The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.

Time was when people used to brag about how old they were - and I am old enough to remember it.

A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglass has footnotes explaining what words like 'arraigned,' 'curried' and 'exculpate' meant, and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today's expensively under-educated generation.

Economic policies need to be analyzed in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the hopes that inspired them.

Whenever people talk glibly of a need to achieve educational "excellence," I think of what an improvement it would be if our public schools could just achieve mediocrity.

Lunches don't get free just because you don't see the prices on the menu. And economists don't get popular by reminding people of that.

Has Obama ever grown even a potted plant, much less a business, a bank, a hospital or any of the numerous other institutions whose decisions he wants to control and override? But he can talk glibly about growing the economy. Arrogance is no substitute for experience. That is why the country is in the mess it is in now.