All that chatter you hear from yuppie parents at the playground about how expensive it is to 'do' bathrooms? It's all true. Every word, and worse.

Certain Arabs love Dubai because it's not at all like where they live. Certain others hate it for the same reason. When you hear an Osama bin Laden sympathizer rant about the decadence and hypocrisy of the Arab ruling class, you can be certain he's picturing a nightclub in Dubai.

American officials have bent over backwards to show how sensitive they are to Muslim culture. It didn't seem very effective. They seem to be worried about winning the respect of other people.

I have no way of knowing how people really feel, but the vast majority of those I meet couldn't be nicer. Every once in a while someone barks at me. My New Year's resolution is not to bark back.

Get-educated-quick schemes are usually about as sound as subprime mortgage-backed securities: Enticing but basically fraudulent.

No agency is more acutely aware of how potentially damning and politically sensitive background investigations can be than the FBI; it conducts those investigations, after all.