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Back in the Bronx in the 1960s, it was explained to us children that the Harps Micks shanty bogtrotters Irish-American civil servants had claimed an annual parade in March, and therefore our Italian-American neighbors demanded equal time on Fifth Avenue. We vaguely suspected there was more of a backstory, but NYC was one of those Ankh-Morporks where “What’s in it for me?” served as a unifying motto…
***********
Speaking of taking an axe to turkeys, here’s Professor Krugman on the latest in Republican projection:
If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Friday’s better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate response of many on the right — and we’re not just talking fringe figures — was to cry conspiracy.
Leading the charge of what were quickly dubbed the “B.L.S. truthers” was none other than Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, who posted an assertion on Twitter that the books had been cooked to help President Obama’s re-election campaign. His claim was quickly picked up by right-wing pundits and media personalities.
It was nonsense, of course. Job numbers are prepared by professional civil servants, at an agency that currently has no political appointees. But then maybe Mr. Welch — under whose leadership G.E. reported remarkably smooth earnings growth, with none of the short-term fluctuations you might have expected (fluctuations that reappeared under his successor) — doesn’t know how hard it would be to cook the jobs data….
What’s on everyone’s [holiday for some] table, today?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Crawling out of the rack and prepping for work. Today’s highlights include scrubbing a rig from a departed user and troubleshooting a laptop keyboard that only fails when the user is outside of the building. I suspect a case of “Ooooh, SHINY!” as we have new kit on hand.
R-Jud
This morning we cleaned out our closets and took the good stuff to the charity shop. Then we packed the Bean off to nursery school, along with leaves we helped her collect for some art project or other.
Onboarding a new client in MI, a religious college, so reading about “Kingdom Work” in order to produce more better copywriting for them. Also eagerly awaiting the files for the 2013-2014 Dodo Pad, a planner I proofread.
Pointedly not running as I am tapering for a half-marathon on the 21st. Probably deadlifting this afternoon, though.
Soonergrunt
I hate that shit when they try that.
As for the system scrub, do you do a full image or just clean the user profile?
Valdivia
can any of you tell me if it’s safe to read the lefty blogs yet? I finally got a vpn so in theory I should be able to wade into twitter but I am afraid the freak out is still going on (I made the mistake of reading Sully today, boy he has the longest post on how Romney is winning the election and Obama is lame and totally collapsed). Can’t wait what will happen when Romney gives he etch-a-sketch Reagan FP speech today. Ugh.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Full image unless some quirky third-party software is in the mix, then a profile purge.
Soonergrunt
We do full image. If it was non-standard software and the new user needs it, we load it on at image as part of a custom SCCM push.
Of course, when an employee leaves a position for whatever reason in the Federal service, it could be months before her replacement starts work so there’s almost never a reason to preserve the machine as it sits.
Handy
Happy turkey day neighbors!
Lurking Canadian
Hey thanks! My plans for today are to lie around and recover from the back pain caused by spending all of Sunday standing over the stove.
The turkey came out great, which is worth a little pain.
raven
My wife is off, I’m not.
Soonergrunt
I am off for Columbus day. Wife and kids are not. I’m going back to see the doctor again. Haven’t had any real improvement after three days.
Linda Featheringill
@Valdivia:
This might make you feel better:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/07/1141483/-Romney-Bounce-is-over
JPL
@Soonergrunt: Please take care of yourself and follow doctor’s orders.
Phylllis
Back to work after a productive weekend. First really cool day of the season, so red beans & sausage are in the slow cooker.
kindness
That’s funny because even still I don’t think of the Thanksgiving parade as a holiday parade. It’s the Macy’s Day Parade.
Ben Cisco
Still ticked about the Panthers game – gotta love growing pains…
On an even more unrelated note, the MoneyBooBoo ads are just sad now. Crying about defecits is one thing, but complaining about jobs being sent to…wait for it…wait for it…CHINA! EleventyOne! This from a campaign whose CEO (heh) was a PIONEER in the practice of offshoring, we’re supposed to believe HE’S going to be the one to stop it? They really do think everyone is as stupid as their base.
JPL
Are our Canandian friends going to share recipes? Happy Thanksgiving and eat, drink and be merry.
Valdivia
@Linda Featheringill:
thank you!
Punchy
News peeps last nite says Ras has Romney up +2 nationally. I find that hard to believe. Thats a ridiculous swing for just 1 debate. More books cooked?
amk
New OFA ad on mittbot’s FP cred.
The Ancient Randonneur
Still believe the Romney campaign is going to sustain any kind of momentum and NOT shoot itself in the foot over and over again? Take heart because they really are blithering idiots:
Evidently, that Arkansas Republican state legislator wasn’t available to make an appearance with Mitt.
Chyron HR
@Punchy:
Rasmussen had Romney up by 2 nationally in mid-September, too. It only looks like a swing when you compare it to other companies’ polls.
MikeJ
@Punchy: Two things. The national polls have always been tighter than the EC, and Nate Silver says Ras has a house effect of sometimes as much as 5%.
bemused
Mitt giving big speech on foreign policy. What could possibly go wrong!
