Our democracy, our constitutional framework is really a kind of software for harnessing the creativity and political imagination for all of our people. The American democratic system was an early political version of Napster.

The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton.

Well-established theories collapse under the weight of new facts and observations which cannot be explained, and then accumulate to the point where the once useful theory is clearly obsolete.

To use a Southern euphemism, our space program has been snake-bit.

Remember that the problem is bigger than the car you drive or the types of lightbulbs in city hall. We need a fundamental shift away from dirty fossil fuels that spew carbon pollution. To make that happen, we need to put pressure on our leaders to take the bold actions necessary to move us off dirty sources of energy.

The signs that the world is spinning out of kilter are increasingly difficult to misinterpret. The question is how to convince enough people to join a critical mass of urgent opinion, in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

For a free country to continue thriving, there have to be regular reforms, because any society, any economy that stays in place, you're going to see repeated attempts to exploit the openings for twisting policy to the advantage of those who already have wealth and power.