Video dog seems to be little more than kitty and puppy videos anyway. Just like Mom likes to forward to me.

My God, let's stop talking about Hillary. All this feeds right into the McCain / Fox News story line. This is the day after one of the best political speeches of a generation by Barack Obama, and the first time an African-American has been a nominee of a major party. I log into Salon and see another goddamn picture of Hillary on the front page? We are so stupid sometimes.

This article does not really tell us anything we don't know, and it uses an unhelpful analogy that will just give the Republicans and Fox News more ammunition -- keeping the story about Palin and the media instead of the issues.

I'll have to add this to the list of reasons why I probably won't renew my Salon premium account (along with the pop up ads that I get -- I don't mind ads but don't make me feel like I'm visiting a porn site by throwing up a pop up ad every time I click on a new page).

My points were sincere. The point of this column is banal and not worth the controversy it is likely to generate.

By the way, when I pay for porn sites (and I've done that before), the pop up ads usually stop. No such luck at Salon -- and I am a premium subscriber because I used to think it was worth paying for Salon.

Tom Udall is running for Senate from New Mexico. Mark Udall is running for Senate from Colorado. Just wanted to correct that minor point. Both should win, although the Colorado race is closer.

As an Iraq veteran, I actually thought this ad was a bit too much. Not offensive or anything, but it just felt a bit exploitive of the Soldier. In any case, an interesting post.

This article fails to make the important distinction between the apparent policies of military intelligence (and perhaps higher) at Abu Ghraib and the freelancing that Charles Graner conducted.

Some of the pictures from Abu Ghraib show acts that were apparently standard operating procedures. Stuff like stress positions, nakedness, panties on the heads of detainees. There has been very little accountability for the policies that led to these acts.

Some of the pictures show Graner and others simply committing crimes. Were Graner and others put into an environment where it was easier for these type of crimes to happen? Of course. But nobody can really argue that Graner was acting on orders from higher when he had detainees masturbate or when he decided to just beat them up.

Should there be accountability for the standard operating procedures? Yes. But Graner took it all a step beyond. He enjoyed torture and deserves every punishment he gets.

I've been there. It is certainly possible that he was tortured by the Iraqis. It appears from from reporting that the shoe thrower is a Sunni. The Shia government would have no trouble torturing him, just as Saddam's government would have done the same thing 10 years ago. We put the other side in power, but it is not really much different.

It should be clear, though, that despite what happened at Abu Ghraib, the United States is not going to have anything to do with the torture of this guy. It is at least plausible that the Iraqis felt they could not hold such a politically-charged detainee, so they requested that the United States hold him on their behalf. Camp Cropper is professionally run, and the shoe thrower will at least get humane treatment there -- something that would not happen in an Iraqi prison.

IKEA is supposedly bad because they produce cheap quality items -- they are not heirloom pieces.

Actually, a lot of the IKEA stuff is nice. Real wood. Solid. We have two huge, sturdy, real wood bookshelves from them that are packed with books and have been moved to a different house at least three times. The store originated in Europe where everybody does not have a pickup truck. So you can buy furniture and still drive an environmentally friendly vehicle. Isn't exporting labor to the consumer a good thing when the alternative is low wage labor in China?

On the other hand, the author complains that IKEA uses too much wood. Well, the alternative is pressboard. Does that create an heirloom piece?

IKEA is no Wal-Mart. They want to do the right thing and are generally pretty progressive. They just sell a lot of furniture. Better them than some company who does not give a damn.