Thanks, Nate

Here’s what I’ve never understood about the AGW deniers: what exactly are the world’s scientists conspiring to DO? I know what motivates the typical AGW-denier; most are either on the payroll of Big Oil (or Big Coal, etc) or just so right-wing that the thought that the dirty hippies might be right about *anything* drives them insane.

But I’ve never seen a cogent, non-hyperparanoid explanation of what the “Global Warming Conspiracy” is about. I’m deliberately excluding theories like “the NWO wants to force everyone into compact cities” because they seem far too tinfoil-hat for most people.

And by this logic, if one email proves the conspiracy, then Rep. Foley proves the whole GOP are kiddy-diddlers. Who wants to run with *that* idea? :)

Wait, you can get into the GOP without being a kiddy-diddler?

TJ

This might very well be the greatest thing I’ve ever read on Gawker.

/thanks FSM I’m not the only one
//TJ

@Jamie Sommers:
God that’s awful.

Some of those are downright traumatic and I thought my family’s Festivus style meals (airing of grievances) were awful.

@Jamie Sommers:

Love it!

I’m also partial to this classic from I Blame the Patriarchy.

Dang. Thanksgiving. It’s one of those execrable Christian holidays, such as the 4th of July, Christmas, or a wedding, when all Americans suddenly become insensible of any guiding principle except an enormous cultural pressure to capitulate unquestioningly to the demands of patriarchal theo-consumerist tradition. In the case of Thanksgiving, blind adherence to custom requires the uncompromising conformist to binge on cloying, pedestrian “comfort” food cooked for 3 days by women, while men watch TV.

Then the women go shopping.*

Horribly, Thanksgiving’s repellent foodly intemperance is nearly always presented at some weird, un-dinner-like hour of the afternoon, then it’s back to the TV for the patriarchs, and back to the scullery for the womenfolk, where they scour off the carbonized substrate of the sugary sweet potato-marshmallow pie, wrap in foil the remains of the enhormoned, tortured Butterball, tuck into Tupperware the green been casserole made with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup and French’s Fried Onions, and chuck out the untouched can-shaped cylinder of Ocean Spray “cranberry sauce” that nobody understands, eats, or can live without. Afterward, everybody either falls comatose or writhes, suffering varying degrees of physical and emotional distress, on such seating — usually a small needlepoint footstool or one of the dining room chairs — as has not been previously commandeered by the football-watching males.

@Jamie Sommers: That is awesome. I had just been thinking how weird it is that people insist on having these family dinners that no one enjoys. I stopped going home for Thanksgiving when I was in college, and it quickly became my favorite holiday–that is until 6 years ago when my best friend died the Saturday before. We’d planned to celebrate together, with him doing all the cooking. I ended up making pasta and getting super-drunk. It was 3 or 4 years before I could sit down to another traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I’m now extremely grateful that Thanksgiving weekend is a major wine-tasting weekend in Oregon, so I will never have to go to Mr Cyn’s family gathering in Mississippi, with a bunch of tee-totaling evangelicals.

@Original Andrew:
Hey, I like the cranberry sauce from a can.

I’m just glad that Canada City holds its Turkey day in Oct and there is no over emphasis on footbawl. Plus my sister and I were the ones who HAD to cook Thanksgiving most of the 2000s till my mom discovered a local farmer who raises free range turkeys, cooks and then sells them to suburbanites who don’t want to do it themselves. Free range turkey is pretty damn good unlike Butterballs, et al.

One of my weirdest memories of Thanksgiving at my Granny Sue’s house–I come from an appropriately large Southern family, now with Mormons!– was that there was one room she had ready for all us kids, where we were sent to play and nap after lunch was over.

The door locked from the outside.

@Mistress Cynica: I enjoy T-day because my wife’s cousin is a great cook. It’s even worth putting up with said cousin’s wacky mother for a few hours.

@ManchuCandidate: The free range, vegetarian-fed, locally raised, hormone-free turkey sitting in my fridge right now was alive this morning.

I really enjoy cooking all our traditional English Thanksgiving dishes and singing all the olde Thanksgiving songs.

@Original Andrew:

I seriously thought about doing a reading of Burrough’s Thanksgiving Prayer at the family dinner this year.

It’d go over GREAT with the parents, who watch Faux News religiously and complain about the government getting involved in healthcare whilst collecting public pensions, Social Security and Medicare. :)

Check the kerning – it’s a dead giveaway.

the guy is a data freak. to be expected.

@ManchuCandidate: While there are some very funny stories there, so many are so depressing and gawdawful I can’t stand to read all of them.

The only comparable funny thanksgiving story was the time my grandmother made a pecan pie using a pre-made crust and forgot to remove the wax paper, and we didn’t realize it until we ate the pie when we got a mouth full of Reynolds’ finest.

