Weapons of mass destruction are the greatest threat to life on earth. Biological weapons are often called the poor man's atomic bomb. Saddam Hussein is the ruler who has for decades been making the most determined and diabolical illegal effort to acquire them.

If trustees feel it is in their charity's interest to pay high salaries to attract talented people, then they should have the courage of their conviction and explain their decisions publicly.

A few weeks before the jubilee began in 2002, Queen Elizabeth died, and the public outpouring of grief and affection, with hundreds of thousands of people queuing for hours to pass by her coffin, showed how widely and deeply loved she was.

It is so basic as to be mundane, but in disaster relief, all the good will in the world can go to hell in a hand basket if the logistics don't work. In Ethiopia at the best of times, the logistics are difficult. It is a huge country - about the same size as Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma combined. It is also a transportation nightmare.

Surely no issue unites us more than our appreciation for our military personnel who are bringing aid to devastated countries, defending us against terrorism, and fighting to make a free election possible in Iraq.

One baby is a patient baby, and waits indefinitely until its mother is ready to feed it. The other baby is an impatient baby and cries lustily, screams and kicks and makes everybody unpleasant until it is fed. Well, we know perfectly well which baby is attended to first. That is the whole history of politics.

The reasoning for our civil-military plan is that lasting success will be when the Afghan government, security forces and people can resist the insurgents and terrorists themselves.

Bike lanes - I put that now in the category of things you shouldn't discuss at dinner parties, right? It used to be money and politics and religion. Now, in New York, you should add bike lanes.