We need a little Christmas

A late Thanksgiving means Christmas stuff comes quickly.
Like the Country Christmas on ABC, hosted by Jennifer Nettles.

Keeping the family tradition

American Power brings the early numbers on Black Friday shopping - lots of people left the table for the stores or their laptops.
The Other McCain family participated in the tradition also.
Such family traditions should be celebrated.

Saturday song

Don't try to understand Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here."

Facebook quote of the week

So....have anyone else's liberal Facebook friends been as quiet as mine for the past month and a half?

Where the guns are

Powerline's Thanksgiving travels included a visit to the NRA Sporting Arms Museum.
A great way to enjoy the holiday.

More reasons to dislike Obamacare

Megan McArdle looks at the Hobby Lobby case and asks why?
Why provoke people into fighting your law?
If you want to make the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act viable for the long term, you’re going to need the support of folks like Hobby Lobby as much as you need low premiums. There are many religious people in America, and if you want to keep stirring up active opposition to the law, one good way is to suggest that this law forces them to pay for something they are convinced is morally wrong. (Hobby Lobby’s objection is not to contraception in general, but specifically to products that could prevent a fertilized egg from implanting.) If you want to still be fighting Obamacare in the trenches 40 years from now, the best way I can think of is appending it to the argument over abortion.

Happy "website's gonna work" eve

One day to November 30.
More importantly, 33 days until January 1.
How many people with health insurance now will wake up that day without?
No number of excuses will cover that?

Bird of the day

Did you enjoy your turkey?
Almost time to enjoy another bird.

Darth on Thanksgiving

Two years until the next Star Wars movie.
Are you thankful?
We'll always have Darth.

Weekend watchdog

Thanksgiving Day 2012's NFL games brought a real turkey - the Mark Sanchez butt fumble.
What surprises await in 2013?
The tripleheader starts at 12:30 p.m. on Fox, with the Packers visiting the Lions. CBS has the Raiders battling the Cowboys at 4:30 p.m. and Baltimore hosting the hated Steelers at 8:30 p.m.
The Ravens and Steelers appear to have butt-fumbled their season. Expected to contend for the AFC North title, the winner still faces a tough road to the last wild-card berth. And the loser starts thinking of 2014.
Top NFC contenders battle Monday on ESPN, with the Saints visiting Seattle. NBC offers Giants-Redskins Sunday night.
Sunday afternoon, CBS has the doubleheader featuring the Patriots against Texans at 1 p.m. and Broncos-Chiefs at 4:25 p.m. Fox will show the Cardinals' trip to Philadelphia at 1 p.m.
The college football weekend starts Thursday at 7:30 p.m. with Mississippi against Mississippi State on ESPN. FoxSports1 features Texas Tech at Texas.
ABC's Friday doubleheader starts at noon with Iowa-Nebraska, followed by Miami facing Pittsburgh.
CBS brings Arkansas' trip to LSU at 2:30 p.m., while Washington State meets Washington at 3:30 p.m. on Fox.
FoxSports1 starts its day at 3 p.m. with Florida International against Florida Atlantic. Fifth-ranked Oregon faces rival Oregon State at 7 p.m.
SMU travels to Houston at noon on ESPN2, while South Florida takes on Central Florida on ESPN at 8 p.m.
ABC brings a trio of rivalry matchups Saturday, starting at noon with Ohio State-Michigan. Georgia faces Georgia Tech at 3:30 p.m., followed by UCLA-USC at 8 p.m.
The SEC West title will be on the line when top-ranked Alabama goes to Auburn at 3:30 p.m. on CBS.
Notre Dame takes on Stanford on Fox at 7 p.m. The Bayou Classic between Grambling and Southern will be on NBC at 2:30 p.m.
ESPN starts its day at noon when second-ranked Florida State heads to Florida. Then it's off to the Big Ten for Penn State-Wisconsin at 3:30 p.m., followed by Missouri against Texas A&M at 7:45 p.m.
Duke can clinch a berth in the ACC title game when it plays North Carolina at noon on ESPN2. Baylor heads to TCU at 3:30 p.m., before South Carolina faces Clemson at 7 p.m. The night concludes on the blue turf with Boise State hosting New Mexico at 10:15 p.m.
Kansas takes on Kansas State at noon on FoxSports1, then Iowa State battles West Virginia at 4 p.m.
Maryland closes its time in the ACC, facing North Carolina State at 12:30 p.m. on the ACC network.
Boston College meets Syracuse on Comcast at 3:30 p.m. while MASN2 offers North Texas-Tulsa at 2:30 p.m.
NBC has Thanksgiving weekend ice hockey when the Rangers and Bruins tangle Friday at 1 p.m. The Capitals host Montreal Friday at 5 p.m. on Comcast.
It's Wizards-Pacers Friday at 7:30 p.m. on Comcast, and the Hawks visit Washington Saturday at 7 p.m.
ESPN2 has six contests on Thanksgiving Day, starting at noon with Oklahoma State-Purdue. Butler takes on Washington State at 2 p.m., followed by Marquette against Cal State-Fullerton at 4:30 p.m. and Memphis facing Siena at 6:30 p.m. St. Joseph's goes against LSU at 8:30 p.m., and Arizona State battles Creighton in the nightcap at 11 p.m.
There's a semifinal from the Old Spice Classic Friday at 1:30 p.m. on ESPN, followed by the third place game from the NIT pre-season tournament at 3:30 p.m. and title contest at 6 p.m.
Another five games fill the ESPN2 schedule Friday. After a tournament game at 3:30 p.m., there's the second semifinal from the Old Spice Classic at 5:30 p.m. Florida State meets Florida at 7:30 p.m., followed by a game from the Wooden Legacy classic and Northwestern-UCLA at 11:30 p.m.
Sunday brings the final of the Old Spice Classic at 7:30 p.m. and Wooden Legacy at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
NBC Sports network has the Battle4Atlantis, starting Thursday at 7 p.m. when Iowa plays Xavier and Tennessee takes on Texas-El Paso. The semifinals are Friday and 7 and 9:30 p.m., with the consolation game Saturday at 7 p.m. followed by the championship at 9:30 p.m.
There's more tournament action as Georgia Tech plays Mississippi in the Barclay Center Classic Friday at 4:30 p.m. The consolation will be Saturday at 2 p.m., with the final at 4:30 p.m.
FoxSports1 has Providence-Fairfield Friday at 12:30 p.m. There's more Big East play Sunday, with Fairleigh Dickinson-Seton Hall at 2 p.m. followed by Oregon State-DePaul. North Carolina faces Alabama-Birmingham at 6 p.m. and it's Kentucky-Providence in the Brooklyn Hoops Festival at 9 p.m.
South Alabama faces Middle Tennessee State Saturday at 1 p.m. on Comcast, and Sunday at 5 p.m. VCU heads to Belmont. MASN2 brings Arkansas-Little Rock against Oklahoma Friday at 3 p.m. and Rhode Island meets George Mason Saturday at 4 p.m. on MASN.
In women's basketball, top-ranked Connecticut takes on Ohio State at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
Newcastle meets West Brom on NBC Saturday at 12:30 p.m. NBC Sports network offers Premier League play Sunday, with Hull City-Liverpool at 9 a.m. followed by Chelsea against Southampton.
The best bowlers gather for the Cheetah championship Sunday at 1 p.m. on ESPN.

