Blogoland

Andrew McCarthy, taking a well-deserved break from the set of St. Elmo's Fire: The Reckoning, burnishes his ghoul credentials even more with this piece in NRO on why we need to really, really think hard about how much we should torture prisoners.

Concededly, the techniques the organization is said to have found — humiliation, solitary confinement, "temperature extremes" (which evidently means turning the air conditioning up high to cause discomfort to nude, or inadequately clothed, detainees), loud noise, bright lights, and use of forced positions — are unpleasant. But they do not come close to the severity of discomfort necessary to constitute actual torture.

And then there's this gem:

...the abuse of human life, even if the human life happens to belong to a terrorist, is considered serious business in the United States — too serious for grave terms like torture to be tossed about cavalierly by unaccountable propagandists at the ICRC.

Buck up, Andy. Maybe next time the ICRC will find some impaled heads on stakes.