Birthdays Today - Twain and Churchill

It's Mark Twain's birthday.   He was born in 1835.   Has there ever been an American novel better than Huck Finn?   Maybe, but I can't think of it.   There's never been a more American character than Huck Finn, I'm certain.   And I doubt there's ever been a more wonderful voice for a novel in any language.   The opening of Huck Finn is perhaps the greatest moment in American literature, because of that voice.   The voice came out of the West, and it burst on the American literary scene like a supernova.   (To steal from Springsteen, another American original.)

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Saywer; but that ain't no matter.   That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.   There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.  That is nothing.   I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.   Aunt Polly -- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is -- and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

***

It's also Winston Churchill's birthday, born in 1874.   What can one say about Churchill other than he probably would get my vote as the Great Man of the Twentieth Century.   The Man found his Moment in 1940 in the Battle of Britain:

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Who will be the Man for our Moment?   We'll need a Great Man for the Twenty-First Century.   And soon.

Fast and Furious Moves Even Further Into Cover Up Mode

This story is about as alarming as anything I've read recently:

The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.

This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.

Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of more than 1,000 guns which have been used in numerous crimes. In Terry’s case, five illegal immigrants armed with at least two semi-automatic assault rifles were hunting for U.S. Border Patrol agents near a desert watering hole just north of the Arizona-Mexico border when a firefight erupted and Terry got hit.

We know this only because Washington D.C.’s conservative newspaper, the Washington Times, got ahold of the court documents before the government suddenly made them off limits. The now-sealed federal grand jury indictment tells the frightening story of how Terry was gunned down by Mexican drug smugglers patrolling the rugged desert with the intent to “intentionally and forcibly assault” Border Patrol agents.  

You can see why the administration wants to keep this information from the public and the media, considering the smugglers were essentially armed by the U.S. government. Truth is, no one will know the reason for the confiscation of public court records in this case because the judge’s decision to seal it was also sealed, according to the news story. That means the public or media won’t have access to any new or old evidence, filings, rulings or arguments.

A number of high-ranking Border Patrol officials are questioning how the case is being handled. For instance, they wonder why the defendant (Manuel Osorio-Arellanes) hasn’t been tried even though it’s been almost a year since Terry’s murder. They also have concerns about the lack of transparency in the investigation, not to mention the recent sealing of the court case.

Makes you wonder what kind of country you live in nowadays.   What if a Republican had done this.... oh, hell, it's just too obvious.  

Tim Tebow v. Quarterback X

Tim Tebow this year has a quarterback rating of 80.5, with 8 touchdown passes against only one interception.   A running quarterback (one of the two best in the league), he's rushed for 455 yards.   Most importantly, the Denver Broncos, a team no one picked to make the playoffs, have won 5 out of 6 games since Tebow took over as starter, including several thrilling late-game comeback victories, and are now firmly in the playoff hunt in the AFC West.   Tebow is also a remarkable young man with a character that no one has ever challenged, either on the field or off.   He is white.

Quarterback X has a quarterback rating of 79.8, with 11 touchdown passes and, unfortunately, 11 interceptions.   The other great running quarterback in the league, he's rushed for 535 yards, albeit in several more starts than Tebow.   His team has gone 3-6 in his starts, although they were touted in preseason as a potential Super Bowl team.   Quarterback X has also had serious off-field problems in his career, including being suspended from football and spending time in prison.   He appears to be rehabilitated, and is to be congratulated for pulling his life together.   Quarterback X is black.

Tebow is frequently reviled by sports commentators as not being worthy of being an NFL quarterback.

Quarterback X is a superstar whose story of "redemption" is frequently retold.

Given these facts, and in light of this comparison, I can't help thinking that the only reason Tebow is criticized at this point is that he is perhaps the most prominent Evangelical Christian in pro sports today.   Or, more precisely, the most prominent white Evangelical Christian in pro sports today.   There are many black Christians who often can be seen after pro football games praying in the middle of the field.   Indeed, Quarterback X has openly credited his Christian faith for helping to turn him around after his prison stint .   I think he is sincere.   But I can't help noting that the mainstream media in America consistently finds it easy to ridicule white Americans for their faith (George W. Bush, Tim Tebow) while giving black Americans a pass or even credit for their faith.  

In any event, there is serious, open religious bigotry on display on ESPN and elsewhere nearly every day in reference to Tebow.   Here, for instance, is Stephen A. Smith of ESPN (whose commentary I otherwise generally like).   You can almost visibly see the disdain he has for Tebow as a person.  Where else could this disdain come from?

Newsrooms for decades have shown antipathy toward white Southern Evangelicals in politics; why would sports be any different?   They all come from the same J-schools.


***

Oh, by the way, Quarterback X is Michael Vick of the Philadelphia Eagles, who a few years ago served nearly two years in federal prison for dog-fighting.  
Anyway, I'm not sure what all this means.    I don't want to put the black hat on Vick and the white hat on Tebow.   I happen to like watching both Tebow and Vick play, and while Tebow is an outstanding young man, I also happen to think Vick got something of a raw deal (prison time for dog-fighting).   But it is ironic that the only basis for the media's story of redemption for Michael Vick is, in fact, the very Christian faith and forgiveness that the same media ridicules in Tebow. 

The Green Power Debacle Continues

Solyndra was not a one-off.   Solyndra was just the tip of the iceberg:

Two high profile companies have gone bankrupt in the United States -- government-backed Solyndra and Evergreen -- and analysts anticipate more failures ahead.

"Solyndra was just the beginning," said Jessie Pichel, head of clean energy research at the investment bank Jefferies & Co. "We're going to see a lot of companies go bankrupt."

Just how many? Of the few hundred or so solar panel makers worldwide, just 20 to 40 are expected to remain standing in a few years time, said Mark Bachman, a renewables analyst at Avian Securities.

