death until they seem likely to be able to pull it off. That doesn't mean we shouldn't watch them carefully, though.

Note, however, that Saddam was executed, not murdered, as some will surely try to have it, and since he actually killed a great number of people himself, and this seems perfect justification.

In the future I expect that I'll ponder some homegrown miscreants who have not actually pulled a trigger nor wielded a knife but whose ideas, if enacted, would have an effect as broad-reaching as Saddam's but who are alive and well, here in America, and doing very well feted and cheered by the booboisie of the American elite.

My pleasure at the death of this butcher led me to remember the final deaths of other monsters: Mussolini, hung upside down. Pol Pot, who evaded execution for many years, but after his death people who survived his blood-lust demanded to see his autopsy just to make sure that he was quite dead. Algore, who is not technically dead as would be defined by a doctor but whose ghostly pronouncements are nearly enough to make me believe in an afterlife. Does that mean that NPR is now run by mediums?

Well, one more monster down. I did watch the video of Saddam Hussein being led to his execution and saw the hooded people putting the noose around his neck. It was made of very thick rope with a really good knot. If I had that hangman's noose and a piece of the Berlin wall and a few hanging chads, I'd be a really happy man.

Oh. I am already. I'm a man of simple pleasures.