I have posted this every Thanksgiving for several years, but was unable to do so this year. Here it is again, because whether it is actually Thanksgiving or not, this is worth contemplating again and again. Actually, it seems even more relevant this year.
(via Boing Boing)
Not an attractive Thanksgiving Day here.
But on the positive side there is no snow, like there was a few days ago in Seattle:
It is time for my annual posting of William S. Burroughs‘ Thanksgiving Prayer, written in 1986. This short film was directed by Gus Van Sant.
When you fly this Thanksgiving, you can be sure you will have the pleasure of receiving the state-of-the-art security regime operated by the TSA.
John Boehner, who has taken great pride in proclaiming that he will continue to travel by commercial jet as Speaker of the House, third in line for the Presidency. Good on him.
But he doesn’t subject himself to the TSA.
As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Ronald Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. There was no waiting for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the identification-checking agents, the metal detectors and the body scanners, and whisked directly to the gate.
I guess the “random” checks are not quite so random after all.
(h/t Paul Krugman)
Michael Arrington has a great essay up highlighting the enormous impact that Steve Jobs has had on multiple industries since his return to Apple in 1997.
Fortune recently named Steve Jobs the CEO of the Decade, and with good reason. Not only has Apple performed financially – it’s worth about as much as Google, and has a larger market cap than AT&T, HP, Intel, Dell and countless other huge tech companies.
But forget all that. What would our world look like without him? We’d likely still be in mobile phone hell. Chances are we still wouldn’t have a decent browsing experience on the phone, and we certainly wouldn’t be enjoying third party apps like Pandora or Skype on whatever clunker the carriers handed us. Even if you use an Android, Palm Pre or newer Blackberry today, you must thank Apple for pushing open the doors to mobile freedom.
Following the turkey pardon, Palin gave this interview with some very unfortunate background slaughter.
Alternate view: