Lloyd Alter sums up a study commissioned by Michigan's Local First on the economics of shopping locally - and not just for food:

[W]hen West Michigan consumers choose a locally owned business over a non-local alternative, $73 of every $100 spent stays in the community. By contrast, only $43 of every $100 spent at a non-locally owned business remains in the community."

David Boaz is keeping score:

Libertarians often debate whether conservatives or liberals are more friendly to liberty. We often fall back on the idea that conservatives tend to support economic liberties but not civil liberties, while liberals support civil liberties but not economic liberties — though this old bromide hardly accounts for the economic policies of President Bush or the war-on-drugs-and-terror-and-Iraq policies of President Obama.

Score one for the conservatives in the surging outrage over the Transportation Security Administration’s new policy of body scanners and intimate pat-downs.

Mark Lilla contemplates it:

[A]fter reading these books and countless articles on the man, I’m coming to the conclusion that searching for the “real” Glenn Beck makes no sense. The truth is, demagogues don’t have cores. They are mediums, channeling currents of public passion and opinion that they anticipate, amplify, and guide, but do not create; the less resistance they offer, the more successful they are.

That three-layered cake of pies has nothing on this abomination:

Tanner Ringerud explains:

An entire Thanksgiving day meal - including turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and even a sweet potato desert - all condensed down into one horrifying cake. The recipe is available on Chow.com, for those of you with adventurous and open-minded families.

For Ron Rosenbaum, there's no contest:

White meat turkey has no taste. Its slabs of dry, fibrous material are more like cardboard conveyances, useful only for transporting flavorsome food like stuffing and gravy from plate to mouth. It's less a foodstuff than a turkey app, simulated meat, a hyperlink to real food.

A reader writes:

This contest is tough because sometimes you don't disagree with a message but rather the smug and condescending way the artist frames it. With that in mind, I nominate Billy Joel's anti-teen suicide ditty "You're Only Human (Second Wind)".

Whoever decided to make that jaunty little ditty about teen suicide is either truly dark or truly a genius. It wins a nomination because it's just so weird.

A lifelong vegetarian recounts how she gave up the "lentil loaf" tradition:

One afternoon, as I was walking to the subway with a friend, I became distracted by a pigeon. It waddled ahead of us, a large bird with a fine breast. So plump. So moist. I knew my thought would sound wrong. It came out anyway. "That pigeon looks delicious," I said.

Because it's time to be thankful for small mercies. And it's a charming little tale.

Abe Sauer reminisces about holidays on the farm:

We never had the kind of daylong Thanksgiving events I've come to know in my adulthood since the farm went under. The all-day social event. The football games. And the drinking. Good grief, the drinking. You don't tie one on during Thanksgiving knowing you have to get up and milk cows at 5:00 AM.

Igor Galynker advises Americans on the correct way to drink vodka:

Russian men drink vodka shots. They drink vodka with gusto while making loud breathing noises. They drink vodka as if their manhood depended on how loud those noises are. After these shots, Russians eat. They eat small morsels of food, chewing pensively, their gaze directed inward like that of a woman in late stages of pregnancy. ... I suggest that you, like Russian aristocrats, enact the whole ritual three times before your Thanksgiving meal. I have been doing it with my American friends for twenty years with wonderful results.

Bret and Jemaine also nail it:

Andrew Womack gags over Doritos® Late Night® All Nighter Cheeseburger® Flavored Tortilla Chips:

Let’s put aside the fact that these tortilla chips aren’t going to deliver the jocular good times their name implies. Let’s put aside that a real cheeseburger is likely a healthier food choice—except let’s not, because the ingredients list shows THEY ACTUALLY PUT A CHEESEBURGER IN THERE. Yes, that burger’s been powdered, but it’s right there: “natural beef flavor.” And also cheese (Swiss cheese, even). And yeast—for the bun? There is also protein.

But no, let’s put even that aside. Because what makes DLNANCFTC so repulsive, so unforgivably awful—a Tea Party in your mouth, if you will—is that you’re now eating a shelf-stable hamburger. They couldn’t sell it to you in a box at Target, so they put it in a bag of chips.

"Childhood" by Debra Bruce appeared in The Atlantic in April 2004:

Exiled once, allowed back in
to guide you through,
I didn't know my time was up.
But by the river, in snapping grass,
still in the habit of noticing,
crouching with you at a leaf or wing,
I spotted caterpillar frass
speckling milkweed as he feasted,
getting ready to split, released
from a too tight self. In just a week
he'd grow a better, brasher skin.
Exiled once, allowed back in,
I leaned down in the snapping grass,
but stopped at the thud of your new voice:
Come on. Big deal. So what.

(Photo: California Milkweed by Marshal Hedin).