None of this should have been a surprise to anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of how markets work.   Any product -- and I mean any product, good or service -- that can be made and sold profitably, will be made and sold profitably.   This is the work of the "invisible hand" that Adam Smith understood, oh, about 235 years ago.   Any product -- and I mean any product, good or service -- that requires a subsidy in order to be made and sold profitably is, by definition, not something that can be made and sold profitably absent the subsidy.   To put it simply for our liberal friends, if it's a good product, it's already being developed and sold without government subsidies.   If it needs subsidies, it's a bad product to begin with.  Solar panels are self-evidently a bad product.

The problem with crony capitalism and the steering of subsidies to favored industries is that it's all crony and no capitalism.   It's not a question of the government being unable to consistently pick winners; it's really an axiom that government can only pick losers, because the winners would already be winning without the subsidy.  

Unless by "winning" you mean getting rich by stealing money from taxpayers.

Girl of the Day - Elisha Cuthbert

Haven't seen her since 24 jumped the shark, but it's Elisha Cuthbert's birthday, so what the heck.

Victor Davis Hanson Brings the Hurting Stick to Obama

Victor Davis Hanson has a column up about Obama's first three years and what it's taught us entitled "Obama 101."   It's all good, but the part that strike me as the most telling (because it's the scariest) is this passage about what we've learned through Obama's foreign policy mistakes:

Israel, Britain, and Eastern Europe are not closer allies now than they were in 2008. Iran is still Iran — and may be even a more dangerous adversary after the failed Obama outreach. Putin’s Russia, despite “reset” (a word we no longer much hear), is still Putin’s Russia. China still despises the U.S., and feels in 2011 that it is in a far better position to act on its contempt than it was in 2009. North Korea never got the “hope and change” message. Europe is collapsing, reminding the world where the United States is headed if it does not change course. Outreach didn’t seem to do much for the Castro brothers, Hugo Chávez, or Daniel Ortega. We are helping Mexico to sue our own states, but that does not seem to persuade its leaders to keep their citizens home. Muslim Pakistan went from a duplicitous ally to a veritable enemy. The more we bragged about Turkey, the more we could feel it holds us in contempt. We hope that the Libyan rebels and the Cairo protesters are headed toward democracy, but we privately admit that they seem to have no more interest in establishing it than we have in promoting it. In other words, Professor Obama reminds future presidents that the world will transcend their rhetoric, their pretensions, and their heritage. Other nations always calibrate their relations with the United States either by their own perceived self-interest, or by centuries-old American values and power, or both.

The main job of a President is national defense.   Everything else is secondary.   Green energy doesn't matter if you can't defend your shores or your borders or your interests abroad.   Obamacare is small potatoes if Iran gets the bomb, or if Russia implodes, or if China flexes its newfound muscles.   So while we ask the voters in 2012 whether they are better off than they were four years ago, the great Reagan formulation, let's also remember to ask them this:

Is America safer than it was four years ago?   Is America stronger or weaker than it was four years ago?   Is the world safer?  

In a word:  No.

Global Warming Cools Off

Bret Stephens has an incredibly important article in the Wall Street Journal today about the waning interest in global warming on the left:

Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the climate apocalypse. Namely, the financial apocalypse.

The U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and the EU have all but confirmed they won't be signing on to a new Kyoto. The Chinese and Indians won't make a move unless the West does. The notion that rich (or formerly rich) countries are going to ship $100 billion every year to the Micronesias of the world is risible, especially after they've spent it all on Greece.

Cap and trade is a dead letter in the U.S. Even Europe is having second thoughts about carbon-reduction targets that are decimating the continent's heavy industries and cost an estimated $67 billion a year. "Green" technologies have all proved expensive, environmentally hazardous and wildly unpopular duds.

All this has been enough to put the Durban political agenda on hold for the time being. But religions don't die, and often thrive, when put to the political sidelines. A religion, when not physically extinguished, only dies when it loses faith in itself.

That's where the Climategate emails come in. First released on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit two years ago and recently updated by a fresh batch, the "hide the decline" emails were an endless source of fun and lurid fascination for those of us who had never been convinced by the global-warming thesis in the first place.

But the real reason they mattered is that they introduced a note of caution into an enterprise whose motivating appeal resided in its increasingly frantic forecasts of catastrophe. Papers were withdrawn; source material re-examined. The Himalayan glaciers, it turned out, weren't going to melt in 30 years. Nobody can say for sure how high the seas are likely to rise—if much at all. Greenland isn't turning green. Florida isn't going anywhere....

Religions are sustained in the long run by the consolations of their teachings and the charisma of their leaders. With global warming, we have a religion whose leaders are prone to spasms of anger and whose followers are beginning to twitch with boredom. Perhaps that's another way religions die.

Quick Hits on the GOP Candidates, Past and Present

The Regular Guy was on the road with the Regular Son and the Regular Dog for Thanksgiving, so we didn't get much blogging down.   What did I miss?

Herman Cain.  Herman Cain is "reassessing" his candidacy after the story broke that he may have had a thirteen year affair.   Doesn't it seem to make sense that the same kind of man who thinks he can get away with having an affair in the first place, later thinks he can get away with running for high public office without having the affair come out?   Stupid is as stupid does.    As for Cain, if this gets him out of the race, good.   He wasn't qualified to be President, and his presence in the race was always a distraction.   

Chris Christie.  Chris Christie was never qualified to be President either, but at least he knew it and didn't run.   But what he is qualified to do, and does perhaps better than any other Republican politican, is give good sound-bite.   Christie this week laid into President Obama about the collapse of the Super-Committee, asking the question about Obama that begs to be asked:  "what the hell are we paying him for?"




Newt Gingrich.  The Manchester Union-Leader has endorsed Gingrich for President, saying in an editorial that "America is at a crucial crossroads. It is not going to be enough to merely replace Barack Obama next year. We are in critical need of the innovative, forward-looking strategy and positive leadership that Gingrich has shown he is capable of providing."  Well, maybe.   I have a hard time believing that Gingrich is the answer.  I can't help thinking that people are simply pining for Gingrich to debate Obama.   But debates have been given a heightened importance in the GOP primaries because there's nothing else going on.   In the general election, I don't think Gingrich's debate performances will be enough to lift him pass his own baggage.   And we have to win.   We just have to.  