That, and my prim and proper Methodist preacher’s wife grandmother calling my minister grandfather an asswipe when he wouldn’t at least try a new food.

wow
I never thought I would be the one saying I enjoy family get togethers but sometimes I do. perhaps its because I dont do them very often. usually one a year is my limit. I am going home for turkey but not for christmas. I am looking forward to it. and it will be fun for about 24 hours. then I will be wanting to get the hell outta dodge.

last night I wrote about 1,000 words about my family’s thanksgiving dinners, when I was young, it was a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. When I hit “Submit Comment,” I got the message “you must be signed in to submit comment.” What I had written disappeared without a trace. I’ll never have that recipe again. It was more painful than any memories I have of family thanksgiving gatherings. All of my memories are good. Even the rutabagas.

@Mistress Cynica: Orphans’ Thanksgivings with friends and friends of friends are the best. Especially if you add in some foreigners who don’t understand what the fuck you’re doing.

I also used to always work the Friday after Thanksgiving. I’m allergic to shopping and it was a great day to come in and organize the stacks of paper everywhere in the office. This year, however, I’ll be up in Sonoma on Friday testing out the newly released vintages and spending money I don’t have on wine.

last year I did Thanksgiving at my house for my co-worker orphans.
it was sort of fun but I not enough that I was tempted to do it again this year.
I am considering a Christmas orphan dinner.

my affinity for laying out a spread is one of the giveaways of my orientation I suppose.

@SanFranLefty: I enjoyed newspaper orphans’ Thanksgivings myself. The skeleton crews (including your beloved cub, the night cops reporter covering domestic violence and drunken Thanksgiving brawls, plus random high-level deaths) gathered at someone’s house, had a tipple, and went in. Good times. Then we’d all find somewhere else to go that evening to get even more tipply.

When I’m working I’m inevitably working T’giving, Xmas and New YE (sidebar: New Year’s Eve in NYC when one is working on say 44 street is not much fun) so none of them mean much to me. The management’s idea of a Thanksgiving treat is usually pretty hateful and/or inedible.

In UK all the pantos open Boxing Day so if one is stuck in a Christmas show you usually work at least some of Christmas Day. Then everyone gets drunk and opens to a horde of screaming children with a royal hangover.

I don’t mind the big holidays with the family so long as it’s not mine.

@Capt Howdy: We always did a same-sex Xmas in London but since we came to the States no one will talk to us.

My two favorite Thanksgivings were the two I celebrated in Georgia during Peace Corps. The first one, at someone’s apartment in the capital, involved my rolling out the pie dough with a wine bottle (surprisingly effective) and eating a turkey that, according to the label, had been killed with a blessed Islamic knife. For the second one at a volunteer’s rented house out in the sticks, the turkey came from the bazaar that morning–alive–and to go with it were all the hodge-podge dishes we could pull together from what the bazaar had to offer, including a huge batch of hummous made from chickpeas that somone had just brought back from Turkey. While others were cooking, I helped my friend Terrell start dreads in his hair. Good times.

heres a tip for those who want a taste of thanksgiving with out the mess or fuss.

Greenberg smoked turkeys.

the best smoked turkey I have ever had. it comes ready to eat.

and while we are in mail order tips mode here is the best smoked ham I have ever tasted. and I am a ham connoisseur.

Petitjean Meats.

I can always find an excuse to order at least one of these a year.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving memories is watching “Goodfellas” while Mrs RML put the holiday meal together. She cooks three times a year – Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter – and it’s always awesome. My jobs include carving the meat or bird, opening wine and otherwise staying the hell out of the kitchen.

All of our orphans have moved or started families, so it’s pretty much the RMLs, her mom and strays this TG. I cannot believe the fucking Bronco game is outside at night in Denver on Thursday. WTF? They should have scheduled Dallas then.

@Capt Howdy: Any good online sources for tasso ham? We need it to make real jambalaya, but no one in the PNW has ever heard of it. Amazingly, we found a good andouille sausage at the local organic market. Then again, they also sold us white sweet potatoes. WTF?? I didn’t even know such a thing existed. And apparently they’re dry, flaky, and not even sweet. Not gonna work in the Mississippi praline-topped sweet potato dish. Have to make another grocery store run today for real, orange ones.

@Mistress Cynica:

try this

heres a good source for other cajun stuff

@Capt Howdy: Merci bien!

@Mistress Cynica:
You can also order Zapps Chips on the intertubes.

@SanFranLefty: Potbelly recently switched from Utz to Zapp’s, but they only carry a handful of flavors. I’ll probably be in NOLA with a rental car before too long, so a trip to the factory may be in store.

@Mistress Cynica: White sweet potatoes are the best and usually hard to find. I reckon they’re a great treat.

@Benedick: Since we have 3 lbs of them, I’m sure we’ll find other ways to eat them (recipe/prep suggestions appreciated), but just the thought of white potatoes with praline topping was enough to turn my stomach. Gots to have the orange with the brown pecans.

@rptrcub:

I laughed hard at a couple of the commenters’ coming-out stories, like the guy whose cousin or whoever outed him at the dinner table and he said “I was planning that for Mother’s Day–now I’ll have to get her a gift!”

Or the two brothers and a sister (?) who all came-out to their parents at the same time and called it something like ‘getting the group-rate.’