Carolyn Kellogg reviews Ted Gup's A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness–And a Trove of Letters–Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression. The book centers on the author's grandfather, who solicited letters from those in need and then mailed them $5 checks:

The letters, many of which are reproduced in full, are snapshots telling desperate stories their authors would later downplay or deliberately forget. “We do not own a home here, nor furniture, tho we once did,” wrote Edith Saunders. “Recently we were unable to pay any rent for five weeks and were ordered to move.” ...

With less than one week before Thanksgiving, a turkey stands in a barn at the Willie Bird Turkey Farm on November 22, 2010 in Sonoma, California. An estimated forty six million turkeys are cooked and eaten during Thanksgiving meals in the United States.  By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

Lincoln Caplan reminds us of this quite extraordinary piece of prose from Connecticut in 1936 in the teeth of the Great Depression, issued by one Wilbur Cross. It speaks to me today, in this year, where gratitude and service seem to distant from our national culture:

Time out of mind at this turn of the seasons when the hardy oak leaves rustle in the wind and the frost gives a tang to the air and the dusk falls early and the friendly evenings lengthen under the heel of Orion, it has seemed good to our people to join together in praising the Creator and Preserver, who has brought us by a way that we did not know to the end of another year.

In observance of this custom, I appoint Thursday, the twenty-sixth of November, as a day of Public Thanksgiving for the blessings that have been our common lot and have placed our beloved State with the favored regions of earth -- for all the creature comforts:

the yield of the soil that has fed us and the richer yield from labor of every kind that has sustained our lives -- and for all those things, as dear as breath to the body, that quicken man's faith in his manhood, that nourish and strengthen his spirit to do the great work still before him: for the brotherly word and act; for honor held above price; for steadfast courage and zeal in the long, long search after truth; for liberty and for justice freely granted by each to his fellow and so as freely enjoyed; and for the crowning glory and mercy of peace upon our land; -- that we may humbly take heart of these blessings as we gather once again with solemn and festive rites to keep our Harvest Home.

Amen.

That, in an intensely volatile period at home and abroad, Barack Obama is president of the United States.

Aaron Carroll debunks it:.

The truth is, turkey is not to blame for your sleepiness.  Chicken and ground beef contain almost the same amount of tryptophan as turkey — about 350 milligrams per 4 ounce serving.  While you might have heard someone claim that turkey made them drowsy, you have probably never heard someone say that chicken, ground beef, or any other meat made them sleepy. Swiss cheese and pork actually contain more tryptophan per gram than turkey, and yet the American classic, a ham and cheese sandwich, somehow escapes blame.

The reason you get drowsy: 

Large meals have been shown to cause sleepiness regardless of what is eaten because the body increases blood flow to the stomach, and decreases blood flow and oxygenation to the brain. Meals both high in proteins or in carbohydrates may cause drowsiness.  And don’t forget about the booze. One or two glasses of wine, especially for people who only drink occasionally, can increase drowsiness.

A reader writes:

"When The Children Cry" has to be one of the all-time worst representations of the moral conscience in music. I'm still not quite sure what the point of it is except it was from that late '80s/early '90s period when every heavy metal band had to have a power anthem that reflected their "depth". Mostly it was a chance to show the lead singer with glycerin tears sitting on a playground in a torn jeans looking like he's trying to pass a kidney stone for the children.

I cried. From laughter.

The Onion advises:

To keep your mother happy, seat her directly across from her one good child who actually did something with his life.

Harar, Ethiopia, 2.15 pm

Stephen Budiansky passes along the latest nonsense from the loony right:

According to the ever-reliable Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and various tea party websites, the original English settlers practiced a kind of collectivism is which all worked the land together and shared the proceeds; this led to bickering, thievery, idleness, and famine as the settlers refused to toil when they could not each reap the benefits of their own work. Only when they abandoned such dangerous socialist ideas and divvied up the land into individual privately-owned parcels did they at last enjoy a bountiful harvest . . . which is what we are actually celebrating at Thanksgiving. (Of course, no right-wing historical revisionism is complete without a conspiracy theory and a sense of victimization at the hands of the liberal elite: so it turns out that this "real reason for Thanksgiving" was "deleted from the official story," according to one widely circulated retelling that has appeared on tea party blogs.)

John Stossel, among others, engages in this bout of revisionist history. Thank God the famously capitalistic Native Americans were there to share with the pilgrims bounty from their private plots of land, tilled as if by the invisible hand itself.

Jaya Saxena marvels at the "cherpumple," a three-layer cake (yellow, spice, white) with a pie baked inside of each layer (cherry, apple, pumpkin):

[Creator Charles] Phoenix also advises serving it with spoons if it collapses, because "The physics of it provide a kind of 'will or won't it collapse' situation." Or you could just eat three pies and three cakes; gluttony does not discriminate.

