Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.

I can think of a number of areas in New York where three acres of nuclear waste would make the neighborhood safer to walk around in than it is now, and better lit.

Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.

One of these suburbs is actually named Stalingrad, which goes to show that the French have learned nothing about politics since they guillotined all the smart people in 1793.

That happy sense of purpose people have when standing up for a principle they haven't really been knocked down for yet.

With the war in Iraq, I had the cooperation of the Department of Defense. Kuwait was pretty eager to get American journalists in there, to show us what a wonderful place they are, and what great allies they are to America, even though they didn't actually fight in the war.

A world government run by the UN will be like getting an old, purblind, half-deaf substitute teacher.