If my blog can remain stable for another 24 hours, I will announce an easy contest where you can win an Amazon gift certificate for $50.  A grand prize of an iPod nano.  Now, how’s that?  More information tomorrow evening.

It is a privilege to play in the NFL. Plaxico Burress, Adam (Pac Man) Jones and many others need to understand that playing in the NFL is not a right.  The enormous stupidity that these athletes show is almost understandable.  Yes, I said it was almost understandable.  These athletes get everything in our society.  In junior high school and high school teachers take it easy on them.  Other students do their homework.  They are treated like royalty.  All they have to do is shoot a basketball or throw a football.  When they get to college, the treatment continues.  They get paid to turn on sprinklers.  Alumni will try to figure out a way to slip them some cash or a car or even a house — ask Reggie Bush.  Yep, I’m playa hatin’!!

Then, they get to the NFL.  The spotlight of celebrity is now upon them.  Local newspapers cannot cover up their shenanigans as a matter of fact the local newspapers try to expose their exploits.  Now, everything is different.  Unfortunately, these athletes who’ve gotten away with everything have a hard time adjusting.

Let me ask three basic questions — first, why do you need to go to a club where you think you have to have a gun with you?  Secondly, you make a lot of money why can’t you hire bodyguards to protect you?  Let them get in for carrying concealed weapons.  Finally, it is two days before a big football game against your arch rivals the Washington Redskins why are you out at the club anyway?

I don’t think that I’m going out on a limb by saying that Plaxico Burress is not a genius.  Nowhere else in the world could he make $35 million in 3 - 5 years.  He can’t make that kind of money working at Wal-Mart or at Sanford’s junkyard or on Wall Street (especially these days).  Plaxico Burress and other athletes like him should follow their knees and thank God that they can run and catch a football and get paid handsomely for it.

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It appears that the United States warned India back in October that there was going to be an attack on the hotel and business centers in Mumbai.

Contrast the above intelligence “success” to President Bush’s interview with Charlie Gibson last night.  Bush admitted that the biggest failure of his presidency was the lack of weapons of mass destruction.  President Bush conferred that the blame should be laid at the doorstep of the CIA when in fact the blame is entirely his.  It was his job to look at all the information.  It was his job to weigh the pros and the cons but he abdicated that responsibility.

The indictments that a Texas grand jury turned in against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been dismissed.  Who’s surprised?

Blogger Glenn Greenwald, who has been on my radio show on a number of occasions, had another great post yesterday.  He was commenting on an article in the New York Times in which the article pointed out a number of conflicts of interest held by General Barry McCaffrey.  General McCaffrey is on the payroll of NBC news.  Glenn does an excellent job at pointing out the hypocrisy of NBC.  Generals who show up on the evening news must be free of conflicts of interest.

The National Bureau Of Economic Research has officially stated that December 2007 was the start of this recession.  So, what is the Bush administration been doing for the last year?  With the stock market dropping almost 700 points today, I have to say that the Bush administration hasn’t done enough.

Barack Obama has announced his national security team.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will continue at his present position.  Eric Holder will be nominated for attorney general.  Former General James Jones (Jones commission report)will be national security adviser.  Janet Napolitano, governor of Arizona, will become secretary of homeland security.  Susan Rice will be nominated for a bastard to the United Nations.  Finally, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will be nominated for Secretary of State.  This team is tremendously qualified.  As usual, I have some questions.  Where is General Wesley Clark?  I thought that Senator Chuck Hagel would be appointed to Defense.  Is there a spot for him in the administration? (Fox News didn’t even cover the Obama press conference.)

Almost a quarter of United States employees who use the Internet at work will spend some time during the day looking at on-line pornography.  :-)  Nothing else needs to be said.

Although Tiger Woods is an athlete, he seems to be someone who has at least a couple of neurons that work.  Why wouldn’t you try to make an alliance with Tiger Woods that would strengthen your company?  How about adding Tiger Woods to a creative team to completely redo the Buick line?  How about using Tiger Woods is an example of someone who does not sit on their laurels but instead tries to get better every day?

