Capitol Annex

Democratic Party Takes HD 105 Ballot Battle To Federal Court

Vince Leibowitz — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:12:07 +0000

The Texas Democratic Party has filed a federal lawsuit against election officials in Dallas County alleging that the county is violating federal voting laws by failing to count emphasis votes from electronic voting machines in the recount.

Capitol Annex noted last week after State District Judge Jim Jordan ruled that he didn’t have jurisdiction in the case that there were federal voting rights issues in play.

Mainly, the party is seeking to have electronic “emphasis votes” counted. They seek a restraining order requiring Dallas County officials to count straight party votes on electronic machines for each candidate that weren’t counted in the initial recount. Another alternative method of correction would be a new election, which the Party also requested absent other alternatives.

Gun Owners Want Open Carry Law In Texas

Vince Leibowitz — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:54:41 +0000

A group of Texas gun owners is planning an aggressive lobby campaign in hopes of passing an “open carry” law in Texas.

Under current Texas law, individuals may carry a concealed weapon–with a permit–but carrying a gun in the open is against state law.

From the DMN:

Saying Texas firearm laws are overly restrictive, a group of gun advocates is lobbying state lawmakers to permit wearing handguns in plain view.

With the legislative session scheduled to begin in January, supporters of “open-carry laws” have placed ads on billboards in Houston and San Antonio and on taxis in Austin.

The Texas campaign is expected to intensify Tuesday with a radio message in Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin. The ad says, “We don’t hide our colors, do we?” and encourages Texans to sign an online petition asking lawmakers to make Texas a place where people can openly wear their guns. More than 28,000 people have signed it so far.

“We are targeting Texas,” said Mike Stollenwerk, co-founder of www.opencarry.org, in a story Sunday in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram . “Get ready for a showdown in Austin come January.”

Stollenwerk said Texas is one of the nation’s most pro-gun states and promised an “awakening” when “Texans realize how restrictive their rights are.”

Texas is one of six states – along with New York, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Florida and South Carolina – in which handguns can’t be worn in plain view. The other 44 states, in the parlance of gun advocates, are known as “open-carry” states.

I doubt this legislation will pass this session. Typically, legislation proposing such drastic changes takes several sessions to gain significant interest.

Background Check System Used By Texas Public Schools Challenged In Court

Vince Leibowitz — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:50:07 +0000

A central Texas couple is suing Austin’s Lake Travis Independent School District to challenge the constitutionality of computerized check-in systems designed to check all visitors to school campuses against databases of registered sex offenders.

From KTRE:

Yvonne and Larry Meadows say the process violates their privacy and other rights. They’re suing the Austin area’s Lake Travis school district over a computer system that checks visitors against a sex offender database. The system scans their driver’s licenses, with visitors who don’t consent being turned away.

The Meadowses say the computerized checks violate their constitutional rights, including freedom to associate with their children at school and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Neither are listed in the national sex offender database.

Yvonne Meadows said she objected to Bee Cave Elementary School scanning her license because she was concerned about identify theft and a private company collecting her personal information.

The federal lawsuit is believed to be among the first legal challenges to the policy in Texas.

Frankly, we’re wondering exactly why it took so long for someone to challenge this law. Legislation was passed by the 80th Texas Legislature in 2007 allowing this practice. We’ve thought it was on dubious constitutional grounds from day one.

Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round-Up For December 1, 2008

Vince Leibowitz — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:08:29 +0000

Now that the turkey has been eaten and your holiday decorations are up–or at least out of the garage–it is time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance’s weekly round-up.

The Texas Cloverleaf looks at the large donors from DFW who supported Prop 8. Over $335,000 went to California from 59 individuals. Time to consider the DFW Black List!

John Coby at Bay Area Houston is giving thanks to the GOP .

jobsanger looks at the $7.5 million of sales tax money that Wal-Mart gets to keep every year here in Texas, and says it is time to cap the amount of tax money a business may keep to cover the cost of collecting the tax in I Learned Something New & I Don’t Like It.

CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme wonders how hard can it be to elect someone other than Tom Craddick Speaker of the House? Geeez!

Stace Medellin at DosCentavos reminds us why guest worker programs will fail with a story on Braceros still trying to collect monies owed themby Mexico after decades.

Toni at WhosPlayin took some time off from political work to take in a bilingual performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Fort Worth by Teatro De La Rosa, and offers her review.

North Texas Liberal wonders why Democrats are so anxious to throw former President Bill Clinton under the bus.

The Burnt Orange Report takes a look at Austin activism and the Austin Prop 8 Blacklist.

If sometimes you feel like a nut, McBlogger reports you’ll be right at home on the State Board of Education.

