There is an element of convenient fantasy in Obama's health care statements that we are going to save money by spending money.

Either the Navy is retiring these ships too early or its lifecycle estimates are hopelessly optimistic. But service leaders cannot have it both ways. Similarly, the administration cannot realistically “pivot” to Asia—a region defined by the “tyranny of distance”—and cut the fleet at the same time.

Renewables haven't made a dent in the dominance of oil, gas and coal--which together account for 85 percent of the energy used in this country.

Gadgets have taken over our lives -- particularly among the young, who have no defenses against them.

Syria has always been among the Middle East's most repressive regimes. Any hope that Bashar al-Assad would usher in reform were naïve to begin with, the stuff of diplomats' fantasies. The question of what might come after Assad is a difficult one for American diplomats who have spent far more time trying to engage Assad and his functionaries than in reaching out to the Syrian opposition.

While Governor Jerry Brown will be safely out of office by the time his wind and solar energy regulations kick in, the rest of us will have to deal with the high costs, low reliability, and environmental degradation attendant upon this latest exercise in the fantasies of renewable power.

Congress should either turn Social Security into a general revenue program with no earmarked taxes or make it a genuinely self-supporting program that receives no general revenue transfers.