• A bondholder Thanksgiving: Garett Jones at Econ Log asks “When the federal government bought shares in the biggest banks, who benefited most: Shareholders or bondholders?  According to co-blogger Luigi Zingales and U Chicago professor Pietro Veronesi, the answer is clear: bondholders. They estimate the total benefit to banks at $131 billion . . . .
• The Fifth Annual  Rosenkranz Debate was held last Saturday during The Federalist Society’s 2012 National Lawyers Convention.  The topic was “Natural Law Should Inform Constitutional Law” The advocates were Prof. Hadley P. Arkes (Edward N. Ney Professor in American Institutions, Amherst College) and Judge Alex Kozinski (Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit).  Enjoy! I am told the turnout was even larger than last year’s great Obamacare debate between Paul Clement and Larry Tribe.

• Arnold Kling is Godzilla to Paul Krugman’s Bambi.

• David Brooks on the rising tide of post-boomer conservative intellectuals.

• George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1789:

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th. day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war . . . – for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted;– for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed . . . – and, in general, for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us . . . .

• Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation for Thanksgiving, October 8, 1863:

The year that is drawing toward its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watching providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union . . . .