We always need to remember that behind almost every great moment in history, there are heroic people doing really boring and frustrating things for a prolonged period of time.

I write about how in Midland, the mayor instituted water conservation measures like restrictions on car washing. He made a point though that they were only "suggestions" and not government telling people what to do. But then his constituents got very ticked off at the sight of their neighbors breaking the rules and demanded that they be made into actual laws with penalties.

You reduce illegal immigration by making it harder to get jobs here, or easier to get jobs south of the border. This idea that we can't pass an immigration law until we hit some imaginary security target is just a way to derail reform.

Unfortunately, he was about as deep as a melted ice cube.

Certainly Nancy Reagan had an extraordinary effect on her husband. I'm truly not sure that, say, Laura Bush had that much effect on the Bush administration. She certainly, you know, seems to be a nice person who I think the public likes. But I can't really put my finger on any huge impact she's had.

It is more a mentality than the actual places people live, as Jefferson and Hamilton would argue about - city versus country. For example, someone could have an empty place mentality yet be living in a condo in Boca Raton.

For years I've been hearing 20-somethings say they don't expect Social Security to be around when they hit 65. Eventually, I came to realize that they really mean that they just don't expect to be 65. Or 40. Neither did I, when I was 22.