When the American people elected Barack Obama and large Democrat majorities, the die was cast. ObamaCare was coming. Popular or not, constitutional or not, affordable or not, it didn't matter.

President Obama has tried to spin the paltry new job creation numbers as 'a step in the right direction.' But, clearly, the small growth in jobs isn't even keeping up with population growth, much less returning the workforce to a healthy level.

Job growth well in excess of population increase would be a very good thing if it were only that easy.

The new discovery of a 3.3 billion barrel oil deposit off Norway's coast cements that nation's claim to being Europe's second largest oil producer.

I'm so centered in feeling great about me that I can give great things to my son and my husband and my family.

Middle grade fiction, to me, is really about emergence of self. It's about expressing the idea that the world is going to start affecting you more, and your parents' influence is going to wane. Middle grade is when a lot of kids discover their passions - art, music, sports, what have you.

My family, they're not really that involved in what I do. Career-wise, they're very supportive. They're involved after the fact. I don't tell them anything, usually, until I'm finished filming it or mid-way through filming it. It's just a job, and I approach it that way.

At Columbia Law School, my professor of constitutional law and federal courts, Gerald Gunther, was determined to place me in a federal court clerkship, despite what was then viewed as a grave impediment: On graduation, I was the mother of a 4-year-old child.