British Shopkeeper Fights Off Knife-Wielding Attacker With Broom

At Mirror UK, "Hero shopkeeper fights off knife robber with broom." And at London's Daily Mail, "Shocking moment robber takes shop assistant hostage with a knife to her throat... before brave boss fights him off with a BROOM."

Black Friday Sales Pay Off for Retailers

At Los Angeles Times, "Early Black Friday sales appear to pay off for retailers."

An early kickoff to the holiday shopping season appeared to pay off for retailers, who bet correctly that extended late-night hours would draw even more bargain hunters to the annual Black Friday extravaganza.

The shopping frenzy, although marred by a pepper spray incident at a San Fernando Valley Wal-Mart, bodes well for increased consumer spending as the year draws to a close. It would be the latest in a series of modest improvements to an economy still trying to shake free from the lingering effects of the devastating recession of 2007-09.

"People have had so many years of recession that they want to spend money and feel good about themselves," said Ron Friedman, a retail expert at advisory and accounting firm Marcum in Los Angeles. "And many people have set money aside and are paying off their credit cards more, so people can spend a little bit more than last year."

This is a make-or-break season for retailers, and they pulled out the stops. Wal-Mart rolled out some of its sale items to shoppers at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Other major chains including Target, Best Buy, Macy's and Kohl's all opened at midnight for the first time.

RELATED: From Reuters, "Midnight Black Friday start likely to become norm."

Wal-Mart Black Friday

At Los Angeles Times, "Wal-Mart's unhappy holiday tradition: Black Friday violence." A customer was shot during an attempted parking lot robbery at Wal-Mart in San Leandro, Calfornia. In Kissimmee, Florida, a man was arrested after a scuffle at the Wal-Mart jewelry counter. And in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a couple was attacked as they were were leaving a Wal-Mart around 1am. And, in a separate Los Angeles Times report, "In Porter Ranch, a woman pepper sprayed customers at a Wal-Mart in what authorities say was a deliberate attempt to get more 'door buster' merchandise."

I knew we'd be hearing stories like this. My wife and I took a trip with our boys over to the Wal-Mart at Foothill Ranch. I was going to pick up a Compaq laptop for $199.00, or an HP for $248.00, but they were sold out by the time we got in the store, at about 12:40am. My wife picked up some toys for my youngest and we were out of there by 2:00am. There were probably 1,000 people lined up out front. It was a pretty orderly affair. No surges. No violence. No drama. Just early morning Black Friday shopping. It's a phenomenon nowadays, a weird one:

Community of Holocaust Survivors Dwindles in Queens

At New York Times, "A Community of Survivors Dwindles":

ONE thing about life in New York: wherever you are, the neighborhood is always changing. An Italian enclave becomes Senegalese; a historically African-American corridor becomes a magnet for white professionals. The accents and rhythms shift; the aromas become spicy or vegetal. The transition is sometimes smooth, sometimes bumpy. But there is a sense of loss among the people left behind, wondering what happened to the neighborhood they once thought of as their own.

For Sophia Goldberg, change has meant the end of a way of life.

On a recent morning Ms. Goldberg sat in her tidy seventh-floor living room, surrounded by needlepoint portraits stitched by her own hands, and sighed over the changes immediately around her.

Ms. Goldberg, 98, lives in a 19-story apartment house in Flushing, Queens, one of two neighboring buildings that were erected for survivors of the Holocaust. When she moved there in 1978, she said, her neighbors formed a tight community of predominantly Jewish refugees like her who had fled to the United States from Austria or Germany.

“We had parties,” Ms. Goldberg said, her voice barely above a whisper. “We had card games. It was our people. We had Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in our apartment.”

Now, she said, “It’s completely changed — I have no neighbors here.”

For Ms. Goldberg, the transformation has been steady and overwhelming. Of the 326 residents in her building, now only 31 are Holocaust survivors, and only 7 of them are German or Austrian.

The new neighbors are friendly enough. But she said: “We do not talk. We say hello, goodbye. But that’s it. They don’t speak German. They don’t speak English. They speak Russian and Chinese. Sometimes they just shake their heads.”

Continue Reading.

The article links to Selfhelp Community Services, established in 1936 to help German émigrés flee Nazi persecution and settle in the United States. That generation is getting very old. No wonder Ms. Goldberg hasn't many friends around these days.

Black Friday Sales Show Divide Between Shoppers

At New York Times, "Opening Day for Shoppers Shows Divide":

As the busiest retail weekend of the year begins late Thursday night, the differences between how affluent and more ordinary Americans shop in the uncertain economy will be on unusually vivid display.

Budget-minded shoppers will be racing for bargains at ever-earlier hours while the rich mostly will not be bothering to leave home.

Toys “R” Us, Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Best Buy and Target will start their Black Friday sales earlier than ever — at 9 and 10 p.m. in some instances — with dirt-cheap offers intended to secure their customers’ limited dollars. A half a day later, on Friday morning, higher-end stores like Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom will open with only a sprinkling of special sales.

