Well, it’s that holiday time of year again when all you want is some mindless entertainment to spare you from dealing with your relatives and TV programmers screw with you by replacing all your familiar favorites with sappy specials and marathons of your least liked shows made more inpenetrable by the one line crawl of uselessness that TV Guide channel has become.

Thank goodness kindly uncle ek is here to highlight a few moments of blessed distraction as well as some of the potential pitfalls to be avoided.

I look on it as a public service.

My job is made a little easier because of a neat little network ‘day at a glance’ feature of Zap2it TV Listings.  Click on the channel name.  I’m going midnight to Paid Programming since you might be busy with late night preparations and early morning celebrations or shopping trips.  I’m putting the main meat below the fold because the table is too long for the Front Page.  It’s arranged by time and marathons (4 half hour episodes, 3 hour episodes, double features, themes, and Instapeats) may be noted earlier than you expect, but they do also include the running time so you know when they end.

Nothing like watching A Christmas Story 25 times in a row.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Some premiers.  Rachel has a special- The Assassination of Dr. Tiller.

If any form of pleasure is exhibited, report to me and it will be prohibited! I’ll put my foot down, so shall it be… this is the land of the free! The last man nearly ruined this place he didn’t know what to do with it. If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait till I get through with it! The country’s taxes must be fixed, and I know what to do with it. If you think you’re paying too much now, just wait till I get through with it!

I’d be unworthy of the high trust that’s been placed in me if I didn’t do everything in my power to keep our beloved Freedonia in peace with the world. I’d be only too happy to meet with Ambassador Trentino, and offer him on behalf of my country the right hand of good fellowship. And I feel sure he will accept this gesture in the spirit of which it is offered. But suppose he doesn’t. A fine thing that’ll be. I hold out my hand and he refuses to accept. That’ll add a lot to my prestige, won’t it? Me, the head of a country, snubbed by a foreign ambassador. Who does he think he is, that he can come here, and make a sap of me in front of all my people? Think of it – I hold out my hand and that hyena refuses to accept. Why, the cheap four-flushing swine, he’ll never get away with it I tell you, he’ll never get away with it.

• ABC Family– Beauty and the Beast
• AMC– Open Range x 2
• Comedy– Futurama, Holiday Spectacular (this week’s)
• Discovery– Mythbusters (last week’s and new), Storm Chasers (premier)
• ESPN– Hoopies, LeBrons @ Magic, College Hoopies
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Tennessee v. Virginia Commonwealth, UCLA v. Villanova
• FX– Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Terriers x 3 (premier and Instapeats)
• Lifetime– Notting Hill
• Oxygen– 50 First Dates
• Turner Classic– It Happened One Night
• Toon– Firebreather
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (with premier, thank goodness)
• USA– NCIS marathon
• Vs.– Blues @ Predators

Later-

• Sci Fi– Licence to Kill (Dalton)
• Turner Classic– Duck Soup, Top Hat

Dave hosts Salvatore Giunta and Sahara Smith (get a wiki page!).  Jon and Stephen in repeats, 11/9, 11/16.  Conan hosts Eva Mendes, Bob Saget, and Neon Trees.

Boondocks– The S Word.

Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you: he really is an idiot. I implore you, send him back to his father and brothers, who are waiting for him with open arms in the penitentiary. I suggest that we give him ten years in Leavenworth, or eleven years in Twelveworth.

Monday we watch-a Firefly’s house, but he no come he wasn’t home. Tuesday we go to the ball game, but he fool us: he no show up. Wednesday HE go to the ball game, but we fool him, WE no show up. Thursday it was a double-header, nobody show up. Friday it rained all day, there was no ball game, so we stayed home, we listen to it over the radio.

You’re a brave man. Go and break through the lines. And remember, while you’re out there risking your life and limb through shot and shell, we’ll be in be in here thinking what a sucker you are.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Ireland unveils 15-bln-euro austerity plan to secure bailout

by Loic Vennin and Andrew Bushe, AFP

1 hr 28 mins ago

Your last chance to vote against Bristol.  Mostly premiers.

