How I Spent My Thanksgiving
The return of the annual potato gun firing. You can’t see what was hit in the video, but that’s ok, we had no idea either when we fired it.
Thanksgiving Week News Roundup
Holiday week workdays are a special time when the business world pretty much comes to a halt, and those unlucky few still at the office already are dreaming of sugar plums because no one will answer their emails or phone calls.
In that spirit, check out ways you can make the most out of the Thanksgiving week if you are stuck at work:
http://lifehacker.com/5097283/get-your-act-together-thanksgiving-week
The news keeps on going, however…
ABC has decided against picking up “Pushing Daisies,” “Dirty Sexy Money” and “Eli Stone” for full-season orders. If you watched those shows, you were apparently not alone.
http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/11/abc-no-pickups.html
Hannity and (fill in the blank). Colmes splits the top-rated Fox News team after 12 years. Hopefully they will find a replacement, even I can only take so much William Ayers talk.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/24/alan-colmes-leaving-hannity-colmes/
Update: Supposedly going solo according to the NYT report..but perhaps not?
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/25/nyt-hannitys-going-solo-fox-news-not-necessarily/
Check out Black Friday ads over at http://dealnews.com . Hopefully you’re checking it out on a Blackberry because you’ll need to already be in line to have any shot at this stuff.
Wal-Mart has a pretty sweet digital catalog you can look at. And there’s no way in heck you’re going to be able to physically overtake that lady who “wants one for her baby boy.” Catalog is linked on this site: http://dealnews.com/Wal-Mart-posts-Black-Friday-ad/263039.html
I worry about what our Socialistic policies and tax code will do to our competitiveness in the global economy, but then I always forget that Europe will stay one step further than us, then I relax. Britain may raise the top earner tax bracket to 61%.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/budget/3513516/Pre-Budget-report-National-Insurance-rise-adds-to-high-earners-woes.html
This weekend’s big release, Four Christmases starring Vince Vaughn, is apparently not very Christmas-y and about as fresh as the leftovers you’re going to eat Friday for lunch even though you forgot to put them back in the fridge.
http://aintitcool.com/node/39215
Ouch..and the beating continues … http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/four_christmases/
Vampire movie Twilight takes box office with insane 70 million dollar debut. Laughs all the way to the blood bizank.
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2008/11/borept-twilight.html
Speaking of Vampires, I embarssingly watch True Blood on HBO (I accidently caught it one Sunday night before Entourage and got “sucked” in). The season finale was last night, here’s a wrap-up if you’re one of the way too many who watch this show..
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/11/true-blood-fina.html
Dow’s biggest two-day run since 1987 means hold on to your something, because it always goes up when we bailout someone, and then everyone sells immediately to make some profit.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/24/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm?cnn=yes
Video of the Day – SNL, Big Three Auto Bailout Hearing
The Ultimate Thanksgiving Movie Tradition
A favorite tradition of mine is to watch the masterpiece Planes, Trains, and Automobiles every Thanksgiving holiday. It’s as much of a comedy as it is a dramatic piece of film, and it may be Steve Martin and John Candy’s finest film. There are so many terrific scenes it’s impossible where to begin.
A guy posted his thoughts on the film, and a time capsule of what else was going on in 1987 the weekend it was released (hint, stock market was crashing then too). It’s quite interesting and he feels the same way I do.
http://www.film.com/dvds/story/erics-time-capsule-planes-trains/24597651
John Candy has been missed since then, and they don’t make these John Hughes movies like they used to. Predictable? Yeah. Overly optimistic? For sure. That’s what makes it worth revisiting every year.
And remember, “those aren’t pillows.”
Those aren’t pillows, indeed.
Videos of the Day
A picture says a thousand words, but these videos say a good bit too…
George Bush was one lonely guy at the G20 Summit…and CNN is loving it.
Congressman says auto tax bailout money is “not your money” it’s Congress’. And this guy’s a Republican. I really have no idea why Republicans lost.
And finally Merry Christmas…every year (you know you do this) we avoid the Salvation Army folks by sayin “Sorry I don’t have any cash on me, just card.” Not necessary malice, but maybe you’re in a hurry or can’t fork out money to the 35 kettles you pass during a shopping day.
Buy that excuse won’t work anymore….. check out the video below..
2010 Ford Mustang Unveiled at Auto Show
Got your bailout right here.
While I recently purchased my first foreign sporty car ever, I still have a special place in my heart for the Mustang (having owned two and my family having owned quite a few). I really like the current design, and the tweaks are looking good for the 2010 (on sale in 2009) unveiled this week.
As with each update, they popped in a few extra horsepower, now up to a V8, 4.6 liter, 315-hp machine.
With all the bailout talk and the new enviro-greenies finally winning their battles, this may be the last generation of these machines. The funny thing is, each year the MPG improves, and is pretty respectable for such a fast car.
It doesn’t quite have the radical cool of the new Camaro, but the Mustang has to tread carefully on changes as it is about the only American car anymore that has survived and turns a profit.
Lots more pictures below…..
http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2008/11/2010-ford-musta.html
We Know What The Media Tells Us To Know.
Not as disturing as it should be, since my prediction on the election was basically that Obama would win because people know very little about what’s going on accept what Obama told them and told them he would give them.
