In the second week of September 2007, I walked into the Lamron office and shook the hand of one of my best friends for the first time.

The federal government proved once again that when it comes to avoiding disaster at the very last minute, there's nobody better than Uncle Sam.

Pastor Terry Jones is in the news again. You may remember him as the man who proposed to burn a pile of Qurans last year on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. In response to intense pressure from President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates among others, Jones demurred and canceled his plans.

On March 19, a coalition force comprised of ships and aircraft from the U.S., the U.K. and France began bombarding strategic locations under the control of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. The French, in defiance of their reputation as cheese-eating surrender monkeys, actually spearheaded the attack.

The media love crime. We thrive on it; a reporter hears about a murder and his first instinct isn't to say, "That's terrible," but rather to ask, "What's the victim's name? Age? Circumstances of murder? What a scoop!"

On Tuesday, 76 students traveled to Albany to lobby state senators and assemblymen on behalf of the college. If you want to know more about the details of the trip, there's an article for you in the news section.

Revolutions are all the rage these days. Some, like those in Tunisia and Egypt, are successful. Others, like those in Iran and the quickly-squashed uprising planned for China, are not. Some, like those in Bahrain and Yemen, continue on with an uncertain outcome. At least one is turning ugly faster than the news can keep up.

In Tahrir Square, Egypt, there are a few hundred revolutionaries still encamped. The military has politely asked them to leave but they refuse, considering themselves something akin to watchdogs charged with keeping the newly instated military junta honest.

In what seems like a colossally stupid political move, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has decided that the United States should not support the Egyptian protesters. In an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network, Palin spoke in her usual incoherent style on a number of topics, among them the current political turmoil engulfing the Arab world.

America has a long and storied history with the military draft – known by its far more technical nom de guerre, "conscription" – which is typically characterized in one of two ways: a) heroic Americans going off to kill evil people, like Nazis or b) bastards going off to kill people who haven't done anything wrong apart from being poor, like the Vietnamese. When there's nobody to actively kill, we drop the draft and let everyone get back to whatever it is they do.

The state of the union is tenuous, and America has come to the brink. What we do in the next few years will have years of repercussions on the future of this country. Our policies, our goals, our politics and our focus must all be geared toward revitalizing a flagging and stagnant nation. Tuesday's State of the Union address reflected this need and, in a more concrete way than many such speeches lately, addressed the massive problems and equally massive potential America bears right now.

Oh arsenic, you devilish element, favorite poison of assassins and bitter wives everywhere. I used to love how deadly you were. You made stories easy; if someone had to die, you were there to kill them. You were nature's heavy metal supervillain, the Lex Luthor to life itself. And now, well, you just got beaten by bacteria.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the potential for WikiLeaks to change the political world as we know it.

In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row. At the American cemetery in Normandy, France there are no poppies, only crosses on a green lawn that stretch off in every direction as far as the eye can see.