Wheeler and others are claiming that the 183 tally blows through the above limits, as even two sessions a day, times five days, times up to six 10-second applications per session, totals a maximum of 60 applications of water. And if KSM was in fact only subjected to one session per day on each of the five days he was waterboarded, then he should have maxed out at 30. But Wheeler and such simply aren’t reading the guidelines correctly. The limits of six applications of water is for applications lasting 10 seconds or longer. There is no limit on shorter applications, except for the cumulative 12-minutes of water per 24-hour period, toward which each short application would also apply.

You know, Jonah, you could just save yourself this trouble and go with the Gateway Pundit route on torture: LoLz, we got that guy GOOD. The end result- a complete negating of whatever credibility you may have had- is essentially the same.

Debating wether it was worth it still seems open to debate

Shall it be debated or not? Discuss

Thumbscrews: 5 TURNS RIGHT, 6 TURNS WRONG!

And who’s to say that some of those events involving water were not merely generous (on our part) performances of religious ablutions?

But if the reports are true that the CIA used it scores of times in a single month on a single prisoner, than I think the threshhold has been met.

What about that other threshold, one wonders. The one wherein the U.S. of A. prosecuted Japanese for doing it even once. One is continually amazed by hoiw much shit Jonah will swim through to find a penny that might, just might be polished into something worth as much as one cent.

Debating wether it was worth it still seems open to debate, depending on the facts

That’s a keeper.

Update: Interesting take from a military guy

Or then again, maybe the sadistic fuckers who have been charged with “breaking” another human being have gotten so unhinged and depraved that they were actually just doing for shits and giggles. Or then again perhaps KSM was incredibly tough and had to be waterboarded 183 times in a month to get this out of him.

Call me crazy, but I don’t give two shits about how uncomfortable a scumbag like KSM is in captivity./

Debating wether it was worth it still seems open to debate,

Debating wether [sic] K-Lo is the world’s worst editor, however, has been resolved.

Libertarian Republican said,

Call me crazy, but I don’t give two shits about how uncomfortable a scumbag like KSM is in captivity./

Your modern “libertarian” – torture good, increase in marginal tax rates = worst oppression imaginable.

Jonah’s position on exercise is clear: he finds it to be the most horrid form of oppression that can ever be enacted upon another human being and he thus opposes it forthrightly.

In fairness to Jonah, he probably got pantsed a lot in gym class.

Call me crazy, but I don’t give two shits about how uncomfortable a scumbag like KSM is in captivity.

Some libertarian.

I’d actually prefer we just let KSM loose in the town square and let a mob have its way with him.

I’d actually prefer we just let KSM loose in the town square and let a mob have its way with him.

You see, the Rule of Law is just one of those fascist mechanisms that deprive vigilante mobs of freedom and liberty.

I’d actually prefer we just let KSM loose in the town square and let a mob have its way with him.

Unfortunately, that’s the libertarian solution to every problem.

Apparently, being pro torture is a grassroots Republican thing:

…Can you imagine any other government of any nation anywhere in the world, at any time in human history, writing hundreds of thousands of words, spending hundreds of hours evaluating laws, investing thousands of hours of psychologists’, doctors’, and engineers’ time designing techniques that would not hurt anybody, but would achieve the desired result of making them tell us what they knew of plans to harm us? What sort of people fret over when and whether it’s permissible for a questioner to slam one of their sworn enemies against a wall — a fake wall, carefully engineered to prevent him from bumping his head — to thwart a deadly calamity like the WTC attack? The Bush administration was careful in a manner practically unheard of in human history.

After reading these memos, I am deeply, deeply proud of my country, and of my government. These are good men who did the right thing with a very difficult problem. There is still much good in America….

http://www.plumbbobblog.com/?p=4172

You see, the Rule of Law is just one of those fascist mechanisms that deprive vigilante mobs of freedom and liberty.

“He turned me into a newt!”

I’d actually prefer we just let KSM loose in the town square and let a mob have its way with him.

A lot of people felt the same about various banking and investment institution executives.

Fuck. I mean seriously, these fuckers are the ones that are immunized from prosecution? I mean after he confessed to 9/11, Bali, shoe bombing, a bunch of planned attacks on various landmarks and former presidents and John Paull II and Musharraf and beheading Daniel Pearl and….

So they say, let’s strap him down again, I wanna see if we can get him to claim responsibility for Gingivitis and the popularity of Boy Bands.

Fuck those sadistic fuckers. All they’re protecting is their depraved methods of getting their rocks off.

So Jonah thinks waterboarding is torture. But then it’s not because instructions written by the people who say it’s notatalltorture allow it to be performed an arbitrary number of times even though, being nottorture and all, those same people shouldn’t really have trouble with innumerable “applications” of the technique? He must be pretty limber for a fat guy, tying himself in knots like that.

Really, he can’t see that there’s a distinction between the morally ambiguous behavior of an interrogator executing one’s duty by staying within the confines of an interrogation technique prescribed by superiors (with the presumption of of legality from their perspective) and the outright, undeniable wrongness of sanctioning any use of the technique whatsoever? Are these differences based on context too subtle for them, or am I just showing how moral relativism has given me a weak character?

I wanna see if we can get him to claim responsibility for Gingivitis and the popularity of Boy Bands.

We can blame him for ‘NSync????

LET ME AT HIM!!!!!!!!

Debating wether it was worth it still seems open to debate, depending on the facts.

Regardless, of course, of whether its passing the threshold into tortureland makes it, y’know, illegal.

I’d actually prefer we just let KSM loose in the town square and let a mob have its way with him.

I’d actually prefer to live in a society of adults who would, if they saw him in the town square, put his ass in jail rather than pretend to the status of judge, jury and executioner.

Debating wether it was worth it still seems open to debate, depending on the facts.

Goucher’s finest, ladies and gents.

Although, the idea of putting Creed in the stocks in front of neverending bushels of rotten veggies does gave a certain appeal.

If their guys did it to our guys, would we even be having this discussion?

No. No, we would not. I believe Mr. Goldberg would be among the very first to call it torture.

And if we apply water in infinitely small time increments can we claim that we are are both waterboarding constantly and not at all?

Call me crazy, but I don’t give two shits about how uncomfortable a scumbag like KSM is in captivity.

“It’s not about who they are, it’s about who we are.” – Senator John McCain

Remember when he eventually says getting waterboarded 183 times in one month might not be torture that this is a guy who JUST said “it’s hardly absurd to think” that working “an average of 103 days a year just to pay … taxes” is a kind of serfdom.

nationalplumbingcodehandbook,

Did you happen to catch your friend Plumb Bob’s appearance here a few weeks back? The story starts here. Soros was kind to you the day he gave you responsibility for monitoring that idiot.

“Debating wether it was worth it still seems open to debate, depending on the facts.”

Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.

This from a guy who gets overwhelmed when having to choose from 31 flavors.

Also, any time one of these fuckheads whips out the “ticking time bomb” scenario, ask them HOW FUCKING LONG those things tick. That scenario is pure bullshit to rationalize sadism, they were NOT torturing people with ticking time bomb knowledge.

Libertarian Republican: Wow, a glibertarian who’s just fine with torture and who thinks his opinion is the most unique thing, like, evar. We have absolutely no one like this in blogland, no sir.

“Italy can survive the loss of Aldo Moro. It would not survive the introduction of torture.” – General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Moro#Kidnapped.2C_March_16.2C_1978

In other news, Red Sox 12 – Orioles 1

Perhaps the Sleeper Has Awakened.

Again, Jonah confuses me because he often takes a bunch of things – looks at it, and then reaches the complete opposite conclusion that any rational person would – but…

But I think waterboarding someone 183 times in a month does amount to torture no matter how you slice it.

…no matter how you slice it.

So I guess he posted the two reader responses because he wants to show how sick and depraved his readers are – and that he truly thinks they are being “torture-apologists” and are morally reprehensible.

…no matter how you slice it.

Jonah’s called it torture. Now that he’s aware of the extent (although he actually isn’t – it’s probably even worse still) Jonah’s stated that there are no circumstances that justify it not being called torture.

…no matter how you slice it.

I mean someone of Jonah’s character and with his level of intellectual honesty and strict adherence to good faith debating – he would never ask for “take-backsies” after making a statement like that. At the very least, not with a quicky update to the very same post.

…no matter how you slice it.

Or maybe his comprehension of English is just really poor.

I can’t look at this without thinking of Jonah. I do not wonder why.

Remember when he eventually says getting waterboarded 183 times in one month might not be torture that this is a guy who JUST said “it’s hardly absurd to think” that working “an average of 103 days a year just to pay … taxes” is a kind of serfdom.

