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Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate with family-and a time to remember those who won’t have that privilege. I am thinking primarily of the 279,825 American service personnel who were, according to official Department of Defense statistics, deployed abroad as of June 30, 2008. Some of them are able to have their families with them — for instance those stationed in Germany. But most are on “unaccompanied” tours, whether in combat zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan, or even in peaceful countries such as South Korea and Japan. (And even many of the troops nominally stationed in Germany are actually...

...The big lies about America all work to undermine the sense of honor and gratitude that ought to inspire every citizen, particularly in this Thanksgiving season...

GULFPORT -- Aleshia Kellum didn't hesitate when asked what she's thankful for this Thanksgiving - having her husband home after nearly a year. Sgt. Jeffrey Kellum of Gulfport was among 34 Marines who returned home to their families Tuesday night after leaving last January for training in California and then to Iraq. The Marines are from 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion. Aleshia Kellum tried to keep up with her energetic 4-year-old son, Riley, who also was excited at the thought of seeing his dad again. "That was my biggest concern - the holidays," she said. "It...

Puns & Other Word Play Many see puns as cheap humor, one-liners, or groaners, despite their prevalence in our culture. They are most often seen in the names of businesses, or advertising. Others, like the writer Jonathan Swift, see them as a challenging art form, where one shapes words like a cobbler bends leather. 'Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words,' said Swift, 'which, passing in at the ears, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart. However...

Military Exchange Prepaid Calling Cards The Department of Defense Military Exchanges have been authorized to sell the following prepaid calling cards to individuals and organizations who wish to purchase these cards for our troops serving overseas in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Freeper Canteen: What Does Your Thanksgiving Meal Says About You?   Today We Want To Know...What Your Thanksgiving Meal Says About You Click here and take the quiz! At the last question, choose HTML, then submit, to get your answer. After you do so, please post your findings in the Canteen!   Have fun! 

resident George Washington proclaimed Thursday November 26, 1789 as a day of national thanksgiving to God "for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degreee of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;...

Both state and federal governments in the United States ought to take a very simple lesson from America's first failed experiment with socialism. The Pilgrims are generally credited with starting the Thanksgiving tradition . . .

STATE OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. IN COMMITTEE of SAFETY, EXETER, November 1, 1782. ORDERED, THAT the following Proclamation for a general THANKSGIVING on the twenty-eighth day of November, received from the honorable Continental Congress, be forthwith printed, and sent to the several worshipping Assemblies in this State, to whom it is recommended religiously to observe said day, and to abstain from all servile labour thereon. M. WEARE, President. By the United States in Congress assembled. PROCLAMATION. IT being the indispensable duty of all Nations, not only to offer up their supplications to ALMIGHTY GOD, the giver of all good, for his gracious...

Great links for just about everything related to , or about Thanksgiving. Have at it, Freepers, and Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

http://www.OurCountryPAC.org presents this wonderful new television ad thanking Gov. Sarah Palin. The ad will run around the Thanksgiving holiday.

My fellow Americans, it appears we’ve hit a rough stretch. Our economy is barely functioning; unemployment is rising; our stock market is collapsing, our elected leaders are failing us and to top it all off, our fiercest enemies are celebrating the election of our new President. Soon, our Government will tell us they have the answers and ask us to sacrifice freedom for relief. As Thanksgiving approaches, it sure doesn’t appear like we have much to be thankful for. But things aren’t always as they appear. We have everything to be thankful for because we live in the greatest country...

With Thanksgiving two days away and family inbound from Boulder and Atlanta, I wanted to write about what this day means to me. The idea of Thanksgiving puts a lump in my throat in a way that even Christmas doesn’t, because this is a holiday that showcases courageous individualism. Thanksgiving celebrates people who abandoned their homes in search of freedom of worship, freedom of expression, and freedom of association and enterprise. Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October and, while theirs is a more pointedly secular observance, the origins of the day are similar to ours. Canadian Thanksgiving is based upon a...

Is the government's observance of Thanksgiving a violation of the separation of church and state? This past week, a Newsweek/Washington Post editorial labeled presidential Thanksgiving Day proclamations as "cracks in the wall of separation." The author explained, "The problem with these proclamations, it seems to me, is that they pave the way for public acceptance of gross violations of the constitutional separation of church and state." What?! Forget for a moment that nearly every president since George Washington (and the Continental Congress before him) has given Judeo-Christian proclamations for Thanksgiving (except between 1816 and 1861) and also has declared other...

Feel free to cross-post this to other boards of which you may be a member. In keeping with the Thanksgiving spirit, I thought I'd put this up for those who are going to deep fry their turkey and especially for those who will be attempting to deep fry their first turkey. Make sure you use fresh peanut oil for the frying. You can reuse the oil up to 3 times (2 is preferable) if you're deep frying multiple turkeys. NOTE: If you have a deep fryer that says it can hold an 18 lb. turkey, DO NOT use a turkey...

