On CNN today at 8:16 am EST: most popular news videos.

1. Inside the execution chamber (2:00)
An amateur video shows the final moments of Saddam Hussein's execution. CNN's Carol Lin reports (December 30)
2. Hussein in hangman's noose (1:26)
Watch masked executioners place noose around the neck of Saddam Hussein. (December 30)
3. Hussein's body wrapped in shroud (1:34)
Video captured by cell phone contains graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised. (December 30)
4. Monster python found in home (2:16)
A 13-16 foot Albino Python was found inside a Florida woman's bedroom. (December 30)
More most watched video. Updated every 2 hours.

“Watch masked executioners place noose” ... what is this, some kind of death porn offer? No, I checked, it's good old CNN. The news is, Saddam Hussein executed. There's not much more story to it than that. Yesterday they already had a lovely photograph of Hussein with his head in the noose, which ought to have been enough to satisfy any healthy death nut. But the demand seems to have grown quite a bit.

A normal news story might be, for example, “Man Dies in Fiery Crash”, which then relates the how and the where and so on, and then stops. But when editors go and say, as it were, “No, no—check out these AWESOME pictures. And we have more. Look. Videos, you can hear the guy screaming. All kinds. And here's one where you can almost smell that burning flesh,” then, I think, you're getting into a weird area normally haunted by troubled adolescents and perverts. Or is that normal now?

Labels: Assorted Antichrists, CNN, Maniacs