From holiday to holi-hours

Remember the good old days when only a few people worked on Thanksgiving?
The whole day off keeps on shrinking - it's now down to hours.
The local Kroger will be open until 5 p.m. for last-minute food needs.
Three hours later, the Christmas shopping starts.
Thanksgiving has been reduced to a long dinner break.

Does your Republican uncle read the paper?

Democrats are sending their young supporters into a trap.
They launch a website with talking points for Thanksgiving.
They forget that Thanksgiving is the biggest newspaper of the year - lots of store ads and plenty of space for news stories.
If your Republican uncle reads the paper, he'll probably find this story on the front page.
What's the talking point about delaying online enrollment for small businesses?
It's so popular that you can't have it for a year?
Your Republican Uncle doesn't need to be provided talking points about this disaster.

Find that turkey

It's the day before Thanksgiving.
Hope you have your turkey, because they are getting harder to find.

Welcome to the party, pal

Politico tells about Democratic worries about the Obamacare rollout.
They think they're ready to ask tough questions after December 1.
You can borrow some of the Republican questions.
We've had five years of practice questioning this mess.

Where's my global warming?

Thanksgiving travelers across the east are looking to the skies - will it snow or ice on their trip?
Where's the global warming that's supposed to cook our planet?
It would be nicer than scrapping ice off the car windows in the morning.

An I-D-Ten-T problem

Megan McArdle remembers the woes of tech workers trying to bring to reality the dreams of their customers - even if the dreams are beyond current technology.
The policy people handed out impossible orders to the technical staff; when the technical staff couldn’t deliver their impossibility, they decided that the problem was incompetence. This percolated all the way down the line, and quite probably back up again -- why bother explaining things if the people you’re doing the explaining to are idiots? The supercilious tone that Henry Chao, the Medicare agency's deputy information officer, took toward congressmen -- particularly Republican congressmen -- in his recent testimony sounded a lot like I did 15 years ago when I told a client just how stupid they were being. (That was a mistake I made only once, thank God -- and my boss rightly ripped my head off after the meeting was over.) It sounded like a man who was fed up with all the fools who surround him.
But at the end of the day, when people are demanding that you do the impossible, your job is to explain why you can’t. The ability to manage the expectations of nontechnical users is actually an important piece of domain knowledge for technical people; if you flub that, you’ll fail just as surely as if you get the hardware or software wrong.

