In general, Americans are not very good at nation-building and not very good colonialists.

I've figured out in the course of my life that the one thing I'm good at doing is writing books, and it would be crazy to trade that in for something else.

The rationale for tenure is still valid. But the system has turned the academy into one of the most conservative and costly institutions in the country. Yes, conservative: Economists joke that their discipline advances one funeral at a time, but many fields must wait for wholesale generational turnover before new approaches take hold.

I'm basically an optimist because I do think there's this historical modernisation process, and by and large it's been very beneficial to people. But there are blips. History doesn't proceed in a linear way.

Government has to be cut back like asparagus... every day... or it gets away and goes to seed. Ours did. When there's too much of it, the flower becomes a weed.

The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.

The government has completed the entire process to do away with interviews for lower rank jobs. There will be no requirement of interview for Group D,C and B non-gazetted posts in central government.

For Obama, 'rule of law' is merely his political silly-putty.