Say what? I though that soliciting and considering multiple opinions was a sign of a healthy government. People probably think this is remarkable because they got used to the borg-like unanimity of the Bush administration.

Usually, a memoir is written at the end of one's career.

Hope springs eternal.

That's the line that enemy propagandists are going to be using in lieu of the photos that we don't release. It might suit their agenda better than having the actual photos: Imagined horrors can be worse than real ones.

... in the vain hope that there will be no more ability of the US to successfully defend it's interests ...

I call bullshit.

The Iraq invasion wasn't about defending U.S. interests. It was about a small clique of PNAC assholes who decided to abuse their authority to pursue their personal neocon fantasies. Take a look at the PNAC website: these same clowns tried to get Clinton in invade Iraq back in the 1990's. They finally did it after they found themselves in positions where they could make it happen.

9-11 wasn't a reason to invade Iraq. It was an excuse.

The problem is, we are not in control of which type of accountability will rule the response to the photos.

It doesn't matter now. It's already too late.

It is now public knowledge that Obama doesn't want to release the photos because he is afraid of the harm it might cause to be done to our troops. That knowledge alone is enough to cause the harm. Those who would harm the troops don't need the photos. They can get the same result by simply saying that the U.S. has publicly admitted that the photos are too horrible to release.

... we don't want people going into the banking business because of the huge potential incomes. People who think they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars might not be the best people to have running our banks.

Does it even bother you that by conducting government sanctioned torture, the US has joined the ranks of countries like Zambia, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Taliban ruled Afghanistan or Chile under Pinochet?

You seem to have forgotten Iraq. ISTR that torturing people was one of the horrible things that Saddam was doing that was cited to help justify the invasion of Iraq.

Doesn't anyone remember

that the "confessions" gained by the North Vietnamese were false?

Maybe we should get John McCain on the stand to testify about the validity of the "confession" that he signed after being tortured by the North Vietnamese.

... Bush and Cheney may be guilty of the biggest mass murderer of the century. What other description is possible for the widespread deaths that were caused by the fraudulent Iraq war?

Cheney is in the same category. He is overstating his case.

"The man doth protest too much, methinks."

(apologies to William Shakespeare)

People aren't going to stop owning cars no matter how hard the horse riding hippies of Salon pimp on it.

I'm sure that some people will own cars for a long time, but the number of people who can afford to do so decreases every day. And just wait until the oil speculators give us another dose of $5/gallon (or higher) gasoline, or runaway inflation does the same thing.

So then what? Give everyone $20,000 to buy a car whether they want one or not plus a 5 year offset on the price of gas? ...

I didn't suggest any course of action. I merely observed that car ownership and operation may become too expensive for a lot of people in the not-too-distant future. This is going to suck bigtime because we built a lot of the country around the assumption that everyone would have cars. It's damned difficult to come up with any kind of public transportation system that would work well in suburbia, particularly when so many places of employment (what we have left) are located at considerable distances from cities that are served by public transport.

I'll offer my own employment as an example. My employer's offices are on a nice campus out in the hills. It's about a 30 minute drive from my house. If I tried to get there by bus, I'd have to travel for nearly an hour in almost exactly the wrong direction to get to a bus hub, wait a half-hour or more for a bus that's going the right way, and then travel more than an hour to get to the office. Add in walking to/from bus stops and typical delays, and I'm looking at three hours of travel time - each way. 6 hours/day is a LOT of commute time.

I can't move close to the office because it's in an upscale area and home prices are way out of my reach. Even the apartments in the area cost more than what I spend to stay in my home. Carpooling is a possibility, but would be tricky because the company's employees are pretty widely scattered.

I doubt my situation is unique. I've seen lots of places in this country where the same situation seems to exist. There's going to be a lot of pain when people can't afford cars anymore, and no quick relief will be available.

... is hit "1" and put my phone on speakerphone mute. I then walk away and do something else. I never actually talk to the operator who takes the call.

Hitting "1" causes the robodialler to involve human operator, and this wastes that person's time. It reduces the number of calls that the call center can handle and reduces the profitability of the operation. Enough people doing this might discourage the dirtbags who run these operations.

Don't Kill the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg

What golden egg?

... is a flood of Social Security money to drive up stock market prices so they can unload their positions at a huge profit and leave everyone else holding the bag when that bubble collapses.