My generation took on political equality. I believe young people, who have graduated into a poor economy, have an incentive to take on much tougher issues of income equality. If they show the leadership they have demonstrated in the last few elections, they can bring changes even greater than my generation achieved.

On the road to equality there is no better place for blacks to detour around American values than in forgoing its example in the treatment of its women and the organization of its family.

I agree that income disparity is the great issue of our time. It is even broader and more difficult than the civil rights issues of the 1960s. The '99 percent' is not just a slogan. The disparity in income has left the middle class with lowered, not rising, income, and the poor unable to reach the middle class.

If diversity is what is a central value in every selective university in the United States, then it ought to be seen as a compelling interest by the Supreme Court.

These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness.

President Obama is highly concerned with education. He's a champion on early-childhood development strategies. So I like the work he's doing, and I support it, and I realise that he's one of very few political leaders around the world that actually has early-childhood development strategise at the top of his agenda.

Let us put the normal divisions of politics aside. Let us come together as one country; let us seize this historic moment to shift the balance of power from the corridors of Westminster to the streets and communities of Scotland.

Yuri's Night is a world celebration for everyone who's interested in a human presence in space - without concern for politics, the Cold War, countries that do and don't have space programs.