To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place… It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses, whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. Now, there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewel was beaten – savagely, by someone who led exclusively with his left. And Tom Robinson now sits before you having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses… his RIGHT. I have nothing but pity in my heart for the chief witness for the State. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance. But my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man’s life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say “guilt,” gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She’s committed no crime – she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But what was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was to her a daily reminder of what she did. Now, what did she do? She tempted a Negro. She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that, in our society, is unspeakable. She kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong, young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards. The witnesses for the State, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption… the evil assumption that all Negroes lie, all Negroes are basically immoral beings, all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women. An assumption that one associates with minds of their caliber, and which is, in itself, gentlemen, a lie, which I do not need to point out to you. And so, a quiet, humble, respectable Negro, who has had the unmitigated TEMERITY to feel sorry for a white woman, has had to put his word against TWO white people’s! The defendant is not guilty – but somebody in this courtroom is. Now, gentlemen, in this country, our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system – that’s no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality! Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review, without passion, the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision and restore this man to his family. In the name of GOD, do your duty. In the name of God, believe… Tom Robinson.

• ABC Family– Aladdin
• Disney– Ratatouille
• Discovery– Dirty Jobs, Auction Kings (premiers)
• ESPN– College Hoopies
• ESPN 2– College Throwball, Temple @ Miami (Ohio), AND Hoopies
• FX– What Happens in Vegas
• Sci Fi– Stargate Universe (premier)
• Speed– Monster Jam
• TBS– Family Guy, Glory Daze (premier)
• Turner Classic– Atticus Finch, Boys Town
• TNT– The Bucket List
• Toon– The School of Rock, Tower Prep (premier)
• Vs.– Point Break

Later-

• AMC– Inside Man
• Food– Private Chefs of Beverly Hills (premier)
• Sci Fi– Stargate Universe (Instapeat), The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb
• Turner Classic– Sounder
• USA– Psych, Burn Notice (this week’s)

Dave hosts Jerry Seinfeld and Colin Firth.  Jon and Stephen in repeats, 11/17 and 11/9.  Conan hosts Christina Applegate, Patton Oswalt, and Maroon5.

Boondocks– The Invasion of the Katrinas

The 11 Commandments–

1. Inertia shall prevail.
2. Nothing is sacred.
3. Hate thy neighbor.
4. No good ever comes from helping one’s fellow man.
5. Worship a higher power.
6. Look to the past for inspiration.
7. Death be not bad.
8. Work hard at not working.
9. No reason is too trivial for ending a relationship.
10. A short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man can be a chick magnet.
11. The craziest person is the sanest of all.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Irish PM fights for survival as euro fears resurface

by Loic Vennin and Andrew Bushe, AFP

2 hrs 40 mins ago

Fact Sheet: Know Your Passenger Rights on TSA Opt-Out Day

By: Jane Hamsher Monday November 22, 2010 9:42 am

The idea of an Opt-Out day has been picking up steam, and many airline passengers will be refusing to submit to the TSA’s whole body imaging scanners on Wednesday, November 24.  But in the wake of conflicting messages coming out of the TSA, travelers are going to be confused about what to expect at TSA security checkpoints. So FDL has put together  a handy flier about the scanners and the “enhanced” patdown procedures, which explains your risks and rights in the airport:

I’ve talked at other sites about a Serf Strike and while I don’t want to inflict any personal inconvenience on you I equally urge non-violent direct action of the type Martin Luther King practiced–

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

Now I’ll never fly again unless absolutely necessary, simply because even before 9/11 I found it an unpleasant and tedious waste of time.  I can only imagine how horrible it is today.  And it’s not that I flatter myself that I have much of an audience, yet I’m irresistibly tempted to encourage this endeavour simply because of the Versailles Villagers begging people not to.

Incoming House Transportation chief against ‘Opt-Out’ Day in TSA protest

By Kevin Bogardus, The Hill

11/21/10 10:25 AM ET

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) urged airline passengers Sunday to not purposefully slow down airport security lines by refusing to go through body scanners.

