Casey,  as usual I am late getting into this, had a long day at work. I served over twenty years in the military and have to agree with you, and for most of the same reasons. There are many dedicated and courageous young women in the military, but most would find themselves physically challenged in certain combat arms. This would put them, as well as, those that they were serving with at additional risk.  Mandating that women be in the Rangers is a little like telling the U.S. Men's Olympic track team that they have to include women and then being surprised that they don't bring back as many gold medals. In the case of the Rangers, however, it will be young men and women who will not come back.

I stumbled across this quote from John Maynard Keynes.

".. that to create wealth will increase the national income and that a large proportion of any increase in the national income will accrue to an Exchequer, amongst whose largest outgoings is the payment of incomes to those who are unemployed and whose receipts are a proportion of the incomes of those who are occupied,...

Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance, than an increase, of balancing the Budget. For to take the opposite view to-day is to resemble a manufacturer who, running at a loss, decides to raise his price, and when his declining sales increase the loss, wrapping himself in the rectitude of plain arithmetic, decides that prudence requires him to raise the price still more;—and who, when at last his account is balanced with nought on both sides, is still found righteously declaring that it would have been the act of a gambler to reduce the price when you were already making a loss." 

As a young boy I rode with my parents into East Berlin in the late 50's. That was before the wall. The difference between West and East was stark. West Berlin was a vibrant city rebuilding.  Ruble was being cleared by men with machines.  In East Berlin the ruble seemed more extensive, I witnessed old women carrying one brick of ruble at a time and dropping it into a wheelbarrow. The vaunted Stalin Allee was  a facade.  Looking down the side streets you could still see the devastation from the war.  The difference between the two sides of the city was palpable even to a child.

Claire,

I agree with your basic sentiment, however we are assuming that one,the agents are married, and two, that the events happened as they are being portrayed in the media.

I would agree with Grimaud: "I think we should, however withhold judgement in general until the facts are in for the Secret Service guys."

I my years in the military I have found that the scams prostitutes, local hotel and bar staffs, and even local police will run for money are only limited by their imagination and creativity.

Kudos, Mama Toad!

That was great Dave! A good way to start the morning. I have shared it with some of my friends.

Neil Cavuto had a segment on his show this afternoon where he put the blame for high gas prices squarely on inflation. He basically said all this about increased world demand, potential problems in Iran, the evil oil companies and speculators is a side show.  Stimulus, and out of control spending  leading to inflation is the problem. I have seen this in our own small retail business where inventory ordered from overseas is up over 30%, and have you tried to buy tires lately? Obama and the Dems are clearly vulnerable on this issue.

Some that I did not see mentioned:

Attacks by Erwin Rommel

War As I Knew It by George S. Patton

Personal Memoirs by Ulysses S. Grant

Lee's Lieutenants by Stephen W. Sears

and on the required rather then enjoyable:

On War  Carl Von clausewitz

The Art of War   Sun Tzu

They will have to pry the Hershey bar from my cold, dead, diabetic fingers!

Peter,

As I read your post feelings of nostalgia and melancholy welled over me. My baby, one of four children, will be twenty-one next month.

Then a happy thought came to me.

Grandchildren!

Claire, do you get any reimbursement if someone who has Amazon Prime uses the library to read your Thatcher interviews? I am the proud owner of a Kindle Fire thanks to a Christmas present from my daughters, it comes with a months free Amazon Prime.

Niccolo Caldararo strikes me as one of those professors in his ivory tower who when the world does not fit his preconceived notions refuses to see the world as it is. For me I would support Christopher Hitchens view:

“Here are the two most shattering facts about North Korea. First, when viewed by satellite photography at night, it is an area of unrelieved darkness...Second, a North Korean is on average six inches shorter than a South Korean. You may care to imagine how much surplus value has been wrung out of such a slave, and for how long, in order to feed and sustain the militarized crime family that completely owns both the country and its people.

Unlike previous racist dictatorships, the North Korean one has actually succeeded in producing a sort of new species. Starving and stunted dwarves, living in the dark, kept in perpetual ignorance and fear, brainwashed into the hatred of others, regimented and coerced and inculcated with a death cult: This horror show is in our future, and is so ghastly that our own darling leaders dare not face it and can only peep through their fingers at what is coming.”

Thanks Claire, I had almost forgotten that feeling that one gets upon returning from a tour overseas, and your post brought it back. In these times it is comforting to know that the "City" still shines.

I don’t believe Schiff and Epstein did us a disservice; however, they were more preaching to the choir.  I agreed with everything Epstein said, but I am afraid a liberal would not have been able to absorb so much, so quickly.  I would be surprised if they changed anyone’s mind.

 “Our opponents frame the issue as a comparison between a system where smart, benevolent people in government control and regulate the market to protect us, and that the alternative to the regulatory state is anarchy and chaos, with the rich running roughshod over everyone. 

We have to make the case that what you're really choosing between is a regulatory regime run by central authorities using force, and a regulatory regime that emerges from the interactions in the marketplace, free from coercion but just as powerful.”

Dan Hanson has the right tack.  To paraphrase Milton Friedman, “What makes you think that political self-interest is somehow more noble then economic self-interest, and just where will we find those angels to organize society for us?”

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