"That's Not Torture!"

I've been taking naps atop the latest issue of the New Yorker. I really like sleeping on Jane Mayer's new essay on the White House thirst for torture, which reveals John Yoo to be a whiney sorcerer's apprentice rather than the respected law professor he wants us to believe.

The Secretary of Defense's dachshund, Reggie, came to me in a dream last week and tried to steal Hairball Control food pellets from my dish. My venomous flailing and hisses rattled his nervous system and he trundled, ashamed, from the apartment.

Repugnant Neo-Conservatives must stay away from my food dish. I'll shed pumpkin fur on Condoleezza Rice's piano if I have to. I just want them to leave me alone, especially when I'm sleeping.

According to Jane Mayer, a December 2, 2002, Defense Department memo argued that making prisoners stand for 4 hours a day might be considered "cruel and unusual punishment." Responding to the memo, Donald Rumsfeld noted that he often stands "for 8-10 hours a day" in the course of his regular warlock office duties, adding: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. What's wrong with that?"

Last summer, I played with a housefly for about 12 hours in front of the living room sofa. Until it couldn't fly anymore.

Rumsfeld actually repeated it more than once, according to Defense Department staff quoted in the article:

A former Administration official told me [Mayer] that
Rumsfeld was unconcerned; he once more joked that
he himself stood eight hours a day, and exclaimed,
"Torture? That's not torture!" ("His attitude was
'What’s the big deal?'" the former official said.) A sub-
ordinate delicately pointed out to Rumsfeld that while
he often stood for hours it was because he chose to do
so, and he could sit down when he wanted.

The Secretary of Defense's sharp-honed sadistic mind! I roll on the New Yorker and curl my paws.

In 2001, I killed my first mouse family. One of the mice ran up the bookshelf. I was on my hind legs, bleeping and purring. My tail shivered.

The mouse squeaked. It must have been having fun, too.

Sometimes I can't help it -- the bloodlust -- and I feel just like Rumsfeld: I climb for hours every day. So what's wrong when a mouse climbs the bookshelf? That's not torture.

I've heard some of Rumsfeld's friends in New Mexico say he's nothing but a sophist. He doesn't believe in anything but the smell of blood. Maybe so. But can you imagine hearing Rumsfeld's radical empathy for prisoners from, say, someone like Ann Coulter? This is why she should not be guarding U.S. ports in Baltimore, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Miami.

It was the mouse I eventually scared to death. Tony found it on the floor next to me.

The mousey was belly-up. I was supine and amazing.