The making of legislation by Congress is seldom a pretty sight, and certainly the $700 billion financial rescue plan was a messier endeavor than most. But final approval of the 451-page measure marks a determined attempt to stabilize the financial markets by restarting the essential flow of credit. The alternative – doing nothing – was simply not a rational alternative.

Thirty-five percent of the 1,187 bills that the Legislature passed failed to gain Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature. For the highest percentage of bills vetoed in 40 years, the Republican governor earned the enmity of most of the Democratic leadership. The 436 vetoes would have been impudent enough, but Schwarzenegger had the gall to reject 136 of them on the same grounds: low priority in this year of a $15 billion deficit in a budget finished 85 days late.

For most of us, our image of pirates is best captured in the multimedia blockbuster, “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Now, however, the world has a serious pirate problem, and there is nothing much good to say about it. Modern-day pirates roam the 1,880-mile coast of Somalia, hijacking commercial and pleasure craft for ransom.