Sarah Palin.  Apparently people are still trying to draft Sarah Palin to run for President.   It's.  Not.   Happening.    Fuhgedaboutit.   



Mitt Romney.   Meanwhile, Mr. Inevitable can't get over 25%.    If Cain, bows out, look for Rick Perry to get a second look, picking up much of Cain's supporters, who, if they were going to go for Gingrich, would have done so already.   

Leading me to the obvious conclusion:  you can't beat somebody with nobody.   Obama loses to a generic Republican over and over.   But we can't run a generic Republican.   We have to run an actual person.   And he's got to come from among these three men:   Romney, Gingrich, Perry.    The remaining candidates -- Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, Paul, and Huntsman -- aren't serious, and should bow out.   Then the question will boil down to whether either Gingrich or Perry can convince people that they could be a viable candidate against Obama.   If not, then Romney will be the default candidate.    

Girl of the Day - Emmy Rossum

The Regular Wife and I have begun watching Showtime's new show Shameless on streaming video (which is the best way to watch series television... you curl up with a glass of wine and cuddle up to watch your laptop).    Anyway, the star of the show is William Macy as the drunk father Frank, but the real star to me anyway is the oldest child, Fiona, who holds the family of six children together.   She's played by the lovely Emmy Rossum.

I'm not sure whether we like the show much... there's a lot of gratuitous sex that is unnecessary, as if shocking the bourgeoisie is the point, rather than telling the story.  And some of it is unbelievable, like the eldest son who is a petty thief, but also happens to get straight A grades in high school physics and calculus.   I'm thinking that doesn't happen that often.   But Rossum is terrific, and I think will have a bright future regardless.

And, well, she has other attributes too:

Late for Thanksgiving

But this never gets old:

Girl of the Day - Goldie Hawn

TV has become so fragmented, that it's hard to remember how someone on on a hit show in the 1960s could become a star almost overnight, because everyone -- and I mean everyone -- had their eyes glued to the tube, where there were only three networks' shows to choose from.   A hit from the 1960s that was cutting edge then but seems almost ridiculously quaint now, was Laugh-In, and the biggest breakout star from the show was the ditzy blonde, Goldie Hawn.   It's ridiculous to contemplate that she's now 66 years old, but then I don't know how I got to be 52 either.   Anyway, she was never my cup of tea, but there was something about her combination of sexiness and innocence at a time when the country was in an uproar that obviously struck a nerve for a lot of people.

Connecting the Dots: Matthews and Caddell

The media's focus lately has all been on the Republican race for the Presidential nomination, which seems to boil down to Romney versus ABR (Anybody But Romney).   But something very strange is going on on the Democratic Party side... really strange.   Two old warhorses of the Party's media elite, Pat Caddell and Chris Matthews, have simultaneously unloaded bombs on Obama.   First, Caddell (and Doug Schoen) in the Wall Street Journal:

By going down the re-election road and into partisan mode, the president has effectively guaranteed that the remainder of his term will be marred by the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity, common purpose, and most of all, our economic strength. If he continues on this course it is certain that the 2012 campaign will exacerbate the divisions in our country and weaken our national identity to such a degree that the scorched-earth campaign that President George W. Bush ran in the 2002 midterms and the 2004 presidential election will pale in comparison.

We write as patriots and Democrats—concerned about the fate of our party and, most of all, our country. We do not write as people who have been in contact with Mrs. Clinton or her political operation. Nor would we expect to be directly involved in any Clinton campaign.

If President Obama is not willing to seize the moral high ground and step aside, then the two Democratic leaders in Congress, Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, must urge the president not to seek re-election—for the good of the party and most of all for the good of the country. And they must present the only clear alternative—Hillary Clinton.

And then there's Matthews, in an interview first published over the weekend, arguing that Obama has no agenda and that he doesn't talk to Congressional leaders.   The undertone is that Matthews (he of the 2008 "tingle" up his leg over Obama) has concluded that Obama is... well, weird:




Strange times, indeed.

Gingrich in Bloom

How can it be that Newt Gingrich is the front runner in Iowa?   How did this happen?   How did we get here?  

I wish Gingrich were our Churchill, back from the wilderness years, ready to take command at his country's moment of peril.   But I'm not sure.   I can't help thinking that, whatever his merits, he is so loathed by the left-wing elites in the media that any demogoguery against him will be aired and given credibility by a media eager to destroy him.   And so, while Obama must be thrown out of office, lest the country be lost, my fear is that the Republicans will find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Girl of the Day - Natalie Wood

It's sad that Natalie Wood is only back in the news because of her untimely death in 1981, which is apparently now being re-investigated (to dovetail with a book coming out on the thirtieth anniversary of the tragedy).   It was ruled an accidental drowing; suspicions/conspiracy theories have always percolated; now people are raising it again.   For my money, I think Occam's razor here suggests that a 43 year-old movie actress in the age before actresses were psychotic exercise freaks, with a blood alcohol level of 0.l4 (legally drunk), and known to be a bad swimmer, might actually have just tripped, fallen and accidentally drowned.  She would be 73 years old this year.  

But once upon a time she was the hottest hottest ticket in Hollywood history.   At least that's my view.  

Disagree at your peril.

The Coming Supercommittee Fail

And by "fail" I mean "epic fail," or "unbelievably epic fail," or "catastrophically epic fail."

Here's what will happen.   The so-called "Supercommittee" will fail to reach a deal by next Wednesday.   Of course they will; they were always going to fail; that's why they scheduled the deadline on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the biggest travel day of the year, and the start of a four day weekend where Americans probably pay less attention to news than at any other time of the year.   That's how cynical these m*****f***ers are.  