BossKitty at TruthHugger reflects how Bush tried and failed to show the world a morally superior nation, instead, he showed the world what hypocritical horse’s asses we really are, and Why America Is No Longer THE Role Model - Op Ed

Off the Kuff continues his analysis of Harris County precinct data with a look at HD133, the microcosm of the county.

Neil at Texas Liberal is a big time player who drinks expensive scotch and gambles at first class casinos.

Dembones at Eye On Williamson takes Gov. Rick Perry to task for defending Texas polluters.

PDiddie gave thanks for illegal immigrants, the inanity of Jared Woodfill, and the life and memory of Jim Mattox at Brains and Eggs.

Over at TexasKaos, Txsharon explains how Cheney Helped Halliburton Hide Secrets About Dangerous Chemicals in YOUR Drinking Water. . As she reports,

The oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject KNOWN hazardous material-unchecked-directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies.

EARTHWORKS-Hydraulic Fracturing of Oil and Gas Wells

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that a state district judge has ruled that he does not have jurisdiction to rule on a case related to the House District 105 recount.

The Best & Worst Of 2008: Election Ads, Stupid Political Tricks & More

Vince Leibowitz — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:00:09 +0000

[Ever year here at Capitol Annex, we chronicle the best and worst of the year that was. This year, we've split things up a bit, since it was, after all, an election year. We're putting the election-related "Best & Worst" into a couple of different posts, and putting the rest of the year into a couple of different posts that we'll release from now through December 15. Enjoy.]

If you are an avid follower of Texas politics, you probably looked around several times throughout 2008 and wondered, “am I on acid, or is this really happening?” Don’t worry, you weren’t alone.

2008 will go down in history as one of the most bizarre election cycles in Texas political history. From Karl Rove fundraisers to a cigar chomping soon-to-be-ex-state senator trying to litigate his way to an electoral victory (oh, and don’t forget the primacaucus!), it was as if this election cycle smoked a bowl of crack, downed a bottle of Everclear, and drove a 1978 Ford Pinto the wrong way up an exit ramp on I-45 at speeds of 120 miles per hour as the wheels and bumper fell off in a sparky mess—while urinating out the window at stunned motorists.

Now that we’ve all had time to clean ourselves of the 2008 Election Cycle’s bladder leakage, and have a stiff drink to try and forget what it was like being kidnapped and held at gunpoint in the back of that Pinto, it is time to take a look at the Election Cycle That Was. Grab a tissue and a bedpan, you may need both for this retrospective.

Worst Television Ad By A Republican Candidate There is some stiff competition in this category, because God knows Republicans can’t get through a single election cycle without producing television attack ads that make you so damned mad you crap your shorts while throwing stuff at the television set. However, there was one clear winner in this category that, far and away, lept over the finish line with its nauseating, self-righteous, inaccurate, script. “Allen Vaught Said ‘No’” probably seemed like a really good idea when the concept came to Bill Keffer’s campaign consultants on the back nine at Willowbrook after nine six packs few Old Milwaukee. At least, that is what we assume because we can’t fathom that anyone would ever come up with a commercial that is so misleading and tacky while also being so self-serving that not even a Republican could like it while sober. This is probably the worst use of a “wedge issue” in a TV commercial that we’ve ever seen, with school vouchers being a wedge issue. We wrote a lot about this ad here, and, quite frankly, we aren’t too eager to relive it, so we’ll let you go read it on your own. Pay special attention to the comments. HONORABLE MENTION: We doubt that the folks at the Empower Texans PAC have yet been able to Pine-Sol the slime off their bodies after airing this ad against Democrat Joel Redmond in House District 144. Blaming one mortgage broker for the collapse of the global economy is like casting the blame for the state of education in Texas on one first grader who got a frowny face on her recent spelling test. HONORABLE MENTION II: I would really love to know what douchebag though this ad done for Brian Walker’s campaign against Chuck Hopson in East Texas was a good idea? “Poor Chuck, he might be pretty but he shore’ ain’t conservative?” What in the hell? Did Brian Walker think they were running for Sheriff of Mayberry? And that little pinging glint thingy that they put coming out of Hopson’s eye was just so over the top. For the first six seconds of the ad, you wonder if you are seeing a political ad or some Republican infomercial full of homoerotic fantasies about WD-40s.

Worst Political Mailer By A Republican Candidate: It is, flat out, a tie in this category. And, once again, Bill Keffer and Ken Legler rise to the top like cream–if you like your cream slimy emanating the odor of death. Both win this honor for racist mailers. Here is the one done for Legler–again by Empower Texans–and here is the one done by Keffer’s campaign against Allan Vaught.

