49% of Americans are inhumane monsters and other epithets, after the jump.

• Yesterday the Pew center released a humdinger of a study, titled "Public Remains Divided Over Torture." The guts: "Currently, nearly half say the use of torture under such circumstances is often (15%) or sometimes (34%) justified; about the same proportion believes that the torture of suspected terrorists is rarely (22%) or never (25%) justified." Makes it hard as hell, don't it Shep, to take any kind of stance against the Mugabe's and Gaddafi's of the world? You know, when half your country is in favor of committing the same atrocities.
• Speaking of absurdities: Jay Nordlinger has an unusually funny joke over at the Corner, and one that rivals Dan Savage's efforts at sexifying the names of the Saddleback Church and Rick Santorum. Nordlinger, no stranger to unfairly tarring opponents, rightly thinks we should come up with a name for politicians who fight vouchers and yet whose children attended private school. Ad hominem? You betcha. Deserved? Fuck yes.
• In gossipy Beltway news, The American Prospect's Ezra Klein has joined the Washington Post. POLITICO's Michael Calderone breaks it, Klein himself elaborates: "The news is true: On May 18th, I'll be moving about two blocks east and two blocks south to the Washington Post's massive building. I will have part of a desk rather than much of an office. I will not have natural light. This blog, too, will change its home, moving to the "columnists and blogs" area of the Post's Business section. It will have a gray and white color scheme rather than a red one. It will have a .com address rather than a .org. For all that, the site won't change much. As now, the core subject area will be domestic and economic policy issues. That means the financial crisis, health care policy, cap and trade, the budget, the congressional process, and all those other fine topics that let me deploy the charts and graphs I so adore."