(Photo via This Is Why You're Fat)

Esquire combed their archives and pulled together an impressive spread of "odd recipes from the November 1984 issue," including William F. Buckley's Thanksgiving Pheasant and Jimmy Carter's Special Cheese Ring. The editor's introduction:

In it, such era-appropriate icons like Walter Mondale, Malcolm Forbes, and Nancy Reagan espoused the virtues of persimmon puddings, goose with prunes, and coconut drinks at a Thanksgiving meal. While we cannot vouch for these fourteen recipes — oddly, no one wanted to make former New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne's "Mousse of Saltcod" — we've republished them in the interest of kitsch, irony, and sheer amusement.

A reader writes:

This song made me throw up a little in my mouth.  I blame Clinton and DADT for its existence.  You know a song is awful when you completely agree with the sentiment but hate it nevertheless. I fear I'm missing the point of the contest but sending it along just the same.

A reader writes, "It's worth reading his Wikipedia page, if only so that you feel a smidgen of guilt for tarring as complex a figure as Merle Haggard":

"Okie From Muskogee", 1969's apparent political statement, was actually written as an abjectly humorous character portrait.

Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse offer some holiday advice:

First, stay home on Thanksgiving weekend.  Do not shop on “Black Friday.”  Sleep in instead.  Spend time with your family; relax, eat leftovers, have a drink, watch a movie, take a walk.  The shopping malls will survive, the sales will continue, the shelves will remain stocked.  You have plenty of time.

No doubt some will dispute that last claim.  They will say that time is short, and that they need the long Thanksgiving weekend in order make a dent in their Christmas shopping list.  Hence the second front of our war on Christmas:

Today on the Dish, Andrew reviewed the Palin of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," and America debated Obama's turkey pardon. Andrew pushed back on the Vatican's unconscionable position on condoms and HIV, readers contributed their own stories about Truvada, and Elizabeth Pisani searched out the bigger picture. Sarah Palin started a class war over blue bloods, allied with the North Koreans, and Bristol wanted to give the finger to all those who hate her and her mom. Evan Osnos weighed China's options on North Korea, and Conor and Marc Thiessen counted our memories of 9/11. The Likudnik/ Ben Smith debate waged on, with Goldblog adding his two cents, the Soviets ruined Tolstoy, Iraq was still a morass, and Israel gets what Israel wants.

Conor and Bernstein debated whether the presidency was too big for one man, and Pareene hacked away at the worst political hacks. Nyhan assessed the economy's impact on 2012, Chris Christie was the Justin Bieber of politics, and even he rolled his eyes at Palin. Matt Yglesias and Pete Wehner argued over whether our political system is broken while Andrew thought only one party was. Andrew avoided flying, and you can send your TSA stories here.

Whip My Hair got the exorcist treatment, and Kanye was the Sarah Palin of music. Beliefs change, Alex Morgan proposed school vouchers for bullied gay kids, and readers reacted to "that's so gay." Merle Haggard, Pink, Barry McGuire, Michael Jackson were inducted into Shut Up And Sing, and readers defended their preachy lyrics. Yglesias award here, DADT tea leaves here, creepy ad watch here, Malkin award here and here, quote for the day here, VFYW here, MHB here, FOTD here, and poseur alert here.

--Z.P.

Timothy Kincaid reads them:

[W]e should be cautious not to be overly optimistic about the report. The recommendations, while based on survey responses which are leaked to be positive, may well be far less than we hope for. I very much doubt that this report will call for an immediate repeal of the ban.

Rather, I suspect that it will suggest a phase-in of repeal, perhaps emphasizing certain branches of service enacting open service earlier than others. I also suspect that it will involve the transfer of openly gay servicemembers from certain forms of service to other forms, rather than discharge.

Whatever the recommendations, they are likely to be disappointing. Which, ironically, may make them more palatable to legislators on the fence.

"I spoke with [John] Tyner several days ago and he was very worried that his public stance would jeopardize exactly the ordinariness which The Nation claims is fake:  his job, his family, his reputation, and the cost from government recriminations.  This highly irresponsible, evidence-free Nation attack demonstrates how valid those concerns were.  It may be that several vocal opponents of the new TSA process are Koch-funded -- that wouldn't surprise me -- but that has absolutely nothing to do with Tyner, and The Nation, for which I have high regard, owes him an apology and retraction for the innuendo it smeared on him without a shred of evidence," - Glenn Greenwald.

A man yawns as he waits in a security screening line November 24, 2010 at LaGuardia airport in the Queens borough of New York City. Experts expect over 1.6 million people to fly over the Thanksgiving holiday this year, a 3.5% increase from last year. Airport officials are concerned that public protests against new security techniques such as National Opt-Out Day could further delay holiday travel. By Chris Hondros/Getty Images.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is particularly appalled by the vile rhetoric of Peter Sprigg. But this may be the bottom line:

Tom DeLay gets his jury verdict:

No contest. A little insight into how American foreign policy is sometimes decided in the Middle East. Israel gets what Israel wants.

