1. And it was in the days of Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who might have been the ruler of 127 villages, from Baghdad to Basra, were it not for the fact the he burned and gassed many of them, including a particularly devastating mustard gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988. 2. Now it happened that Saddam’s mistress of thirty years, Parisoula Lampsos, granted an interview to Claire Shipman of ABC news. She related, among other things, that Saddam loved watching The Godfather, listening to "Strangers in the Night" by Frank Sinatra, and watching videos of his...