Thankgiving Football!

Nice Corinthian style helmet, wrong team! LOL

The Third Haas Thanksgiving Football weekend got underway on a Friday with the annual Pitt-West Virginia Backyard Brawl. Pitt went to Huntington, WVA and for once, no one was wearing some bright yellow monstrosity "alternate" uniforms nor was Nike allowed to fool around with "futuristic" helmet designs. Pitt and West Virginia wore what they were supposed to. Unfortunately, the Mountaineers won 21-20...

The Football Weekend stayed in the state of West Virginia as East Carolina tangled with Marshall. That Saturday battle went into overtime and the Thundering Herd galloped to a 34-27 overtime win.

The Las Vegas Locos are done for the year, and perhaps for all time, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders, finishing 5-13, never stood a chance of getting to the Grey Cup. British Columbia's Lions clashed with Winnipeg's Blue Bombers in Vancouver (gee, wonder who the home team was....LOL) and the aforementioned home team won like I predicted by a pretty wide margin, 34-23.

That left my Steelers again on a Sunday night. They went into Kansas City against a weak Chiefs team that fought like there was no tomorrow! The Steelers picked off a last desperation pass heaved by Pitt alumni Tyler Palko and hung on for a 13-9 win.

This year's Thanksgiving Football Weekend ended in a 2-2 draw but Michelle's cats were the winners, stealing ham off my plate while I watched the final nerve racking drive.

What have we learned? Ham is just as good as turkey and cats will not be thwarted...

Happy Thanksgiving!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Pic from Moreno10 blog!

Hey--remember Thanksgiving?

This Christmas Creep phenomenon is starting to annoy a lot of people and I am one of them. I have seen Christmas decorations up in October and one radio station last year started Christmas music before, yes before, Halloween! This year they decieded to wait until November at least.

Now stores are opening up on Thanksgiving. First it was 6am on "Black Friday", then it was 4am, followed by Midnight and now 10pm on Thanksgiving and even 9pm.

Why not start on the Fourth of July?

Anthony Hardwick on Omaha, Nebraska started an on line petition to keep his employer of Target from joining the madness. The ultimate barometer will be if they draw any business.

This is the kind of thing that turns people off to Christmas. This is not what the holiday is supposed to be about.

Come on, America. Get some sort of tenuous grip on reality, get your priorities straight and enjoy Thanksgiving.

11-11-11

I am not sure what it means but today it is November 11, 2011....11/11/11....It looks pretty cool! Actually, it is Memorial Day and it coincides with the ending of the First World War....Cease-fire on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month to end the war to end all wars...."First" World War should give you a hint to how that worked out....

Looking back at BofA and Netflix.

Both of those companies are great symbols of everything wrong with a lot of American businesses. Out of touch, arrogant, and setting themselves up for a fall. There may even be criminal conduct taking place.

Netflix had built up a large and loyal customer following. Then out of nowhere is the announcement that they raising rates by 60%. They also added that the company was being split into the CD by mail component (Netflix) and an Internet streaming branch called Quickster (not sure on the spelling). Americans are people of convince. The Netflix CEO had been told by a friend he did not want to have to keep up with two separate accounts but the plan went on despite this warning and insight into the general public's thinking. The 60% rate hike is what really cause the proverbial, uh, waste, to hit the fan. It was not the announcement but rather the smug reasoning that there was more revenue to make. Not anything about licence renewals or costs, just a chance to grab more money.

The lost money and customers.

They dared the customers to follow through on threats to leave. So they did. Nearly 800,000. No Quixter (or however you spell it) though the rate remains at $16 up from $10.

In an era of price gouging and rip offs, the customers struck hard and reminded everyone who signs the paycheck.

Bank of America had its own "Netflix moment". What is seen by may as the greediest and most corrupt bank outside of Goldman Sachs tried to affix a $5 monthly charge on debit cards. In other words, it will cost you $5 a month ($60 a year) to use your own money. That pushed a lot of people towards smaller banks and credit unions.

Bank of America CEO Monyihan replied that BofA "had a right to seek profit" but the tone of that backfired. Combined with this arrogance was the "robo-signing" seizure of houses that was continuing despite serious doubts about paperwork and perhaps legality. What did they think was going to happen?

Droves of people left Bank of America and no other bank would follow BofA's lead on the new fee. Bank of America tried to say that having fewer customers worked in their favor (yeah, right...) but anyone with a TV sees many new BofA commercials with suddenly friendly spokespeople extolling the virtues of superior customer service and new apps.

I have a better idea: Tape to every Netflix and BofA office a sign that reads "THE CUSTOMER IS OUR BOSS."

Once again, Economics 101.

Occupy Nashville-GOP Lovefest

Pic from LA Times

The story from the LA Times for your consideration:


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/occupy_nashvile_lovefest.html

Occupying Nashville

Pic courtesy of the Tennessee Report...

The First Amendment to the Constituion states that the people have a right to peacefully assemble and a right to peaceful redress of grievences. Somehow, the Tennessee Highway Patrol forgot that.

They claimed there was a curfew on the square in question facing the state capital and ordered protesters to move out. The protesters did not, were arrested, placed in front of a magistrate.....

....and were let go.

The same scene unfolded again the following night.

What part are they not getting?

Magistrate Thomas said they Occupy Nashville protesters were within their rights and that arresting them was inappropriate (maybe illegal). The Tennessee Highway Patrol, acting on orders of Governor Bill Haslam, argued otherwise but to no avail. The judge had made his ruling...twice.

The Occupy Nashville protesters are within their rights to protest and are continuing to do so.

The police crackdowns are only galvanizing support.

Some of these scenes, especially in Denver and Oakland are looking like Egypt just before Mubaruk threw in the towel. How does our State Department carp on about human rights when the Oakland PD (allegedly) bounces a tear gas grenade off an Iraq War vet's head or when some NYPD inspector maces (not allegedly) four women behind a barricade?

There are serious problems in this country. Congress is not providing much guidance and is apparently part of the problem. What are these problems?

Where do you want to start?

Crony capitalism, a rigged stock market, corporate personhood which allows corporations to pour money into political campaigns, out of control commodity speculation, bailing out banks who then turn around and try to steal the money people put into them, taxes, unemployment.

Attempts to squelch dissent only breeds more and it might not be peaceful next time.

Ask the Soviet Union about 1989.....