BETTER ALL THE TIME: Phil Bowermaster on some things to be thankful for.

AMY ALKON on artists without courage. But with the pretense thereof.

REMEMBERING what they said and when they said it.

MICKEY KAUS: “The New York Times’ value has been cut in half in less than three years. It’s now worth a little more than $17 a share. In 2002, it traded above $50 a share. I wouldn’t worry about Rupert Murdoch buying the Times at this point. I’d worry about Rupert Murdoch’s nanny buying the Times.”

MICKEY KAUS: “The New York Times’ value has been cut in half in less than three years. It’s now worth a little more than $17 a share. In 2002, it traded above $50 a share. I wouldn’t worry about Rupert Murdoch buying the Times at this point. I’d worry about Rupert Murdoch’s nanny buying the Times.”

STEPHEN GREEN on mismanaging the infowar.

Here’s the question nobody is asking: Just how stupid is the Bush Administration? OK, well, really, everybody even half a step to the left of… no, wait… everybody asks that question, pretty much all the time. But in my case, I’m not trying to score points with it.

Look. The Surgeâ„¢ is not about the extra troops. Oh, the extra boots on the ground were necessary to get things moving, and to show the enemy (and our Iraqi allies) just how serious we were about implementing a new strategy. But the real key was the change in tactics, not in the increased numbers.

But by allowing the press to label General Petraeus’s change of strategy a “surge,” without correction, gives the impression that our successes are all about the numbers.

Yeah, that’s a point I’ve made here before, but it’s one that the Administration hasn’t done much to get out.

A “PHENOMENAL” DROP IN IRAQ VIOLENCE. Well, good.

CALLING FOR MORE GUNS ON CAMPUS:

Mike Guzman and thousands of other students say the best way to prevent campus bloodshed is more guns.

Guzman, an economics major at Texas State University-San Marcos, is among 8,000 students nationwide who have joined the nonpartisan Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, arguing that students and faculty already licensed to carry concealed weapons should be allowed to pack heat along with their textbooks.

“It’s the basic right of self defense,” said Guzman, a 23-year-old former Marine. “Here on campus, we don’t have that right, that right of self defense.”

Well, you know what they say: People don’t stop killers. People with guns do.

ACADEMICS FOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT has been around for over ten years, but now there’s a blog, and they’re asking for donations to support an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the D.C. gun ban case. I’ve supported them in the past, and I think they’re a good outfit. Note the PayPal button at the upper right.

A NEW CAR? Or dessert?

MORE BOGUS STATISTICS ON GUNS AND CRIME, this time in an L.A. Times story by David Savage. Once again Eugene Volokh is on the job. Expect more bogus stats, though Eugene won’t always be available to clear things up.

BOB KRUMM: Will the Supreme Court decide another election?

THE TRUE MEANING OF THANKSGIVING:

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. “Isn’t sharing wonderful?” say the teachers.

They miss the point.

Because of sharing, the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn’t happen.

The failure of Soviet communism is only the latest demonstration that freedom and property rights, not sharing, are essential to prosperity. The earliest European settlers in America had a dramatic demonstration of that lesson, but few people today know it. . . . What Plymouth suffered under communalism was what economists today call the tragedy of the commons. But the problem has been known since ancient Greece. As Aristotle noted, “That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.”

Read the whole thing.

FROM MARK BLUMENTHAL, a Romney push-poll story reality-check.

A TRIBUTE TO AMERICA’S ABUNDANCE: Thanksgiving dinner for under ten bucks.

ERIC SCHEIE: “Yesterday was not a great day for the forces of gun control. Ed Rendell’s extraordinary attempt to pressure the Pennsylvania legislature failed, and the Supreme Court voted to hear District of Columbia v. Heller.”

EUGENE VOLOKH debunks bogus gun statistics:

“Handguns Are Used in Most US Assaults and Robberies,” reports a BBC caption. Uh, no: According to the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey (2005 data), table 66, handguns are used in 5.4% of U.S. assaults and 26.3% of robberies.

But expect to hear a lot of bogus gun statistics from the press in coming months.

LEGAL SUBSIDIES FOR NEWSPAPERS, at the expense of poor people.

ARTHUR ST. ANTOINE: Reports of GM’s death are greatly exaggerated.

STEVE MARTIN on the elements of comedy.

UPDATE: More on Steve Martin, from Extreme Mortman.

SOME CONTEXT ON THE SURGE, from Damien Cave.

NEWSPAPERS: Online ad revenue is going up, but total ad revenue is still going down.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE REELECTED, people would be imprisoned for political activism. And they were right! “Edmondson wants three taxpayers rights activists incarcerated for the dastardly crime of encouraging Oklahomans to sign a petition for a referendum on a proposed Taxpayers Bill of Rights.”

PRAISE FOR HILLARY, from the Bushes.

OUCH: Wife Or Child — Which One Has The Best Foreign-Policy Experience? “It’s akin to watching two guys in a bar debate whether playing Pop Warner football gives more credibility than playing Madden 2007 when criticizing NFL head coaches. . . . Who gives these people advice? . . . The only person this debate helps is Bill Richardson.”