Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Johnson
Jeff Jacoby's, "Giving Thanks For The 'Invisible Hand'":
Thumbs UP!
An Excerpt:
To bring that turkey to the dining room table, for example, required the efforts of thousands of people -- the poultry farmers who raised the birds, of course, but also the feed distributors who supplied their nourishment and the truckers who brought it to the farm, not to mention the architect who designed the hatchery, the workmen who built it, and the technicians who keep it running. The bird had to be slaughtered and defeathered and inspected and transported and unloaded and wrapped and priced and displayed. The people who accomplished those tasks were supported in turn by armies of other people accomplishing other tasks -- from refining the gasoline that fueled the trucks to manufacturing the plastic in which the meat was packaged.
But what is even more mind-boggling is this: No one coordinated it...Adam Smith called it "the invisible hand" -- the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many...Indeed, the more an economy is planned, the more it is plagued by shortages, dislocation, and failure...The social order of freedom, like the wealth and the progress it makes possible, is an extraordinary gift from above.The Jimmy Fallon/Bachmann Interview Introduction:
Why Are We Even Talking About This?
Michele Bachmann who got off to an impressive start quickly dropped from the lead of not-Romney pack; she faded back as Rick Perry look his turn at the lead, then Herman Cain, and now Newt Gingrich. The famous Iowa straw poll win, and the latest polls I've seen from Iowa (a week ago in RealClearPolitics) have her in the single digits. After an impressive start in the debates, she has faded in the back as there is a consensus that the two best debaters are Romney and Gingrich. Campaign donors don't like to invest in marginal candidates.
But any press is good press. Michele Bachmann eagerly accepted Jimmy Fallon's NBC Late Show's invitation; Fallon follows the late night anchor Jay Leno's Tonight Show. The Roots is the house band to the Late Show. As Michele Bachmann was introduced this past Monday night, the Roots, apparently without knowledge and consent of Jimmy Fallon, played a 1985 Fishbone song "Lyin' Ass Bitch",
I don't think Bachmann recognized the song or its symbolic significance, which was clearly uncivil and intentional. Ms. Bachmann is going to milk this opportunity; the media conservatives are responding with predictable chivalrous righteous indignation, and Bachmann is playing the victim card. No doubt she will get a much-needed burst of campaign cash, maybe a small sympathetic boost in the polls.
Are we really that surprised? David Letterman, of course, is well-known for his disgraceful slutty Palin daughter "joke", but just consider a few of his other bad taste "jokes" I refused to reprint with ad lib's in my Political Humor feature because I find them more mean-spirited, not at all funny (no wonder he got passed over as Johnny Carson's replacement) :
- "When are these Republican debates going to stop? I mean, this would be the very reason to call for a dictatorship, just to put an end to these."
- "Over the weekend, a guy took a shot at the White House. They hunted him down and arrested him. He said, 'I thought I had a better shot at it than those Republican candidates.' "
- "I'm thinking Herman Cain doesn't get it. He brought a date to the debate."
- "You're here on a special night because everybody in the balcony tonight is a Herman Cain accuser."
Look, politics is a nasty business; character attacks have gone with the territory. It's bad enough the incumbent President has a notoriously thin skin and is highly defensive. I think the proper tactic under the circumstances is to take the higher ground and ignore it. Why should one of the highest-ranking women in Congress let a mediocre house band on a show few people watch in the first place pull her chain? And for all the unduly popular conservative talk show hosts whom talk about how unfairly conservatives are treated: let's point out Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (the last time I checked) had lower approval ratings than their GOP counterparts. Life isn't fair; don't sweat the small stuff; move on. We need politicians with the testicular fortitude to do major surgery on the budget , not just a few billion here or there.
When I attended the University of Texas, Austin was a much smaller city--largely by intent (i.e., quality of life issues). Needless to say, tens of thousands of resident students had a major impact on the local economy, and The Daily Texan, the campus newspaper, was a very popular advertising target--easily with enough revenue to cover the costs of publication and be distributed for free among the resident students. Yet (in what must seem inconceivable to today's students), there was an initiative to charge the students anyway because "college students won't appreciate the newspaper unless they pay for it"...
Obviously the same model doesn't work for government, although Barack Obama has such a swelled head we could probably sell lots of ads on it. (I can just see Warren Buffett's GEICO gecko on it...) The idea does make sense: when altogether the bottom 50% of wage earners pay literally just pennies on a dollar of taxes, while the higher earners at the margin of wages work more for government than for themselves. There is a problem here, because if you aren't actually paying the full cost of government services, what stake do you have in efficient government? We have similar moral hazard all over the place (and no better start than the sorry state of health insurance and the unsustainable ObamaCare on top of it?)
That's why, among other things, when I saw Sean Hannity interview Mitt Romney on his program a few days back, I found myself cheering when Mitt Romney said, without a bit of hesitation, that everybody has to have skin in the game. This myth that Romney is unprincipled is nonsense. Take abortion, for instance; of course, Romney was never going to get pro-life legislation through the Democratic-controlled Massachusetts legislature. But he explained that he shifted his view on public policy on abortion on a piece of legislation he vetoed which focused on the potential farming of human embryos for "spare parts". (I myself have never smoked, but I don't think it's good public policy to ban the practice.)