Worst Stunt By A Republican Campaign To Gain Sympathy Using A Campaign Mailer: State Rep. John Davis (R-Clear Lake) wins this one in a walk for having his wife attack Sherrie Matula because, we presume, he was too much of a puss to do the dirty work himself. Mailed complete with a first-class stamp, this letter, made to look like it was handwritten–if you are a moron and do not understand what a “font” is–is perhaps best described as “litter box lining.” The only thing more stupid than the mailer itself is the number of suburban hillbillies who believed they had actually received a handwritten letter from John Davis’ wife. God knows how many Republican homeschooling mommies in HD 129 framed this or put it in their children’s scrapbooks. That the mail piece failed to include a political disclaimer and that Davis’ campaign was so un-cost conscious that their mailing universe included his opponent’s daughter add to the hilarity.

Best Positive Television Ads: We’ve got a lot of favorites in this category, and three ads tied to be our our number one pick. First place goes to Sherrie Matula’s campaign in HD 129 for this ad, and Joe Jaworski’s campaign for this ad, which is one of the best bio-spots we’ve seen in a long time, and Juan Garcia’s clever “Revolving Door” ad down in HD 32.

Best Negative Television Ads: Bill Dingus, who ran against House Speaker Tom Craddick comes in first in this category for his pair of clever ads using a cutout of House Speaker Tom Craddick. The runner up in this category is Wendy Davis’ campaign for Texas Senate, which ran this ad attacking Sen. Kim Brimer.

Best Negative Mailer. There were a lot of great negative or “contrast” mailers that went out this year. For us, the best of negative mailers all have something in common: they take risks, and take aim–with a very sharp knife–at the opponents proverbial balls. One mailer in particular caught our attention this year and stands out as the best in this category–we wish we had a scan of it, but we don’t. We’re talking about the controversial mailer sent by Sandra VuLe’s campaign in House District 112 that highlighted Angie Chen Button’s massive investments in some of the biggest offenders doing business and profiting from the genocide in Darfur. It was risky, it was controversial, and it was great mailer.

Dumbest Soundbite: When Tony Goolsby (R-Dallas) told the media that he was “up to his ass in a damned campaign,” and was too busy to pay much attention to the costly renovation of the House Member’s Lounge, he sealed his fate while reminding voters just how out-of-touch he was. It was, far and away, the single worst soundbite from any candidate this election cycle.

The Laws Of Thanksgiving, 2008 Edition

Vince Leibowitz — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:00:48 +0000

On Thanksgiving of 2006, Capitol Annex began what began what has become a Thanksgiving tradition on this blog: a post titled, “The Laws of Thanksgiving.” In its third year, “The Laws of Thanksgiving” has garnered more emails from readers than any other single non-political post in the history of Capitol Annex. Emails come in throughout the year from readers who have discovered the 2006 and 2007 posts in our archives.

We’ve determined that it has become an expected tradition. This year, emails started coming in early. In fact, the day after Election Day, we received an email from a longtime reader reminding us it was now time to start to work on the post, as she was expecting to see it on Thanksgiving morning.

This year’s “Laws of Thanksgiving” include a few new codifications submitted by readers. Most are from us. In a change from years past, however, we’re publishing the new revisions to the “Laws of Thanksgiving” first, and the older laws last.

Without further ado, please enjoy “The Laws of Thanksgiving, 2008 Edition.”

If you visit your local grocery store or Wal-Mart the night before Thanksgiving, the only canned green beans you’ll find will be “no salt added.”

If you’ve got some wonderful, expensive, fragrant, designer candles in your living room or elsewhere in your home and have guests coming for Thanksgiving, you’ll always have one guests who complains about the smell and goes out and puts out all of the candles. If you are especially lucky, they’ll be so aggressive in blowing them out that they’ll scatter hot wax on the walls, carpet, tables and the dog if he happens to be nearby.

The more company you have coming for the holiday, the greater chance your oven, stove, or refrigerator will go out the day before Thanksgiving. [Submitted by a reader from McAllen]

If you are spending Thanksgiving with others, there is a very high likelihood that you’ll end up spending the holiday with someone who loves to chew with their mouth wide open and, perhaps, talk while their mouth is wide open. “Accidentally” toss a glass of water into their open mouth from across the table and blame it on a nervous tick, spasm, or mini-stroke.

It’s a real bitch trying to get in to see your chiropractor the day before Thanksgiving. Seriously. [Submitted by reader Jim A. from Fort Worth]

If you serve rolls with Thanksgiving dinner, someone will ask, “what? No cornbread?” If you serve cornbread, someone will ask for a roll or a piece of bread.

If you serve wine with your Thanksgiving dinner and are having lots of family in, chances are at least one in-law will give you disapproving looks for serving booze. Spike his/her punch.