Then what will happen?   Automatic spending cuts will supposedly kick in, cutting defense spending and Medicare by some $1.2 trillion over ten years.   Democrats will demogogue that Republican intransigence on taxes on "millionaires and billionaires" caused this catastrophe, hurting the elderly who depend on Medicare.   It won't matter that Republicans are correct that tax revenues aren't the issue, spending is, and also correct that raising marginal tax rates on the most productive Americans on the cusp of a double-dip recession and with Europe teetering on the brink of a full blown financial meltdown probably isn't the best thing to do.   The Democrats will demogogue because that's what Democrats do, and the Republicans will cave, and they'll craft legislation to postpone the automatic cuts until after the election.   And Americans will eat their turkey and rub their fat bellies while some rough beast slouches toward Bethelem to be born.

Paul Ryan is the only Republican who can save us at this point.   Here he is talking about a sad milestone that occurred this week when America's national debt passed the $15 trillion mark:

Girl of the Day - Donna McKechnie

Donna McKechnie, who turns 71 today, is best known for her starring role in A Chorus Line in the mid-70s -- her big number was "The Music and the Mirror" above -- but before that she was in one of the great Sondheim musicals, Company.   Here she is in the late 60s Burt Bacharach-Hal David musical, Promises, Promises, in a show-stopping number called "Turkey Lurkey Time."  She's the one in the red dress:



Ah, the miracle of YouTube.   Without it great talents like McKechnie would just be lost in memory.

We Know Where You Live

It's shameful on many levels that Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin may now face a recall election (the Dems and their union thug backers will still have to gather approximately 500,000 signatures).   Walker won the 2010 election fairly, and by a large margin.   He's done precisely what he said he would do in that free and fair election -- balanced the budget and tamed the state public employee unions.    Public schools are open and teaching, without any of the horror stories the unions and their Democratic Party minions claimed would occur.   Property taxes are decreasing, providing a welcome respite to Wisconsin taxpayers in this otherwise over-taxed state.   If we now are going to have permanent elections, when exactly do we expect our elected leaders to do the work of governing?  The Democrats are basically enshrining being sore losers as their party platform.   It's bad for the very concept of representative democracy.

But the most shameful thing so far is this story about how recall supporters paraded to Walker's home, where he lives in Wauwatosa (my home town) with his wife and two teenaged sons.   What is the purpose of this other than intimidation?   As a Mafia thug would say, "We know where you live."   Or, to be fair, as I recall from watching The Godfather, even the Mafia generally had an ethos that held that women and children were out of bounds.   So the Dems and their union enforcers are even worse than the mob.   Who'd a thunk it?

Most ominous note was this:

Protesters carried signs such as one that read "Occupy Walker's Street" in all capital letters.

The Democratic Party leaders ought to be asked immediately and loudly to renounce this kind of personal targeting of political opponents' families.

Girl of the Day - Kirsten Dunst

Not particularly my cup of tea -- Spiderman ain't Shakespeare -- but I am interested in Kirsten Dunst's new movie, Melancholia, directed by Lars von Trier.   Here's the trailer, which looks profoundly weird and beautiful:

What's Different This Time Around?

Here is a chart from James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise blog, comparing the change in employment in recessions since World War II.   The recession that began in 2008 should be obvious:

What's different?   Probably a number of things.   One is that companies have been shifting manufacturing jobs overseas because of high labor costs in America.   Two is that the American economy, so long touted as a "knowledge-based" economy, has become more and more a paper-pushing economy, where jobs that go away oftentimes don't go back, because they weren't that necessary to begin with.  

But I think the obvious answer is that Obama's high-tax, high-spend, heavy-on-the-regulations, hard-left, crony capitalist, statist administration has scared the beejeesus out of American businesses.   That's why the unemployment curve flattened out and hasn't gotten back to pre-recession levels.   Businessmen are waiting him out.   2012 can't come soon enough.

Finally

The NYPD has cleared Zuccotti Park of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.   The only thing left to do is to clean the sidewalks and disinfect.   I'm not kidding:

Justin Timberlake, Good Guy

Justin Timberlake would not normally be my cup of tea.   I've never listened to a single song of his.   But I have noticed that he's very funny when he hosts Saturday Night Live, and I've generally thought that a good sense of humor and comic timing is a sign of high intelligence.   Now it turns out that he's actually a really good guy too.   Here's his blog post about his date at the Marine Corps Ball, which reflects his high and (I think) sincere appreciation for our servicemen and women.

We all have our own individual views on war... But, doesn't that speak to just another thing that makes this country so special?? The fact that we can all wake up every morning and BE individual with a pure sense of freedom..? But, one thing that can't be argued is that it's because of the people who VOLUNTEER their lives to make sure that it's protected at all times. And, like I said before, doing so while asking for nothing in return...


To all of you that serve every day for us... Ensuring our freedom, I say: My deepest gratitude to you. I've met so many of my heroes... From Michael Jordan to Michael Jackson. And, nothing makes me feel more honor and pride than when I get to meet one of you. Last night changed my life and I will never forget it.


To people like me who get to benefit from this type of person... One with character and courage. With strength and bravery. With humility and honor... I say: Send your thanks. Do it however you can. Write a letter, type an email... Hell, buy 'em a beer next time you run into someone from our Armed Forces in a bar. When they say thank you for that drink that cost you 3 bucks, they'll mean it. They won't take it for granted and, they won't forget it.


Thank you Corporal Kelsey DeSantis. Thank you for inviting me. And, thank you for being my hero.

Good stuff.   And, since it's not that well written, I'm pretty sure it's the real stuff, and not a press release.  

Birthdays Today - Short Cuts

Lots of birthdays today worth talking about, but too little time.

Claude Monet.   Born in 1840.   Greatest of the French impressionists.

Aaron Copland.   Born in 1900.   Where does he rank among American composers?  I'd put him in my Top 10 with Gershwin, Berlin, Rodgers, Ellington, Cole Porter, Bernstein, Sondheim, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.



Joseph R McCarthy.   Born 1909.   Tailgunner Joe McCarthy was wrong about a lot of things, and stylistically unsuitable to carry the banner of anti-communism.   But just because he was paranoid doesn't mean they weren't out to get us.   In the aftermath of the Venona revelations, McCarthy's claims about communist spies in American government look better and better as time passes.

