And I knew about the jellyfish, but I was sort of cavalier.

In the cavalier spirit that prevailed after 1967, the Israeli government extended the city s boundaries from 10,875 acres to more than 31,000 acres. Netanyahu s claim that this extended Jerusalem is the biblical capital of the Jewish people is a historical travesty.

The international community s shameful acceptance of impunity for Assad and his henchmen is a blot on the conscience of the world. Western leaders dithering, and the callous, cynical, and cavalier support of Russia and China for Assad, is a stigma that they will bear forever.

Might there be a causal relation between the Bush administration s cavalier, if not hostile, attitude toward law and its dazzling inability to acknowledge mistakes and manage midstream readjustments? Could it be that a willingness to flout the law and circumvent the Constitution tends to produce not nimbleness, but obduracy and intransigence?