Tom Tomorrow and the party faithful

I haven't done a pointer to Crooked Timber or Cliopatria in a while. They're both group blogs, both academically oriented; despite that both are readable, entertaining, and quite often somewhat profound.

Cases in point:

1. Latte Ordoliberals, a thoughtful post in CT on the German elections turning on the question of Germany's economic standing in the world as a welfare state. This post has 70 comments, some of them as good as the post itself.

2. Save Us From The Vegans on Cliopatria. This post reads in full:

You almost have to live here to appreciate DeKalb County, Georgia. Our representative in Congress is Cynthia McKinney. Our former sheriff was convicted of having planned the execution of his elected successor. Our county executive faces rape charges. But I feel safer because the Homeland Security Division of the DeKalb County Police Department has been keeping tabs on aggressive vegans. Eugene Volokh and the ACLU are on their case.

3. A trillion dollar war on CT. Another provocative CT post, this time with 37 comments of which quite a few are excellent. If nothing else, read two items to which commenters link: (1) "This Modern World" by Tom Tomorrow (Full page view here.) (2) One of the commenters expands the costing beyond the United States to (a) Iraq and (b) the rest of the world. He also mentions the "medical and supplemental pension costs to US veterans – a few $ billions a year. Not a big deal in the total, but politically important as the Bush Administration apparently doesn’t propose to fund these costs but to shift them on to the returning Tommy Atkinses." The "Tommy Atkins" reference is to the Kipling poem which is a most-typical barrack-room ballad from that too-frequently under-rated writer.