Societies are healthiest when their radius of trust is broad and when people feel they can influence their own fate.

The demise of Google Reader, if logical, is a reminder of how far we've come from the cuddly old 'I'm Feeling Lucky' Google days, in which there was a foreseeably-astonishing delight in the way Google's evolving design tricks anticipated what users would like.

For a decade or more after the Vietnam war, the people who had guided the U.S. to disaster decently shrank from the public stage.

Societies are healthiest when their radius of trust is broad and when people feel they can influence their own fate.

The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan [...] Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel.

The whole point of constitutional democracy is the peaceful transfer of power; of Al Gore passing the baton to George W. Bush, even though that election was very suspiciously called.

If you didn't know better, you might have thought in 2003 and 2004 that U.S. government strategy was being set by people trying to make enemies rather than friends in the Arab-Islamic world. And if you didn't know better, you might think that the Chinese government's approach to the Olympics is being set by people trying to make the country look bad.