The one thing you have to be careful with every time you look at a lineup and see that you are playing a team you should beat, is that sometimes you don't put in your best effort. But I think at this point in the season, we're prepared to play our best hockey night in and night out.

The ongoing decrease in the number of people smoking in California is a major public health achievement. With California adults smoking 25 percent less than the rest of the nation, our state continues to benefit from lower rates of tobacco-related illnesses.

The ongoing task of debt management for the federal government will clearly be very different in the years ahead than it has been in the past, when debt was rapidly increasing, ... With $3.6 trillion in debt outstanding, even a 3 basis point (0.03 percentage point) reduction in federal borrowing costs will ultimately produce savings of more than $1 billion per year.

The only dark cloud to this number is that now the Fed has no reason whatsoever to stop raising rates.

The only delay, ... is that when you are dealing with 50 states, 12 investment banks, a significant number of regulatory entities, simply getting sign-offs, drafting agreements on stray words takes a bit of time.