The vultures

We knew it was going to happen at some point.

And we knew the vultures would be out to greet the news, circling and spinning as only they can.

Wait for it.

Update: Did you know that if you start with spin, instead of facts, that you can actually spin the spin?

I'm reading the CBC article linked above again, for updates. And what do I find, but this sub-header: Optimism among troops 'shattered'. At which point, knowing a few soldiers myself, my bullshit meter goes off the scale. With the quotation marks, I figure someone was quoted out of context.

Not so, as it turns out. The quoted party is actually David Common, the CBC reporter on deathwatch duty in Kandahar right now:

"To have gone for three straight months gave soldiers here perhaps a little bit of cautious optimism," said Common.

"That optimism, of course, shattered … tonight, as there are many solemn faces."

What David Common obviously knows about the emotional state of soldiers in a situation like this could be written on the head of a pin, with room to dance.

He should take a page out of Mercedes Stephenson's book, and eschew the cheap sensationalism for a more sober and realistic assessment:

"Certainly it is difficult for the soldiers. They have lost three brothers — possibly sisters — in arms," she said.

"There's a lot of anger and sadness after something like this, but [the soldiers] are professionals [who are] trained to deal with it and will continue with their job at hand, as they believe the soldiers who have been killed would have wanted them to."