Thank heaven if this story finally gets legs. It's been the elephant in the room for far too long. And probably the real answer to the unasked question, "Why did we *really* go to Iraq?" That, of course, all of Bush's excuses are meant to avoid.

As such, too, it's probably the deepest answer to "Why are the Iraqis so pissed off and distrustful of us?" *They* know the constructions been going on, to the extent that our media has not acknowledged.

It's interesting to recall that Kerry pointedly disavowed this goal in the first presidential debate. He looked right into the camera, in one of his most assertive moments in the whole performance, and insisted he would seek no permanent military presence. He knew what this was about, for both the American and Iraqi peoples.

Please heaven let this story get more legs.

jTh

Um, heLLO?!? Where was Page 3? You know, the one about how to get RID of the damn things?!?

Why on earth get an expert on the phone without asking him about that?

jTh.

Mac and Safari user here.

Any chance you could use your new clout with Salon to get THEM to offer us the one page option? As one of those radio buttons at the top of the feedback page?

I don't read comments to your posts at all anymore, whereas I used to read them about half of the time.

While you're at it, could we subscribers have an option to disable Auto-Refreshment? I would prefer to keep your page open at all times, and refresh when I need to, but my limited bandwidth requires me to close your page when I'm not "using" it.

(I.e., if I exceed my daily bandwidth allowance, I lose access for the rest of the day, so auto-refresh is a disaster for me.)

I'm asking for your clout here because Salon has ignored mine (haha) on matters like this. I love Salon to the bottom of my heart, but some of their policies are really inconsiderate (to these of us who happily pay to support).

Keep up your good work, everyone.

The final McCain baloon should read, "Isn't it more fun this way?" XD

...

I haven't seen anyone mention this line of observation yet.

I hear musical sound as "bulk" (or lack of bulk, which includes air and space), and "edges," the textural quality at the very perimeter of an expanding note or sound.

The simplest example is a piano note that rings out, but of course the more common example comes from an electric guitar. In either case, there is the bulk of the sound that takes up space, but also the edge of the sound that cleaves through space. That edge has textural characteristics relatively independent of the "bulk." (Think back to the piano note.)

In MP3 compression, I hear those edges get tattered all to hell, very audibly, even on cheap headphones (let alone my fine-but-affordable KEF speakers that reproduce edges so well).

This is especially complicated for me, because all my favorite artists (like Adrian Belew, anything produced by Brian Eno, Radiohead since OK Computer, etc.) put a lot of care into their edges, and it's exactly the quality of their music that fascinates me so dearly. The texture of their sound.

So I'm not buying anything less than CD quality for the foreseeable future - it would be money down a hole - and any trend that threatens the availability of CD quality worries me.

I've had a theory for years that the series will end with Tony heading to Europe to retire. Carmela's visit to Paris seemed (to me) to open that window of possibility. And now his gang is virtually decimated. Paulie could take over operations and run them for Phil?

Just putting this out there, for the record, in case my long-held theory turns out to be right.