funny! and yes, it's funny how even those in the government and media who are against torture often can't quite bring themselves to use the word - I suspect because they realize that once you use it in any particular context you've partially painted yourself into a corner, which has legal and ethical ramifications both looking back and forward.

Monkey fingered. News and WarOnTerror subreddits.

i hate news with political and social implications. you report, i decide, dammit!

Well done.

The almighty euphemism. You just gotta love it.

fins2theleft typed: "it's funny how even those in the government and media who are against torture often can't quite bring themselves to use the word"
How do you know they are against torture?

That's a good question, Bill. The current administration doesn't seem to consider what happened torture. If they did, they would prosecute those responsible.

Torture is a means to an end. It's icky but so is having to deal with congress and talking to the public. It's like sending troops in to a country to kill them. Sometimes it's just part of the job. I'm sure that is going through Obama's mind.

Cheney/Bush opened Pandora's box for the perusal of future presidents to get their kink on. Like if they like thinking about beating some foreign national nearly to death just because they can order it, then it happens.

Standing up with values and ethics and morals isn't all macho and many of the countries that we are in pissing contests with don't recognize the value of women and girls as near equals. Respecting human rights is seen as weak. Perhaps Cheney/Bush were practicing Sun Tzu when they got their kink on?

I'm not defending it or them.

The problem I see with your post here is that picking on NPR misses the enormity of the 'toolness' of our well paid, laid and fed media whose siren song seeks to dash our civilization on the rocks of Sirenum scopuli. And through their temerity and hubris they feel that they are getting away with all of it... Having ethics, morality and a sense of honesty is a marked liability in today's 'new age media'. Walter Cronkite will be missed but I doubt that he will miss the mess that his profession has plummeted to.

Having people that know what's going on refusing to report it because they want the money, the small bags of gold deposited at their feet by their adoring masters, is so banal and sleazy and yet they pomp and preen like it's the best job in town. We all should be grateful for their tireless devotion to their stenography and suckling up to the giant teat that makes them devoid of shame and responsibility. Tim Russert was perhaps the largest (not just in girth) example of the 'new media whore' and he was so deluded that he actually thought he was doing a 'great job' hiding the truth from the people. Stupid AND blind. What a job qualification... The NPR isn't the BBC but the BBC isn't the BBC anymore either. And the Washington Post that exposed Watergate? I'd not wipe my ass with it now for fear of getting an STD...

Touché!

Embrace the New World Order. That would be doubleplusgood. Citizen.

you shouldn't laugh at yanks, they are enslaved by the most sophisticated brain-washing program yet devised.

i know it's hard to control one-self, as i often fail myself when the ratio of absurdity over cruelty, or greed, or arrogance reaches a certain thresh-hold.

then there's the over-riding joke: they think they live in the land of the free, the home of the brave. that always inspires a wry smile when i encounter the phrases, and helpless laughter when the speaker is serious.

when the speaker is a SAILBOAT!

Very clever...and to the point. It seems the notion of objectivity trumps truth these days.

Well done!

A fantastic job! I needed a good laugh today in this story accomplished just that!