Deinonychus antirrhopus

In one pass through, I didn't see "executed" just "killed". The problem with being upset with "executed" is the unfortunate useage: murder "execution-style" sort of suggests it.

So, even the right-leaning Fox News isn't politically correct enough for Steve?

And, quoting the government of S. Korea accurately is just wrong-- Fox and other news organizations ought to 'revise and extend' other governments' actual press releases and official statements to reflect a more preferred politically correct lexicon?

Sofla:

What, words don't matter? Murder and killing are not the same thing.

But then, the Left has been insisting for some months now that chemical weapons, including nerve agents, don't actually represent "weapons of mass destruction."

Well, I guess it all depends on your definition of "is." If you haven't solved that, how can you understand the meaning of the word "murder" or "kill"?

And this is from someone who disagrees with Steve---I think "executed" is okay here. It's "militants" vice "terrorists" that gets my goat (esp. on the West Bank/Gaza).

If I remember correctly from studying English, anyone murdered is also killed-- isnt' that true?

I doubt the S. Korean government was attempting to minimize the murders of their nationals, to imply they were killed only in the same way they might have been killed in unfortunate but unintended heavy machinery accidents.

In fact, US soldiers are no less murdered when they're blown up by 'improvised explosive devices,' but the apparently agreed upon terminology by the Pentagon and this administration is not 'murdered,' but rather 'killed.'

Is Steve also sick of THAT shit? If not, why not?

Dean, it isn't 'the left' that disputes the lumping together of bio/chem weapons with nuclear weapons as all WMD-- it's the experts in the field, and for good reason, relating to the 'mass' word in that label.

For the battlefield effectiveness of those agents is about the same as conventional weapons, contrary to the 'mass destruction' part of that description. They are not well suited to creating mass battlefield casualties, and come in on that score below cluster bombs and air-fuel effect bombs, among many other weapons. Nuclear weapons are many orders of magnitude more deadly than conventional weapons, and this other bastardized category of WMD.

Sofla:

What experts dispute this? I worked at a government agency whose reports on weapons of mass destruction are still considered one of the standards. I know the people who wrote those reports (no conservatives there, btw). Weapons of Mass Destruction included nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

Yeah, you've got people busily trying to redefine it NOW. S***, I remember in college when idjits (who later wound up in Clinton's arms control world) wanted to list bombers as first-strike weapons.

But please show me these "experts".

Don't you just love it when sofla pulls a Humpty Dumpty ("A word means precisely what I want it to mean. Nothing more, and nothing less. The question is who is to be master." Alice Through the Looking Glass.) out of his ass? I studied WMD in the late '80s and early '90s with a renowned professor (now, unfortunately, deceased) and they damn well did include bio and chemical weapons.

If I remember correctly from studying English, anyone murdered is also killed-- isnt' that true?

True Sofla, but besides the point on you head do you have a point? The point of using the word murdered vs. killed/executed changes the meaning of various comments in a subtle, yet I feel, important way. It is my opinion and if you don't like it, too bad.

Oh and I'd kindly appreciate it if you stopped trying to ascribe to me feelings, thoughts, and positions I don't hold.

That's unfair, Steve, you just removed 90% of sofla's rhetorical style.