BBC says gays "fear for life" in Iraq; me says show me one who doesn't

Even that grand aunt, BBC, sometimes leaves you in a spot: to laugh or not to laugh, with the rest of the office pounding away madly at their keyboards. Here's the source of amusement: "Gays in Iraq fear for their lives", says the headline... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4915172.stm

For a change, I did not immediately fall off the chair (I have that weird habit, not fibbing; and being overweight does not help matters one bit) but wondered what made them commission the story in the first place and, second, what level of inebriation led the sub-editor to write that headline when everyone, barring perhaps Saddam (ironically, the most secured man in the country right now), "fear for their lives" in Iraq. Thanks, of course, to Georgie boy's Texan machismo.

Here, BBC, take this: Get me a man/woman/child/American trooper in Iraq who doesn't fear for her/his life and I'll write Condi Rice a 100-rupees cheque for her next visit to Iraq.

And here's the last line from the piece for that joker in DC: "Saddam was a tyrant, but at least we had more freedom then," said Hussein. "Nowadays, gay men are just killed for no reason."