Ah, Der Lödedhosen, for whom a difference in degree really is a difference in kind. Unless it isn’t.

The Goldberg lecture in Torture Studies, presented by His Doughyness;
Good evening ladies and Gentlemen, Why does God torture us with rain!!! All those drops add up, you know
Thankyou, goodnight, where are the restrooms?

I know I would completely believe I was going to die if they poured water on my head for 9 seconds. The panic starts to occur around second 3.

Anyone pointed out yet that this amount of waterboarding kind of indicates that the activity just might not, you know…. work?

Or do terrorists regularly set their timing devices on those ticking time-bombs for ‘a month or two’?

Aren’t these the same people who think that aborting of an undifferentiated blob of cells, smaller than a pinhead, with absolutely no consciousness or ability to perceive pain, is the greatest crime in the universe? But torturing actual, sentient human beings for weeks–or longer–is just dandy?

Waitwaitwait…

Aren’t the Conservatives the rock-ribbed party of salt-of-the-earth stand-firm types who know there are no grey areas in moral questions? Isn’t right right always and wrong wrong every time?

So how is it that according to Spongeblob here, waterboarding is the Right Thing To Do right up to the point where it’s Wrong?

Mah head asplode!

If your security/intelligence forces know (i.e. with enough certainty to flush away all personal morality and engage in torture):
1. That there is a ticking time bomb.
2. That this one specific individual knows exactly where it is.
3. That the information can not be acquired through investigation of the individual’s home, files, computer, warrantlessly wiretapped communications, etc.
4. That the individual will only reveal the information if tortured.

Well then, I’d have to say that you have a pretty shitty intelligence community that focuses too much on predicting threats as opposed to doing anything about them.

The prat Ziegler tells his side of the story.

Tried to comment but I’ve been shitlisted at BigHo.

And who’s to say that some of those events involving water were not merely generous (on our part) performances of religious ablutions?

That dude needed baptisin’. A lot.

…Can you imagine any other government of any nation anywhere in the world, at any time in human history, writing hundreds of thousands of words, spending hundreds of hours evaluating laws, investing thousands of hours of psychologists’, doctors’, and engineers’ time designing techniques that would not hurt anybody, but would achieve the desired result of making them tell us what they knew of plans to harm us people make up lies so they could make it stop?

In fairness to Jonah, he probably got pantsed a lot in gym class.

But never once at Goucher which I think is the real root of all his issues.

Debating wether it was worth it still seems open to debate, depending on the facts.

If this weren’t so sick, it would be funny. I can’t believe these d-bags think there is still some DEBATE to be had here. Every other civilized nation knows there’s no debate. And, you’d think we would since we’re a party to treaties which address the subject. Plus, there’s the whole international law thing.

I’m completely mortified that people like Jonah even exist.

I’d actually prefer we just let Karl Rove loose in the town square and let a mob have its way with him.

Do you insist on a trial first? OK, as long as we get to torture him beforehand so we can get enough evidence to convict him.

“I’ve always been on the fence about whether waterboarding constituted torture.” Dude, if you’re on the fence, ur doing it wrong.

There’s so much goodness in Zieler’s post but the following is my favorite bit.

Here is the e-mail that the Dean of the USC journalism school is sending out. In bold is where I have commented on the parts that are lies, distortions, or nonsensical statements.

On the day of the award ceremony, Mr. Ziegler arrived on campus with two cameramen (not true. we arrived separately and they did not work for me), not as a demonstrator, but as a journalist (really?? that’s very interesting and certainly not how they treated me), and demanded (false, I asked and never even pursued entering, only asking for a rationale for why I was not allowed to) that he and his cameramen be allowed to enter the Davidson Center to cover the event.

The first two bits of sophistry are quite amusing but the WIN (FAIL, for him) is the third bit. Sophistry, thy name is Ziegler.

When wingers look at the list of things that KSM has confessed to, do they actually believe it? I mean, do they really see KSM as some sort of (please ignore the redunant redundancy) Tony Robbins of Terror?

Blow-up the Panama Canal? Seriously?

It’s a good thing they didn’t get to waterboard him another dozen times, or they’d have uncovered his naked ambition.

If their guys did it to our guys, would we even be having this discussion?

No. Remember how, pre-Abu Ghraib, Saddam Hussein and his sons were the worst people evar because they tortured and raped prisoners?

