I feel sorry for Dr Sowell. He writes for intelligent, reasonable people, yet his column attracts crazies who cannot even stay on the topic. And, they criticize Republicans for bad acts and critical language while using insults and slurs themselves. A lot of us are disgusted with both parties, and with the government that results from these elections. What does the public expect of itself in order to have a better government? Apparently, the right to throw rocks at will. I have long thought that someone would have to be half-nuts to run for public office. Please, people. Respect Dr Sowell enough not to make his column a Katzenjammer Kids event. Wandahealth

I respect anyone who trashes Krugman. Your diagnosis is clear; what should our government do now? And, as I am a healthcare person, what should healthcare leaders believe about the future of government benefit programs? Wanda Jones San Francisco

Architects are taught that the housing supply in a vigorous city can serve both the well-off and the poor if one remembers that everyone aspires to something better; the well-off cause the good, new housing to be built, leaving behind their former houses for the aspiring middle class, who, in turn, leave their lower middle class houses for the poor. First for more than one family, then for a single family. When the government, in its doctrinaire wisdom, decides to house the poor in new "market rate" buildings, it disturbs this cycle, and essentially creates a permanent need for underwriting and subsidy. Near us, a "project" was built at the cost of $450,000, which was twice what I had paid for my 3-unit building.

Dr Sowell: This is accurate and profoundly true. Now, observing both Pelosi and Obama in action, and their obliviousness about the meaning of the election, doesn't there come a point, even before elections, when the citizens can bring a suit to have both examined with the new "Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, which can deted, now, the aberations in the brain that indicated deep-seating mental illness. They've certainly got paranoia and grandiosity. But I guess that's a pre-requisite for putting their internal peace on the cast iron griddle of American politics. Wanda Jones

What a relief to have you summarize the idiocy about climate change. Doesn't anyone remember previous ice ages that warmed to produce our present climate? There were no auto emissions when that happened. Carbon dioxide is a natural substance, and not the cause of climate change. Another, less tractable source is methane gas from lifestock. Do we close Burger King and kill all the bovines once and for all? So much stupidity. One wonders how to cut through the myths and get to leaders who don't have something selfish in mind for themselves when they wax enthusiastic about wind power.

Wanda J.