The penny is obsolete and inefficient, or so they say. What is to be done? Junking the penny has its merits. The clear solution derived from these key points is not to eliminate the penny but to kill of the nickel and make pennies worth five cents. The nickel is a misshapen fraud with a beastly portrait of a godless slaveowner. The penny is a pure classic that bears around the world billions of images of the Great Emancipator in all his Christian mercy, from the filthiest whorehouse to the bedsides of tykes.

After all the work it’s done for us, now it’s our turn to give the penny a leg up. Ditch the nickel. Promote the penny to five-cent status. 

Of course, in the view of the Founders, the best defense against religious establishment is not words on a piece of paper, not a mere "parchment barrier," but rather religious pluralism itself. In a genuinely pluralistic society, the give-and-take of politics conducted by worried minorities, all eager to have half a loaf rather than none, will militate against the seizure of power by an oppressive religious majority. When and if a group overreaches, the others will unite to fight back.

Here is how the Supreme Court’s apparently conflicting Ten Commandments decisions can be reconciled: don’t wait to litigate; never try to accommodate. While purporting to promote a peaceful public arena, the effective majority would rather short-circuit the political process in favor of the kind of intransigent claims we advance in courts. Such leadership and statesmanship as can be brought to bear in these cases will come only from the judges themselves. Rather than permitting pluralism to work in its untidy but ultimately benign way, the courts will protect us from ourselves.

What the Court proffers us, in the final analysis, is a kind of judicial guardianship virtually guaranteeing a perpetual political adolescence. 

Forty-seven million Americans do not have health insurance. This figure comes from the U.S. Census Bureau. What most people don't know, however, is that the Bureau counts anyone who went without health insurance during any part of the previous year as "uninsured." So if you weren't covered for just one day in 2007, you're one of the 47 million.

That also includes 10.2 million illegal immigrants, and about 14 million people who are eligible for public health-care programs like Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program but have yet to enroll. And nearly 10 million of the "uninsured" have household incomes of more than $75,000 — so they can probably afford to buy health insurance but choose not to.