Shut up and clear the table

Ace watches the liberal talking points for Thanksgiving and brings his own.
6. Remember when you were so confident, arrogant, snotty, sneering, and dismissive about legitimate and informed concerns about Obamacare? You were wrong. And you weren't just wrong on the facts, but you were wrong on a human level. You very nearly screamed your ignorant opinions and shouted down dissent. You sneered at people as ignorant who actually knew more than you did, and you indulged in entirely-unwarranted moral preening about your alleged concern for the poor. Despite the fact that you never do anything to actually aid the poor. Apparently shouting at relatives is your idea of "charity."
Now clear the table and let me watch the game.

Another tale of woe

Instapundit highlights another person who voted for Obama - and found they voted for higher health insurance premiums.
And more trouble figuring out the subsidy question.
I went to a friend and colleague—let’s call him Peter—for advice. He also had his individual medical policy cancelled because of Obamacare. “I’m stuck on the same question—income,” he told me. Peter does a little writing, a little farming, a little this and that to keep the ship afloat. “I got through to the exchange, and the woman there told me to just estimate what my income would be this year.” In other words: Make it up. If he overestimated, he’d be screwing himself out of a subsidy, Peter said. If he underestimated, he’d be hit with a big fat bill. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t also be accused of fraud. So he called his accountant, who’s also a lawyer. 
That only got him so far. At a certain point in the conversation, the accountant/lawyer had to get off the phone. “I have to stop answering your questions,” he told Peter. “I can’t ethically advise you, because honestly I don’t know the right thing to do. Nobody does. There are no answers.
The answer is "we told you so."

Planning to fail

A former tech worker looks at the obvious problems with Obamacare website.
The idea that “failure is not an option” is a fantasy version of how non-engineers should motivate engineers. That sentiment was invented by a screenwriter, riffing on an after-the-fact observation about Apollo 13; no one said it at the time. (If you ever say it, wash your mouth out with soap. If anyone ever says it to you, run.)
The administration didn't want to give Republicans fuel to battle Obamacare.
Instead, they built up the fuel until the October explosion.

As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly

Thanksgiving is late this year.
But it's never too late for the WKRP Turkey Drop.

Troglo-sweater

Looking for a good Christmas sweater?
Here's one you can like.

Where are the swimmers?

It's a beautiful sunny day on the Outer Banks.
Where are the swimmers?

Wind chill of 21, with gusts pushing it lower, might keep them inside - or in bed.

Exposing the true agenda

Powerline isn't too worried about President Obama's power grab in the courts.
Because much of the important stuff that federal appeals courts do is, indeed, politics by other means, and the public needs to understand this. The more that federal judges lose their mystique, the more that realism is enhanced. The more that judicial decisions in important controversial cases are understood as ideologically driven, the better.
You claim to have power, but do you have respect?

Another unhappy customer

Powerline highlights a Roanoke Times column featuring another customer unhappy with the Obamacare changes.
The plan she liked didn't make the cut. And now she'll be paying more for worse coverage.

This will ruin my family’s health care options. I will lose the ability to save any money in my health savings account. Instead of saving for my family’s needs, I will have to give that money to an insurance company.

I will have higher out-of-pocket costs and worse coverage.

Anger doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. I urge my congressional representatives to support the president’s other promise, that “If you like your plan, you can keep it.”

Saturday song

Another interesting video from the 80s, by Tom Petty.

Set your alarm

Time is running out for Obamacare signups for insurance to start on January 1.
They have extended the deadline eight days to enroll.
And the website will add a helpful note on better times to visit during peak periods.
Set your alarm and try to get your health insurance at 2 a.m.
Might be your best bet.

Facebook quote of the week

12 Reasons Why a Pastor Quit Attending Sporting Events

1. The coach never came to visit me.
2. Every time I went, they asked for money.
3. The people sitting in my row didn’t seem very friendly....
4. The seats were very hard.
5. The referees made a decision I didn’t agree with.
6. I was sitting with hypocrites—they only came to see what others were wearing!
7. Some games went into overtime and I was late getting home.
8. The band played some songs I had never heard before.
9. The games are scheduled on my only day to sleep in and run errands.
10. My parents took me to too many games when I was growing up.
11. Since I read a book on sports, I feel that I know more than the coaches, anyway.
12. I don’t want to take my children because I want them to choose for themselves what sport they like best.

Know your slogans

In the George W. Bush administration, we said "Let's roll."
In the Obama administration, they say "Let's enroll."

Where I was

It's the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination.
Have you heard?
My mom reminded me that I was taking a nap when it happened.
Most 15-month olds do.
Not as exciting as many stories you've seen today.
Next story, please.

Nuking Democratic hopes

Megan McArdle wonders if the Democrats have nuked their future hopes with the nuclear option vote.
They think it’s very likely that they will lose their Senate majority in 2014. They are essentially writing off the last two years of Obama’s presidency, which means getting as much done as possible right now. They are going to spend the next year packing as many liberal justices and appointees onto the courts and various bureaucracies as they can, knowing that much of this legacy will live on beyond Obama.