Instead of doing any of the above, GM decides to cut their contract with Tiger Woods.  They are saving money.  Give me a break.  Fire a couple of executives who continue to make bad decisions over and over again that would save billions.

From AP:

Turns out, Tiger Woods wouldn’t really rather have a Buick. At least not anymore.

When Woods ended his nine-year relationship with General Motors Corp. on Monday — a mutual decision between a megawatt celebrity who doesn’t need the work and a teetering corporation that needs every penny — it offered yet another snapshot of how badly the American economy has deteriorated.

Woods is the world’s most marketable athlete with an estimated $100 million endorsements a year. If his agreement with one of the world’s most active sports sponsors broke apart, some experts to wonder if any endorsement or sponsorship deal is really ironclad in these tough times.  (more… )

From AP:

Space shuttle Endeavour and its seven astronauts safely returned to Earth on Sunday, taking a detour to sunny California after storms hit the main landing strip in Florida.

Endeavour wrapped up a 16-day trip that left the international space station freshly remodeled and capable of housing bigger crews. The shuttle dropped off all kinds of home improvement equipment, including a new bathroom, kitchenette, exercise machine, two sleeping quarters and a recycling system designed to convert astronauts’ urine and sweat into drinking water.

But the mission wasn’t without its problems. Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper let go of a $100,000 tool bag during the first spacewalk, muttering “Oh, great” as it floated away. (more… )

It appears that President-elect Barack Obama is going to select Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Without forgetting that political relationships are about using people, there is a lot to be said for moving ahead after a hard fight and hard feelings.

Given this reconciliation between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton , it is a good time to think about who in our lives we can move ahead with, past bad times, to a better relationship.

When we are in our graves, how will our anger and our grudges serve us?

The TV Show WKRP in Cincinatti did an entire episode about that event. Now I know that a concert and Wal-Mart are two very different things, but with the downturn in the economy, Americans can’t afford to get their kids as much as they could in years past. So maybe there is a feeling that if they only get one gift it should be a “super” gift..? I don’t know. All I know is that life is way too important to lose it at Wal-Mart or any other store because of some crazed ambush for a bargain.

In the age of forgiving Joe Lieberman for his multiple sins and inviting Hillary Clinton, former blood thirsty rival, to run the State Department, it seems only fitting that Professor Samantha Power is in the mix. Back in March she described Senator Clinton as a “monster” and “the amount of deceit that she has put forward is really unattractive.” When you compare this to what Joe Lieberman said about President-elect Barack Obama, what she said is meaningless. Besides that, she was 100% accurate.

Barack Obama appears to be seeking the best and the brightest. This means that in any discussion about the State Department and foreign policy should include a possible post for Samantha Power. She is one of the best of brightest progressives Americans. Winning a Pulitzer Prize for her book entitled A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide doesn’t hurt.

From MSNBC: This seaside city of 18 million has bounced back from wrenching tragedy before, but after the most brazen terrorist attack in India’s history, the people of Mumbai are worried.

In crowded trains, corner stores, office buildings and neighborhood parks, residents ask each other the same questions. “Is anyone safe?” and “Could it happen again?”

The 60-hour siege ended Saturday, claiming at least 195 lives in attacks at 10 landmarks across Mumbai. The three-day ordeal spread fear and grief across a city that attracts newcomers by the hundreds every day.

“There is a limit a city can take,” said Ayesha Dar, a 33-year-old homemaker. “This is a very, very different kind of fear. It will be some time before things get back to normal.”

Dar glanced at a message on her mobile phone that said her children’s school would reopen Monday.

Police shut down most of the city’s “soft targets,” including schools and movie theaters, after the siege began late Wednesday night.

The movie theaters in this film-crazy city are usually packed and attendance levels creeping up would indicate that life is returning to normal. But cinema workers say that could be a while. (more… )

The Dallas Cowboys will need to show the league that they are back. Kyle Koser is out. That’s not good. I now expect the Cowboys to win. The key is how they win. Will this be a Tony Romo turnover fest before we pull it out in the last minute? I hope not. I hope that the defense continues to improve and shuts down the Seattle offense. The Dallas offense needs to be efficient with a good running and passing game. I would love for Roy Williams and Terrell Owens to have a great game. Finally, the Cowboys’ special teams need to show up for the first time this year.