1badbaba3
@Ben Cisco: As Mr. Krabs is wont to say Money, Money, Money.
Debbie(Aussie)
Hubby and I have bought a(nother) house with our son and d-I-l. We are going to share. Up for them down for us, each independent, will be renting out our current domicile..(future superannuation benefits hopefully) Rena is from Oregon and has promised us the full thanksgiving treatment. We should be in new house early November.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@The Ancient Randonneur: Lorrie Morgan is nuts, now? Pfeh. (My mother used to babysit her kid. Mom would be…disappointed.)
Good to add yet another reason to loathe Elway, though.
1badbaba3
As I live close enough to get CBC, I have observed that they’re making a much bigger deal about the war of 1812 than we do. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for that, but as a stupid American I’m too enthralled with Honey Boo Boo to care.
Munira
@JPL: Our Thanksgiving dinner menu: quinoa walnut casserole, cream of eggplant soup and kale salad. All veggies came from the garden. Today, since I have the day off, I’m going to do some more harvesting – cabbage, horseradish and greens – and cut some firewood. The leaves have been incredible here in Quebec, but they’re falling fast and it’s getting cooler – winter just around the corner.
Munira
Oh – and I almost forgot – pumpkin chiffon pie. Yummy.
MrSnrub
Today was supposed to be a vacation day, but I worked enough hours over the weekend to comp it instead. We head home from the beach this afternoon.
jibeaux
Have you seen the ALLEGED DJIA? That Chicago thug has even got traders in on the conspiracy?
Today, I try to stay awake. I like fall, but I don’t love rainy chilly fall Monday mornings when it’s not light when it’s supposed to be, dammit.
Raven
@MrSnrub: Which beach?
Ash Can
Happy Thanksgiving to all Canucks! I enjoyed celebrating both Thanksgivings as an American student at McGill many years ago, and I know that once the turkey and pumpkin pies are served north of the border, the slippery slope to the end-of-year holidays begins. Yikes!
Because of the recent expansion of school hours (even before the strike), Columbus Day is no longer a day off for Chicago public school kids. I, in my persona of Mean Mommy (TM), say that’s fine. So, a normal work and school day for both M-80 and Bottle Rocket. I plan to plow through the piles of crap on the dining room table and get all of my paperwork done.
Steeplejack
It has turned cold here in NoVa–high of 56° yesterday, currently 43°. And I can’t find a jacket because I haven’t unpacked all my stuff in the new place yet. First World problems.
But the weather is energizing, and it’s supposed to be nice all week. Highs back up close to 70° in a few days.
Chore for the day is to drop by the Electoral Board office and do a change of address and make sure I’m good to go for Election Day. I didn’t trust that it would go through in time when I did my driver’s license change of address on line last week. (DMV gives you the option to update your voting info, but they mail you a form, you have to mail it back.)
emma
I am in Toronto having breakfast near a window. It’s cold and dull so I am going to be lazy until the ROM opens (pretty much only thing open today) and it’s going to be dinosaurs and all sorts of nifty stuff all day. Fly back home tomorrow.
For those Canadians interested in such things I love the ROM. It looks like the Fortress of Solitude smashed into Buckingham Palace!
gene108
@1badbaba3:
They won. We lost.
double nickel
@gene108: Most Canadians don’t give a rat’s ass about 1812. This “celebration” is being foisted on us by our tin pot chickenhawk Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who never met a war (past or present) he didn’t want to get involved in.
Jay in Oregon
@Ben Cisco:
Romney expected people watching the debate to believe that he didn’t know there were tax incentives for offshoring jobs.
My response was “So what, you were just doing it for kicks?”
Lurking Canadian
@double nickel: This.
lamh35
I see the expectations game has begun for the VP debate. Me personally, I’m not gonna play it. I think that’s what caused the “meltdowns” last week. Despite all saying to the contrary & the Obama team trying to lower the expectation the Romney team won the expectations game. Some people got so caught up in the laughter at all the stories about Romney’s debate prep, and evident problems on the stump, but the bigger story was a poll showing that a majority of those who planned to watch the debate had bigger expectations that POTUS would wipe the floor with Romney. and when your expectations are sky high and the bottom gets kicked out, then the fall from on high is harder and longer.
all this to say, I think Biden is a good debater. I’m really not sure what kind of debater Lyin Ryan is, but I don’t think he’s dumb and I suspect he does have stamina being a younger guy. So I expect Biden to be his usual “ride or die” Joe and I honestly don’t know what to expect from the lying team. which after the lesson learned from last week is probably the best way to go into thinking for VPdebate.
Schlemizel
I am fighting the creeping crud that has been going around. But, since I now suck from the government teat for my existence I have the day off so I slept in.
Will button up the house for winter this afternoon. After that I may consider hitting the toddies hard.
Schlemizel
@gene108:
Beyond that one of the goals was to swipe tender bits of Canada for our own. Can’t imagine why they would object to that!