Veronica Lake.   Born in 1919.   How exactly did having a flip of hair falling over your eye become the hottest thing since sliced bread for a time in the early 1940s?   The answer may require an application of Occam's Razor.... it's obvious:

P.J. O'Rourke.   64.   Used to be the funniest political writer going until Mark Steyn beat him out for the title.   Still the best articulation of the difference between liberals as conservatives: 

I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.
 
God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God's heavenly country club.  

Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful.  And he loves animals. He may know who's been naughty and who's been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without the thought of quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one:

There is no such thing as Santa Claus.

Condoleeza Rice.   57.    Still in the right age bracket for national office.   Would a candidate like Romney have her as VP.   Extraordinarily accomplished former Secretary of State, black woman, defuses at least some of the race issue in running against Obama, might attract some of the black woman vote as first black woman national candidate.   But she's never run for public office.   And I'm not sure she wants back in the spotlight.  

Girl of the Day - Elizabeth Olson

The little sister of the famous (and stupendously lucrative) Olson twins, Elizabeth Olson, is getting rave reviews for her role as a young girl who escapes from a cult only to suffer withdrawal, Martha Marcy May Marlene.   I suspect we'll be hearing a lot from her in the next few years, although "It" girls have a tendency to flame out.   Here's the trailer for the movie, which frankly looks disturbing:

And Why Exactly Isn't This a Major Scandal? - Revisited

UPDATE:

The post below was from September 28, about seven weeks ago.   I asked why it wasn't a major scandal that the laws of insider trading don't apply to Congress.   Well, now it is a major scandal, or at least I hope it is, since it has now ensnared one of the biggest names in Congress on the Democratic side, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

Last night, 60 Minutes aired its report on possible insider trading by Members of Congress. A principal focus of the report was House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her participation in an IPO of Visa, one of the hottest IPOs in recent years. Reporter Steve Kroft questioned Leader Pelosi recently at a press conference about her investment and its possible impact on credit card legislation before the House during her term as Speaker.

Participation in a stocks IPO, i.e. Initial Public Offering, is one of the more sought after trades on Wall Street. Often, an IPO investor is able to get into a stock at a relatively low price and realize an almost immediate gain once trading commences, especially if the IPO is “hot” or, rather oversubscribed, meaning more investors wanted shares than were available. Visa’s IPO was blockbuster-level “hot.” As reported by The New York Times:

Visa‘s blockbuster initial public offering is currently oversubscribed for its expected trading start on March 20, Scott Sweet of the research firm IPO Boutique told MarketWatch.

Mr. Sweet told the publication that the I.P.O. is drawing “extreme demand.”

It is very difficult for any individual investors to participate in an IPO, as most of the shares are reserved for major brokerage clients, institutional investors and pension funds. It is so difficult, in fact, the SEC has published an “FAQ” on why it is so difficult for individual investors to participate in IPOs:

The underwriters and the company that issues the shares control the IPO process. They have wide latitude in allocating IPO shares. The SEC does not regulate the business decision of how IPO shares are allocated.

Somebody, somewhere decided to allow Nancy Pelosi-or her husband-participate in what was the most anticipated IPO that year. It could have been one of the underwriters selected by Visa to manage its IPO or it could have been Visa itself that awarded the Pelosis the coveted shares. Who was it? And, did they approach Pelosi or did Pelosi approach them?

My strong suspicion is that this kind of scandal will likely hit both Republicans and Democrats.   As far as I'm concerned, that's fine.   This sort of thing is pure corruption... it's a flat-out bribe, particularly if we learn, as I'm sure we will, that Pelosi and her husband flipped the stock soon after obtaining it in the IPO, once the price went up dramatically.

***

Original post (9/28/11):
Ace of Spades is highlighting the fact, unknown to most, that the laws against securities fraud, and specifically the laws against insider trading do not apply to Congress.    With predictable results, I might add:

A pair of recent academic studies found that House members beat the market in their personal stock trading by about 6 percent, and Senators beat the market by about 10 percent.

In the 2011 study “Abnormal Returns From the Common Stock Investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives,” four university professors found that a portfolio that mimics the purchases of House Members beats the market by 55 basis points per month, or approximately 6 percent annually. That study looked at 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House delegates from 1985 to 2001.

“Overall we find that the common stocks purchased by Members of the U.S. House of Representatives earn statistically significant positive abnormal returns. Our results indicate that Representatives, like Senators, also trade with a substantial information advantage,” wrote the study’s authors, Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University, James W. Boyd, of Lindenwood University, Ping Cheng of Florida Atlantic University and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski of Augusta State University.

The group also noted that stocks purchased by Democrats outperform stocks purchased by Republicans.

This ought to be a major, major scandal, if the media were doing it's job.   And, from a legal perspective, while this may not be securities fraud, I have a hard time believing that trading on insider information you obtain as a Congressman isn't a crime.   Information is valuable, and obtaining something of value in relation to issues you vote on is corruption by definition.  

Moreover, trading on such information (and doing better than the general public) is akin to a trustee self-dealing in matters affecting a trust.   It's a breach of fiduciary duty.   After all, consider that every time a Congressman buys a stock, someone else sells it; every time a Congressman sells, someone else buys.   If Congressman are doing better than the norm on their trades, that means that the people they are trading with (let's call them "citizens") are doing worse.  

In short, the Congressman who trades on insider information is willfully screwing the public he has sworn an oath to serve.   

Margin Call

The Regular Son and I have made a habit of going to serious movies on weekends.   Generally I think it's good for kids to go to movies with their parents that are intended for adults, rather than simply wallow in youth culture.   We certainly did this when I was a kid... I remember seeing both The Graduate and The Godfather as a kid, and they made a huge impression on me.   And, of course, real movies played on TV on Saturdays and Sundays, and there weren't so many options of teenage pop culture silliness on Disney Channel.   So I watched John Wayne westerns and Bogart and Cagney gangster movies and... well, you get the picture.  

