Procrastination also can be a way of self-handicapping: if you don't do a great job, you can always say to yourself, "If I'd only started sooner, I'd have been able to produce something excellent."

Being unemployed is even more disastrous for individuals than you'd expect. Aside from the obvious harm - poverty, difficulty paying off debts - it seems to directly affect people's health, particularly that of older workers.

The business of America shouldn't be subsidizing business.

Campaigns fail if they waste resources courting voters who are unpersuadable or already persuaded. Their most urgent task is to find and persuade the few voters who are genuinely undecided and the larger number who are favorably disposed but need a push to actually vote.

I tend to delay writing by doing more research - it's really the act of writing the piece that I have the hardest time with.

The typical American corporation is a shareholders' republic the same way that China is a peoples' republic.

Pop music thrives on repetition. You know a song's a hit when you've heard it so often that you'll be happy never to hear it again.