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One of the greatest challenges facing health care is figuring out how to assess the worth of thoughts. It is far easier to put a monetary value on a specific task such as a colonoscopy or cardiac catheterization than on the nebulous efforts of thinking and talking. This difference is reflected in how insurance companies reimburse physicians' services, as they typically pay physicians far more money to do surgeries than for spending time with patients and thinking about how to best diagnose, treat, and manage medical care.

As the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan batter our national consciousness, we should recall that heady time a few years ago when some observers thought the United States would serve as the benign hegemon of a globalized world and the enforcer of global stability.

Welcome to the latest version of the missile defense debate, which doesn't sound all that different from the superpower posturing of the Cold War.

During an April 2007 speech at a Princeton University colloquium titled, "From Passion to Politics: What Moves People to Take Action," New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer admitted that the world changes more by technology than by politics. He added that emotions can obscure facts and that political discourse requires an agreed-upon set of facts before policy can be rationally discussed. Unfortunately, politicizing scientific facts has never been more prevalent.

When a company decides to sell food on the international market (pet or otherwise), it better understand that everybody’s health is at stake.