Anyway, yesterday we went to see Margin Call, a new movie starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany and Demi Moore as investment bankers who realize over the course of a single 24-hour period that their portfolio of mortgage-backed securites is a house of cards about to fall down.   It's based loosely on Lehman Brothers' collapse in 2008, and it's very very good, both about the seductions of money corrupting otherwise decent people and, more generally, about office politics and careerism at high levels of corporations.   It's also admirable in that it doesn't ham-handedly moralize about "the rich" or "corporations" or "greed" the way that so many Hollywood movies do (or the idiots at Occupy Wall Street).   There are no real good guys -- all of the most admirable characters end up compromising their principles in the end for money or promotions -- but no real bad guys either, only men and women who had already made their compromises long ago.  

Not sure whether the Regular Son understood the underlying economics -- try explaining collateralized debt obligations to a 14 year-old -- but even he thought it was an interesting, well-written and well-acted movied.

Why Europe Matters

Every day we hear news about the economic crises in Europe -- how the PIIGS of Europe (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) are dragging the entire Eurozone down.   We hear that the European fiscal crisis will hurt America.   But I haven't read a better description of why this should be so than this one by the eminent historian*, Niall Ferguson:

So why should Americans care about any of this? The first reason is that, with American consumers still in the doldrums of deleveraging, the United States badly needs buoyant exports if its economy is to grow at anything other than a miserably low rate. And despite all the hype about trade with the Chinese, U.S. exports to the European Union are nearly three times larger than to China.

Until March, it seemed as if exports to Europe were on an upward trajectory. But the eurozone crisis has stopped that. Governments that ran up excessive debts have seen their borrowing costs explode. Unable to devalue their currencies, they’ve been forced to adopt austerity measures—cutting spending or hiking taxes—in a vain effort to reduce their deficits. The result has been Depression economics: shrinking economies and unemployment rates approaching 20 percent.

As a result, according to the new president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, a “double dip” recession in Europe is now all but inevitable. And that’s lousy news for U.S. exporters targeting the EU market.

He has more, including about the likely effect of American banks' exposure to European sovereign debt (sort of the reverse of 2008, when European banks were exposed to American subprime mortgages through mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations).   Read it all.   It's sobering, particularly coming from Ferguson, whose work as a historian focuses on how international economics leads to both to war and the decline of empires.  





*  Ferguson is the author of four books that I've read, all of which are incredibly insightful charting the nexus between economics and politics and war:  The Pity of War: Explaining World War One (1998), Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (2004), The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006) and The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (2008).

I Still Can't Believe It

It's been a couple of weeks now and I still can't believe it.   This may be my favorite sports moment ever:



And here's the last out. Go Crazy!

Birthday Today - Veterans Day Edition (George S. Patton)

It's Patton's birthday.   Born in 1885, Patton was 56 when World War II began.   How much of life is timing... what if he'd been born ten years earlier?   Ten years later?   Likely he wouldn't have been the right age to command an army in combat.   But the right man at the right time in the right place led the breakout from Normandy and the race across France as the commander of Third Army.  

And, of course, Patton was the subject of maybe the greatest war movie ever:



God bless all of our veterans, today and every day.

A Helpful Chart

This is getting a lot of play on the Internet.   The facts speak for themselves:

How to Pick a Candidate

The process by which we pick a candidate is a winnowing based on many things that ultimately don't matter in terms of the actual performance of a chief executive.   Witness Rick Perry's stumble last night trying to come up with the Department of Energy as the third department he would eliminate, after citing Commerce and Education.   Of course, Perry knows he wants to cut the Department of Energy; eliminating regulation to increase America's energy production domestically has been the centerpiece of his campaign.   And so what if he stumbles speaking... isn't it more important that he's taking the correct stand to shrink government?   Nevertheless, he will be branded as stupid -- wait for this weekend's Saturday Night Live skit, if you don't believe me.    So he's likely done.

Or witness Hermann Cain's sexual harassment issues.   Does it really matter whether Hermann Cain made unwanted sexual advances toward women not his wife fifteen years ago?   Well, yes, to me anyway, but the point is that Hermann Cain shouldn't have to be brought down by these kinds of allegations... he ought to have been brought down already by his utter lack of seriousness on many substantial issues. 

Finally, witness Newt Gingrich.   Gingrich is probably unelectable due to his damaged reputation (including the myth of asking for a divorce while his first wife died of cancer in a hospital bed).   But I can't imagine any other GOP candidate being able, off the cuff, to have this kind of discussion with Hugh Hewitt:

HH: Now let’s turn to the story of most importance. Almost certainly, Iran has nuclear ambitions, and very close to having, if not already in possession, of nuclear weapons. If Israel acts to defend itself by striking at that capacity, what ought the president of the United States, either our current or our next one, to do on the day that strike happens?
NG: We should be supportive of the state of Israel. If the Israelis, having endured the Holocaust and the loss of seven million Jews in World War II, conclude that an Iranian nuclear weapon poses the threat of a second holocaust, because two nuclear weapons on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would be the equivalent of a second holocaust. If they conclude that is a risk they cannot live with, we should respect their concern for survival. And I think that we should clearly indicate to the world that we would support whatever they think they have to do to survive.
HH: What did you make of the Sarkozy-Obama exchange about Prime Minister Netanyahu, with Sarkozy calling him a liar, and the President not disputing that?
NG: I think the arrogance, and frankly, the sometimes latent anti-Semitism that the Europeans have, that has been tragic over and over again…I mean, you know, here’s a man…Bibi Netanyahu is worried about the very survival of his country. He has in the Palestinian Authority somebody who is a clear public liar, who has said that ultimately, they don’t want a peace agreement, they want to get rid of Israel. He has in Hamas a mortal enemy. He has in Hezbollah a mortal enemy. He has in Iran Ahmadinejad, a dictator who says he wants to eliminate Israel from the face of the Earth. And yet their nasty comments are aimed at Netanyahu? I mean, it tells you just what’s wrong with the elites in Europe, and frankly, the elites in the United States.
HH: Do you think President Sarkozy is anti-Semitic, Mr. Speaker?
NG: No, I’m saying that there is a strain in European culture that blames the Jew, and that that strain in European culture is real, it is deep. It goes back through the aristocracies. And I think if you look at who do they side with, who do they tolerate, who do they forgive, Arafat could lie eternally, and they always found it okay. You wouldn’t have had that conversation with Ahmadinejad. That is very, very unfortunate.