The extent to which people are robots to the what the media told them is a bit startling. Almost 1984-esque. How will anyone rage against the establishment when they only get their information from the establishment? Isn’t the counterculture supposed to question authority? Isn’t that what academia has taught us all along?
Either that or there’s just a lot of intellectually lazy people. But oddly, they didn’t know anything about things Obama or Biden said, but had startlingly high correct answers on things Palin said.
“How Obama Got Elected” did a national survey and interviewed people and show this theory in startling detail. No wonder Obama told people not to listen to Fox News…and they did listen without question.
Survey Results:
The poll surveyed over 500 self-professed Obama voters and has an MOE of 4.4%, with 55% having a college degree and over 90% having a high-school diploma. It asked 12 multiple-choice questions; only 2.4% got at least 11 correct. Only .5% got all them correct.
- 57.4 could NOT correctly say which party controls congress
- 81.8 could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism
- 82.6 could NOT correctly say that Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot
- 88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket
- 56.1 % could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground
Amazingly, they did know certain negative facts about the candidates…
- Only 13.7% failed to identify Palin as the person their party spent $150,000 in clothes on
- Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
- And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that.
Related links:
http://www.howobamagotelected.com/
Zogby defends the survey: http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1641
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/18/video-how-obama-got-elected/
Global Warming Alarmist Caught Falsifying Data
This is almost mind-numbing that it hasn’t been bigger news, but it doesn’t fit the global warming agenda so it won’t get reported. Global Warming scientists fudge data and make stuff up all the time and get caught, but things are going so much against their data now they actually are just making stuff up.
On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.
There was only one problem. It was patently obvious without even measuring the data that it was exceptionally cold around the world in October.
In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
Around the globe, Tibet saw their worst snowfall in history.
So what happenend anyways??
According to Christopher Brooker:
So what explained the anomaly? GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.
The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs – run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious “hockey stick” graph – GISS began hastily revising its figures.
Read the the story and find out more about how the guy who lied about these numbers is the one who started the whole Global Warming alarm with Al Gore, and how his data has been disproven time and time again. Also note that these false numbers are blamed on a Russian source..and how normally that is their main source that is used since it overinflates temperature data to fit their cause.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml
More..
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/16/hottest-october-on-record-was-really-a-september/
Sirius and XM Radio Owners Get Sucker-Punched
I, for one, was a big proponent of the merger of these two stations, as it was pretty clear we’d lose satellite radio all together in the near future, and terristrial radio has gotten even worse than it was when they came into power. I’m currently an XM subscriber, but once owned Sirius…both were terrific in different ways.
But this week, the newly merged SiriusXM did an unannounced station overhaul that has owners raving mad. If you’re one of them, check out the article below and find out what the heck’s going on, and why you probably will not like it.
and here:
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/11/12/sirius-xm-has-crossed-the-line.aspx
Excerpts:
First off, why such secrecy? Millions of subscribers were blindsided yesterday. No announcements of any kind were made over the air to let people know what was going on. To them, everything was fine on Tuesday, butall of a sudden on Wednesday, their favorite channel was deleted or changed fundamentally. This was a breach of trust between the provider and the consumer. We are the subscribers. We are paying for this service. We deserve a voice over what it is we want to hear. More importantly, we deserve input about programming we are willing to pay for.
Second, we the consumers, Congress, and the FCC were assured that allowing the merger would increase diversity and choice. Wednesday’s change showed you acted in bad faith. On the XM side, we lost 75% of the Spanish music choice. To clump together the previous 4 genres of music offered by Aguila, Viva, Caricia, and Caliente into one channel shows either cultural ignorance or contempt for diversity. My congressional representatives will be hearing from me about this.
Third, the new censorship. I bought Sirius to free myself from the shackles of FM. Hot Jamz has been neutered into “The Heat,” essentially a satellite version of my local R&B station. I simply couldn’t listen to it today. The songs were heavily edited and censored. This is the antithesis of what Sirius once stood for, what bringing Howard from FM symbolized. Fact is, urban music is written in the vernacular. What “The Heat” did to Hot Jamz is an insult.
Why Jindal is My 2012 GOP Frontrunner
With the resounding loss of the GOP and damage to the brand that McCain inflicted, the lineup of heirs to that unwanted throne is long, indeed. In my opinion, Sarah Palin turned out to be a let down, but I had previously thought Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, would have been a pretty daring selection for VP. He’s been my favorite newcomer for quite some time.
I figured McCain passed him over since he is very young and only in his second year as governor, which would’ve been legit. According to this report over at Hot Air, apparently Jindal didn’t want to be associated with what was clearly a sinking ship.
Which, to me, is precisely the kind of judgement the GOP will need if they have any chance to derail the hope monger in 2012.
Excerpt -
Jindal was approached by McCain forces to gauge his interest in the vice presidency and told them he was not interested in being vetted due to his desire to continue on with his current job, to which he was elected just one year ago.
While the official reason that Jindal took his name out of contention was his lack of a desire to leave the Louisiana governorship, there was also real trepidation within his political inner circle that Jindal might wind up as the pick — McCain was attracted to his comprehensive health-care knowledge — and be caught up in what they believed to be a less-than-stellar campaign that could pin a loss on Jindal without much ability to change or control the direction of the contest…
