editorials and opinion

It is not often that a sappy show on TV spurs me to write a column about something, especially if that something happens to be one of the Ten Commandments.

The official American attitude toward the king of England, and by extension royalty generally, is in the Declaration of Independence, the less-read part after the famous first two paragraphs. The signers were opposed to any kind of obeisance to an autocrat.

The first news blurbs Monday seemed like the sort of rushed reporting that would be followed by a journalist's red-faced correction. Then it got more shocking. The blurbs were true.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas recently joined commentators Rush Limbaugh, Patrick Buchanan and others in using the word "socialist" to describe President Barack Obama and his policies, and we all know what's coming: a verbal bombardment.

Those who believe the End Times are imminent will be pleased to know that physicists in Switzerland are planning to fire up the Large Hadron Collider this weekend, fortuitously one week after the doomsday movie "2012" opened.

Jerry Brown's first governorship of California was marked by what one might term -- charitably -- a high degree of flexibility.

Although he generally hewed to a liberal line after his 1974 election, Brown was often willing to bend ideology for political advantage, a tendency that some called "flakiness."

When Sarah Palin comes to your house for dinner, do not invite John McCain's campaign manager, Steve Schmidt; his top aide, Nicole Wallace; or CBS anchor Katie Couric. They come in for a real beating as America's most interesting politician settles scores that still rankle from the 2008 presidential campaign in "Going Rogue: An American Life."

WASHINGTON - Unfortunately, the government's decision to prosecute the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in a civilian court and the prospect of an eventual traumatic trial of the mass murderer of 13 persons at Fort Hood, Tex., hold the distinct possibility of exacerbating already virulent anti-Muslim sentiment in this country.

Shooting a rocket booster into the moon, followed four minutes later by an instrument-laden spacecraft, turned out to be, if not a public-relations dud, at least a major letdown.

The accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four of his accused accomplices will stand trial where they should have been tried in the first place -- a civilian federal courthouse in Manhattan only blocks from the site of the World Trade Center.