I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving today and eats well since know I will be this year. The girlfriend and I will be going to her brother’s and we are going all out this year since with the economy going the way it is next year we may only be able to afford to feast on cold cereal.
Now, most people will get up early tomorrow and try to take advantage of good deals and shop all day. I think people who get in line at 11 PM the day before stores open are not buying for other people but mostly for themselves. I have never felt the need to battle with the crowds on the day after Thanksgiving so would never buy anything myself. Little did I know what I did informally was being done by social activists for years in protest of our over consumption and called it Buy Nothing Day.
It’s now an international event but was founded by Vancouver artist Ted Dave in 1992 and subsequently promoted by the CanadianAdbusters magazine. The event is held in North America every year the day after Thanksgiving or Black Friday. The point is not that buying nothing on one day will make a difference but that we think about how our consumption effects everything everyday.
Last year Adbusters created a commercial to make the public aware of the cause and to buy nothing. Oddly in our free society of ideas the big corporations would not take their money to air the ad on any of their TV channels. Apparently the concept of taking a day to buy nothing and think about our consumption habits is controversial. CNN did end up airing the ad at the last minute which you can view in this video…
I first seen this at Stupid Evil Bastard’s blog about the American Humanist Association launching an ad campaign in the DC area mainly on city buses proclaiming “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake?”. The ad directs people to go to a special website so they can connect with like minded people in DC and nationally.
My original understanding was that there was no swimsuit competition in that beauty contest so maybe someone can tell me if this video is real or not. I have been out of the loop since the video appears to have came out like three weeks ago.
I have seen the question of Jack Cafferty missing from CNN’s Situation Room on TheZoo and Daily Kos blogs today. So where is Jake? The last entry from his blog which is on my blogroll only reads this from Oct. 2…
Jack will not be in the Situation Room Today.
Jack is known for real straight talk that John McCain could learn a lot from and the best example would be his commentary on Sarah Palin from her interview with Katie Couric. He basically called her pathetic and unfit to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. He even turned on Wolf Blitzer when being the tool he is tried to apologize for Ms. Palin. You have to cheer when someone states the truth seldom heard else where on the 24/7 news information wagon.
We hope CNN has not muted Jack because he pulls no punches since he is the voice of common sense on TV News. You can make your feelings known to CNN on Jack being off the air here…
The most likely reason for Jack being off the air is he may be grieving from the unexpected death of his wife Carol last month or just on vacation. Anyone can understand if Jack needs time because of his wife…
Any readers who know more information about why Jack has not been on CNN of late please share it by commenting on this post.
UPDATE 10/23 – All is good…Jack Cafferty is back on CNN and he apparently just needed a undisclosed surgical procedure. I wish him well and may he have many more years on CNN. Maybe his own show?
Homer Simpson tries to vote for Barack Obama (we assume Marge helped him to make the right choice) but things go wrong when he uses the new electronic voting machine. This is a leaked video segment from the The Simpsons show that will air on election day.
We can only hope the election is not close enough to be stolen which would not be the first time. Check out Black Box Voting for the best watchdog electronic voting news.
When John McCain picked Sarah Palin for his VP running mate it seemed out of nowhere (Alaska to be exact) she became an overnight sensation and even wowed the far right faithful at the RNC. I admit was a little nervous with the choice and not because she was qualified or the best choice but that she added freshness and some life to McCain’s campaign.
Then her first interview with Charlie Gibson of ABC News came and we found out she didn’t know anything about foreign policy. It was crazy for her not to know what the Bush doctrine was but yet agree with it, right? She had the nerve to say Georgia did absolutely nothing to provoke Russia or actually say perhaps we would need to go to war with Russia (Hint – short of a direct attack you avoid war between two nuclear powers at all costs).
I then started to tell friends and comment on blogs that there would be nothing to worry about… Let Sarah Palin have her 15 minutes of fame because as she is exposed more to the people they will get to know her and realize she is totally unqualified and nothing but George Bush in a skirt. In my post - My initial thoughts on Obama picking Joe Biden for VP – I said…
I do have some advice for John McCain on who he should be looking at for his VP if he wants to have any chance of winning. He should not be listening to the social conservative Christian block and just pick someone to appease them
John McCain, of course caved into the far right social conservative Christian block of his party and he ended up with checklist candidate who was the wrong choice and is now dragging down his campaign as shown in the polls. Sarah Palin is not even polling well with woman except with non-college educated woman. The not so bright VP candidate is polling well with the uneducated people in general…shocker! Sarah Palin and George Bush both have been said to appeal to the common person which is just another way to say the uninformed and uneducated.
I said once the hype dies down with Sarah Palin she will be nothing but the punch line for jokes in which I turned out to be a prophet. The SNL skit with Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin was a new classic for the show.
The McCain campaign decided needed to step back and drop down to a even more softball interviewer so they choose Katie Couric of CBS News (ironically she was also not the most qualified woman available for her position either) for a couple of interviews. What a disaster as Sarah Palin seemed to be confused even by the simplest of questions. SNL and Tina Fey did another skit mocking the first interview where they had to make few changes from Sarah’s Palin’s actual real answers for the laughs.
This all leads up to yesterday with Keith Olbermann’s Countdown video of the greatest hits from all the Sarah Palin interviews. This is very enlightening and shows with out doubt she is unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. The media is now getting the Sarah Palin joke. Enjoy the video before you watch the VP debate tonight where we are sure to get more Sarah Palin (low)highlight moments.