No matter what time you plan on starting your holiday meal, it is inevitible that a major sporting event will be starting at the same time and everyone will want to rush through dinner to camp out in front of a television set.

If you serve fruit salad at Thanksgiving and use anything other than apples, oranges, bananas, and cherries in the dish, you’ll have some person complain about whatever exotic fruits you’ve used.

If you have house pets–be they dogs or cats–one of your holiday guests will announce that they are allergic (whether they are or not). Tell them you’ll gladly set them up a card table in the garage to acomodate their needs.

No matter how much you seek to avoid the subjects, someone at your dinner table will bring up the subject of religion or politics. And, without question, they’ll have opinions which are polar opposites from yours. If they bring up religion, tell them you never talk religion when you are drunk. If they bring up politics, tell them you don’t discuss politics unless you are drunk. If they persist, start to talk loudly and gesture while holding a large serving spoon. Gesture toward them and “accidentally” let the spoon fly across the table and smack them in the forehead.

If small children are present, they will cry, whine, or scream throughout Thanksgiving dinner. Have another drink. In the alternative, grab a bottle of tequila from the liquor cabinet, set it in front of them, and tell whomever the parents of the child are that you always used to give your kids a shot of tequila to calm them down when they behaved like that. Most assuredly, your guests will leave quickly. Another alternative involving tequila is to have everyone around the table take a shot of tequila for every three minutes that are filled with bawling, whining, crying, or screaming. You’ll soon forget about the unruly child.

If you have guests coming to dinner, without question one of your guests will bring someone with them who is suffering from a conteagous illness such as flu. Keep a couple of surgical masks and bottles of hand sanitizer on hand. Make the sick person wear the surgical mask and order them to use hand sanitizer before they touch anything.

People will always try to get themselves invited to your home for Thanksgiving. There are a couple of solutions. When someone starts dropping hints that they want you to invite them over announce: that this will be your first “all nude” Thanksgiving; that you’re trying something new this year and serving cold cereal and toast for Thanksgiving dinner.

If you have uninvited guests coming for the holiday, ask your elderly father, father-in-law, or grandfather to talk constantly about the use of Viagra (whether they use it or not). This kind of thing disturbs most people, so they won’t stay too long.

[One reader emailed us and asked us what "Law of Thanksgiving" would apply to trying to get your kids to come and spend Thanksgiving at your home instead of at the "other in-laws." We've come up with the following Law of Thanksgiving for that purpose. Liz from Galveston, this one is for you.]

If you have difficulty getting your adult children to spend Thanksgiving at your home instead of at the homes of the “other in-laws,” announce that you’ll be redoing your will after Thanksgiving dinner and that everyone there will get to pick what they want, that those who aren’t there will have nothing to inherit, and that if no one shows up, you’ll assume nobody wants anything and you’ll will it all to your cat/dog or favorite charity. You’ll have a full house for sure.

[A reader from Dallas emailed and asked if we had a "Law of Thanksgiving" that would prevent someone who has been a multi-year, repetitive uninvited guest at Thanksgiving. The law below should apply in most instances]

If you have someone that repeatedly comes to Thanksgiving at your house and don’t quite know how to ask them to never come back, there are a couple of things you can do. Announce that your favorite wooden spoon splintered and that everyone should be mindful of giant wood shards in the dressing and other dishes. Note that this has happened for the last three years, and you didn’t say anything, and are glad that everyone was able to digest the splinters without difficulty.

There is a 50 percent chance, if you have children or children coming to visit, that you’ll spend part of Thanksgiving in your local emergency room.

Walnuts do not belong in green bean casserole. Neither do almonds, water chesnuts, pecans, peanuts, nor anything else from the “nut” family.

If you have a kindergartener present during your Thanksgiving meal, you will be forced to answer the question, “did they have this at the first Thanksgiving,” at least two dozen times. After the second or third time they are asked, announce that historians have determined that saltines, water, and prunes were actually served at the first Thanksgiving and, if they are really curious about history, you just happen to have all three and will gladly make them an alternative meal if they’ll shut up.

Resist the temptation to have your carpets professionally shampooed just before Thanksgiving because you’ll likely end up with more red wine, food, and baby vomit stains on it than you had before it was cleaned.

If you have a dog/cat you have tried to break of the habit of begging for scraps at the dinner table, you will have one guest who insists on feeding the cat or dog under the table in spite of your instructions not to do so. Gently whisk their entire place setting off the table and place it on the floor in the kitchen and tell them that if they’d like to eat with the cat/dog, they are more than welcome to do so. Common courtesy requires you provide them a towel or cushion to sit on if you have hardwood or ceramic tile floors in your kitchen.

