On... Sipping Gas in the Faculty Lounge

Victor Davis Hanson presents some interesting points about Obama and his administration in regards to the high price of gas and their disconnect with middle-class reality. He doesn't include it, but I also think they've drunk from the Tom Friedman school of economics: only super high gas prices will force us off the teat of foreign oil. They never say this too strongly in public, but you only need to connect the dots.

Obama, Gas Prices & the Faculty Lounge

On... The Marines

With the increase of soldiers in Afghanistan in preparation for the summer offensive and the conclusion of the HBO miniseries The Pacific past, Victor Davis Hanson has Marines on the mind. And rightfully so. Even with all their peculiarity and bravado, the Marines are useful and their style is useful. Perhaps not the best in all situations but there are times when Marines do what they have been bred to do. Yes, bred. But not always liked. See the article below

Marinestan

On...Trials, Greg Craig, & Third Parties

Three Articles on Three Different Topics of Note

First Charles Krauthammer disagrees with Attorney General Eric Holder's decision on the KSM trial in New York City. He makes some damn good points that need answering, especially about how these are looking like show trials. We all know he's not walking free.

Second, Politico looks at the Chicago-style hit Obama has made on his consul Greg Craig that has a number of his supporters taking another look at their Man of Hope.

Third, Mort Kondracke looks at the deficit and how that brings out the rumblings of a third party. I think this will be avoided if one party actually starts to be fiscally responsible. Hmm. maybe it will happen.

PS: Just wanted to add on VDH's quote on the KSM trial as well.
"Punishing KSM" means giving the liberal community a world platform for legal gymnastics designed to repudiate the past administration and demonstrate that community's "tolerance" — without much worry about justice for KSM or the adverse effects of giving such a monster a public megaphone.

PSS: Mickey Kaus (see to the right) makes comments on both the Health Care Bill and the Greg Craig controversy. HERE

On...Why Are Politicians so Weird?

Why would you want that job?

Mark Steyn brings up a very interesting aside in his latest op/ed piece. HERE. The gist of it comes from a question someone asked him recently, "Why are politicians so weird?" This referred to the numerous sex scandals within both parties--most recently Gov. Mark Sanford (or anyone who 'hangs' with Joe Biden or Barney Frank I assume--WEIRD).

And if you know local politicians they are normally just as loony. Modern politics breeds a certain species of human.

His theory is you have to be odd or serious warped to do all the things you have to do to get elected and stay elected. If you think about it I can certainly understand. Sure elected office has some appeal to me, but only some. It is most the world of fantasy. What a pain in the ass public office has to be? The hours, the fund-raising, the media, the scrutiny, the PUBLIC. Maybe Steyn is right and we will get more and more wack-jobs. The second part of his theory is this is all akin to the rise of big government. We'll see. I hope not. But think about all the monarchs and their ilk and all the power they possessed AND the weirdness that ensued.

Limited government. Boring government. Non-coercive government. That's the ticket.

In a similar vein, Victor Davis Hanson remarks on our Victorian nature HERE.

I'll leave you with another classic quote from HL Mencken.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

It's like he's speaking to ooooohhhh GLOBAL WARMING!

PS: And why are so many politicians ugly? Have you seen Henry Waxman? Get this guy a paperbag.

ON...Stuff in General

What a world

I've been a bit busy lately preparing my students for the big AP US History test tomorrow so I haven't had much time to post. Here are a bunch of articles that I thought interesting the last day or so.

The first is a follow up of my BLOG on Jon Stewart. It's nice to see that he commented later on his mistake. See HERE

The second is from Slate in regards to The Case for Colorblindness

The third is a trio about the foolishness of the UAW/GOV take over of dying Chrysler from The Economist, George Will, and Michael Barone. All sound minds.

The Economist: Mismanaging the Collapse
Sunbeams from Cucumbers by G Will
White House puts UAW before Property Rights by M Barone

The fourth is by Newsweek's David Ignatius on The Baby Boomers, The Whining Will get Louder (My Title) Good Stuff.

The Fifth is by Victor Davis Hanson on our modern obsession with Having it Both Ways.

On...The Athenian Mob (According to VDH)

"Only the Educated are Free"

Since I've been teaching the finer points of Ancient Greece the last two weeks, albeit in a brief high school unit, this article from Greek expert Victor Davis Hanson struck a chord. We are currently seeing the more churlish side of democracy and mobocracy. I've included a couple of my favorite Greek quotes.

See article HERE

"The fool believes he is wise and the wise man knows he is a fool."

VDH's Take On...The Humanities

Victor Davis Hanson's Essay from City Journal on the Future of the Humanities and the difficulty of obtaining a classical education from many public universities.