In the paragraph:

"Torture is a term that is defined by law," said Rice. "We rely on our law to govern our operations." She neglected to explain that "torture" as she used it has been defined by presidential findings to include universally defined methods of torture, such as waterboarding, for which U.S. soldiers were court-martialed in 1902 and 1968 specifically on the basis of having engaged in torture."

I believe that the word "include" is probably meant to be "exclude". Is the point that Rice is lying

outright when she says the US doesn't torture because waterboarding is torture and the US does it?

Or is the point that she's evading the question because she and her cohorts have specifically excluded (via the finding) waterboarding from their definition of torture?

As per Leonard's allusion to Gandhi ("They can't be ignored, so they must be ridiculed"), we're halfway to winning.

Also, it's amusing to consider that someone would recommend driving a Hummer as a demonstration of anti-smugness (I guess that would be modesty). If not to demonstrate your smugness, why else would you voluntarily drive a Hummer? (Aside from misguided beliefs about the relative safety of various vehicles.)

FredRated has described to a T the behavior and "rights" of a corporation!

Are our borders protected from foreign investment? No? Yikes! Build a

wall!

Why shouldn't a human being have as many rights as a legal entity called

a corporation?

Since the book's narrative is so much math-based and Ms. Jain's review focuses on this as well, I can't not point out that Ms. Jain's statement that in the book, "A Two-Hundred-Years War has killed all but .02 percent of the world's population" is off by a factor of ten. Right there at the top of page 21: "True, only 0.2 percent of the population of the earthly sphere survived ... this zero-point-two percent has tasted bliss in the ramparts of the One State."

That nit aside, I thank Priya Jain and Salon for bringing this book to my attention and for enticing me to read it.

The Repubs rather let their country and its popu-

lation's disapear from the earth than vote for a

Dem or sit this election out. They are blind, dumb, stupid, but most of all traitors. They are

ready to sell this country out to the highest bidder.

veronka

Here's a great political consultant quote:

Lizza quotes "anti-Deaniac" James Carville thus: "Suppose Harold Ford became chairman of the DNC. How much more money do you think we could raise?"

He doesn't mention prevailing on policies or winning elections. He talks about "how much more money" the Dems could raise. And of course, since he's a [nominally Democratic] campaign consultant, some of that money might flow to him!

I followed the money ... to Carville's wallet.

I'm aghast.

Between the people earnestly making corrections, thinking this is a news item, the people acting out their self-righteousness, and the ones criticizing the piece for not being as funny as they think it should be, I'm almost wishing that the joke is on me for being taken in by a coordinated trolling effort.

I fear for Salon when this is the level of "thinking" among its readers. I take solace only in the fact that this was a fluff piece, no doubt appealing more to the brainless and the mindless, and therefore the harebrained response is only to be expected.

King writes:

"And if the idea goes through, here's hoping the helmet-com systems work about as well as my cellphone does."

Hmmm. Maybe the home team happens to employ some mechanism generating interference on the away team's frequency. Not all the time. Just on a couple of key plays. There'll have to be a coach's challenge for inadequate sound quality in the helmet-com. Then the referee will not only be reviewing plays on the video but reviewing pre-play transmissions on the audio. That'll be some compelling damn TV! And maybe if the left tackle's helmet-com goes on the fritz mid-count on fourth down and he misses a block, the refs will call the failed play back for a redo. The redo will have to wait a couple of minutes while the tech tinkers with the helmet-com. "Testing. Testing. Sibilance."

Bitter, etc. writes:

"Do you guys have any investigative reporters?"

To be fair, this isn't an investigative piece but an essay about two books.

So when Shapiro writes "From McAuliffe, we learn who gave the money, but rarely the whys," he's just stating a fact about the book. It's not the job of the reviewer to answer the questions left unanswered by the reviewee. It would be the job of an investigative reporter to fill in such blanks.