Israel was born under the British mandate. We learned from the British what democracy means and how it behaves in a time of danger war and terror. We thank Britain for introducing freedom and respect of human rights both in normal and demanding circumstances.

The mandate I have received and for which I will speak with heart and head to implement over the next seven years had its four pillars - an inclusive citizenship equality and participation and respect in a creative society creating an excellence in everything we Irish do.

In the state of Wisconsin it's mandated that teachers in the social sciences and hard sciences have to start giving environmental education by the first grade through high school.

Our work on light bulbs wasn't an arbitrary mandate. We didn't just pick a standard out of the air or look for a catchy sounding standard like 25 by 2025 not based in science or feasibility. Instead we worked with both industry and environmental groups to come up with a standard that made sense and was doable.

The government should set a goal for a clean environment but not mandate how that goal should be implemented.

I was really bright as a kid and tested well and it was clear that I was going to get scholarships to any schools I wanted. My dad always said I could be an engineer at that time it was the elite of society: steady job working in science which was then the answer to every problem we had. It was kind of a mandate. Kind of a dream he had for me.

The single outstanding exception was the broad yet precise mandate communicated by the General Assembly in 1946 to prepare as soon as possible the Charter of Human Rights which the San Francisco Conference had not had the time or the courage to draw up.

It is not enough to show people how to live better: there is a mandate for any group with enormous powers of communication to show people how to be better.

I got all the respect in the world for the front-runners in this race but ask yourself: If we replace a Democratic insider with a Republican insider you think we're really going to change Washington D.C.? You don't have to settle for Washington and Wall Street insiders who supported the Wall Street bailout and the Obamacare individual mandate.