There is a 99 percent chance that a child will wipe their mouth on your wallpaper during Thanksgiving dinner.

[An Austin reader asked how to deal with being obligated, by tradition, to attend dinner at the home of ultraconservative in-laws. This law should help.]

If you have ultraconservative relatives who family tradition has forced you to dine with during the Thanksgiving holiday and you are trying to get uninvited, make sure to ask them, when you call to make sure that dinner is still on, if your son, daughter, widowed mother, brother, sister, or neighbor can bring their new same-sex spouse, and if its all right that you celebrate their union during dinner. Chances are that you’ll find that the ultraconservative wako relatives aren’t having a dinner this year!

If you are going to visit relatives for Thanksgiving, chances are that one of your cousins or other family members of someone hosting the dinner will be present and showing off their new tattoo. There is a significant chance that the person who got the tattoo is a young woman wearing jeans three sizes too small and that you’ll be forced to look at a giant dragon tattooed on a huge muffin top with a tad of crack showing. Make sure that you have a mouth full of something when you are looking, and have an accidental coughing spell and spew wine or stuffing across the mass of the muffin top. You’ll save everyone else there from having to witness that site.

No matter how many eggs you buy for Thanksgiving, you’ll never have enough.

Every year you wish to have a quiet Thanksgiving at home, relatives you don’t particularly car for will call and insist that you drive two to three hours to spend Thanksgiving with them. There are a couple of easy solutions: claim you and yours are suffering from very contageous bronchial infections; ask if your son/daughter can bring their new girl-/boyfriend and his/her 12-member family plus two dogs and three cats and insist you can’t go without them because you promised to eat with them; tell them you are coming and bringing the turkey because you are so pleased to have been invited–insist upon bringing the turkey–and then don’t show up….you’ll never be invited back. Ever.

The Laws Of Thanksgiving, Codified 2007

From year to year, beyond your control, your local discount retailer will carry a different selection of canned pie fillings (mostly not the ones you wanted) and move them to another part of the store where you cannot find them.

If you walk down a grocery store isle with marshmallows or sugar during the three days before Thanksgiving, the sugar isle will be packed, someone will always be unloading more sugar, and there will be sugar all over the floor. The Marshmallow aisle will always be packed with people who cannot survive a single holiday without some concoction of sweet potatoes.

The vet where you have boarded you pets for the last three years will lose your reservation the day before you are supposed to bring your pets there, leaving you screwed.

Fifteen minutes before you are set to leave on your holiday trip, you’ll get an email that requires three phone calls, a fax, and a .pdf file you haven’t created yet to be sent to at least six different people before you walk out the door.

The second you sit down to your Thanksgiving meal one of two things will happen: some child will ask for ketchup for his or her turkey, and a relative you could care less about will call and want to talk for 20 minutes and have you say hello to all six of her children, none of whom like to talk on the phone, and none of whose names you will be able to remember.

The guest bathroom always runs out of toilet paper about 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving day.

Some jackass will ask you if there will be chips and dip for the game following the meal. Tell them, “yes! In the middle of preparing this entire meal and cleaning the house, I ran out and bought Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion Chips,” and then stick your tongue out at them.

Someone will ask if their children can eat in the bedroom while playing video games. As visions of your DKNY comforter covered in cranberries and gravy come to your mind, resist the temptation to be accomodating.

During dinner, someone will always ask you “whatever happened to…” and you will have no idea who they are talking about, but they’ll expect you to know. Three acceptable replies are: “They have passed on,” “I haven’t heard from them since they joined that new church…what was it, the Branch Dividians?,” and “Las time I heard from that person, they said something about ‘Columbia,’ ‘nose candy,’ and a single-engine plane. I don’t know what that was about.”

The layered desert you make every year with pudding, cherries, whipped topping, and all that jazz goes in and out of fashion by the year. Some years, people will love it. Other years, they’ll hate it. In the years where they hate it, tell them, “well, you don’t need it anyway. You’ve put on more than a few pounds over the last year.”

Every Thanksgiving, one of your relatives will end up mentioning to you that they have moved their rugrats into “private” school because they just weren’t happy with a teacher or the education system in general, or whatever. Always reply, “as dumb as they are, do you think it will make a difference?”

Sometimes, even the best cooks can screw up in the kitchen. On occasion, one might even ruin an entire dish with the wrong ingredient or through overcooking. Don’t throw it away or feed it to the dog! Set it out in the buffet line first so that your unwelcome guests can heap their plates full of mashed potatoes with cinnamon instead of pepper or green bean casserole that you accidentally loaded with sugar instead of salt. Then, before your family goes through the line, pull out the one made correctly.

