Arizona allows anyone concerned about the mental health of another to report them to authorities to be evaluated, even as they continue to slash their mental health budget. Many other states including California are of course doing the same.

On the campaign trail in red-state Kentucky, Tea Party candidate Rand Paul would often say in his stump speech that if Americans were serious about cutting the exploding national deficit, then no program, department, or agency should be "off the table."

As many pondered the cause of the attempted assassination of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by a lone gunman, UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau sought to derive a broader meaning from what he believed to be a volatile political environment, and wondered how the same climate would affect the struggles of illegal immigrants.

The highly-politicized reaction to the Tucson massacre by professional partisans in the Democratic and Republican parties reveals the abject moral bankruptcy that has come to define our politics under the reigning two-party state.

A new study has analyzed the lobbying activities of biotech companies and food patent holders since 1999. While the findings aren't surprising, they are enlightening as to why regulatory agencies and the U.S. Congress have shown the biotechnology industry such statutory favoritism.