OTOT – it does appear as if Canadian Thanksgiving is now the official start for the Xmas shopping season.
gelfling545
@R-Jud: I got 2 iMacs & an iBook out of the house finally by taking them to the recycling event to raise money for the Veterans’ Golden Games event to be held here in spring 2013. Finally finding a place to get rid of them inspired me to get rid of masses of other stuff so St Vincent de Paul Society Thrift Store will be getting a delivery too. the older I get, the more I enjoy getting rid of stuff!
PurpleGirl
I need a new lamp for my desk area. I usually don’t like to go shopping on holidays but today being a weird holiday so I may go out and look in a few stores.
I also have some paperwork to get caught up on and will do that this afternoon.
gene108
@Schlemizel:
I don’t know…they did torch Washington D.C. and burn down the White House…
Maybe turnabout is fair play. Ontario is just sitting there, ripe for the taking….
@Lurking Canadian:
I think the War of 1812 does get a bit more coverage in Canada, than in the U.S., even before Harper.
Here it’s just a footnote in our history, between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.
Only thing that’s remembered is it was the last time a foreign army set foot on U.S. soil and/or the British (sorry, we don’t attribute it to Canadians) torched the White House.
ThresherK
Canadian Football, more specifically, the Roughriders.
What, I’m the only one?
Mnemosyne
I’m going to be having pumpkin pie for breakfast once I get to work because we had a wedding shower on Friday and have a ridiculous amount of it left. (Costco pumpkin pies are frighteningly large, and I foolishly bought two of them.) Pie for breakfast, neighbor Stone!
RedKitten
@JPL: The most important thing is to buy a good turkey. None of these waterlogged factory birds, or these Butterbarf monstrosities. Spend the money and get a proper, hormone-free, free-range bird, preferably from a farmer who is within an hour’s drive of you. The flavour is incomparable. All I do to mine is mix some melted butter with some summer savory and sage, and rub it on top of and under the skin. No brining or anything like that.
And after that? Don’t stress about it.
Ben Cisco
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Huh, turns out the keyboard failure was heat-related(?)
Still, no new shiny for the user.
R-Jud
@gelfling545:
Same here. I’m thinking about adopting a “personal uniform” type wardrobe– 20 pieces in neutral colors, plus a few bits to work out and/or garden in.
ThresherK
@Mnemosyne: It’s an old New England custom to have pie for breakfast. Are you up here in the Northeast?
(Of course, it’s also one to have a slice of Cheddar on apple pie, but I don’t qualify on that account, because I don’t get it.)
gene108
What Krugman doesn’t understand is the Republican voters want economic devastation, because they believe in government being the problem and free-markets fix everything, with the same sort of faith they have in religion.
If Republican elected officials voted to do anything to help the economy along, a right-wing primary challenger would pop up and clean the incumbents clock.
The Republican electorate would rather struggle rather struggle personally, than elect politicians, who proposed solutions that run counter to their beliefs.
Mnemosyne
@ThresherK:
I’m from the Midwest (northeast Illinois), but that line is from the end of Stephen Vincent Benet’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” I can’t remember if it’s in the 1940s movie version, but it ought to be.
A moocher
In regards the War of 1812, it is more a matter of comic amusement in Canada, except for the nearly inexplicable fetish the Harperians seem to have for it. Something to do with placating the last shred of God, King and Country conservatives in Atlantic Canada and parts of Ontario that have been deceived into supporting that rat bastard.
This is a fairly famous comic song on the subject, by the late Joe Bird and Wes Borg (Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie)
The loser was America, the winner was ourselves, so join right in and gloat about
The War of 1812.
Ruckus
Trying to figure out where to move to next. My time at my friends house is running out and I still have no where else to go.
Getting older is a bitch, even though it is better than the alternative.
In this lovely time of jobs going begging and employers welcoming almost retired folks with open arms, I still wonder what I can do for the next 2-3 years before I can’t do much of anything productive anymore.
Isn’t life grand?
veryslowwriter
Duck, polenta, braised fennel, apple crisp.
Our turkey is on Vancouver Island along with our yearly half-cow and whole lamb. It’s a day-long trip and four ferries to pick it up but it’s worth it. That’s in a week or so.
Our yearly pig and delicious chickens come from an organic farm up the coast. No meat from supermarkets. Priceless. Especially in light of the clusterfuck in Alberta. The XL Foods plant processes 40 percent of Canadian beef. More and more food passing through fewer and fewer plants giving us that well-known single point of failure.
ThresherK
@Mnemosyne: Aw, jeebus, I shoulda known that! Especially since the Twilight Zone geek in me loves Halloween for the time-honored thread of stories about that one person who thinks they can outsmart the devil.
Thor Heyerdahl
@ThresherK:
“Gabriel’s open in the endzone…”
1976 Grey Cup Roughriders versus Rough Riders
ThresherK
@Thor Heyerdahl: I’d rather more people don’t remember that :-)!
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: I’m late to the thread so I’m not sure if you[ll see this, but…
How did your job interview go?