Political Correctness Claims Another Victim: 40-Year-Old Kindergarten Thanksgiving Celebration Killed by Political Correctness Gone Wild "Racist" children celebrate Thanksgiving by "dehumanizing" American Indians In yet another case of political correctness run amok, a forty year history of kindergarteners dressed as pilgrims and native Americans celebrating Thanksgiving at school has been quashed in Claremont, California, due to four people who complained the celebration used "racist stereotypes" which were "dehumanizing". According to the Los Angeles Times, parents of kindergarteners are "furious" over the Claremont School Board's decision to ban the kiddies wearing costumes after one mom, Michelle Raheja, an English professor at...

CLAREMONT - Audience members at the school board meeting argued among themselves about whether elementary school students should dress in costume for a Thanksgiving feast. "The Thanksgiving story has been disproved as a myth," parent Diana Linden told the Claremont Unified school board on Thursday night. The board meeting - held for the first time in new district offices at 170 W. San Jose Ave. - was packed with opinionated people on both sides of the issue. The audience cheered loudest for speakers in favor of having the feast in costume. One parent told the school board not to be...

In his 2008 Thanksgiving Day message released today, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted the wartime similarities between today and the proclamation of the national holiday 140 years ago. Here is the text of Mullen’s message: Citing the many blessings bestowed upon the United States, these timeless words were delivered by Abraham Lincoln in his 1863 proclamation establishing Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday: “It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do...

PETA Condemns Sarah Palin's Turkey Slaughter News Conference By Samantha Chang The horrific video of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin blithely discussing her failed vice presidential bid as a live turkey is slaughtered behind her has ignited a media firestorm. Palin, 44, was an unknown local politician until John McCain plucked her out of obscurity and chose her as his running mate on Aug. 29. Since then, Palin has come under fire for her vast ignorance of current affairs, incoherent babblings to the press and her lavish $150,000 wardrobe, courtesy of the Republican National Committee. But her latest scandal takes the...

A holiday all about seasonal food presents a real opportunity to eat sustainably. But making the right choices is more complicated than you think. Should you buy local or organic? Or is what you eat -- and how much -- more important? Researchers are racing to find an answer. Some are analyzing cooking methods and calculating the "carbon life cycles" of food. The Bon Appetit Management Company Foundation, a nonprofit organization that educates consumers about the impact of food choices, assigns carbon points to a variety of ingredients. (Each point is equal to one gram of gases that contribute to...

[NOTE - This politically-correct article is posted here so you can see the garbage coming from Madison, Wisconsin this Thanksgiving. Pay attention to the dates referenced. Rush also referenced it today, so i thought I'd post it here for your perusal. Not to be read too soon after eating cookies, or you'll lose them.] ******************************************************* Everything you know about the "first" Thanksgiving is wrong. Plymouth Rock. Pilgrims. Perseverance. Big feast. Happy Indians sharing in the bounty. According to "award-winning" filmmaker Patty Loew, it's all bunk, except maybe the part about eating turkey. Early settlers were so hungry they ate about...

Post your favorite recipes for Thanksgiving Here for ALL FReepers to share! Pies, Gravies, Stuffings........Squirrel?.....

PLYMOUTH - It may be 2008, but staff members at Plimoth Plantation's Wampanoag Homesite regularly have to ask little boys to stop war-whooping and little girls to remove costume feathered headdresses and beaded dresses brought from home. Parents must be admonished for making jokey greetings like "How" or calling the performers "Chief," "Squaw," or "Indian." Just last week, an adult chaperone of a school group had to be corrected for asking Tim Turner, a staff interpreter who is a member of the Cherokee Nation, where he bought his alcohol. "I told him straight out that wasn't appropriate, especially not in...

He is the bridge that connects Thanksgiving to Christmas, autumn to winter, the calm store aisles of early November to the go-go-go shopping season of December. Santa Claus is expected to arrive in Herald Square a few minutes before noon. He will follow 10 bands, 13 giant balloons, 28 floats, 900 clowns and 1,700 cheerleaders. Millions of people will line the streets of Manhattan, waiting for the moment when Jolly Old St. Nick puts the finishing touches on this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 82nd Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade When: 9 a.m. to noon Thursday Where: Manhattan...

Saying thanks, it turns out, isn't just pious or polite. It's good for you ... But there's a catch: You have to do it even when the calendar does not say "Thanksgiving." "It doesn't really work if you do it only once a year," says Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at the University of California-Riverside. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/painter/2008-11-23-your-health_N.htm

As we progress through liturgical time we are invited to experience the great events of faith. Through our readings and liturgical prayer, we are invited during this last week of the year to reflect on the “last things”- death, judgment, heaven and hell. We do so in order to change, to be converted, and thus to enter more fully into the Divine plan. The Western Church year ends. On the great Feast of Christ the King we celebrate the full and final triumph and return of the One through whom the entire universe was created; in whom it is being...

Strictly for the birds ....for your Happy Thanksgiving Every year I get dozens of inquires about what to do to get a moist, delicious turkey, ..well in case you were going to ask... A Perfectly Roasted Turkey As Thanksgiving approaches, cooking the traditional turkey dinner gives rise to questions on the best way to roast a turkey and how to tell for sure when its done. Check these answers to serve a "perfectly roasted turkey". What's the best way to roast a turkey? This traditional method consistently creates a juicy, tender, golden brown turkey! Set the oven temperature no ...

A FEW RECIPES WOULDN'T BE BAD, EITHER!......

Is there anything worse than having to discuss politics with your relatives over Thanksgiving dinner? There are times when I actually think death is preferable to having to do the McLaughlin Group thing with the folks on this particular holiday. I’d rather just eat and let the turkey put me to sleep. But it never goes that way. One wishes for a federal law—or, at the very least, a mute button—that could stop families from getting into political fights over the holidays. Red vs. blue debates fueled by cranberry sauce and stuffing are little more than verbal jousts where half-wits...

Stuffing yourself with stuffing and turkey and mashed potatoes and all the fixings will cost more this Thanksgiving than last year, according to the annual market basket survey from the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation. A traditional holiday meal for a family of eight will cost $42.37 this year, $2.72 more than the $39.66 spent on the 14 items in the basket in 2007. Practically every item went up in price this year, except for some of the vegetables including sweet potatoes, carrots and peas. Even with the higher prices, Farm Bureau spokesman Paul Ketring said a homemade Thanksgiving dinner is...

FORT HUACHUCA — Two tons of frozen turkeys, with a value of nearly $3,000, were delivered to the Main Post Chapel on Friday morning to help feed soldiers’ families on Thanksgiving. Another 50 turkeys — with an estimated weight of 750 pounds with an approximate value of $650 — will be delivered Monday to go along with $15,500 in gift cards to purchase other food at Fry’s Food Stores of Arizona to ensure 310 military families will have complete holiday meals on Thursday. Employees of Sundt, a construction contractor on the fort, delivered the 260 turkeys on Friday. The project...

The Real Story Behind Thanksgiving Did you know that the first [Plymouth Colony Pilgrim's] Thanksgiving was a celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative?William Bradford was the governor of the original Pilgrim colony, founded at Plymouth in 1621. The colony was first organized on a communal basis, as their financiers required. Land was owned in common. The Pilgrims farmed communally, too, following the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" precept.The results were disastrous. Communism didn't work any better 400 years ago than it does today. By 1623, the colony had...

Overcoming Socialism. Great, short, video about the REAL truth behind why we celebrate Thanksgiving. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igdCrePWTF4

Drumstick or breast for accused daddy killer? Details at 11! If that wasn't quite how the Early Show played it, it's not far off. Of all the angles to promote its coverage of the story of the eight-year old accused of killing his father, CBS highlighted the issue of . . . where the boy would celebrate Thanksgiving. View video here.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Anne Blue Wills, assistant professor of religion at Davidson, explains that the current version of Thanksgiving was created by a journalistic crusader, and would have been unrecognizable to the Pilgrims it supposedly honors.The holiday came about through fifty years of relentless promotion by Sarah Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine. She promoted it in columns and stories in her magazine until President Abraham Lincoln finally bestowed it national recognition.Wills emphasized that Thanksgiving was never a regular ritualized holiday during the Pilgrim era. Instead, it was an occasional event declared as needed by clergy...

Thanksgiving is just around the corner so I thought it would be fun for people to share their favorite recipes. Take one and/or leave one. ;o)

"... At first, they decided to turn their back on all the institutions of the England that had been their home. This included the institution of private property, which they declared to be the basis of greed, averse, and selfishness. Instead, they were determined to live the “Platonic ideal” of collectivism, in which all work would be done in common, with the rewards of their collective efforts evenly divided among the colonists. Farming was done in common, as well as housekeeping and child raising. This was supposed to lead to prosperity and brotherly love. But their experiment in collectivism did...

Wilburr is an animation of a pig that is happy and thankful! Happy Thanksgiving!

RUSH: Now, the real story of Thanksgiving: "On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible," and this is what's not taught. This is what's left out. "The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Rosie O'Donnell is returning to television as host of a live variety show on NBC. The network will air "Rosie's Variety Show" as an hour-long special the night before Thanksgiving, with an eye toward expansion to a full series should viewers embrace the project. The special will feature celebrity guests, musical acts, comedy skits and a prize give-away for the show's in-studio and home audiences. The show's November 26 airdate manages to trump Fox's upcoming variety show starring Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, which is expected to debut in the winter or spring. For NBC, the...

A majority of Americans believe religious displays, prayers at school and the Ten Commandments display in a court building should be legal in the United States, a new study showed.  While religious Americans were more likely to agree, a majority of those who are not religious also believe such religious expressions and practices should be allowed, according to Ellison Research which conducted the research on a sample of 1,007 adults. The study was released Thursday.Survey results revealed that 98 percent of born-again Americans compared to 81 percent of those not born again believe voluntary student-led prayer at public school events,...

For anyone who finds the very prospect of carving a turkey tomorrow brings them out in a sweat, help is at hand. A 200-year-old book has recently been discovered detailing the traumas faced by the head of the table when preparing and carving the bird, and giving crucial advice on how to get it right and impress your guests. It says manners and etiquette are vital, and the ability to carve with "ease and grace" gains great respect among fellow diners. advertisementOn no account must the carver stand up while doing the deed, but must always have a chair high...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chinese and American military officials have agreed to put behind them a dispute over China's refusal to allow port calls to Hong Kong by U.S. Navy warships, a Chinese official said Tuesday. China has hinted that its denials of port calls for the USS Kitty Hawk and eight other ships were triggered by Congress' honoring of the Dalai Lama and U.S. arms sales to Chinese rival Taiwan. The rejection of the ships drew protests from the United States and led the Bush administration to call China's Washington defense attache to the Pentagon to hear complaints about the...

What could the USS Kitty Hawk and Citigroup possibly have in common? I'll start with the aircraft carrier because I'm still stewing over what happened when the People's Republic of China abruptly denied the USS Kitty Hawk and its accompanying ships and submarines their routine, scheduled Thanksgiving berth in Hong Kong, where hundreds of crew members' families had gathered (at considerable expense) to celebrate the holiday with their loved ones. First, there was the nasty act itself. News accounts speculated about the "reason" -- was it President Bush's recent meeting with the Dalai Lama? Our latest arms agreement with Taiwan?...

BEIJING, Nov. 29 — China denied permission for a United States aircraft carrier battle group and other American warships to visit Hong Kong last week because of the Bush administration’s proposal to sell upgrades to Patriot antimissile batteries to Taiwan, Chinese state media said today. Beijing also said today that Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi had not told President Bush in a meeting Wednesday that the decisions to deny the ship visits were a “misunderstanding,” as the White House had reported after the talks.“Reports that Foreign Minister Yang said in the United States that it was a misunderstanding do not accord...

During the Thanksgiving holiday, many of us reach way back in our memory banks to recall those old grade school lessons about the Pilgrims. Many of us were taught that the Pilgrims prospered once Squanto taught them North American horticulture, but there’s more to the story. For some years, the Pilgrims continued to suffer from famine. It turns out it was of their own making. The Pilgrims practiced communism. They shared and shared alike, farming together on community property. They starved and starved alike, too. Casting about for a solution, William Bradford, Plymouth’s long-time Governor eventually “allowed each man to...

Now that the 2007 end-of-year holiday season is officially underway, I want to offer some heart-felt politically insensitive expressions of happiness and well wishes. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It seems that each year another distortion or misinterpretation of the First Amendment generates another attack on our end-of-year season for thanks to God, celebration and hope. These attacks are intended to put the rest of us on the defensive about our faith, culture and history, and claim a victory for political correctness. The latest? A Washington state school district issued a memo to its teachers...

Dear President Bush, I had a nice Thanksgiving this year. I was thankful primarily for my faith, my family, my health and my relationships. I was also grateful for elements of the bigger picture, including unprecedented economic growth and a decline in poverty in much of the world, a significantly improved situation in Iraq, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tim Russert’s debate question about driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. But there was at least as much, if not more, that I simply could not be thankful for.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2007 – More than 130,000 Americans sent messages of gratitude this week to the nation's troops through the "Giving Thanks" text messaging initiative. The initiative is part of America Supports You, a Defense Department program connecting citizens and corporations with military personnel and their families serving at home and abroad. "The 'Giving Thanks' text message campaign has been a wonderful example of how Americans are still passionate about supporting the troops and saying thank you for their service," said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense for internal communication and public liaison. "Hopefully, our troops serving in 177...

The website The Black Commentator defined the loony left by calling for the end of the Thanksgiving holiday, since it's apparently an event for white supremacists. This is more about the Internet than the mainstream media, but remember that liberal blacks the news producers treat as sensible pundits -- like Julian Bond of the hallowed NAACP and Julianne Malveaux, the woman who hoped on PBS that Clarence Thomas would die young -- are on this website's board. Here's just a snippet of their anti-Thanksgiving rant: Nobody celebrates Thanksgiving quite like Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. It is reserved by history and the...