When Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi secretly videoed his gay roommate “making out with a dude,” and his roommate committed suicide after learning of it, Ravi was prosecuted and convicted of 15 counts of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. He was thrown out of his college and pilloried as the poster boy of hate crime. The judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail, fines and community service. Prosecutors said they would appeal the judge’s lenient sentence, but Ravi began serving his time “to get on with his life,” rather than waiting for his appeal to be decided. He told the judge he accepted responsibility for his “insensitive, immature, stupid and childish” behavior, admitted that his conduct was wrong and apologized to everyone involved.

Kofi Annan, the international envoy for Syria, is shocked by the latest massacre in Syria, which bears all the hallmarks of a war crime. Shocked!

So what can we expect now from the international community after the U.N. Security Council condemned the horrific execution of more than 100 civilians, including women and children, in the Syrian town of Houla by government forces and allied militias last Friday and Saturday?

Unfortunately, I doubt that the killings will provide the “tipping point” invoked by Annan after he met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad yesterday in Damascus.

The payroll tax is an implicit forced savings for most Americans. The purpose of these taxes is to give Americans minimum pensions and medical care in retirement. By cutting the tax we are cutting savings, which make future retirees’ benefits less certain. The government has essentially encouraged Americans to consume more for the present rather than saving for their future well-being.

In Texas Gov. Rick Perry's last primary election for governor of Texas the entire Eastern conservative establishment, including George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes as proxy for W. lined up in opposition. Their agent, Kay Bailey Hutchison, was well ahead. Then Sarah Palin came to the call of Perry. He won big. It opened the gate for him to run for president.

Then when the unheard-of Tea Party candidate for governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, was slandered by the old-school conservative rank and file, Mitt Romney came to her aid. But she didn't move in the polls. Sarah Palin came down and campaigned and Haley won in a landslide.

Mitt Romney's inability to either denounce Trump, or tell Trump to shut up about the the birther issue, is making Romney look incredibly weak and unprincipled.

Don't miss the replay of Wolf Blitzer and the birther Trump from CNN today!

To understand the investment value or lack thereof for a home, it is necessary to differentiate between an appreciable and depreciable asset. An appreciable asset increases in value over time and a depreciable asset declines in value. The house you own and live in depreciates over time unless you maintain it. The annual expenses for maintaining a home ranges from 5 to 10 percent of the value. Real estate taxes are 2-3 percent, insurance can be 1 percent, utilities and heat can be 2 percent, annual maintenance such as painting, plumbing, gardening and recurring repairs can be anywhere from 2 to 5 percent. If the cost of maintaining your home is 10 percent yearly, the increase in value annually must exceed 10 percent per annum in order for it to qualify as an appreciable asset. This level of appreciation has rarely been seen in the past and is not expected in our future. Therefore, a home is really a consumption item.

California heads toward "nation-state" status as it moves to link its carbon markets with Quebec’s. But as Douglas A. Kysaw and Webb Lyons report in the Huffington Post, as much as California may envision itself a global player, “the fact remains that it is a state, and as such operates under a set of constitutional restraints that limit its involvement on the international stage.”

Has the American presidency become an anachronism? Does centralized government today hinder the progress of mature states like California? Ours has become a government of political tribes and generations, not states — that idea was killed in 1913 by the 17th Amendment. But centralized government might become a thing of the past. Tea Party is not just for us New Hampshire hillbillies any more. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New Jersey’s Gov. Chris Christie are signing on.

War is confusion. War is detached horror.

I mention this only to point out that those Americans who grappled with man's worst did so to preserve man's best. As we approach yet another Memorial Day, it hardly seems enough to remember these soldiers in clichés of gallantry.

One in six Americans believe the president is a Muslim, despite his repeated assertions that he is a Christian. And 36 percent of Americans do not believe Mormons are Christians. Pockets of the Deep South, where Obama is deeply unpopular, are home to some of the strongest anti-Mormon sentiment in the country. More than half the Republicans in Mississippi believe Mormonism is a cult. And you should hear what they say about President Obama.

Mitt Romney, who is running a risk-averse campaign with a real shot at winning the presidency, has chosen not to talk about his religion. So far, the Obama campaign has stayed away from the topic — this week, when Bill Maher called Mormonism a cult, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said attacking Romney's religion was "not fair game."