Religion and marriage are alike in this respect: they appeal to the human aspiration to live happily ever after. Nowadays, however, marriage delivers on its promise of permanence to only half of all wedded couples. The remainder ends in divorce.

It was fun to watch the right-wing crank community having conniptions about President Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

We connoisseurs of conniptions delighted in this show. What a special treat it was to see spluttering folks declare that the award was a joke and unimportant and then act as if it were the end of civilization.

It's mid-term time around college football. Here's how each conference shapes up:

In the Seven Years of Utter Darkness, this is the week when it dawns upon even the Oakland Raiders themselves that the groundhog has popped up, seen nothing but shadows and vows 12 more weeks of awfulness.

Washington's problems seem not just humongous but beyond solutions -- from the economy to health reform to global warming, Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan. But occasionally a controversy is thrust before us where we all know the right thing to do.

Where I live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, we just had one of the coolest, wettest summers in memory, and we've already had snow this fall. I looked at the thermometer the other day, seeing it was just 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and said to my wife, "This darned global warming is going to be the death of us yet."