Catch-up time

Believe it or not, other newsworthy things happened in the world yesterday and today. You’d never know it from watching the local news, of course, which has been covering Dawson nonstop since yesterday afternoon. But here are a few things that happened in the world outside our little corner:

• Sadaam’s judge doesn’t think he was a dictator. So what was he, then? A democratically-elected leader? A royal monarch? The winner of the first season of Iraqi Idol?
• The new Palestinian “unity” government appears likely to get its funding back from Europe, though the U.S. isn’t on board.
• Amnesty said Hezbollah committed war crimes, in what Charles Johnson over at LGF dubbed a flying pig moment. I’m shocked too. Amnesty gets so much more money and support when it’s directing its wrath at Israel.
• In a big sign of normalcy returning to the country, Israel’s getting its international soccer games back.
• Germany ordained its first rabbis since 1942. See that big middle finger in the air, you neo-Nazi assholes?
• Speaking of Jews and Europe, Pajamas Media is all over this under-reported story about the defamation trial that just begun in France against three Jewish citizens who questioned the French Channel 2 network for its coverage of the Mohammed Al-Dura affair.
• The Pope has pissed off Muslims, it seems, by making some statements that, regardless of their intent, will surely be taken way out of context. This could be a thing.
• Bibi said that Ahmadinejad is “more dangerous than Hitler”. You’d think such a normally-competent debater would’ve heard of Godwin’s Law, no?
• And in other news, Stephen Colbert’s bridge in Hungary looks like it isn’t going to happen, despite his large margin of victory in the online naming poll, due to the tiny problem of his failing to meet one of the qualifications – being dead. Whoops! (By the way, Budapest rocks!)

Okay, I think that about does it for the ten-second catch-up. Or, as the BUZZ puts it, some “temporary relief from ignorance”.