On Thursday, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to set up a committee to examine whether condoms should be required on all pornographic film shoots within the Golden State. California has run out of money, but it hasn’t yet run out of things to regulate.

The battle over ObamaCare is not just a debate over another piece of legislation. It is a battle over the survival of America as a free market, free enterprise, capitalist nation capable of producing the greatest outpouring of freedom, opportunity and prosperity in history and with a government based on the principles of the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution. And it’s no exaggeration to say ObamaCare is a battle over the survival of the world, as we know it. That’s because if America is mortally wounded by ObamaCare, the world will lose the strong and prosperous nation on which it depends, as the world’s major force for peace, for prosecuting the war on terror, and for humanitarian aid.

In what is yet more evidence that universities have become, at least where campus free speech is concerned, as Harvard’s wise Abigail Thernstrom has described them, “islands of repression in a sea of freedom,” the University Of California, San Diego (UCSD) has been undergoing collective apoplexy over some incendiary racial slurs made by students involved in an off-campus fraternity party and in a subsequent broadcast from the school’s radio station. The discovery of a noose and a roughly-fashioned Ku Klux Klan hood on campus only helped stoke tensions and inflame rage at the perceived racism.

In a surreal sense, it appears that the biblical passage that Abraham Lincoln liked to use to depict the frail state of the Union, i.e. “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” is once again applicable to our country’s political environment. 

Wall Street had been rocked by a series of scandals. Investors had lost tens of billions. The national economy seemed at risk. Congress decided to act.

All signs point to 2010 being a banner year for Republicans in Pennsylvania. Powered by the national backlash over the dramatic leftward tilt of the Obama Administration, the GOP appears poised to win back the U.S. Senate seat lost by the defection last year of Arlen Specter, pick up a number of congressional seats, and reclaim the governor’s office.

Facing high joblessness and lagging state revenues, Pennsylvania’s lawmakers face the unenviable task of trying to boost the state economy on the cheap.

“The stupidest program the U.S. government has ever undertaken.” That’s how, last year, I called American efforts to improve the Palestinian Authority (PA) military force. Slightly hyperbolic, yes, but the description fits because those efforts enhance the fighting power of enemies of the United States and its Israeli ally.

Few in the know doubt the fact that Iran has acquired the knowledge to produce an atomic bomb. Israeli intelligence is far more concerned with Iran’s pace of advancement towards the bomb making than American or European intelligence sources. The question in Israel is no longer if Israel should eliminate the Iranian threat but rather when?

A few weeks ago this column in The Bulletin featured 10 women who make the world better. Many readers suggested a similar list for men. So after intense deliberation, here are 10 real men — some are living and some have gone on, but each has had a profound impact on the world, with the preservation of good as their common denominator. Their upright character is exceedingly rare in a millennial culture that values yielding to vice over committing to virtue. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my personal No.1  — my father, Davis Aloysius Gilvary whom the Lord called home on a late summer morning in 2008. For me there was no greater man, a David among Goliaths whose wisdom and love were irreplaceable. However, you’ll find the following 10 men exceptionally remarkable too:

We Americans are proud of our varied ethnic heritages.  We laughingly debate who is more stubborn, or creative, or outgoing.  And we enjoy sharing how many different backgrounds are contained in our family trees.

I was talking with a friend of mine last week, another conservative, a working journalist (as opposed to a dilettante like me), a man with a journalism degree and 10 years experience in the business, in both print and online. What he said appalled me. Indeed, it provoked me because his view coincided with Bulletin columnist Herb Denenberg’s column last week.

“When all else fails, lower your standards.” —Unknown.