Which was why being “objectively pro-Saddam”, i.e. disagreeing with tax cuts for the rich, was such a huge insult.

“I’d actually prefer we just let KSM loose in the town square and let a mob have its way with him.”

It certainly helped keep the black men off the white women. Times were simpler back then. Better.

I’d actually prefer we just let Karl Rove loose in the town square and let a mob have its way with him.

I think the mob would run away screaming. Especially if he started rappin’.

I asked and never even pursued entering, only asking for a rationale for why I was not allowed to)

Z: Can I go in?
G: Do you have an invitation?
Z: No. I’m here because Katie Couric is a whore and…
G: No, you can’t go in.
Z: I don’t intend to go in.
G: Then why did you ask?
Z: To get you to tell me I can’t go in.
G: Do you need to take your meds?
Z: Why won’t you let me in? Wait, I mean, why am I not allowed to go in?
G: You don’t have an invitation.
Z: But I’m a journaloist and they’re giving that bitch whore cunt Katie Couric an award for …..
G: I think you better go over there where we’ve set aside a space for you.
Z: Why can’t I go in? I’m just asking for a reason!?

u.s.w.

The obvious answer to these morals is of course testing waterboarding on the skeptics. I’m sure even a week course, following the procedures defined in the “manual” would be good proof.

If the people really have their state that water boarding is not torture after that week, we can have it cleared. Of course, if they at any time during the exercise change their mind, we would have to stop it, since clearly we do not want to torture anyone.

I’m sure wingnuts would just line up to show their resilience and fortitude, and to witness that they are correct and liberals are wrong about this matter.

Now, does anyone know some certified interrogators we could get to handle the volunteers?

At the risk of getting fixated on Jonah’s use of “a reader writes in” to walk back his statement about waterboarding being torture…

He revealed no new information after being waterboarded, the article said, a conclusion that appears to be supported by a footnote to a 2005 Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been “unnecessary” in his case.

Shits and giggles.

I wonder if he’s going to follow up? Surely, an intellectual giant like Jonah Goldberg isn’t going to just ignore information that’s so relevant to his post.

I really don’t know much more about Ziegler than I learned by watching the video the other day, but I have to say, if this is the guy Sarah Palin has on her side? she’s in big trouble.

I’m sure wingnuts would just line up to show their resilience and fortitude, and to witness that they are correct and liberals are wrong about this matter.

Just like they streamed to their local Army sign-up to fight the Global War On Terror

Surely, an intellectual giant like Jonah Goldberg isn’t going to just ignore information that’s so relevant to his post.

Indeed. It’s central to his point.

PeeJ said,

April 20, 2009 at 20:23

I can’t look at this without thinking of Jonah. I do not wonder why.

Wow. I can’t believe I’ve not seen that little dainty at the Arkansas State Fair.

However, in all honesty, I’m more than a little tempted.

Indeed. It’s central to his point.

Never has torture been analyzed with such detail and care.

Remember how, pre-Abu Ghraib, Saddam Hussein and his sons were the worst people evar because they tortured and raped prisoners?

Watched Three Kings last night for the first time since I saw it in the theater. That movie is amazingly prescient about Iraq War II and about how we create our own enemies…although a farce about war, death, and torture isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Certainly not the teabaggers’.

One of the things that really galls is how the torture apologists always say “well they’re terrorists…” It’s so convenient to ignore the fact that many of the victims were guilty of nothing but being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or were sold to the US by their neighbors. Or who had their names stuffed into the lion’s mouth by their enemies.

I remember John Asscraft Ashcroft testifying before Congress saying “But they’re TERRORISTS!” No, JOhn, they were alleged terrorists. And many of the allegations were completely unsubstantiated. Ever. But they got tortured anyway.

Never has torture been analyzed with such detail and care.

He’s fortunate that General Mills had their special Abu Ghraib trading cards inside his Lucky Charms!

No, JOhn, they were alleged terrorists. And many of the allegations were completely unsubstantiated. Ever. But they got tortured anyway.

Even some of the people who they KNEW were innocent, like the Uighurs.

I am really curious about using the standard “It’s OK as long as it doesn’t cause any permanent physical damage” to determine what can be done to a prisoner who, let us never forget, has not yet been convicted of a crime. Someone who has the status of “presumed innocent” in a U.S. court of law.