This is strong stuff from a man who has clearly thought long and hard about America's place in the world, its responsibilities, its meaning.   But he can't be elected President because he's been divorced twice?

It's my firm belief that Mitt Romney will be the next Republican candidate for President and, thus, the next President of the United States.   I think he will be a good candidate and a good President.   But I can't help thinking that the process by which we pick Presidents often focuses on silly things, which is particularly galling, since I also think that America as a nation is at an existential crossroads.   But, then again, maybe the reason we're where we are is because we've become a slightly silly people.

Girl of the Day - Ann Reinking

It's Ann Reinking's birthday today.   Born in 1949, she was the long-legged (aren't they all?) lead dancer in many of Bob Fosse's greatest shows, including Chicago and Sweet Charity, both times replacing Gwen Verdon's Fosse's former wife, who had originated the roles.   Reinking was also in Fosse's autobiographical musical movie, All That Jazz.   Here she is doing the song (which is actually from Chicago) on a TV show called "Dancin' Man," which I frankly do not remember:





Great stuff.

Penn State Update

I didn't think it could get any worse, but then there's this rumor reported by a Pittsburgh radio host:

"I can give you a rumor and I can give you something I think might happen," Madden told John Dennis and Gerry Callahan. "I hear there's a rumor that there will be a more shocking development from the Second Mile Foundation -- and hold on to your stomachs, boys, this is gross, I will use the only language I can -- that Jerry Sandusky and Second Mile were pimping out young boys to rich donors. That was being investigated by two prominent columnists even as I speak."

After the news spread, Madden later explained via Twitter why he went public with the rumors.

"I normally abhor giving RUMORS credence," Madden wrote. "But whole Sandusky scandal started out as a RUMOR. It gets deeper and more disgusting all the time. One of state's top columnists investigating. That adds credence. I am NOT rumor's original source. [Why does] Sandusky deserve benefit of doubt?"

Madden also spoke more definitively on Dennis and Callahan to the cover-up efforts at the school and beyond that he expects will be made public soon.

"The other thing I think that may eventually become uncovered, and I talked about this in my original article back in April, is that I think they'll find out that Jerry Sandusky was told that he had to retire in exchange for a cover-up," Madden said.

"If you look at the timeline, that makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

"My opinion is when Sandusky quit, everybody knew -- not just at Penn State," Madden added. "I think it was a very poorly kept secret about college football in general, and that is why he never coached in college football again and retired at the relatively young age of 55. [That's] young for a coach, certainly."

Madden was right early on about this story... much earlier than it hit the national press.   So this gets more sordid by the minute.

Paterno Update

UPDATE:

The Penn State Board of Trustees did the right thing tonight, finally, in firing Joe Paterno.  I want to say it's a tragedy, but I don't want to be misunderstood -- I mean it in the Greek sense of the word.   This was a case of hubris and the damage it can cause.   Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think what we'll end up learning is that Penn State football and Joe Paterno thought they were above the law, that they knew better and, of course, that what they thought was right was whatever it took to protect their own reputations and the money-making behemoth of Penn State football.   Now they've been taken down by their own arrogance.   It's classical tragedy.   Pride goeth before a fall.  

***

Joe Paterno has apparently announced that he is retiring from Penn State... at the end of the year!   As I said below, Paterno has to go and has to go now.    His claim that he didn't know anything about Sandusky other than that he was "horsing around" with young boys is risible.   Consider this timeline:

1. Sandusky is in line to take over for Joe Pa in the late 1990s.
2. Paterno learns of allegations of pedophilia against Sandusky in 1998.
3.  Paterno and Penn State (redundant... Paterno is Penn State) eases Sandusky out in 1999 and into a "retirement" where he still has access to Penn State facilities (and to young boys) in order to protect Sandusky and, more importantly, to protect the money-making enterprise that is a big-time college football program.
4.  Paterno learns of new allegations against Sandusky in 2002 from a graduate assistant (basically like an intern... a guy trying to break into coaching and getting paid nothing).   He puts pressure (perhaps implicit) on the young graduate assistant to keep his mouth shut, gives him a job on his staff, and then pushes the allegations up the chain of command with sugarcoating (no anal rape... just "horsing around").   Let the Athletic Department deal with it and, wink, wink, make sure that nothing sticks to Joe Pa.
5.   Paterno and Penn State continue to look the other way for another nine years after that while Sandusky still has access to Penn State facilities (and to young boys).

I think that's a more plausible version of the facts than what Paterno is pushing.

Paterno can't be allowed to coach another game at Penn State, period.   Today's announcement of his retirement is him going rogue to try to leverage his power at the university to survive to the end of the year.   I don't think it's going to work.

***

Oh, and one other reason why Paterno has to go yesterday.   The inevitable theory of the lawsuit against Penn State will be that the university administration was afraid of Paterno's power within the university community, and therefore covered up the allegations.   If they let Paterno stay through the end of the year, or even through the end of the week, that will just be evidence that yes, in fact, they were scared of Paterno's power, and thought covering up child rape was the path of least resistance.

They're going to lose the lawsuit big anyway, but letting Paterno stay will just make it easier for the Plaintiffs.

Meanwhile, As The World Goes to Hell in a Handbasket...

