So, as it turns out, did I not need to have my breasts squeezed in the mammogram machines every year between the ages of 40 and 50? Could I have missed the two scares in there, especially the one when both of my kids were babies?

I really hate defending Sarah Palin. I mean, I don't agree with her on anything. Seeing a woman at her level saying and doing some of the things she says and does is like nails screeching against a blackboard for me. And while she ultimately helps Democrats in any partisan contest, her brand of polarizing politics and efforts to annihilate the moderate wing of the Republican Party ultimately aren't very good for her own party (not my problem) or the country (everyone's problem).

There's an old saying that hard cases make bad law. The same rule, unfortunately, applies to presidential decisions.

You've got to hand it to Nancy Pelosi. Love her or hate her -- and there are probably more people in the second category than the first -- you can't deny the enormity of her accomplishment. She did something very, very big.

Everything and nothing happened on Tuesday. I could have predicted that. Whoever "wins" says it means everything. Whoever "loses" says it means nothing. That's how off-off-year elections work. History supports both sides.

There's an old story about a Harvard professor who gets a call from the president (of the United States) and responds that his president is the president of Harvard.

To be honest, I don't care whether Valerie Jarrett plays basketball or not. And I certainly would hate to see Ambassador Susan Rice, known to be a good player, missing meetings at the United Nations so she can make it to the White House court.

My internist told me he is now using the technique he learned many decades ago in the military, when supplies of vaccine were short and they had to split doses. I wouldn't even think of asking. But I did ask my rheumatologist, since rheumatoid arthritis is one of those things that makes getting the flu worse. He would have been happy to give me a flu shot -- I'm talking regular flu here, not the swine kind -- but he was out.

As it turns out, it was no secret that Richard and Mayumi Heene were very bad parents. Their associates knew it. Television producers witnessed it. Their willingness to put their children in danger to get attention was nothing new. They chased storms with their children. They used them to become "stars" of reality television. They taught them an ugly and offensive rap song about not being "pussies," which they posted on YouTube.

Dr. Carol Greider may be the only Nobel laureate to have been folding laundry when she got the call. She was up early, and there was a lot of laundry. After the phone call, she woke up her two children and told them she had won the Nobel Prize.