In the academic world, you think now and decide never; and in the government, it’s just exactly the other way around.

 

G. Warren Nutter,  economist and former Assistant Secretary of Defense

 

On the Monarchy

Margaret Thatcher, God bless her, still can hit the nail on the head … and with her delightful acerbic flair!

“Those who imagine that a politician would make a better figurehead than a hereditary monarch might perhaps make the acquaintance of more politicians.” – Margaret Thatcher

Via: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2011/04/twelve-top-tory-quotes-in-support-of-monarchy.html

 

Think about it

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.

– Walter Lippmann

 

74-year-old vet tackles AZ killer

This was news to me:

74-year-old Colonel Bill Badger tackled Jared Loughner while he was reloading his Glock according to telephone interviews with Fox News. Yeah, you go and try to find the story somewhere.

Col. Badger was also shot in the back of his head before he tackled Loughner. According to Col. Badger, someone whacked Louchner with a folding chair while he was reloading. That gave Badger an opportunity to grab his left arm while someone else grabbed Loughner’s right arm and they forced him to the ground.

I guess it’s more newsworthy when the shooter is thought to be a veteran than one of the guys who ended the shooting is a veteran.

The mainstream media was so busy trying to pin the shootings on the Tea Party, it missed a really great story.

via This ain’t Hell, but you can see it from here » Blog Archive » Vet tackled shooter.

 

Leadership: throw somebody under the bus

 

 

Politico had an interesting pre-election summary of top Democrats’ reactions to the anticipated 2010 election losses.  Toward the end of the article, what the authors describe as  “Democratic source close to the White House” analyzing Pres. Obama’s likely reaction, makes a very telling point:

He’s shown a willingness [after past crises] to take responsibility and throw somebody under the bus.”

Take responsibility and throw somebody under the bus! If this is what leadership has come to in America, it’s no wonder we’re in such a mess.

via Spin cycle: What will top Dems say? – Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin – POLITICO.com.

 

The best growth is spurred by the right kind of ruin.

via An Age of Creative Destruction – Council on Foreign Relations.

 

How Little We Know

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

– F.A. Hayek

 

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

 

 

Fascinating Story of Love, Politics, and Betrayal

The love story of Nikolai Bukharin and Anna Larina, and what Stalin did to them and their infant son.

One of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever heard, with the author, Paul Gregory, at: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/07/gregory_on_poli.html

Same day, I ordered the book.

 

John Wooden: Great Winner, Great Romantic

John Wooden has died.  Although I haven’t seen anything about him in a few years, I’ll miss him.

He was, of course, a  great coach, a real leader, a disciplinarian in an age of militant indiscipline.

I learned today that he also was among history’s great lovers.  In his column for ESPN the Magazine, Rick Reilley addresses the following to Wooden’s great-grandson (emphasis added):

… he and your late great-grandmother, Nell, had the truest love I’ve ever seen. Junior high school sweethearts, they were married 53 years until Nell died in 1985. To this day, he writes her a love note every month and sets it on her side of the bed.

John Wooden was a class act.  That’s why he’ll be missed.

via Rick Reilly is still in awe of John Wooden – ESPN The Magazine.

 

Bureaucracy Exceeding Itself

Illustrating the immutable law: Power corrupts.  PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

General McChrystal’s response was priceless:

When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,’ General Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO force commander, remarked wryly when confronted by the sprawling spaghetti diagram in a briefing.

via Afghanistan PowerPoint slide: Generals left baffled by PowerPoint slide | Mail Online.

 

Piracy: Dutch sidestep EU red tape to rescue German ship

In this image released by the Royal Dutch Navy Monday April 5, 2010, a boarding party slides down a rope from the frigate Tromp’s Lynx helicopter onto the mv Taipan. The Dutch Defense Ministry says one of its Navy frigates has freed a German merchant ship and its 15-strong crew from pirates off the coast of Somalia after the Dutch ship’s helicopter fired on the captured freighter’s bridge and arrested 10 pirates who had boarded the ship on Monday morning about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of Somalia. The German ship’s crew members had locked themselves into a secure area of the ship and were unharmed. One Dutch marine was slightly injured during the boarding. The Defense Ministry statement says that despite damage to its bridge, the German container ship was able to resume its voyage. (AP Photo/Royal Dutch Navy)

Way to go, Dutch!

via The Associated Press: Dutch sidestep EU red tape to rescue German ship.

 

Leadership

1776:      “We hold these truths to be self-evident …”

1787:      “… in Order to form a more perfect Union …”

1863:     “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish form the earth.”

1941:      “With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounded determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.”

1961:      “… ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

2010: