Sunday/The Thanksgiving Miracle

The turkey was fed and sheltered for 1000 consecutive days, but this did not mean the butcher loved him.--anon 


Hockey dinner at PGC with McGraws. Stancey won all sorts of stuff. The Pens were mediocre and won nothing.

Fraser Institute scholar Fred McMahon says, "Where people are free to pursue their own opportunities and make their own choices, they lead more prosperous, happier and healthier lives." The evidence for his assessment is this: Countries in the top quartile of economic freedom had an average per-capita GDP of $36,770 in 2017 compared with $6,140 for bottom quartile countries. Poverty rates are lower. In the top quartile, 1.8% of the population experienced extreme poverty ($1.90 a day) compared with 27.2% in the lowest quartile. Life expectancy is 79.5 years in the top quartile of economically free countries compared with 64.4 years in the bottom quartile. For some reason, this was a surprise. And, yes, freedom is difficult to quantify.

China will require telecom operators to collect face scans when registering new phone users at offline outlets starting Sunday, according to the country's information technology authority, as Beijing continues to tighten cyberspace controls. In September, China's industry and information technology ministry issued a notice on "safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of citizens online", which laid out rules for enforcing real-name registration.

Kennel Club of Philadelphia, November 17, 2019:

Terrier Judge’s Name: Mr. Desmond Murphy

Total Entry: 224
#1-
Dog Reg: GCH Gleanntans Sure Shot Greyjoy [Dog]
Breed: Skye Terrier
Handler:
Owner: F Vulpis & S Szwed
Breeder: Allen Smith & Gleanntan Kennels
#2-
Dog Reg: GCHB Abberann Lament For Owen Roe [Dog]
Breed: Glen of Imaal Terrier
Handler: Adam Bernardin
Owner: T Nesbitt & D Hyman
Breeder: Theresa Nesbitt, Ann White & Amanda & Van Purcell
#3-
Dog Reg: GCHB Keepsakes Raise Your Galss [Dog]
Breed: Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier
Handler:
Owner: S & S Robinson, C Satherley & P Tims
Breeder: Shari & Sydney Robinson & Priscilla Tims
#4-
Dog Reg: GCHS Avalons Rocket Man @ Rexroth [Dog]
Breed: Norfolk Terrier
Handler:
Owner: L & S Walter & L Pelletier
Breeder: Lori Pelletier

Glens are rising!

Of the nearly 10 million African slaves brought to the New World between 1511 and 1870, more than one-half (5.1 million and 52.8% of the total) disembarked in Brazil, and more than one-third were brought to Brazil (3.4 million and 36.5% of the total). Of the remaining approximately 1 million African slaves who were brought to the New World, 658,000 (and 6.8% of the total) disembarked in the Spanish Americas (Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, etc.) and only about 366,000 arrived in mainland North America (which became the United States) representing only 3.8% of the total slaves in the trans-Atlantic trade.

In ancient Rome, the "household" was the prevailing family structure, though "it extended beyond family to include slaves, clients, and freedmen. What it didn't include was the wife, who remained in her family's (father's/grandfather's) household. The reason for the latter was to prevent political marriages: the union of two families by marriage and thus concentrate the power of two in one. What is marriage good for if not to consolidate power.--I found this on the internet. Is it true?

There is a difference between Fake news and stupid. During the Cold War, leftists made a moral equivalency between communist totalitarianism and democracy. W. E. B. Du Bois, writing in the National Guardian (1953) said, "Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature." Walter Duranty called Stalin "the greatest living statesman ... a quiet, unobtrusive man." George Bernard Shaw expressed admiration for Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith visited Mao's China and praised Mao Zedong and the Chinese economic system. Gunther Stein of the Christian Science Monitor also admired Mao and declared ecstatically that "the men and women pioneers of Yenan are truly new humans in spirit, thought and action." Michel Oksenberg, President Jimmy Carter's China expert, complained that "America (is) doomed to decay until radical, even revolutionary, change fundamentally alters the institutions and values," and urged us to "borrow ideas and solutions" from China.
We are so enamored by the new. And the optimistic.

On this day in 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. This ignited the Montgomery bus boycott.

                           A Miracle, Thanksgiving-type

In a 2003 Boston Globe article titled “Giving Thanks for the Invisible Hand,” syndicated columnist Jeff Jacoby offered a wonderful tribute to the miracle of the invisible hand that makes affordable turkeys available so efficiently every year at Thanksgiving through the power of “spontaneous order” and without the need for any central planning or “turkey czars.”
“The invisible hand” — the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many.”


                    The Thanksgiving Miracle

Isn’t there something wondrous — something almost inexplicable — in the way your Thanksgiving weekend is made possible by the skill and labor of vast numbers of total strangers?

To bring that turkey to the dining room table 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.

The activities of countless far-flung men and women over the course of many months had to be intricately choreographed and precisely timed, so that when you showed up to buy a fresh Thanksgiving turkey, there would be one — or more likely, a few dozen — waiting. The level of coordination that was required to pull it off is mind-boggling. But what is even more mind-boggling is this: No one coordinated it.

No turkey czar sat in a command post somewhere, consulting a master plan and issuing orders. No one forced people to cooperate for your benefit. And yet they did cooperate. When you arrived at the supermarket, your turkey was there. You didn’t have to do anything but show up to buy it. If that isn’t a miracle, what should we call 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. Out of the seeming chaos of millions of uncoordinated private transactions emerges the spontaneous order of the market. Free human beings freely interact, and the result is an array of goods and services more immense than the human mind can comprehend. No dictator, no bureaucracy, no supercomputer plans it in advance. Indeed, the more an economy is planned, the more it is plagued by shortages, dislocation, and failure.

It is commonplace to speak of seeing God’s signature in the intricacy of a spider’s web or the animation of a beehive. But they pale in comparison to the kaleidoscopic energy and productivity of the free market. If it is a blessing from Heaven when seeds are transformed into grain, how much more of a blessing is it when our private, voluntary exchanges are transformed – without our ever intending it – into prosperity, innovation, and growth?