What is wrong with using electroshocks to any body part as long as it doesn’t damage the flesh? You can have a team of doctors standing by to re-start the heart if you overdo it a little. With the proper study we could have a set of instructions that would prevent fatalities. After all, police already use tasers to subdue unruly suspects.

What would be wrong with cutting off a finger–or a hand–if you have surgeons standing by to re-attach it?

It would be OK to dangle the prisoner’s child over pond full of alligators as long as you didn’t drop the child, wouldn’t it? Sure the child hasn’t been convicted of a crime, yet, but neither has the prisoner, so why start being picky about rights? If there’s a ticking timebomb, it would be OK to scare a child to find out its location, wouldn’t it?

Why can’t we put insect larvae in their food? In many cultures such a thing is a coveted snack. Why can’t we serve them meat that we claim is “beef,” afterward revealing that it was a mixture of dog and pork?

If torture that doesn’t cause permanent physical damage is OK, why is waterboarding to the point of drowning the only extreme interrogation method given a pass?

And many of the allegations were completely unsubstantiated. Ever. But they got tortured anyway.

Nonsense. There’s some kinda hebrewish carpish that prevents that.

There’s some kinda hebrewish carpish that prevents that.

Is that this “filter fish” I keep hearing about?

No, JOhn, they were alleged terrorists. And many of the allegations were completely unsubstantiated. Ever. But they got tortured anyway.

Scalia said that was OK, as long as they hadn’t been convicted of a crime.

So, again against the “ticking time bomb” rationale: Zubaydah was captured in March 2002, he was waterboarded 83 times in AUGUST. Helluva countdown clock, innit?

… Plumb Bob’s appearance here a few weeks back? …

Oh, dear, I missed that. Do I have to give my money back to Soros?

Oh, wow, I just read your link. Thanks, Lawnguylander! Unbelievable. Is there more? His comment there is priceless. Just wait until Soros and Bill Ayers hear about this. I’m definitely in line for a bigass raise and, maybe one of those Sadly No Labs Commemorative Plates of Socialism!

I do think Plum Bob’s recent comments about using force to resist going to the reeducation camps are upsetting but, otherwise, I find him rather amusing. It’s funny he’s bitching about getting more exposure–something I do feel bad about–considering his couple hundred hits (optimistically) a day comment.

Feel the love: “he’d been reading it systematically for at least a year, even though he clearly felt contempt for my opinion”!

Remember Descent The Highest form of Patriotic!

Call me crazy, but I don’t give two shits about how uncomfortable a scumbag like KSM is in captivity./

Considering that, as a “libertarian”, you already don’t give two shits about anyone else, this makes you no crazier than you were five minutes ago.

Is that this “filter fish” I keep hearing about?

Ow.

“So it’s more than possible to have 183 applications of water while still adhering to the guidelines, with applications under 10 seconds making up the great majority of the 183.”

The reader set Jonah up, right? Reductio ad absurdum in “A modest proposal or “The shortest way with the dissenters” style right?

(pleading) Right?

anyone who thinks that waterboarding is not otrture should be waterboarded immediately. i’m talking limbaugh, hannity, o’reilly, goldberg, all of them. assholes.

It’s worth a bet at least. “I’ll bet you that I can get you to say that waterboarding is torture within 5 minutes of starting.” It won’t take that long.

How many neocons can dance on the head of a Judas Chair?

Every other civilized nation knows there’s no debate.
Fecksed.

The prat Ziegler tells his side of the story.

If there’s anyone who knows the California case law on free speech, it’s John Ziegler the Distinguished.

Also, whenever I plan to sue somebody for kicking me off their property, I always, always ramble on about it on the internet. It’s part of my legal strategy.

…should be waterboarded immediately

That’s harsh. No, I totally disagree – I mean who would do the waterboarding? Commiting the crime of torture stains the soul pretty deeply.

Instead, I think they should be forced to administer waterboarding to their own family members.

I’d actually prefer we just let KSM loose in the town square and let a mob have its way with him.

A lot of people felt the same about various banking and investment institution executives.

If memory serves, the banking and investment executives were asked to jump from open windows to the town square first.

I’ve always been on the fence about whether waterboarding constituted torture.

Roman Polanski was on the fence about whether putting his wiener in a 13-year-old was really child molestation.

Commiting the crime of torture stains the soul pretty deeply.

So does ordering it, I’m sure.

