Decriminalization of prostitution could be the gold rush Seattle needs to boost our economy and feed the black hole of the state deficit. In 30 years we could be talking about the Sex Bubble of 2010, and Sex Workers Bailout Bill of 2015.

While nobody wants Detroit to fail, the Big Three do not have their act together. They went in one week from talking merger to seeking a bailout. Congress will revisit the issue after Thanksgiving. What happens is up to Detroit.

Obama seems to have dispensed with the romantic and failed notion that you need inexperienced "fresh faces" to change things.

How much can go wrong in the two months before Obama takes the oath of office? A lot. Consider how much darker the economic picture has grown since the failure of Lehman Brothers two months ago. The pace seems to be accelerating.

Just last January, Romney won Michigan's Republican primary by telling autoworkers what they wanted to hear. Somewhere, John McCain must be choking on the latest opportunistic words from his ex-rival.

The Economist: Cushioning America's downturn will demand fiscal boldness, but that does not mean eschewing simple, speedy solutions. Quick and plentiful aid to the states is one of the best.

P-I Editorial: When the state's budget projects a $5.1 billion shortfall, it's time for Extreme Makeover -- the government edition.

P-I Editorial: The country must break with torture, Guantanamo and the culture of fear that has fostered abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan and still-unknown places of secret-detention horrors. On his first day in office, Barack Obama should begin the process.

P-I Editorial: It's bad enough that the Bush administration wasted most of a decade of time to protect the world's climate. Now, it's putting its operatives into non-political civil service positions where they can impede wiser environmental policies.

Scads of Bush's political appointees throughout the government are moving quickly into top-level Civil Service career positions for their personal job security and maybe to keep their hands on a Cabinet department's conservative policies.

The wounds of U.S. intervention in Latin America are still raw. President-elect Barack Obama has an opportunity to reach out and grab the extended olive branch being offered by Bolivia's President Evo Morales.

D.J. Wilson, guest columnist: The world of health care and that of politics are like oil and water. A new book, "Dear Governor: About That Healthcare Crisis," tries to address the cultural differences that inhibit good policy.

Jendayi Frazer, the outgoing assistant secretary for African affairs, is one of the few people left in D.C. who can praise the Bush administration and not be laughed out of town. The reason is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Christine Lopez, guest columnist: While suicide is typically the result of a complicated stew of life events and circumstances, the main ingredient is almost always an underlying illness.

The Independent: If Obama is really to make the changes from his predecessor's policies and present a new face to an expectant world, he would be best using Clinton in a different capacity -- just as she would be best keeping her independence.

Dale McFeatters: If 4 million people show up for the inauguration, it may finally answer a long debated question: How many people can the 300-acre National Mall hold? It has never been filled to capacity.

Deroy Murdock, guest columnist: Americans slouch into the 21st century -- a free and confident people blissfully unaware of how we got here or how we shall continue our 232-year-old tradition of limited self-government.

John Young, guest columnist: Without question, the excessive idling issue has more dimensions than the drive-through lane or the driveway on a frigid morning.

With two controversial appointments -- Holder and Clinton -- the new president might just get an early lesson or two about Washington that he missed while spending so much time stumping for the job.

Sooner or later, the Republican Party has to boost its appeal among minorities, the young and the educated. Every sign is that moment will be later rather than sooner.

With Georgians mauled by the bear in the August war, they desperately want to join NATO for protection, and one of the few things Obama and McCain agreed on was to oblige by continuing the process of admitting Georgia into NATO.

If this nation set the goal of rebuilding the railroads and working out something with Detroit automakers that would produce the engines and the passenger and luggage cars, we would be on the way to a new kind of American life.