American airstrikes...create risks, especially if our intelligence there is rusty. The crucial step, and the one we should apply diplomatic pressure to try to achieve, is for Maliki to step back and share power with Sunnis while accepting decentralization of government. If Maliki does all that, it may still be possible to save Iraq. Without that, airstrikes would be a further waste in a land in which we've already squandered far, far too much.

The bulk of the emails tend to come after a column. I can get about 2,000 after a column.

Abortion politics have distracted all sides from what is really essential: a major aid campaign to improve midwifery, prenatal care and emergency obstetric services in poor countries.

Rising seas create a higher baseline for future storm surges. The New York City Panel on Climate Change has projected that coastal waters may rise by two feet by 2050 and four feet by the end of the century.

There isn't a political price to be paid yet for doing nothing. People need to get upset with President Bush. People need to get upset with their Congressmen.

Usually people are very much focused on keeping their kids alive.

Let me be clear: I'm a believer in a robust military, which is essential for backing up diplomacy. But the implication is that we need a balanced tool chest of diplomatic and military tools alike. Instead, we have a billionaire military and a pauper diplomacy. The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service - and that's preposterous.