Weekly Standard

Let me admit that I am addicted to the Weekly Standard, not just for information not covered regularly anywhere else but for lively writing. It is what the National review of my youth was.

If you do not subscribe, you should.

There is always a “Casual” column – nothing earthshaking, but useful, and lately I have seen a lot of P. J. O’Rourke  P.J. went through a “sophomore slump” between his near LSD days when his writing was terrific, and today when he appears to have recovered his swing.  P.J. always had the talent, but just went into a slump.

His column this week – “End It, Don’t Mend It” – is absolutely superb to those of us who are “stats freaks.” If it ain’t numbers, it’s opinion – and P.J. has the numbers. Sharp writing. I’ll address it over the next few days.

But even the Casual column (Philip Terzian) gave me insight I had not previously enjoyed:

” This is some considerable distance from the Washington of my youth, where only the president—not even the vice president—merited Secret Service protection, and Harry Truman could take his morning constitutional around the block, two detectives hovering discreetly in the background. In the 1950s, I took piano lessons in a studio over the Avalon Theatre where, on occasion, Mrs. Richard M. Nixon would pull up on a Friday afternoon, park her station wagon by the curb, push a coin into the meter, and escort Tricia and Julie into the movies. There was no “security” in sight. “

The writer then goes on to demonstrate how things have changed: “In 1901, when three presidents had been shot to death in the previous 36 years, it did not occur to Theodore Roosevelt to turn the White House into a fortress and treat citizens as a daily menace. In 1941, when we were at war with the greatest tyranny of the age, Franklin Roosevelt placed one armed soldier at each White House gate.”

His explanation of the current status of Washington security, and its impact on democracy, is revealing.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/not-your-father%E2%80%99s-washington

The Difference Between Schooling and Education

In today’s North County Times, one Mr. Musser decries the lack of academic degrees of Glen Beck, and Hannity.

Mr. Musser (LTE) seems to place a great deal of confidence in academic degrees; less so in street smarts.

There is a difference between schooling and education. I have a stack of academic degrees, but prefer my street smarts.

Musser would have loved Ted Hall! (Born Theodore Alvin Holtzberg)

Ted graduated from Harvard at the age of 18!

Degree in Theoretical Physics.

(Student member of the Young Communist League, student organizer for the Steel Worker Union at Bethlehem Steel plant,)

A “Boy Wonder.” Academic brilliance  Subsequently taught at U. of Chicago  “pioneered important techniques in X-ray microanalysis” – and then at Cambridge.

He went to work at age 18 at Los Alamos, as their youngest scientist for the Manhattan Project, where he contributed greatly to the effort to develop the atomic bomb.

Oh, by the way – he walked into the Russian consulate in New York and gave them the secrets of the atomic bomb.

“”I decided to give atomic secrets to the Russians because it seemed to me that it was important that there should be no monopoly, which could turn one nation into a menace and turn it loose on the world as … as Nazi Germany developed. There seemed to be only one answer to what one should do. The right thing to do was to act to break the American monopoly.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Alvin_Hall

“The Soviet Union is the only country that could be trusted with such a terrible thing. But since we cannot take it away from other countries – the USSR should be aware of its existence and stay abreast of its development and construction.”

Spies, The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America,  2009, Yale University Press,  pp. 112-115

Personally, I like Bill Buckley’s comment: “I would rather be governed by the first three hundred names in the Boston telephone book than by the Faculty of Harvard University.

– William F. Buckley

Overreaching! (As usual)

Last year the President was pumping Spain’s movement to Solar Power – then, seeing their economic future threatened, Spain, almost a year ago, cut their subsidies to solar by 35%

That will not be enough, as Spain slips quickly (but not quietly) into bankruptcy.

Having shown an inability to “manage” the energy production with the terribly ill-fated Ethanol program, the President will try again by driving jobs away with his stupid ban on deep-water drilling, and will further complicate things with a carbon tax.

One can only hope that the continuing problems faced by Democrats in the coming November elections will cause a revolution among the candidates. The NPR poll published today that showed much more support for Republicans than Democrats in the upcoming elections MAY be a wake-up call except for those candidates whose ideological drive exceeds their prudence.

I read the blogs of dedicated Democrats/Socialists daily. They fall into several groups: 1) The polls are wrong, or 2) the polls simply show that the right-wing radio hosts are too much listened to, or 3) the people simply don’t know what is best for them and need Democrats to show them the error of their way.

This last policy is the one that held swat in the Healthcare debate. The Democrats actually believed that people would change the instant they saw the benefits of the bill – but the people never changed, except to dislike the bill even more.

It is in the nature of political parties to overreach.

The Wussification of the Military Academies continues.

The Naval Academy has ended the tradition of making the Plebes put a hat on the top of Herndon Monument – suitably greased by the Upperclass for the occasion.

The Weekly Standard suggests that another tradition be ended – having Naval Officers as Superintendents – and replace them with Marine Generals.

I agree.

At Least Tell Us what the Expiration Date IS!

President Obama intends to use this BP problem to establish a “carbon tax” in theory to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Of course, by far most of our “foreign” oil comes from Canada and Mexico, so how bad can that be?

In truth, it is just a tax, and it is a punitive tax. It is a tax on people making under $250,000 – which is something that President Obama promised not to do.

Someone remarked that President Obama’s promises come with expiration dates.

Yep!

Filed Under: And you think we have problems…

Nightmare vision for Europe as EU chief warns ‘democracy could disappear’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal

By Jason Groves
Last updated at 8:24 AM on 15th June 2010

• EU begin emergency billion-pound bailout of Spain
• Countries in debt may fall to dictators, EC chief warns
• ‘Apocalyptic’ vision as some states run out of money

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1286480/EU-chief-warns-democracy-disappear-Greece-Spain-Portugal.html#ixzz0qyzD4WVh