Augusto Pinochet, 1915-2006??

Former Chilean dictator and disincentive to future tyrants everywhere, Augusto Pinochet, suffered a heart attack that is being described as "life-threatening". I write "suffered" in all hopes that the attack did not take place during his sleep, or that if it did, was painful enough to wake him.

He is said to have received his last rites. It is my understanding that when a Catholic man is unable to confess during his last rites, he is to be absolved only where evidence of contrition exists. If Pinochet has ever apologized for his many crimes, I must not have bought a paper that day, or watched the news at all that week.

Pinochet will soon join fellow deceased and disgraced despot Slobodan Milosevic as an example to leaders the world over, that impunity cannot be maintained forever, and that justice for their crimes will stalk them so intensely that death will not find strongmen in military uniforms, but friendless and pathetic old men. Last rites... at least lawyers are required to defend unsavory sorts...