Here are they are: the 10 sanest moments of 2010.

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The vast majority of Americans eat meat, lots of it, and we love it. We eat 50 percent more of it per person than we did in the 1950s, the height of our culinary steak-n-potatoes era. There are boatloads of reasons why we do it: It tastes good; it signifies prosperity; it's an integral part of most cultures' cuisines. Telling us we can't have it anymore is not going to make us very happy. We will punch you.

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Because Walker had represented to the United States Olympic Committee in a suit against the "Gay Olympics," liberal House members revolted against him and the Senate Judiciary Committee declined to confirm Walker when he was originally nominated by Reagan in 1987. It wasn't until George H.W. Bush renominated him in 1989 that Judge Walker was confirmed to the federal bench.

He was an active Republican at the time of his nomination. He's allegedly soft on white-collar crime.

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So, it was perfectly in line with his oddball persona when, moments after the Lakers secured their second consecutive championship in June, Artest thanked his psychiatrist for helping him to calm down. Few people saw significance in the remark apart from its obvious viral potential.

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The defining moment came in August, when he defended Judge Vaughn Walker's decision on Fox News Sunday:

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Enter Robert Sarver, banker, entrepreneur and majority owner of the Phoenix Suns, Arizona's basketball franchise. Sarver's team was playing in the Western Conference semi-finals, and Game 2 happened to coincide with Cinco de Mayo this year. Following passage of the immigration bill, Sarver announced the team would wear special "Los Suns" jerseys "to honor our Latino community and the diversity of our league, the state of Arizona and our nation."

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Ravitch, who served as the assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush and became an early and vocal supporter of his son's 2001 plan, made a name for herself touting the conservative pillars of educational reform: choice and testing. As recently as 2005, she praised the No Child Left Behind Act, writing, "All this attention and focus is paying off for younger students, who are reading and solving mathematics problems better than their parents' generation."

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With the simple declaration "Dude, you have no Quran," Jacob Isom stopped a radical "Christian" group from burning the Muslim holy book in an Amarillo Texas Park.

Simple, direct common-sense action. Non-violent, casual, calm. Problem solved.

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I am in receipt of your recent letter concerning my endorsement of Felicia Rotellini for Arizona Attorney General. In that letter, you state that I have violated the "Haney Rule," -- apparently crafted and instituted upon your suggestion -- by using my own independent judgment and endorsing the best person for the job. Since I am the only Republican elected to the position of Arizona Attorney General in the last twenty years and since I led all candidates on the ballot in 1990 and 1994 and served eight years as AG, it seemed to me that I might be in a position to independently assess who would be the best person to be our next Attorney General. In this year's election, in my judgment, it is not even close. Felicia Rotellini will be an outstanding Attorney General.

Many Republicans spent the better part of this year arguing that Mr. [Tom] Horne is unfit to hold the office of Attorney General and that people should vote for Andrew Thomas. Then, like Mr. Thomas, on the day after he lost they endorsed Mr. Horne. I found their arguments unconvincing before and after the election. But their lack of logic is reflected in your "rule."

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So instead, we came up with another idea: Spotlighting outstanding examples of sane behavior in 2010 so far. We're flipping one of our favorite features – This Week in Crazy – on its head, running a series that celebrates the Year in Sanity. The goal: We want to honor inspiring cases of clear-thinking in the face of madness. We want to reward honest reactions when evasion would've been applauded. We want to spotlight straight talk, when obfuscation would have been the easier, or expected, way to go.

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Galarraga responded with a you've got to be kidding me smile for the ages, then retired one more batter for a one-hit shutout. He later said he hadn't argued because he was in shock.

But it was Joyce's response that turned this terrible tale into one that's almost heart-warming. Not as heart-warming as a journeyman pitcher tossing a perfect game, mind you, but pretty toasty.

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In the weeks that followed, as the ACLU slapped her school board with a lawsuit and McMillen began speaking to the media, she proved to be a preternaturally mature teen who had unwavering convictions and a mesmerizing self-assurance. "I'm not going to go to prom and pretend like I'm not gay," she said matter-of-factly to Ellen Degeneres. "Otherwise there's no point in me going." Throughout the ordeal, McMillen was charming, sincere -- and impressively sane.

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Like everybody, he'd made a few jokes about the bloodbath. He'd even brazenly done an opening bit in Leno drag, big chin and all. But on January 14, he went above and beyond. Appearing via satellite on the "10 at 10" segment on Leno's own show, Kimmel defiantly, genially ripped the guy a new one. "I have a lot of questions to ask you about this whole thing," he said cheerily, speaking for everybody at home. And it was more than just crazy chutzpah to then go on to tell Jay Leno -- and his audience -- that the best prank he ever pulled was that "I told a guy that, five years from now, I'm gonna give you my show. And then when the five years came, I gave it to him, and then I took it back almost instantly." It was utterly sane.

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But as it dominated the media this summer, almost no major political leader wanted to point any of this out. Islamophobia in America has blossomed in 2010, with polls showing an alarming share of the population giving in to fear and suspicion of Muslims.

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Beinart, who attends an Orthodox synagogue, called his New York Review of Books piece, "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment," "the hardest thing I ever wrote."

In it he takes aim at groups like the Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC "for scolding people who contradict their vision of Israel as a state in which all leaders cherish democracy and yearn for peace" -- when that vision clearly does not match reality. "Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral," he wrote, citing the opposition of American Jewish institutions to "a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens."

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