Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.

I was also reminded of one of the unique charms of NYC in the summer: vast piles of rotting garbage piled on the sidewalks, with that sweet yet nauseating smell of decomposing groceries sitting in the humid fetid air, and rancid food juices oozing over the sticky sidewalks. With my windows open to counter the stuffiness, I could occasionally catch a whiff of the stench outside. People actually like living in this chaotic, fetid monument to incompetence? Beats me.

I actually bought the argument that if we democratized Iraq, we could create a space for venting some of the stuff that's going on in the Middle East in these autocratic regimes that is expressing itself through jihadism, because it has nowhere else to express itself.

I purge compulsively. I'm constantly shedding things.

The success of the stock connect program and the increased market volatility means investors are looking for more products to access China markets performance than exchange traded funds, and futures are feeding that rising demand.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everybody's gay.

I do not believe that the truth can ever be in conflict with God.