Even if sanctions would damage Iran's economy and start a crisis there, everyone knows that the country's rulers are aware that the sanctions would hurt the people, but would not bring the government to its knees.

On the contrary, the ruling regime lives from permanent crises. It uses these to take everyone's mind off its own incompetency, to strengthen repression of its critics, and to motivate its adherents to fight enemies both real and imagined.

Seen in this light, even if they can be agreed upon, stronger sanctions will fail to bring about the hoped-for results.

Our economy--with its dizzying bubbles, wild lending sprees, reckless downsizings and planet-wide hyper-sensitivity--has gotten too far disconnected from ordinary human needs. We could take the current crisis as an opportunity to fix that, at least in part, by shoring up government support for the needy and the dislocated. Or we can wait around and watch while the appropriate imagery gets nasty, as this ghostly creature, "the economy," starts acting like a nymphomaniac junkie in withdrawal.

I find the war over John McCain’s conservatism very fascinating. Here you have a guy with a consistently conservative record who wants to kill bad guys, balance the budget and cut wasteful spending, yet he’s dog meat to many among the conservative intelligentsia. He has taken an independent position on issues he holds dear, such as campaign finance and the environment. But when did conservation and good government become unconservative?

If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, you’ll learn that it isn’t about one or two issues. For them, it’s “ideological” with John McCain. The instances where McCain has bucked the party line seem less consequential. This isn’t about conservatism, it’s about discipline.

There is no such thing as a "patriotism exception" to the laws that we pass. It is not a defense to illegal behavior to say that one violated the law for "patriotic" reasons. That was Oliver North's defense to Congress when he proudly admitted breaking multiple federal laws. And it is the same "defense" that people like North have been making to justify Bush's violations of our surveillance laws -- what we call "felonies" -- in spying on Americans without warrants.

Here, the Government will not prosecute telecoms for breaking the law, because the government itself conspired in that lawbreaking. Thus, public interest groups and private citizens, including the telecoms' own customers, are attempting to hold them accountable for their lawbreaking by suing them in courts of law.

One striking feature of the material in the data base was the sheer opacity of some of what important people were saying, based on intelligence that most people now acknowledge was spurious.

For example, about ten weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Tim Russert of NBC News asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice whether she agreed with an assessment by the Czech government that Iraqi agents met with one of the hijackers who flew into the World Trade Center.

“In evaluating the report,” Ms. Rice replied, “certainly one would have to suspect that there’s no reason to believe Saddam Hussein wouldn’t do something exactly of that kind; that he would not be supportive of terrorists is hard to imagine. But this particular report I don’t want to comment on, because I don’t want to get into intelligence information.”

Now, was that a lie? Or a demurral? A confirmation, or a non-denial? Hard to say. But if there is one lesson that journalists learn over and over, it is that a fuzzy answer should be a red flag.

The drive to remove Hamas from power will not be accomplished by force. Force and collective punishment create more more outrage, more generations of embittered young men and women who will dedicate their lives to avenging the humiliation, perhaps years later, they endured and witnessed as children. The assault on Gaza, far from shortening the clash between the Israelis and Palestinians, ensures that it will continue for generations.

Our society has a massive appetite for drama, and little for reality. We read about Britney Spears when we need to read about Afghanistan. And the media, which has the mandate -- and the constitutional right -- to lead us from this abyss, are all too often not doing so. Media, which once led public opinion, now all too often follow it.

She isn't news. She's titillation. She is a troubled young woman whom we cover with delight, rather than empathy. She is web hits, the current fool's gold of the newspaper industry.

Certainly, if Kim continues to stall, he should be denied the food, fuel, technology and international respect he craves.
For the moment, however, the Bush administration has had an appropriately low-key, skeptical response to the latest delay. Earlier this year, North Korea missed a deadline to start dismantling the Yongbyon facility, but the process eventually went forward.

Time is running out on developing a truly energy-efficient car. Accelerated burning of fossil fuels is bringing us closer to the tipping point of irreversible climate catastrophe. Meanwhile, the cars we build today stay on the road more than 15 years, so we have no time to waste.

Plug-ins are not a global warming solution by themselves. The current electric grid is half coal power, so when plug-ins are running on conventional grid power, they cut net greenhouse gas emissions by perhaps one-third, compared to a regular hybrid running on gasoline. They would, however, cut emissions by well over half compared to a conventional vehicle.