The attacks of September 11, 2001, were spectacular, riveting, grim, costly and searing. The shock that they caused reverberated throughout the world. What happened in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania ended the lives of thousands of people and changed the lives of many more. But they did not change the world.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, were spectacular, riveting, grim, costly and searing. The shock that they caused reverberated throughout the world. What happened in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania ended the lives of thousands of people and changed the lives of many more. But they did not change the world.

The less oil the world uses, the less important the region that has so much of it becomes.

While analogies are useful, however, they can also be misleading. They smuggle in assumptions that can be wrong.

The American political system is so porous, it's so open, it's so frustrating for those who are trying to make policy.

The American empire will not disappear... because America does not have an empire.

The government can give citizens opportunity and it's their responsibility to take advantage of it.