Decision tree here. This is genius:

Obama Outlines Moral, Philosophical Justifications For Turkey Pardon

Joel Wing updates us:

Iraq’s politicians have already taken eight months to just reach a power sharing agreement, and can be expected to take several more before a cabinet is finally formed. In total, it could be almost a year before Maliki has a new government put together. The whole ordeal has taken so long because of the many divisions amongst Iraq’s parties. There were disagreements amongst the Shiite lists over Maliki’s return to power. Allawi remains bitter that he was not named to form a new coalition, and still may walk away while other members of his National Movement take up new jobs. In the end though, the new regime will look and act a lot like the old one. The most important positions will be divided along ethnosectarian lines, and because so many parties are involved there will be little consensus to do much of anything about the major problems the country faces.

Apart from that, freedom is on the march!

Another day of glory for the UN.

"There's no subject on which Richard Cohen is not completely inessential. The looming debt crisis? Caused by kids today and their tattoos and hippety-hop music! The financial collapse? Did you know that Richard Cohen went to high school with Ruth Madoff? 'Cause that's all he's got. Richard Cohen is the worst hack in the country," - Alex Pareene, making more friends in high places, and finishing off his hackiest hack list.

Greenwald rubs it in, with this classic quote from Cohen from 2003:

This is where Colin Powell brought us all yesterday. The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.

On this, I should add, I have not a leg to stand on.

A reader writes:

I understand the point Mark Peters is trying to make, but in doing so he compares "gay" to "lame." Does he realize that the supposedly neutral word he's trying to compare "gay" to is a pejorative for people with disabilities?

Choire Sicha explains: we all have to make the same mistakes on the web, sequentially. 

Elizabeth Pisani reacts to the news. She notes that the test subjects weren't very good at taking pills:

[Taking the pill is] a smaller protective effect than using a condom all the time, of course. The thing is, we know that people aren't good at using condoms all the time. And what these study results show us is that people aren't very good at taking a pill every day, either, though they are keen to tell researchers that they do. One of the most striking things about the results was the mismatch between self-reported pill taking and measured levels of active drugs in people´s bodies.

Her second fear:

Never stop believing in RoboCop:

(Hat tip: Rob Scott)

Dave Roberts has a theory:

Beliefs tend to be reverse engineered, as it were: People tend to construct an identity around what they (and their tribe) do. That suggests that they will only construct a different identity when they start doing different things. So imagine the same guy who rejected human-caused climate change in the poll.

Not all poseurish musical acts are uplifting and liberal. Some are smug and Palinesque:

Pareene is on a roll, calling out pundits he despises. Here he is on Marc Thiessen:

While the worst thing about Thiessen as a person is his unequivocal support for torture, the worst thing about hiring him to pen an Op-Ed column is that he's a boring, predictable columnist. The man got famous for arguing that plainly illegal treatment of prisoners is in fact both legal and necessary, and then he writes columns about how earmarks are bad. It's like telling Torquemada to film a TV pilot and he comes back with a three-camera sitcom about a lovable fat guy dealing with family life. 

Prospero revisits the great writer's last days and looks sadly at the country he loved:

Devastatingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the 100th anniversary of Tolstoy’s death is hardly marked in Russia. Tolstoy was a man who opposed state violence, who considered the Church’s union with the state as blasphemous, who denounced pseudo-patriotism, and who wrote to Alexander III asking him to pardon those who assassinated his father. These principles are firmly out of fashion in today’s Russia. By turning Tolstoy into an icon, the Soviets ultimately hollowed him out.

Palin repeats it in her new book.

Mark Thiessen regrets it:

Can any of us imagine the debate we’ve had in recent weeks unfolding in the days immediately following Sept. 11, 2001? Would any of us have objected to the deployment of millimeter-wave scanners had the technology been available then? The current uproar could happen only in a country that has begun to forget the horror of 9/11.

Conor pounces:

Reza Aslan keeps hope alive:

The country’s right-leaning parliament did in fact attempt to impeach Ahmadinejad on 14 counts of violating the law, including illegally trading 76.5 million barrels of oil valued at approximately $9 billion and withdrawing nearly $600 million from Iran’s foreign reserve fund without parliamentary approval. These are serious charges that would lead not only to impeachment but, possibly, to arrest and imprisonment. However, according to reports from a number of conservative newspapers in Iran, lawmakers were kept from bringing the impeachment charges to a floor vote through direct interference by none other than the supreme leader himself, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei... On Monday, lawmakers started circulating a petition to begin openly debating his impeachment. They need 74 signatures to proceed. Thus far, they have received 40, and counting.

Part of the mess is due to Ahmadinejad's dictatorial flouting of parliamentary prerogatives; but part is also due to the remarkably successful sanctions regime Obama relentlessly put together.