Arizona and Philadelphia play this evening. If Donovan McNabb has a good game, this will be a very good game. Both teams are good on offense…as long as their quarterbacks are playing well. Kurt Warner is having a great season. Arizona’s defense isn’t dominating. Philadelphia’s defense can be run on. So it is really up to the quarterbacks as I see it. Look for McNabb and Warner to have great games as they bounce back from last week. I think the pressure will get to Warner and make the difference in the this game.

This Thanksgiving, progressives have a lot to be thankful for. Here’s our list:

We’re thankful we’ll soon have a president who will hit the ground running instead of a president who is running the country into the ground.

We’re thankful that Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are demonstrating every night how strong and intelligent progressive voices can be successful on TV.

We’re thankful we live in a center-left America rather than ”Hannity’s America.”

We’re thankful John McCain has more time to spend in the houses he owns…even if he can’t remember them all.

We’re thankful Sarah Palin has more time to watch over Russia and warn us in case Vladimir Putin ever “rears his head.”

We’re thankful that we’re moving closer towards a complete withdrawal from Iraq.

We’re thankful for the thousands of protesters who took to the streets across America to push for marriage equality.

We’re not thankful for neo-McCarthys, neo-Hoovers, neo-Nazis, and neocons.

We’re thankful for Tina Fey.

We’re thankful to be liberal hacks.

We’re not thankful for hack operatives burrowing into career civil service jobs.

We’re more thankful for Vice President Joe Biden and “Morning Joe” than Joe Lieberman and “Joe the Plumber.”

We’re thankful that our troops will be able to get the education they so richly deserve.

We’re thankful for the “Mustache of Justice,” “Rahmbo,” “Axe,” and “Skippy.”

We’re thankful that reality still has a liberal bias.

We’re thankful that there are only 55 days left until the end of the George W. Bush presidency. (Did you think that it would ever get here?)

We’re thankful for the progressive mandate to govern.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From WaPo: Gunmen attacked three luxury hotels, a hospital, a train station, a movie theater and other buildings in Mumbai late Wednesday, killing at least 100 people and wounding more than 300 in a rampage through India’s financial capital, police said. The attackers took dozens of people hostage, and witnesses said they were seeking out Americans and Britons. An unknown group asserted responsibility in e-mails to India’s news media.

The gunmen, armed with explosives, lay siege to two of the hotels all night. Troops stormed in to rescue people, some of them foreign nationals, who were trapped inside. The 105-year-old Moorish-style rooftop dome of the landmark Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel was engulfed in fire, and flames billowed out of many rooms. One wing of the waterfront hotel was gutted. Seven hours after the first attack, firefighters rescued more than 50 hotel guests and escorted them to ambulances.

At least six foreigners were among those killed in the attacks, said Ramesh Tayde, a senior police officer, according to the Reuters news agency. (more… )

Barack Obama held an interview with Barbara Walters of ABC News and even on the opening question it is beautifully apparent how Barack Obama won the election. Barbara Walters asks, as he prepares to lead the country, what his biggest fear is. This sounds like an innocent question. Maybe it was. I can promise you that right wing extremists like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity leaned toward the television when they heard that question. The president of the United States should fear no one; therefore, it is important how he answers this question.

Barack Obama reframes the question with a statement. “There are a lot of things that keep me up at night.” Absolutely brilliant. Traditionally, one reframes a question by asking a new, different rhetorical question. Barack Obama does something different.

Nice interview.

Thanksgiving has never been about who has the biggest turkey. It has never been about stuffing ourselves until we couldn’t move. Thanksgiving has never been about sitting at the adult table. Instead, Thanksgiving is about celebrating all of the gifts that we’ve been enjoying throughout the year.

So, in spite of the woes on Wall Street and in spite of whether your candidate won or lost I would like to wish you and your loved ones a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday.

The following is from an article called “The Truth About the First Thanksgiving” by James M. Lowen. Mr. Lowen has written Lies My Teacher Told Me and Lies Across America— (Above–One idea of the first Thanksgiving as painted by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. Mr. Ferris lived 1863-1930.)

