We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it.

Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.

It may be meaningless, but at least it's a gesture.

Unless you live in Indonesia, there should be several malls within five miles of your home. It makes no difference whatsoever which one you go to: Under federal law, all malls in the United States must have the same 42 chain stores.

The United States tried, by depressing the clutch of diplomacy and downshifting the gearshift lever of rhetoric, to remain neutral, but it became increasingly obvious that the nation was going to get into a war, especially since it was almost 1812.

People are afraid to own their own homes. People are afraid their own government will catch them fixing their houses.

We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective.