On the idea that smaller communities will manage public works better: I grew up in a county with a population of about 35,000 - not big by any standard. There were public restrooms at the county courthouse, maintained by the county government. They were so foul as to be a common locker-room joke; nobody seemed to use them and yet they always reeked. If a small local government cannot manage a pair of 30x20 restrooms, how can they be expected to keep acres of park land in good condition? Judging by the city parks in my hometown (pop. 21,000), they can't do that, either; those parks have been the place to go to score drugs and weapons since back in the 1970's!

One quibble, Cal, and only one: The standard for federal programs that want to spend my children's and grandchildren's money must never be "necessity and cost-effectiveness," but constitutionality. If there's a nice idea that the government wants to put into law, but it's not supportable by the Constitution, it falls to the states and the people to decide if it's really such a great idea after all. Long live the Tenth!

This is Connecticut we're talking about, after all -- aren't they the same state that kept electing Dodd to the Senate all those years? Here in Ohio our kindly AG released the tax records of the innocent "Joe the Plumber" whose solitary offense was to ask a pointed question of the Democrat nominee for president in 08. Is there no way to get term limits imposed upon state attourneys general? One and done is looking better and better.

Ahh ... that would be "slavery," which is not primarily the intentional killing of human beings based on what they look like or whence they come, for the sake of a not-yet-realized but adamantly proposed benefit.

Phyllis could've shortened this article; all the other questions are answered in the "Yes" or "No" response to this one: "Will you vote against any bills that exceed the enumerated constitutional powers of Congress?" It is, after all, the legislature's penchant for pretending the founding documents do not exist, that has got us into each and every one of our many current messes. Let the Constitution govern America, and let the elected and appointed administrators of our Constitutional government be treated as servants to the intentions -- the original intentions -- expressed in that document; and watch America return to the freedom, peace, and prosperity enjoyed by previous generations.

Just a few observations: 1. Rove has never claimed to be the head of a conservative movement; he is one of the leaders of the established Republican party. To bark at him now for being "not conservative enough" is to pretend we didn't know what we've in fact known all along. 2. It is entirely possible that Rove is right about Christine not being electable in Delaware; there are many thousands more registered Democrats in DE than there are Republicans. But to say so on national tv as a first response to the election results is at the least very poor timing. 3. The Dems' spokespersons have been crowing about the revelation that, while a curious teenager, Christine "dabbled in witchcraft." Two things about that: (a) I thought the...

response to Fredjay from Friday: The real reason most artists lean left is, there are far more untalented hacks posing as artists than there are genuine artistic talents in this world -- and the left is happier about underwriting absolutely anything that calls itself art; the right is content to leave the funding of art to the free market; if people respond to it and buy it, it pays the artist's bills; if not, the art waits a generation to be discovered. Real artists will continue to produce art whether they're paid or not; hacks will fold their tents unless they get the money up front.

Typo in post from 10:06; Iraq, not Iran.

Mr. Morris/Ms. McGann:
Rather than switching one out of three commercial trucks in the USA from diesel to natural gas, which would require a retrofitting project of considerable size and scope, may I suggest that the Copenhageners resolve to assist nations abroad to switch their cooking fires from dung chips and firewood to methane and propane, which would require considerably less waste of capital and would have the added benefit of actually reducing the levels of both air pollution and water pollution in developing nations.

"Stay in school and follow your dreams, kids!" is not something kids have not heard before, and from celebrities they respect more than the president. So one must wonder if there is not some other reason for the speech, apart from its content. Thank you Phyllis, you have done admirably in pointing out several possible goals of this overreaching intrusion of the federal government into what is supposed to be the business of the states and the local school districts.

"Hope and Change" was the platform used by the former junior senator from Illinois to ride a wave of public anger over the economy into the White house.

Hope: President BO handed out curriculum guides to followup his education pablum; originally those...