“The summer after the Pilgrims landed, they sent two envoys on a diplomatic mission to treat with Massasoit, a famous chief encamped some 40 miles away at what is now Warren, Rhode Island. The envoys discovered and described a scene of absolute havoc. Villages lay in ruins because there was no one to tend them. The ground was strewn with the skulls and the bones of thousands of Indians who had died and none was left to bury them. 

During the next fifteen years, additional epidemics, most of which we know to have been smallpox, struck repeatedly. Europeans caught smallpox and the other maladies, to be sure, but most recovered, including, in a later century, the “heavily pockmarked George Washington.” Indians usually died. Therefore, almost as profound as their effect on Indian demographics was the impact of the epidemics on the two cultures, European and Indian. The English Separatists, already seeing their lives as part of a divinely inspired morality play, inferred that they had God on their side. John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, called the plague “miraculous.” To a friend in England in 1634, he wrote:

“But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by the small pox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not fifty, have put themselves under our protect”

Here is a timeline of European disease epidemics among Native Americans.

Here is information about smallpox.

Most of us have much to be thankful for on Thanksgiving and on all days. Yet this does not mean we should forget how we got what we have, and what costs were inflicted on people we felt were in the way.

(Below —A scene from King Philip’s War. This 1675 conflict is a more accurate reflection of relations between white settlers and Native Americans in colonial New England than the painting at the top of this post.) 

John Nichols from The Nation has more:

“This is the part of our nation’s surreal economic crisis that seems particularly surreal:

The US auto industry, which employs 3 million Americans in auto plants, parts and supplier networks and dealerships nationwide is broadly understood as being essential to maintaining America as an industrial force. It’s financial collapse, which even critics of moves to bailout the industry suggest is imminent, would devastate workers, retirees and communities in every state of the nation. Despite the grumbling from anti-union zealots, the auto giants have radically retooled in a manner that makes the cost of producing a vehicle at a unionized plant of General Motors, Ford or Chrysler roughly equivalent to the cost of running a car off the line at a non-union plant. And to top it all off: Auto plants actually produce something that most Americans consider to be useful.

Yet, proposals to provide what now seems to be a very small bailout — $25 billion — are currently stalled.

At the same time, the whole of the federal government is scrambling to buy as much as $50 billion in “toxic assets” — bad loans and other products of irresponsible financial practices that are of dubious value — from Citigroup, a global banking concern that makes money by charging working families exorbitant interest rates for credit. According to the Wall Street Journal, “[The move to protect the banking concern] would mean taxpayers could be on the hook if Citicorp’s massive portfolios of mortgage, credit cards, commercial real-estate and big corporate loans continue to sour.” (more… )

(My blog is acting a little funny. I’ll see if I can get the computer gurus to look at it.)

• President Bush pardoned 14 people yesterday. He has been extremely stingy with the pardons. What makes these 14 people so special?
• Financial guru Allan Sloan is handing out this year’s turkeys. The Federal Reserve gets a turkey for allowing Lehman Brothers to go into bankruptcy.  Yahoo gets a turkey for telling Microsoft “thanks but no thanks.” Sloan also includes Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s turnaround. This is a really good article.

Check it out.

• What about the men who crafted the CitiGroup bailout deal…Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin and Timothy Geithner? I have to wonder why do all these bailouts happen on a Saturday or Sunday?
• A “new” study suggests some cancers can just simply disappear…not really news, per se.
• Allen Colmes is leaving Hannity and Colmes. Thank god. No liberal should be trapped anywhere near Sean Hannity.
• Nevada’s Lt. Governor Brian Krolicki believes that he is going to be indicted but claims that it is only for political reasons. We’ll see.
• Fareed Zararia believes that those of us Americans under the age of 60 wanted to a part of history. Maybe there is some legitimate point there, but I certainly don’t remember sitting up at night thinking that I wanted to be a part of some historic event. Even if I were to ponder something so crazy, this financial crisis is for the birds. Yes, this is a once in a generation event, but not one anyone sane would have conjured up intentionally. I would be very happy to skip this and relive the landing on the moon.