I had some differences with Romney in this week's debate which I'll print in a future commentary. But even happily married couples like my folks occasionally argue. However, we see a slowly surging closing of the ranks behind Romney: this week Sen. Ayotte (R-NH) and Sen. Thune (R-SD) (the latter once considered a 2012 hopeful himself) announced their endorsements; in earlier weeks, we saw coveted endorsements by former candidate Tim Pawlenty and rock star Governor Chris Christie. In the RCP polls, we've seen Romney beating Obama in New Hampshire, Florida, and Michigan and a tie in Pennsylvania; a Fox News national poll had Romney narrowly beating out Obama (CNN has him up by a bigger margin). Romney is narrowly leading in one national poll for the GOP nomination. Romney continues to lead throughout the Northeast (among the GOP contenders), Michigan, and California. In the meanwhile, Cain has virtually dropped out of the leader board nationally and in states
But Fox News--which has an annoying happen of constantly hyping oddball polls (particularly from PPP and a solitary poll showing Romney's lead in NH dropping to 2% of New Hampshire). This NH poll was constantly hyped over the prime time shows as well. It was obvious that was an outlier poll. In fact, in the most recent 3 different polls, Romney leads Gingrich by 27 points (twice), and 17.
I'm seeing some interesting divergences: there are some showing a Dem advantage in Congress on the generic ballot by 4 or 5 points. (Rasmussen has it oscillating from 1 to 7 points GOP.) Sabado, the respected University of Virginia Director of the Center for Politics currently shows a likely net pickup of 3 seats for the GOP.
The Senate is beginning to look interesting. Congressman Mack (R-FL) has decided to challenge the incumbent Nelson, and Nelson barely leads Mack. Michigan incumbent Stabenow leads by a mere 6 points.
Political Humor
"Mitt Romney admitted in an interview, 'I tasted a beer and tried a cigarette once as a wayward teenager and never did it again.' This has the makings of the lamest "Behind the Music" special yet." - Jimmy Kimmel
[President Obama brews his pown beer and has been known to smoke many cigarettes as a wayward adult and has promised his wife and doctors never to do it again. Personally I think he's saving a final cigarette for election eve next year...]
An original:
- President Obama decided to pardon his turkey Hope (not Liberty or Peace) when David Axelrod personally urged him to keep hope alive.
I announced in yesterday's post that the Favorite Groups series is on hiatus until after New Years' (my Boston series concluded yesterday, and I will next cover Styx).
I love this time of year; I still remember leading my younger siblings in singing Christmas carols in the car as Dad and Mom drove from Otis AFB to Fall River and my maternal grandfather's house in east Fall River, only a few blocks from Rolling Rock, a 140-ton rock that never ceased to amaze me; I used to hike down there innumerable times during my visits. My late grandfather used to operate a mom-and-pop grocery at the corner of a block; his younger brother Oscar was the butcher (I think the grocery made way for a bar after my grandfather closed the business; my mom's only sibling was a priest, and Uncle Oscar never had any children.)
I think Mom has been saving up all my embarrassing childhood stories to tell my future wife. I'll never write them here (one of them involves clams--enough said). Except my Uncle Oscar never forgot what I call the 'molasses story'. I was with siblings #2 and 3 (a sister and a brother) playing in the back of the store one day and we were fascinated by this huge barrel with a spigot. We were speculating what must be in that barrel. You know how curious kids can be and it didn't take long for my siblings to start daring me to open the spigot just long enough to see what was in the barrel. You know that the oldest kid is not going to let his siblings to double-dare him and accuse him of being a chicken. So I opened the spigot, and at first it was like we were watching a car accident in progress: this thick, gooey brown liquid started oozing its way to the floor. Realizing this was beginning to cause a mess, I promptly tried to shut the spigot--but couldn't. At first my siblings were in awe at the sight of the accident. Then my brother, in a characteristic, annoying, tattletale fashion, turned to me and said, "You're in big trouble!" and then burst into the store screaming out, "Come look at the mess Ronald is making!" My grand-uncle quickly raced over, shut off the spigot and ended up cleaning the gooey mess (easier said that done: I emphasize for the kids in the audience: don't try this at home!) As a young adult, I probably visited him and Aunt Millie, whom was also a relative on my Dad's side of the family, for dinner a handful of times, and inevitably Uncle Oscar would reprise the molasses story...
Anyway, my maternal grandmother died of cancer while I was a toddler; my paternal grandfather died while my Dad was in middle school. My two surviving grandparents were amazing. My paternal grandmother was a beautiful woman with a wonderful laugh (except when she laughed hysterically at my reaction to a turnover or special-team score off my Vikings in the playoffs). I miss her... No doubt she must be highly amused with my reactions to the 2-8 Vikings this year... At least I have my 11-0 UH Cougars to cheer on. Incidentally, I've never seen a Vikings game in person. But there was an international conference in Minneapolis while I was a UWM professor, and when I went to check into the hotel staging the conference, there was a concurrent appearance there by the Vikings cheerleaders and I came within a few feet of a few of them. It was an awesome experience; I don't remember much about what happened during the conference, but the cheerleaders are etched in my mind. I also did a gig several years ago at a Baltimore suburbs client: one of the employees there happened to be a spectacular Redskins cheerleader. Life is good...
I love the embedded video below which mixes scenes from famous holiday movies, childhood photos, etc. is especially well done to the much recognized opening theme music from the Charlie Brown Christmas classic. I love all those holiday specials: the Grinch, Frosty, Rudolph, etc. For holiday movies, I've listed some of my favorites in older posts; over the past week I've seen some of the more recent classics on Hallmark and Lifetime, including "A Christmas Visitor", a well-made fantasy drama about a surviving family of three (the first-born son died in the first Gulf War and his little sister is facing a potential cancer diagnosis), and "Sundays at Tiffany's", a James Patterson fantasy that focuses on a recently engaged woman whom once had an imaginary male best friend as a young girl. Highly recommended.
Vince Guaraldi Trio, "Christmas Time Is Time"