Likely the next House Transportation Committee chairman, Mica said he could not support what has become known as National “Opt-Out” Day. During the busy Thanksgiving travel period, passengers may opt-out of the body scanners, which take naked body images, and instead choose to go under invasive pat-downs as an act of protest. That will then likely slow down security lines.

Good.  That’s what it’s supposed to do.

John Pistole, TSA Chief, Pleads With Travelers Against Full-Body Scan Boycott

RAY HENRY, Associated Press

11/22/10 11:13 PM

ATLANTA – The nation’s airport security chief pleaded with Thanksgiving travelers for understanding and urged them not to boycott full-body scans on Wednesday, lest their protest snarl what is already one of the busiest, most stressful flying days of the year.

Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole said Monday that such delaying actions would only “tie up people who want to go home and see their loved ones.”

…

“Just one or two recalcitrant passengers at an airport is all it takes to cause huge delays,” said Paul Ruden, a spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents, which has warned its more than 8,000 members about delays. “It doesn’t take much to mess things up anyway.”

Well, since it’s coming up on Thanksgiving Day anyway-

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints.  And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say “Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.”.  And walk out.  You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him.  And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization.  And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out.  And friends they may think it’s a movement.

And that’s what it is , the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come’s around on the guitar.

With feeling.

Though Brian Cowen and his Fianna Fail (great name dude) Party soon will.

Irish Debt Crisis Forces Collapse of Government

By LANDON THOMAS Jr., The New York Times

Published: November 22, 2010

DUBLIN – The Irish government faced imminent collapse on Monday, only a day after it signed off on a $100 billion bailout, setting the stage for a new election early next year and injecting the threat of political instability into a European financial crisis that already has markets on edge.

Confronted with high-level defections from his governing coalition, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said he would dissolve the government after passage of the country’s crucial 2011 budget early in December.

His announcement capped a grim day for Ireland, as protesters tried to storm the Parliament building in Dublin, and Moody’s Investors Service, the ratings agency, lowered the rating on Irish debt by several notches.

In summary form, Fianna Fail controls the Irish Parliament by a very thin majority.  The Green Party, currently in coalition to provide that majority with 6 seats of its own has officially announced that they’ll vote No Confidence after the signature of the bailout agreement and passage of the new austerity budget.

However up to 5 Fianna Fail members have announced that they won’t wait that long and don’t plan on voting for either the bailout or the budget.

Voter sentiment in Ireland is similar to that in Iceland which was forced to repudiate many offers made by the banksters to safeguard their balance sheets and opposition party leaders are strongly calling for snap elections as a referendum on the government, its policies, the bailout agreement, and austerity.

If elections are held they’ll likely win in a landslide.  It’s not certain Fianna Fail can even continue to survive as a party.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.  You sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas.

Of course the banksters are making threats-

EU warns Ireland over snap election

By Bruno Waterfield in Dublin, The Telegraph

10:00AM GMT 23 Nov 2010

The European Union has warned the Irish government that snap elections would be “very irresponsible” as post-bail-out turmoil continues to rock Ireland’s political establishment.

Vital to his staying on in power, were EU warnings that Ireland’s £77 billion bail-out would be jeopardised if the government fell Ireland, a situation that would spark a euro zone debt crisis and lead to the value Irish bonds being wiped out by global markets.

…

“From our perspective, it is important that the government is able to represent Ireland in the talks,” said another EU source. “It would be very unpleasant if there was no one to talk to. That would be very irresponsible.”

…

The turmoil means there are question marks over whether the government can pass a four year austerity later this week and a 2011 budget next month, both are preconditions of the EU and IMF rescue programme.

…

Declan Ganley, the leader of the successful 2008 Irish No campaign against the Lisbon Treaty, before the vote was overturned last year, accused the EU of destroying Ireland’s political class by pressuring it into an unpopular bail-out to preserve the euro.

