I'm going to be presenting part of our product with our customers at work today.  I'm pretty confident and am (strangely) not really nervous.  Me and my wife (and our dog) are going to San Antonio to be with her family for Christmas this year (my family lost their chance, see previous posts). 

I've donated a care package to the USO in honor of one of my college buddies fighting over there - on the recommendation of Al Franken, that liberal troop-hating communist moonbat, who has just left with the USO to go entertain the troops in Iraq, Afganistan, and places elsewhere.  Supposedly, Franken and fellow liberal radio host Ed Schultz, will be on the armed forces radio to be the "anti-American" voice to counteract the "American" voices like Rush Limbaugh (who is making money off the troops with his Adopt a Soldier Program and has recently said that torturing terrorist suspects in Abu Ghuraib is just the troops "having a good time...blow[ing] some steam off")

On the Tom Delay front, Crooks and Liars pointed me to this AP article...  It seems that DeLay's prosecutor, DA Ronnie Earl has issued subpoenas for two subsidiaries of Wilkes Corp, a defense contractor who bribed Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.  One of these subsidiaries, Perfect Wave, donated $15,000 to the fundraising committee that DeLay's accused of using to launder money to illegally give corporate money to legislative candidates.  Thus two individuals in the Republican party's "Culture of Corruption"™ are linked (just wait for the $5.4 million Jack Abramoff indictment, soon to come, for links to DeLay and almost every Republican in power).  By the way, the Republican's weren't even trying to hide their criminal acts... Look at Cunningham, the evidence was so blatant and overwhelming that he even plead guilty (after claiming innocence before the investigation).

On yet another note, I recently heard President Nixon's Speech on Vietnamization (Nov 3,1969).  It is eerily similar to Bush's recent speaches, see here.  Jerry Springer had the audio, I'll link it when I can find it again....Update: here it is...

I'm sick and tired not only of Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson's fake war on Christmas... but mostly about Bill's joy when Macy's (a Jewish owned company) aired a commercial with somewhat scantily clad dancing girls -- but included the word Christmas twice. 

As a Christian, nothing proclaims Jesus's love to humanity better than rampant commercialism of his birthday {end sarcasm}.  I would actually rather the companies avoid using Christmas, since I see the commercialism of the holiday as the actual 'War on Christmas' if there is one at all.

Christmas trees mean nothing to me religiously, to me they are a part of the secular part of the holiday, and thus I don't mind them being called holiday trees. As, obviously, so did Fox News with their "holiday ornaments" for their "holiday tree" before they got labeled as hypocrites and later changed it.  Another good note is a recent Fox News Poll: where even among Fox News watchers (with internet access) more people think there is NOT a war on Christmas (48% to 42%).

I just wish that everyone would follow my very simple holiday guidelines:  If I don't know which holiday a person celebrates, I wish them happy holidays.  If I know they are a Christian, I wish them a Merry Christmas.  If I know they are a Jew, I wish them a Happy Hanukkah...likewise with Kwanzaa, winter solstice or whatever they celebrate. 

As long as you don't RESTRICT someone from actually celebrating their chosen holiday, you are not attacking their holiday, and you shouldn't have a problem with fools like O'Reilly, Gibson, and Fox News.

Our Thanksgiving went pretty well, with only one snag.  We had planned on cooking a turkey ourselves, from a recipe we were given from a friend.  My parents called and told us that they were doing nothing that day and invited themselves to our house for an afternoon Thanksgiving meal.  So we bought a larger turkey, more potatoes and stuff, and were preparing the turkey (on the Tuesday beforehand) when my mom called. 

She asked us what time we were planning on eating.  We said it would be ready around 1:30.  That's when she pissed us off by saying that she was going to have lunch with their son-in-law and his family (my sister would be working).  She didn't say it, but was obviously wanting us to postpone our meal to the evening so she could have her second Thanksgiving meal of the day at our house.  Then she proceeded to try to change history by claiming that she "was sure she told us about it earlier."  Now, to her credit, she did mention that my sister's in-laws were having a Thanksgiving lunch... she just didn't mention that she was going, and instead mentioned that she had no plans.

She claimed that she had already confirmed her plans with them "a couple of days a...I mean last week."  Apparently, she didn't feel that her telling us she was coming over as "confirming" it with us when she originally called 3 days ago.  This is a double insult to us, because we have seen my parents treat my sister's husband better than they treated my wife, and even better than my sister!  And he's not a catch in any sense of the word.  He was a full time student that didn't even try to work part-time while his pregnant wife was working full time. 

However, even as upset as me and my wife were for being rejected for their son-in-law's family (when their daughter wasn't even going to be there) - there is a bright side for us...  My parents weren't going to visit!  Instead, we had a lovely meal, the turkey turned out to be the best and juiciest turkey I've ever had.  Overall, the holiday was great.