We have always loved the outlaw. From Jesse James to Bonnie and Clyde and at every other time and place, outlaws have won more than their share of public affection. 

Keep in mind that any royal portrait has to sit along side the Holbeins, the van Dycks, and the Knellers. A grisaille background (a decorative background in a single color) in black is not uncommon, especially in the Dutch school from whence so many English court painters drew their style from. We are now accustomed to photography, which is, today, more spontaneous and exuberant, is often lit with diffuse, even lighting, and creates a whole different impression than the more somber and realistic style of painting, which strives to capture something entirely different than what we expect from a photograph. This portrait looks very much like a portrait, which I think is the point for a traditional monarchy that still represents itself with a Tudor crown.

Technology powerfully leverages labor. We have the choice then to work less or do more. Computing is only the latest example of this. 

I don't think that power corrupts so much as the public demands mutually exclusive policies simultaneously - such as provide more services and cut taxes, meaning that we frequently get both, as we did during the Bush years of 01-08, or politicians calculate to disappoint their supporters as little as possible while giving them a few things they regard as really important. Since politicians generally are genuine about their desire to satisfy their constituents, its the multitude of factions within the constituency, our simultaneous mutually exclusive demands, and our very significant (although rational) ignorance, its remarkable we get as good of policy as we get. 

I'm going to take the long view. We should teach our children rhetoric. If we did, they should be both more eloquent in their arguments, and more perceptive of the fallacies, tricks, and deceptions used to fool them. 

I am not sure that asking for our own Alcibiades is really a good idea. It may be disappointing to adhere to genteel political BS kabuki theater when the other guy uses techniques that undermines the social capital that makes for a free society, but conservatives do that because conservatives know what the costs are for becoming an unprincipled liar who will play any game to get what he wants. 

This is a tactic common to the Left, and I think it is basically projection. This defense mechanism attributes one's on faults or bad motives to someone else to protect the original person from facing the awful truth about who they are. One example from before Obama- recall the claims that Bush and Cheney were in thrall to Hailburton and the oil industry. That policy was specially geared to their specific interests. Today, we see 80% of stimulus funds go to major Dem donors or bundlers, uncluding famous examples in the solar industry. Any time I hear descriptions of the right by the left that don't seem accurate, its frequently true that the description is apt when applied to the left instead.

That the Left approves of the one, and not the other is the distinction any honest person would recognize. The lure of the Left's dishonesty in descriptions has you fully. 
The Left does a bad thing, and then they lie about it. You are willing to lie about what the Left does as well to make it look even worse. Both of you are liars. 

I would rather call things by their right names - the word that best describes what a thing is - than to be a better Orwellian than the Left. It is worthwhile to know how the Left obscures words and their meanings, but their purpose is to frame a debate like a sophist - making the weaker look the stronger. Its an area where conservatives can be tempted to out-deceive the audience  in combat against the Left. Be wary of that tendency.

Augustine didn't have any children.

I doubt very much that Reagan would have been able to win the Cold War, at least between '89-'92, if Nixon had not pursued Détente and opened China. 

Further, including China in the global economic system, which required opening China, is the only way China will become prosperous enough to ever adopt some alternate form of government. 

That answer is easy: the Paulies, because of their long history of keeping the party at arms length, refusing to act like part of the team, and flirting with the idea of an Obama victory, because, you know, that'll show 'em. If the Paulies played on the team between the Convention and the Election, they would be free to pursue their agenda the rest of the time.

I am not sure whether their strategy is suppose to pay off a century from now when their lives of authenticity, free from the soil of cooperation with the other 85% of voters, will inspire a new flowering of liberty - after we're all dead; or whether they are just unable to stand not getting their way right now. Either way, the liberty wing of the party punches below their weight. By contrast, the social conservatives have been punching above their weight for some time. Because the social conservatives know how to make compromises with coalition partners who share a broad agenda. 

McCaskill beat Jim Talent six years ago. Akin replaced Talent in the House (MO-2), and now McCaskill believes she can run the campaign that beat Talent once again. Its the kind of race that lets McCaskill run as a moderate. Its the kind of race that puts the economy aside and puts social issues front and center. She and the Democrats influenced our primary in order to get the general election McCaskill wanted.  

The Vice Presidency is not worth a bucket of warm spit. We should not remove any figure actually accomplishing anything useful. The job is for the amiable but ineffective, or someone who is at the end of their career in politics. 

Keep Ryan in the House, keep Rubio in the Senate. 

The cameras in the hallways, the constant wearing of id badges, the swift resort to in-school suspension, not so much teaching responsibility as obedience to authority, as well as the examples that EJHill referred to make the school a poor place for a free people to learn. Rather, its effect is to prepare our young people for the ready acceptance of Big Brother. 

Employers are not eager to get overqualified employees. The overqualified are often bored, resentful, and eager to leave when new opportunities open up. Employers would prefer someone who will find the job challenging without being difficult, who will stay a long time, who will grow with the company, and who will be excited about working there. 

The important exception are part timers, who want to be part-timers, because they have something else going on their lives that is more important. 

To suppose that employers want overqualified employees tells me that Clawson has very little experience hiring people.