When guests star to overstay their welcome into the evening, start frantically looking out the windows. When they ask what is wrong, just casually say, “Oh, there has been a serial killer loose in the neighborhood. He came to the door last night and said he’d be back tonight, and I’m just waiting for him to show up. I thought we could all jump on him and catch him and hold him until the police arrive. Won’t that be fun?”

If you don’t like your guests overstaying their welcome, make your home temporarily uninviting, if not frightening (especially for the kids!). Graphic prints of the crucifixion (you can get one at a flea market–cheap); large, framed portraits of a scowling old people; photos of Tom DeLay on every surface that will stand still; and anything from your local Wicca or voodoo shop should do the trick.

Some idiot will always load up their plate with heaps and heaps of food and then end up eating only about four bites. Immediately confront them and ask why they didn’t just go through the buffet line with a toothpick.

As gastric bypass and stomach stapling become more and more vogue, this year you may be confronted with a guest who has undergone one of these surgeries and can eat only about four teaspoonfuls of food. Very kindly grab a turkey leg, hover it over your blender, and ask if you can make them a turkey/green bean casserole smoothie. They will never be back. Then tell whomever brought them to keep them the hell out of your house so you don’t have to start feeling guilty after one heaping mouthful of potatoes.

One or more family members will insist that you go out and eat at some $20 a plate buffet the day before Thanksgiving after you’ve bought about $600 worth of groceries and done hours of pre-cooking–because they are lazy. Kindly tell them you know a great place and will gladly make the reservations and meet them there. Then print and email them a doctored Google Map that will take them to a Salvation Army Soup Kitchen or the local crack house. Call about noon to make sure they got there safe, and tell them you decided to stay home after all! Then blame it all on Google Maps and tell them they might want to stop by Burger King, because your table is already full.

Whatever the current “vogue” disease, virus, or illness is this year, someone at your dinner (possibly your favorite elderly hypocondriac) will be suffering from it, or claim to be. Bird flu, herpes, whatever. They’ve all seen the commercials and TV news and it’s just a matter of time until your 80 year old Aunt Edna tells you, “I’ve been watchin’ those Valtrex commercials and I think I’ve got that herpes!” Or, before your 73-year-old Aunt Gertrude tells you she can no longer eat cranberries because it is very bad for her Restless Leg Syndrome. Tell her you read the New England Journal of Medicine and that cranberries are good for RLS.

If you live in a rural area, someone in your family–possibly a teenager–will show up at your house with a firearm demanding you take them “hunting in the woods.” Give them a plastic Wal-Mart sack, a tube of toothpaste, a spool of thread and whatever other random items you can think of and send them off in search of a red-headed, yellow-billed Snipe. Tell them all the items must be used to attract, catch, and restrain the snipe. They’ll come back covered in toothpaste and thread and swear to God they almost had one.

Almonds do not belong in Green Bean Casserole.

Asparagus does not belong at a Thanksgiving meal unless you are having a “whose pee smells the worst” competition after dinner.

If you are unfortunate enough to go to dinner at a home where you do not have control over the table settings, chances are you’ll be sitting staring at a massive centerpiece concocted from pumpkins, tree branches, fake birds, and crushed velvet. Resist the temptation to casually remove it from the table. Instead take your lighter (or borrow one from someone who smokes), and descretly set it on fire. When someone notices, announce: “Oh, my god! The centerpiece spontainously combusted!” before throwing a large pitcher of water (which you just happened to have handy) all over it. Then tell everyone how you’ve heard all about this phenomenon on the Discovery Channel, and how precisely the same thing happened to your Aunt Edna’s Christmas centerpiece two years ago. If a child happened to make that centerpiece (oops!) and is now in tears, cheer them up by saying, “but did you see how cool it was when it burned? Did you see all the pretty colors?”

The Laws Of Thanksgiving, Codified 2006

No matter how many pies you make, you will always have failed to make the one type of pie your pickest and bitchiest guest will want.
No matter how good your dressing is, someone will always announce that their mother’s/grandmother’s is better even though your recipie came from your grandmother. You can counter this by hiring the elderly lady from down the street to hide in a back bedroom and walk out in the middle of the Thanksgiving meal to fill a plate. Totally ignore her, and when someone asks, “who’s that,” just reply: “Oh, that’s my Grandma. Her ghost shows up when people diss her stuffing recipie.” After you say this, the elderly lady should make a ghost-noise. Make sure you pay slip the elderly lady a $50 for her services.
Even if you tell everyone you invite that it is not necessary for them to bring any side dishes or desserts, they will always bring something that (a) clashes with the menu and (b) which they demand to set on the dining room table, disrupting the table setting you worked on all morning.

If you go to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving, and they announce that their friends or cousins are coming over with their kids, at least one child present will be a 16-year-old who is carrying an illegitimate child and has brought the baby’s dad along. The baby’s dad will be listening to “Sexyback” on an iPod, wearing a tee shirt, and take both legs off the turkey.

It’s always best to have some nice, cheap Sutter Home wines on hand for Thanksgiving. This way, when no one is looking, you can fill the glasses of the uninvited guests, family you hate, and others, with cheap ass wine and save the good stuff for yourself and those you truly care about.

Pumpkin pie does not travel well on a plane.

If you are going on a long trip and take your already baked desserts, some jackass sitting in the back seat will eat at least half a pie.

No matter how much you pay to attend a Thanksgiving Buffet at even the toniest of establishments, the mashed potatoes will taste like they belong in a nursing home cafeteria.

The casinos at Shreveport are always packed at Thanksgiving.

Keep a small bottle of your favorite hard liqour in the spice cabinet in the kitchen. That way, when everyone in your house is in your kitchen trying to tell you how their mother used to cook whatever it is you’re cooking, you can take a swig for sanity preservation. And, if the extra cooks get on your nerves too much, you can smack them with the bottle.

Whatever falls on the floor while you are cooking belongs to the dog. If you do not have a dog, borrow one so that they can eat what you drop, preventing you from having to bend over too frequently.

If you try to serve something classy like Cornish Game Hens, some idiot will always say, “what, no turkey?” Luckily, Cornish Game Hens are just small enough that you can throw one across the table at head of the offending guest with no lasting brain damage.

You can never have too much green bean casserole. Never. Ever.

If you decide your guests are worthy of your grandmother’s silverware, some idiot will always ask, “why are there so many forks and spoons?” Accidently throw a turkey leg at them.

No matter how many cans of cream of mushroom soup, evaporated milk, and broth you buy, you will discover that you need one more on Thanksgiving morning.

If you want to know what Hell is like, go to Wal-Mart the night before Thanksgiving and hang out in the grocery section. Better yet, try to find the Karo Syrup and cornstarch–go ahead, I dare you.

If you cannot find a particular item at the store during the rush of your Thanksgiving grocery shopping trip and also can’t find any store staff, slowly walk up and down each aisle staring straight ahead repeating loudly (and with crazed eyes) the name of the item you are seeking. Trust me, if youÂ walk up and down four or five aisles moaning “Karo Syrup! I need Karo Syrup!” an associate will quickly find it for you.

Whatever nice outfit you picked out for your Thanksgiving dinner will be ruined by dessert. Either you will spill gravy on it, someone’s child will spit-up on your shoulder, or a three-year-old will smear pumpkin pie on your pants.

No house has enough ovens to cook a proper Thanksgiving dinner.

If someone brings a dish to your Thanksgiving lunch and proudly announces that it was prepared entirely in the microwave, accidentally bump them while they are carrying it and then make them pay to have your carpets cleaned.

The best hash brown casserole is always found in the most humble of surroundings.

Keep a couple of cans of cranberry sauce on hand even if you make it from scratch. If you prepare real cranberry sauce, some jackass will complain that canned is better. Announce that you have a can you’ll gladly open and serve, and then accidentally drop it on their foot.

There is always one guest at Thanksgiving Dinner who would prefer to eat dinner in front of the television. As punishment, make sure that the kid’s table with the loudest, most obnoxious children is set up right in front of the TV.

If you serve your dinner buffet style, there will always be a child who walks through the entire line with their mother with nothing but mashed potatoes on their plate because everything else “looks gross” and they “don’t like turkey.” Tell them they can have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if (a) they can find where you keep the peanut butter, and (b) if they can make it themselves on the back porch because it will make too much of a mess in the kitchen. They’ll quickly realize they love squash casserole. It helps if you have a large doberman sitting on the back porch.
If you have a dog, it can come in very, very handy on Thanksgiving. When one of your relatives complains about the food, that you didn’t make a certain dish, or that something doesn’t taste like it should, tell them you’ll take care of it. Gently whisk away their plate (with a smile), call the dog into the room, and present the dog with the plate. Then tell the guest, “sorry, no seconds until after dessert!”

If you’re tired of your uninvited distant family members inviting themselves to your Thanksgiving dinner, invite four or five local prostitutes to share your meal with you and tell your family it’s part of your church’s ministry. Your family will probably never invite themselves back.

It’s inevitible that someone at your Thanksgiving dinner will announce they’re on a diet and can eat nothing you’ve prepared. Announce, “That’s ok! I prepared a separate dinner for the dieters!” and hand them a packet of Splenda and a straw. Tell them they are welcome to enjoy their dinner in the garage or bathroom so they aren’t tempted by the other foods.

There will always be someone at your Thanksgiving dinner for whom even a mere glass of wine is far too much. They’ll either be laughing like a 12-year-old school girl or telling jokes worse than Kinky Friedman. It is not inappropriate to slap such people silly.

Never bring business cards to Thanksgiving dinner and if you do, don’t hand them out. Why? Because no matter what your occupation, someone at the dinner who you’d prefer to never see again will need your services and want them for free because they met you at their cousin’s Thanksgiving meal. For example, if you’re a lawyer, someone will have a kid with a DWI. If you sell lumber, someone will want a load for free for a new shed.

As an addition to the above, never tell people you don’t know your real occupation at a Thanksgiving dinner because they’ll immediately decide they need your help. If you’re a banker, they’ll want you to hook them up with a loan; if you are an electrician, they’ll need a house rewired (for free). Just tell people you are a “consultant.” If they are smart enough to ask “what kind of a consultant,” reply with something like, “I consult with the principals in the nuclear power plant industry to help them assess their risks, needs, and future development with regard to federal deregulation of various aspects of the industry.” They’ll immediately decide you are too boring and move on. If they act interested and you can’t keep faking it, spill something (if you are at someone else’s house) because that always stops a conversation.

When the meal is over, you will likely want everyone out of your house. However, chances are they’ll want to plop down and watch football while spilling beer and pumpking pie all over your sofa. To prevent this, before dinner, descretly disconnect your cable or DirectTV. When someone turns on the TV and sees static, casually announce, “Oh, our receiver went out and they won’t be here until Friday to fix it. We don’t have cable anywhere in the house! That’s OK though because I rented old black and white movies from the 40s for us to watch!” Your house will clear out within minutes.

It’s always tempting to use family heirloom lenins on the dining room table at Thanksgiving. After all, that’s what they are there for. However, if there are any children that will be present, resist the temptation. Even if the kids are at another table in another room, someone will run to their mommy because cousin Johnny called them a name and smear gravy on the tablecloth.

For at least the day of Thanksgiving, everyone loves leftovers. However, if you have a lot of company, you may not have any leftovers left to enjoy after everyone has had seconds. To prevent this problem, let everyone serve themselves (or serve them) and immediately whisk the remaining food away to the fridge, etc. Guests usually will not ask you to get it back out. If they do, announce that you pledged the leftovers to a homeless shelter and that they’ll be picked up in a few minutes.

Someone will always show up to Thanksgiving dinner sick with a contageous illness like Flu. Put them at the kids table–everyone expects them to get sick in the winter anyway.

No matter what your political affiliation is, someone at your Thanksgiving dinner will want to argue with you over politics. After they’ve said one or two things, simply reply, “Well, you’ve convinced me. Your political party really is a bunch of assholes.”

If your family isn’t in the habit of saying ‘grace’ before meals, some guest will usually be somewhat offended by that and loudly ask, “aren’t we going to bless the food.” If the guests in question are protestant, announce that the Rabbi came by this morning and already did that. If the guests in question are Jewish, announce that a Catholic priest came by earlier and already did a blessing. If the guests are Baptists, tell them that the local Methodist minister already came by and did it while they were in the bathroom. If the guests are Methodist, just offer them more wine.

If your family is in the habit of saying ‘grace’ before meals and some rogue digs in before you have the opportunity to do so, loudly announce, “Well, I guess we’ll have to bless every plate here but yours!” Other good announcements include, “excuse me, but those of us here who aren’t heathen would like to give thanks to God,” and “excuse me, but I am afraid that some of this food might be undercooked, so if you don’t want e-coli or salmonella, you’d better spit that out and pray with the rest of us.” Good blessings to offer in such situations include: “Lord, please bless those of us who had the patience to wait for this prayer and condemn the rest of these sinners to Hell, amen.”

Someone will always be a “downer” during dinner by starting to cry when some other relative mentions another relative who has passed on. Interrupt and say, “yes, it’s sad, but you can bet if our late (insert name of relative that brought this on here) was here, she’d tell you to shut the hell up and eat the rest of your grean bean casserole.”

The Laws Of Thanksgiving, 2007 Edition

Vince Leibowitz — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:00:23 +0000

Last year, my post entitled “The Laws of Thanksgiving” garnered a lot of e-mails and linkage. So, I thought I’d reprise it with, of course, some 2007 editions. Since this is becoming a tradition, last year’s “laws” are first, followed by those for 2008:

The Laws of Thanksgiving, Codified 2006:

Every Thanksgiving, we realize that there are certain things that are bound to happen. Over the years, I’ve mentally compiled many of my Thanksgiving experiences and determined that these things are, in fact, laws of nature. They will happen.

So, without any further ado, the Laws of Thanksgiving.