"Oscars Dazzle Deadliest Day Yet"
Composited from today's newswires:
Million Dollar Baby knocked 'em dead at the 77th Annual Academy Awards.
A suicide bomber killed 125 people and wounded 130 by detonating a car near police recruits in a crowded market south of Baghdad on Monday, the single bloodiest attack in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The hard-hitting drama reeled in four golden guys Sunday night, nabbing Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actress for Hilary Swank, Best Supporting Actor for Morgan Freeman and Best Director for Clint Eastwood.
The bomber blew the car up next to a line of recruits waiting at a health center to take an eye test so they could join the Iraqi police in the town of Hilla, 62 miles south of the capital, witnesses said.
"I don't know what I did in this life to deserve all this. I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream," Swank said. Many of those killed were at the market across the road, and were caught in the blast as they shopped in morning sunshine.
Reuters television footage showed a pile of bloodied bodies outside the building. Smoke rose from the wreckage of burned-out market stalls as bystanders loaded mangled corpses on to rickety wooden carts, usually used to carry fruit and vegetables. Sporting a shaved head and wide smile, Jamie Foxx accepted the Oscar for Best Actor on Sunday night for his portrayal of the beloved musician Ray Charles in the movie "Ray."
Cate Blanchett, radiating a cool Hollywood glamour, won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal in "The Aviator" of Katharine Hepburn. Others, their limbs ripped to shreds, were piled into the back of pick-up trucks. Nearby buildings were pockmarked by shrapnel. People wept, clutched their heads in despair and shouted "God is greatest" as rescuers led the injured away.
"The suicide bomber came from a nearby alleyway," said Zeyd Shamran. "There were two people in (the car) and when it stopped one man got out, shook hands and kissed the other man." Moments later the car exploded, he said. Before the Sunday night show, Producer Gil Cates called ABC's five-second delay "a danger to society," but in the post-Janet Jackson world of flopping tops, ABC insisted on having control of the pause button.
The thinking was that Rock might incorporate a couple of dirty words in his bits, just to get bleeped. The toll is the highest from a single attack since the fall of Saddam in April 2003, and makes Monday one of the bloodiest days of the two-year insurgency. "I went really blank. I think I'm still in shock." Blanchett said.
Link, via Electrolite
Tell me this doesn't make every hair stand on end from pinpricks of vicious juxtaposition whilst simultaneously heightening the urge to vomit. Maybe I'm too human. That must be the problem. Jesus.