T-O-R-T-U-R-E

This is a shameful day, indeed, in American history.

Our government has failed to uphold our moral and ethical will by refusing to override President Bush's veto of the intelligence bill. A bill that was intended, in part, to extend to the CIA and other intelligence agencies the same rules we have placed on our military interrogators regarding the use of torture as an intelligence-gathering "tool". To be clear, there are only eight things these military interrogators are not allowed to do. Eight. It's like saying we can't form complete sentences without using George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words." These eight illegal interrogation techniques are, I understand, also slightly less effective than using Mr. Carlin's seven dirty words, when it comes to gathering good intelligence.

Please, sir, if you will allow me to retain my genitals, I would be happy to give you the names of several Al Qaeda operatives posing as shepherds outside of Baghdad.

I'm not even going to bother feeling outraged that Bush vetoed the bill to being with. I've given up on expecting anything morally right out of the man. He's clearly a megalomaniac who thinks that whatever he conceives is correct by definition.

I love this quote from the flavor-of-the-month White House Assistant Press Secretary:

"The bill would have eliminated the legal alternative procedures in place in the CIA program to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists."

Really. Waterboarding is legal? Who knew?

Well, hell -- how about breaking people's thumbs?

"Hey, pal, if you can't pay back the money you owe to Big Vinny, my friend Guido, here, might have to employ some legal alternative procedures to help you remember to do that later."

This was a strict party-line vote. The Republicans were so busy trying to punish the Democrats over the illegal (oops - legal alternative) wiretap legislation that they abandoned basic human rights and upheld the opinion of Herr Dunderhead.

So if I understand this correctly, waterboarding and other forms of torture are illegal if carried out by someone who may: a) Get caught on camera; b) Be stupid enough to develop a moral conscience and talk about it later; or c) Be on the social security roles at some point.

Buy hey! If you like to work in dark alleys and agree not to exist, officially, you can do whatever you want, with the full legal blessing of the US government. Yay for you!

I am sickened.