Here’s good news that may have escaped attention. The environment worldwide is getting better and better, largely because of economic growth, efficiency and innovation. So says the 2008 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, an annual report on worldwide air and water quality and climate change by the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco free-market think tank.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared 2008 would be “The Year of Education Reform.” Now, more than halfway through the year, California parents continue to wait for promised relief. If the governor’s blueprint for reform is any indication, they may be waiting for a long time.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once wryly observed that "10 percent of the politicians go around giving the other 90 percent a bad name."

These days, the same could be said for the growing ranks of disgraced personal injury trial lawyers who over just the last year have been fined, convicted and imprisoned for fraud, bribery, perjury and other corruptions of our system of civil justice.

The bipartisan housing bill currently being debated in the Senate contains an unrelated amendment that will burden innovative Internet companies and threaten the civil liberties of every American. Without any discussion, Senators added a provision to H.R. 3221 (The American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008) requiring electronic payment services to collect, aggregate and transmit details of every sale to the federal government.