While the media has been focused on Joe Paterno (sex scandal), Hermann Cain (sex scandal), and the Occupy Wall Street protests (sheer idiocy), here's a list of things that we're not talking about:

• The Fast and Furious scandal in which the Obama Administration funneled guns to Mexican drug cartels.
• The Solyndra/stimulus scandal.   I add "stimulus" because I believe that Solyndra was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of stimulus money steered to Obama donors and Democratic Party constituencies.
• Iran getting close to a nuclear weapon.
• Obama essentially conceding Iraq to Iran.
• Greece, Italy and Europe generally about to implode financially.
• China's supposed economic miracle slowing to an unsustainable crawl.
• The Democrats walking out of the "Super Committee," unwilling to strike a deal on deficit reduction, and instead looking to demogogue Medicare in the 2012 elections. 

Corruption at Home, Weakness Abroad!   Obama '12!  

Except, if we get distracted for too long, he just might pull it off.

Girl of the Day - Carmen Miranda

Carmen Miranda... now that's a name I've heard all my life, but I don't think I've ever seen a single movie of hers or heard a single song.   It's her birthday today, as well, born in 1909.   Miranda, called the "Brazilian Bombshell" in Hollywood, was famous as a "samba" singer of Latin American tunes, and even more famous for her costumes, which invariably involved wearing fruit on her head, as here:

What I didn't know was how extraordinarily successful she was.   According to Wikipedia, by 1946 Miranda was Hollywood's highest-paid entertainer and the top female tax payer in the United States, earning more than $200,000 that year ($2.2 million in 2010 adjusted for inflation), according to IRS records.  That might not seem like a lot given what Hollywood stars make now, but remember that it was immediately after World War II.   What a different world!

Here's Miranda singing a song from the 1943 Busby Berkeley musical, The Gang's All Here:  

Birthday Today - Turgenev

It's the birthday today of the great Russian novelist, Ivan Turgenev, born in 1818.   Only Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are greater, and to me Turgenev's Fathers and Sons ranks with their best, and is at the same time the single best dissection of the character of the Western political radical in literature.   A great, great book that can be reread -- for me, the true mark of a classic novel.

A line from Fathers and Sons strikes me as a fitting epitaph for the Occupy Wall Street movement, which will wither, methinks, as the winter cold comes on.

“The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they've suddenly become nihilists.”

And While I'm Covering Sex Scandals...

Hermann Cain's campaign death-watch is running.   The sexual harassment allegations against him, to my mind, pass the sniff test, and will have legs.   So why are his polls still high, showing him leading the GOP field or in a dead heat with Mitt Romney?   Here's my theory.

There's a line in the old Dan Jenkins novel Semi-Tough, where one of the good-old-boy football players tells one of his black teammates something along the lines that American society is better now that a black man can get in a restaurant, but we won't truly live in a land of equality until a black man can get thrown out of a restaurant without people crying racism or feeling guilty.   (Jenkins used much saltier language, to be sure.)

We all wanted to like Cain.  There's something about a black Republican that draws our loyalty -- perhaps because black men have to risk so much opprobrium from the black community to be conservative.   We feel like we owe it to them.   They came over to our team at some personal cost.   

But the truth is that Cain isn't a very good candidate, and if we weren't grading him on an affirmative-action curve, he'd be recognized as the shallowest candidate on the stage.   He can't answer basic policy questions, and he doesn't seem to show much interest in learning policy issues on the level you need in a presidential campaign.  

And now maybe it also turns out that he's not a very nice man.   One sexual harassment allegation from a long time ago: maybe it's a hit job.   (That's why I'm confident saying Anita Hill was a hit job; there weren't any other allegations against Clarence Thomas.)    But four or five allegations, and contemporaneous documentation in the 1990s of actual claims?   That's too much smoke; there must be fire.

Time to throw Hermann out of the restaurant.

Sad Day in Happy Valley

For years, Penn State was viewed as the model college football program.  Its student-athletes performed well on the field and well in the classroom, and its leader, Coach Joe Paterno, was a legend, and a moral exemplar of how to do college athletics right.  

At least that was the appearance.   It now seems likely that Paterno and the highest levels of Penn State's administration acted beginning in the late 1990s to cover up sex crimes against children perpetrated by Jerry Sandusky, the team's former defensive coordinator.   The story is not pretty, but on the face of the grand jury's presentment, appears very credible.   Sandusky is going to jail for a long time; some of the Penn State administration is going to go to jail for perjury before the Grand Jury; and it seems inevitable that the President of Penn State and Joe Paterno himself will end up resigning in disgrace very soon.  

Why?   The timeline is a killer for Joe Pa:   Sandusky was investigated in 1998 for child molestation; he was essentially fired by Paterno as defensive coordinator in 1999, a move which took many by surprise, but as a "retired" coach still remained able to use the Penn State facilities; another case came to light to Paterno in 2002, which he apparently reported to the school administration, but not to the cops; and subsequently (this is the worst part) other children were molested in the past decade, when it might have been stopped.   He had to have known; he didn't do anything; children were subsequently harmed.   He's got to go.   It's a sad day in Happy Valley.

Girl of the Day - Katherine Hepburn

Weirdly, it's not Katherine Hepburn's birthday.   Apparently she pretended for years that November 8th was her birthday, when in fact it was her older brother's birthday.   (Her brother committed suicide when Hepburn was a girl, and the event obviously scarred her.)  

In any event, I began these girl of the day features last year by focusing on actresses of the 1930s, my favorite era, so Hepburn is a welcome return to that theme.   In reading Wikipedia about her, one thing that astonished me was that the movie Bringing Up Baby was a flop in 1938.   Hard to imagine:  to me it's the greatest of all the screwball comedies, and it's probably my favorite Hepburn movie.   Here's a great scene:

Girl of the Day - Support for Israel Version (Esti Ginzburg)

The International Atomic Energy Administration has issued a report saying that Iran is close to a nuclear weapon:

Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings.

This is the fruit of a decade of appeasement.   A dangerous world is about to get a lot more dangerous.  WWOD?   (What Will Obama Do?)   Not much, I fear.

***

My reaction, I know, is frivolous, but I can't help having as my girl of the day my favorite Israeli, the swimsuit model Esti Ginzburg:

Some things are worth fighting for.   And if you still think I'm frivolous, maybe stop to dwell briefly on the treatment of young women under Islamist regimes.