I made my way through closets and boxes this past weekend in my annual effort to get rid of things untouched for years.

In a two-drawer file cabinet in an unlabeled Manila folder I found seven pages of single-spaced, typed (with a typewriter) notes from an October 1980 interview I did with Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, D-Minn., who died in 2005.

 
 

Most folks — other than lawmakers and lobbying interests — have paid little attention to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act until news stories focused on website blackouts that cropped up in protest.

The House version of the bill, called SOPA, sits in the House Judiciary Committee. The Senate version, the Protect Intellectual Property Act, called PIPA, awaits a floor vote.

 
 

If prognostications come true about the world ending in 2012, one thing will be saved: Social Security.

Economic experts say that starting this year, the trust fund stops taking in more money that it pays out.

Yet, it remains the one topic all politicians choose to avoid, except maybe Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum.