I don't know how backwards it is to not prosecute the agents directly involved when it is now imminently clear that top-level officials authorized and ordered their actions. Until some of those top-level officials have been put through the legal wringer, prosecuting "foot soldiers" doesn't meet my expectations of accountability. We have some incredibly stupid individuals who abused their tiny bit of power while those with real power and true culpability are able to hide in plain sight. That's backwards.

That vegan/vegetarian bandwagon... how's it rolling through Africa, Asia, South America and the extreme north? Only in places like the United States and Western Europe, where alternate protein sources are easily available and cost is not a serious concern, does the option exist to even have this conversation. Meanwhile, primates, whales, dogs, horses... all are regular components of diets consumed by the 85% of humans that aren't living in North America or Europe. Talk about tilting at windmills.

Sorry, but that's a standard they can never meet.

It seems to me Mr. Lind has a tendency to jump to blind conclusions. For one, his "Obama... has failed to seek counsel" is a maybe yes and maybe no. I'm not sure anyone outside the WH would know. And casting Obama weak on one stage or strong on another is insightful like the right wing hysteria over socialism is insightful. We're a few months into a new president who was handed a foreign-policy train wreck and a worse global economy. If he succeeds in cleaning up some parts of messes it took Bush and the Republics more than 8 years to make, it might take more than a few months.

Gosh, it seems like a good idea to me to prosecute lawyers who, past or future, get overly creative in stretching the law to provide fig-leaf legal coverages in an attempt to placate their superiors. I would imagine that a past precedent of prosecuting enabling legal minds might have had been a deterrent to the Yoos and Bybees of just a few years ago.

It gives me motion-sickness trying to untie the notion that there shouldn't be any criminal prosecution for atrocious advice to insure the best possible advice at some future date. What?????

over the prospect of further investigations and publicly-released documents: you can't hide the lies you've been telling. A former CIA official claims, without challenge, that waterboarding "flipped a switch" only for the public to learn months later that that was utter BS.

Aren't we get ahead of ourselves, here? "Pandemic" is not necessarily synonymous with "high mortality."

Broadcast networks got a pass during 8 years of Bush's near silence. At a time of economic meltdown, 2 wars and, now, a pandemic that might kill millions (I read that last bit in Salon), a presidential press conference might be interesting. At least the guy's articulate.

clip Ben Nelson's wings?

the RNC's competitive bid and spending limit rules were applied a few years ago at the federal level?

"The nonpilot has about as much chance of landing a 737 as somebody without medical training performing successful brain surgery."

Patrick, you can't be getting all media rhetorical on us now after having had such a lovely go trying to keep the bobble heads from bobbing too much. Now you're SERIOUSLY equating the landing of a 737 with brain surgery? (You do realize, I hope, that comparing the difficulty of anything to brain surgery is a hackneyed cliche from the 1970s or 1980s, right? But I digress.)

Assuming we're NOT talking about the brain surgery equivalent of popping a zit, it's no contest: I'd opt for an amateur-hour 737 landing in a heartbeat over amateur-hour brain surgery. I just can't imagine there are decipherable brain surgery checklists or nice brain diagrams lying about the operating theater.

Plus, you have to weigh the pucker factor. A high pucker factor task with an outcome that determines whether Mr. Amateur walks away with ANY pucker factor left (ever) tends to better focus the mind. If our hero WILL have pucker factor remaining after his amateur quest (as when doing brain surgery on anyone other than himself or the local mob boss), focus it need not be quite so sharp.

Finally, it's much easier to get some flight insurance before the plane leaves the ground. Not much chance of fattening your life insurance policy on the way into brain surgery even if the surgeon is wizard-class.

So, just out of curiosity, where do you guys hide flight checklists and cockpit diagrams?

"we are in for a major reduction in US living standards"

I'm just wondering... wouldn't you expect that to be the case after years of living standards supported by credit rather than real earnings? Credit that, for many, has evaporated (and then some)?

The dad didn't get any estate planning help and his kids got cut out of inheriting any of his accumulated wealth; it went to the wife on his death (not the mother of the LW) and, when that wife died, the estate goes to her heir(s), not his. Guess what? That's the way things work if the dad didn't set up a trust to insure his kids got an inheritance. Thank goodness for the LW, there wasn't much money involved. This is a VERY common outcome in an age when old folks tend to have had multiple spouses where the last spouse is NOT the parent of the kids.

Lawyer up? Nuts to that, if there's no money involved. Just skip signing off on it. It's NOT what dad probably would have wanted so, yes, it's an affront to him and his descendants. But dad screwed up (VERY easy to do) and, if dad's step-daughter has no character (i.e., she's willing to accept an inadvertent advantage of the law for a small pittance), forget about it. But don't roll over on it by signing.