Now watch this drive!

Unfortunately, Jelperman, the fence was a minor, too.

That rationalization for waterboarding 183 times reminds me of the Officer in Kafka’s, “The Penal Colony.”

I hope Ziegler’s unfortunate television date (a woman to whom he was ridiculously rude) has seen his latest video escapade. She deserves a few chuckles at his expense.

I keep thinking about Jonah trying to analyze the number of waterboardings that would fit on the head of a pin and I keep imagining him not as a Doughy Pantload, but as a Gordian Knot. But I guess that would be wrong, no matter how you slice it.

Now watch this drive!

Well you can’t stain what ain’t there.

Then again I was replying to a statement about Big Pharma, BillO and Doughy Pantload – so whooops.

I keep imagining him not as a Doughy Pantload, but as a Gordian Knot.
To the best of Mr Goldberg’s knowledge, the Gordian knot was eventually cut by Damocles, using a double-edged sword that he pulled out of a stone.

Just so we’re clear…

Waterboarding is not “simulated drowning.”

Waterboarding is DROWNING. Period.

Your lungs are filled with water. You cannot breathe. You have no ability to purge this water unless your waterboarders allow you to. If they misunderestimate the timing, you die.

That’s why doctors have to be present, to revive a dying person if the timing goes awry, not to determine when the waterboardee has had enough.

I have been involved in the rescue of two people who were actually drowning at the time of rescue (CMBP represent!). The volume of water that we pumped out of their lungs was truly unbelievable–nothing can prepare you for the sight of over a gallon of bloody seawater coming out of a person’s mouth.

One was hospitalized for two days, and one for almost a week. They were both completely mentally destroyed by the experience–I kept in touch with both for a while and neither had ever gone back in any body of water last I checked.

Waterboarding is simulated death, not drowning. If this isn’t torture that requires full prosecution to the limit of the law, such torture does not exist and we might as well break out the Judas Chair.

If he refuses to prosecute, Obama will go down as the most failed president in American history irrespective of any positive accomplishments.

It’s good to know that the Republican Torture Union has fought for a 5 day work week.

jeebus

Note: Jonah had to erect that fence before he could perch on it.

Waterboarding dates back to the Inquisition.
Torquemada was not a dilettante. Neither was Pol Pot.

The Yoos & Cheneys have chosen to associate themselves with such cretins & even to take pride in that choice … what they’ve never chosen to do is give it a try themselves – cowards as well as criminals.

Repellant as he may be as a person, Hitchens at least had the stones to put his money where his mouth is – an experience that very quickly made up his mind as to whether it really is torture or not … & I’ve heard of exactly zero “Enhanced Interrogation” fanboys playing copycat in regards to his very brief exposure to waterboarding – surprise, surprise.

Who’s got the picture of the Pantload sitting on the fence?

Here you go, purvis.

Who’s got the picture of the Pantload sitting on the fence?

Brown and yellow pantload sittin on a fence
Aint’ got enough dough to pay the rent…

I mean who would do the waterboarding?

Rush likened it to fraternity hazing, so I think the brothers at Tappa Kegga Night would oblige for a few brewskis.

If I hit a certain legacy wingnut on the head with a hammer, but made it a really short sharp shock, just a little tap-like, as if I were just trying to get his attention, and not with the claw or ball-peen* side, but the flat side, and if I maybe wrapped the head in a chamois, or even a Sham-Wow, and didn’t hit him all in the same spot, but tapped around the temples and a little on the top and sides and not too hard on the forehead, would it count as torture? Or is it still a bad idea because his fontanelle hasn’t closed and probably never will? Just a theoretical here, folks. I would never do that, unless the government said it was OK.

*hurr hurr

Ah, so there is an upper character limit to commenter names. The More You Know! [starswoosh]

Good typo as well. I had to check to see if it was indeed in the original.

Debating wether it was worth it still seems open to debate,

A ‘wether’ is a castrated goat or sheep.

Hmmm. But a bellwether is a sheep that leads the herd wearing a bell, or someone who assumes leadership of a movement or activity (!). There is no mention of castration being a prerequisite in either case. So now we have to decide whether the original is missing an “h” or a “bell”.

Yawnity yawn yawn.

A wether is a castrated ram. A bellwether is a wether with a bell around its neck to lead the flock. Clearly, Jonah is telling us he has been docked and glocked.