this has to be the worst written news story of the year. i had to read this story three times before i figured out what the point was. i'm still not sure. apparently the guy who tipped off the u.s. army as to hussein's sons whereabouts had been acting strange for a bit. he bought more bread than usual and was smoking cigars instead of cigarettes. he was seen sitting in a car once. he loved money. he told a friend that people were staying at his house. and this is newsworthy because.... um, i don't know. i mean, i understand that he's in the public eye and all now, but writing a feature story about him buying lots of bread?

'normally, he took about four or five pieces of bread every day,' said sheik shahir al khazraji, 31, who owns a bakery across the street from zaydan's house. ''all of a sudden, about three weeks ago, he started buying 40 pieces of bread every day. on the night before the american attack, he brought 60 pieces of bread.''

jaboori said people in the neighborhood began to tell him stories of zaydan's behavior. his friend had begun visiting a tobacco shop down the street and buying cigars. he usually smoked cigarettes. one day, a store owner across the street told jaboori that zaydan had come in and asked for 'the biggest bag of the best rice they had.'

- ok, the url doesn't work - my capitalization thing is screwing it up. well, boston globes web server is doing it, it's case sensitive. i run everything thru a lower case function on this site because i suck at capitalization. so instead of inconsistently capitalizing correctly, i consistently capitalize incorrectly. it makes sense in my mind.