They hate your guts.

You're soooo ugly.

What a sick loser.

Those shoes are gay.

Here comes the weirdo. This stuff sounds real cool to bullies but would those same bullies be pleased if the ridicule was aimed at their baby sisters or brothers, or at themselves?

Some kids at one middle school are tackling a scourge that exists almost everywhere in society, from the workplace to the classroom to the Internet.

It's hurtful and it's also very dangerous.

Bullying takes the form of vicious rumor meant to shape opinion against a target. It is doled out as passive-aggressive harassment, lies, taunting, public humiliation.

Two dozen students at Wamsutta Middle School are training to become peer leaders to set an example and to help other kids who run into trouble with bullies, The Sun Chronicle reported Monday.

They have completed training with the Anti-Defamation League and are conducting workshops with adjustment counselors Karyn McGee and Scott Hopkinson, who are coaching students on how to deal with sensitive topics and set a positive example.

Applause!

Their approach is one that could be adopted by other area schools. If it works, these kinds of putdowns may begin to go the way of the garbage can, where they belong.

By coincidence, news of the training program comes at the same time as resolution of a court case elsewhere on the same subject.

A Missouri woman accused of posing as a 16-year-old boy on MySpace.com to woo, then rebuff a troubled teenage girl - a former friend of her daughter's who later committed suicide - was found guilty last week of three misdemeanor charges by a federal jury. The target had struggled with depression since third grade, was bullied in school and had low self-esteem, her parents said last year, reported The Washington Post. Bullying is not inconsequential. It's not a matter of "kids will be kids." It can be a life-or-death matter.

As peer counselors at Wamsutta prepare to step forward to say "No more" to mistreatment of peers, they might want to know they're not alone.

Some 1,500 schoolchildren just marched in Fort Lauderdale to tell the world that they are tired of bullies and strong enough to stop them, reported the South Broward online.

"I want people to know that bullies are bad and I want to tell the bullies to stop it - just stop it," said one 10-year-old school girl.

This is a sentiment gaining momentum here and in many other countries where bullying has become a common, deadly pastime for the troubled who enjoy inflicting pain.

We will watch with interest the progress of the Wamsutta endeavor.