Why did I say that? I don't know. Because it's so hard to come up with something to say to such deliberately callous cruelty. How can he say he's not really familiar with it? That alone is as damning as anything else he could have said. I didn't really know what it is either, a couple of years ago, but when I heard that MY COUNTRY was using it as part of its regular practice, i instantly DID SOME RESEARCH! With the internet so handy, there is no excuse not to. It took me all of 5 seconds to be reading one of many articles about it.

And sleep deprivation? If Rudy is as "tortured" as he thinks he is, it could explain a lot. He's just looney at this point, spewing anything that comes to mind, no filters in place. But as tired as he is, I bet he also hasn't been forced to stay on his feet for a day, and kept awake with buckets of ice water, and then, dripping wet, had to go out and make his usual stump speech.

But as someone else said further up the thread (or was it in Joe's column), the fact that Rudy views making these ridiculous tough guy statements as a vote attractor speaks volumes about the decadence of American society.

It's the scariest thing I can think of, too. And if Bush manages to get us into a nuke-u-lar war, we will all be ghosties then.

I don't think they are "stupid" stupid; they can buy houses and hold some kind of job, and they can instantly tell you the skin color of Mexicans and other illegals just by looking. No, they are not stupid; they just have arrived at the end of all thinking they ever plan to do. It's over. Done.

As far as "Dread Pundit" is concerned (and isn't that name alone telling? Should we all not just tremble in fear at the towering height of his perspective?) He dreams of appearing on O'Really, or Hannity, or one of them Fox shows (I'm deliberately speaking all folksy-like so the 20 percenters can keep up) and being asked his opinion on the question "U.S. Torture: present levels okay, or should we really go all out?"

As he speaks of the glories of hot lead boots and prisoners with heads enclosed in cages of starving rats, the credentials beneath him will say "Ripped the lid off E-mailgate"

The 20 percenters will smile and nod, and they will observe that Dread Pundit may be one of the smartest people they ever done heard talk, but he is still just the kind of person they would like to have a beer with.

And that's the world we live in today. Keep up the good fight, Glenn.

Clever boy!

What you say may be true, Anonymous, but she is hardly responsible for the musical tastes of millions of people. By some mysterious process, and a lot of hard work (let's be fair, a career like hers was a hell of a lot of work) she was chosen and anointed for reasons she probably can't understand, and now she is being torn down for reasons that are equally senseless. It's arbitrary and cruel. How many people could say that they would fare much better? How about you, "Anonymous," who dares not even sign your screen name to a stupid letter in this little outpost on the internet? How would you enjoy life on the 24/7 pedestal?

What purpose is fulfilled by further dehumanizing her? Will the public at large suddenly seek out and buy music by more worthy artists? "Hey, I was a Britney but all she did was burn out! Fuck it, that's it. I'm going to stop buying crap music." Ain't going to happen; they will just move on to the next big thing.

Britney — for however much you may hate her music, which is the music that people seem to want to buy through no fault of her own — is still a human being. Show some class and compassion.

that line in the second paragraph I just wrote should have read

"Hey, I was a Britney fan but..."

Man, I wish there was an edit feature in these letters!

It's appalling that we are even sitting here trying to parse out where the line is drawn. That's bullshit. I say, if you have to start asking yourself the question, it's because you already know what the answer is. You just don't want to accept that answer. You want an exemption. You want absolution.

As Dershowitz said in the story. If it is a good thing, stand behind it. Let the President come before the cameras and admit the depth of his viciousness for the public record. Maybe, he should be forced to administer the treatment himself.