“The Irish political class has been sacrificed on the altar of expediency by those they thought were their friends in Brussels, Berlin and Paris,” he said.

Yes, more like that please.  I hope you starve just like the workers you betrayed you arrogant idiots.

Kenneth Feinberg’s plan to settle oil-spill claims met with opposition

By Steven Mufson, Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, November 22, 2010; 7:16 PM

Tuesday (TODAY!) is the day that Feinberg wants to end emergency payments by BP’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility to individuals and businesses for damage inflicted by the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. After Thanksgiving, Feinberg will start offering lump-sum payments to people ready to settle all present and future claims – giving up their rights to file lawsuits.

…

Earlier this month, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) called Feinberg’s claims process “extortion,” and outgoing Alabama Attorney General Troy King issued a “consumer alert” warning people that Feinberg “works for BP.” Feinberg was named by President Obama, though BP is paying him and four other lawyers at his firm $850,000 a month to run the fund.

BP Gulf-Leak Estimates Slowed Efforts to Kill Well

Jim Efstathiou Jr., Bloomberg News

11/22/10

BP Plc “impeded” efforts to kill an out-of-control well in the Gulf of Mexico by underestimating the amount of oil gushing into the water, the staff of a presidential panel investigating the disaster said in a report.

Estimates of a 1,000-barrel-a-day leak after a drilling rig exploded April 20 delayed planning for techniques to seal the well, staff of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill said today. A U.S. government-appointed team of scientists in August said the well was gushing about 62,000 barrels a day after the blowout and 53,000 barrels when it was capped on July 15.

…

“Had BP not shown such aggressive indifference to the size of the disaster, and the oil industry to preparing for such an event, then perhaps early actions could have made a difference in stopping this spill,” Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said today in a statement.

…

The Obama administration blocked release of worst-case government estimates of the spill rate, the commission staff said in an Oct. 6 report. The move undermined public confidence in the U.S. response and may have hindered efforts to staunch the flow.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “wanted to make public some of its long-term, worst-case discharge models for the Deepwater Horizon spill, and requested approval to do so from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget,” according to the staff paper. “The Office of Management and Budget denied NOAA’s request.”

Do you think Darrell Issa is going to want to investigate this?  Do you think the Obama Administration is blameless?

Well, you can watch Bristol Palin.  Other Premiers.  American Masters, Lennon NYC.

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

• ABC Family– A Carol Christmas, Holiday in Handcuffs
• AMC– Troy (Joey?)
• Bravo– Real Housewives marathon
• Discovery– Brew Masters (Series Premier repeat), Sr. v. Jr. x 2
• E!– Bruce Almighty
• ESPN– Throwball, Broncos @ Chargers
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Duke v. Marquette, Gonzaga v. Kansas State
• Food– The Best Thing I Ever Ate (premier)
• FX– The Devil Wears Prada
• History– Basically Pawn Stars
• Lifetime– Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal
• Oxygen– Kiss the Girls x 2
• Sci Fi– Fight Club
• Spike– National Security
• TBS– Family Guy night
• Turner Classic– Footlight Parade
• TLC– Cakes (premiers)
• Toon– Adventure Time with Finn & Jake, Regular Show, MAD, Robotomy (premiers)
• Vs.– Bruins @ Lightning

Later-

• AMC– A Few Good Men
• ESPN– College Hoopies, Virginia v. Washington
• FX– Mr. 3000 (better than it reads)
• Spike– Bad Santa
• Turner Classic– The Public Enemy, Little Caesar
• TNT– Glory Daze (Series Premier repeat)
• USA– Street Kings x 2

Dave hosts Natalie Portman and Jay Pharoah.  Jon and Stephen are in repeats, 10/27 and 11/10.  Alton has Π, Pumpkin and Apple.  Conan hosts Zachary Levi and Christina Aguilera.

Boondocks– The Story of Catcher Freeman

A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don’t do one.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 47 Top Stories.

1 Irish bailout triggers election

by Loic Vennin and Andrew Bushe, AFP

1 hr 12 mins ago