The low-end and midrange retailers are risking low margins as they cut prices to attract shoppers, while executives at luxury stores say that they are actually able to sell more at full price than in recent boom years.

“We’re now into a less promotional environment than we were before the recession,“ said Stephen I. Sadove, chairman and chief executive of Saks. In the third quarter, for instance, Saks reduced the length of an annual sale to three days from four, and excluded the high-margin category of cosmetics from another regular sale.

Retail analysts are expecting a decent holiday season, with many estimating that sales will increase about 3 percent over last year, with contributions from shoppers across income levels. Yet the Friday after Thanksgiving, the kickoff to the highest-revenue weeks for stores, is expected to lay bare the increasingly parallel universes of retailing in America, the analysts said.

“Those in a more modest income situation are the people who are going to the Wal-Marts and the Best Buys and the Targets at 8, 9, 10, 11 p.m. with little kids in tow because they can’t afford a baby sitter,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultant firm. “It’s a very unpleasant shopping experience, frankly, for a lot of people.”

Right. Kids are unpleasant. Can't afford a babysitter. Give me a break.

Now back to the real world.

This parallel universe is mostly bullshit. Whatever divide we have in the holiday shopping experience isn't just now emerging. I worked valet parking at South Coast Plaza back in the 1980s. And I'll tell you, that's some high-powered shopping over there. Not too many discount stores. Wealthy people were everywhere. Folks with less didn't shop there. I didn't much shop there, except maybe at Broadway or some of the bookstores open back then. The rest was designer boutiques and high-end department stores, like Saks, cited at the Times piece. Perhaps such journalism provides sympathy for the oppressed 99 percent. But smart readers can see through the crap. They enjoy the time with their families over the holidays and they get back to work the week after Black Friday.

After Assad

From James H. Anderson, at World Affairs, "After the Fall: What’s Next for Assad":

In a spectacular case of bad timing and even worse judgment, Vogue magazine published a glam profile of President Bashar al-Assad’s wife last March, just around the time her husband’s regime started brutalizing unarmed regime protestors. Deeming Asma al-Assad “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies,” the puff piece glossed over the dictatorial essence of the Assad dynasty and missed altogether the fact that it was about to experience the heavy weather of the Arab Spring.

Assad has cast himself as the only thing standing between order and a sectarian bloodbath, denouncing the unarmed protestors as “saboteurs” and “terrorists” while unleashing snipers, tanks, artillery, and even naval gunfire against unarmed civilians, killing, according to the UN’s very conservative estimates, more than three thousand and imprisoning ten thousand more since March 2011.

The apple does not fall far from the dictatorial tree. In February 1982, Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, killed an estimated twenty thousand civilians in putting down a rebellion in Hama (now, understandably, a hot spot in today’s insurgency). The massacre gave rise to the phrase “Hama Rules,” which became shorthand for extreme brutality. But Assad the younger faces a much broader and more determined opposition than his father ever did, and the trajectory of his slow-motion downfall is becoming increasingly clear. So much so that the question in Syria today is not only how to get rid of the tyrant, but what the nation will look like when he’s gone.

Also, at Telegraph UK, "The UN intensifies pressure on Syria as Turkey compares Bashar al-Assad to Hitler."

'Push'

Well, since I'm on the music, here's Rob Thomas and friends. Thomas' solo outfit played at Harrah's Rincon earlier this year. Looking for an encore in 2012 and I'll check 'em out:

'Round Here'

Amazing how time flies. I saw these dudes in Santa Barbara in the 1990s, when they hit the big time:

Avoiding Europe's Downward Spiral

Via Chicks on the Right:

Is Stephen Walt Responsible for Inspiring Terror Suspect Jose Pimentel?

He's not, but he should be held to the same standards by which he attacks his ideological enemies.

See Omri Ceren, at Commentary:

ABC News disclosed last night that arrested New York City terror suspect Jose Pimentel “spent much of his time on the Internet… and maintained a radical website called TrueIslam1.” TrueIslam1 has a number of sections, most of them handed over to Islam and jihad. There are two only sections that deal straightforwardly with politics: one labeled “Politics” and one labeled “The U.S.A.”

Both sections have different articles and both of course still contain plenty of Islamic theology – ergo the concept of political Islam – but they have one thing in common. They both have links to free downloads of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s book The Israel Lobby. Other than those links there doesn’t appear to be any overlapping content between the two sections. Apparently, Pimentel thought Walt and Mearsheimer’s feverish opus was something that needed to be read and distributed...

Continue reading.

And here's this at Atlas Shrugs:

Walt’s paranoid worldview and its concomitant conspiratorial images are the stuff of ancient anti-Jewish bigotry. They seem to resonate deeply with online and offline jihadists, who give them priority of place next to tracts calling for genocidal warfare. And unlike Geller and Spencer, Walt has an entire media industry helping him make anti-Semitism respectable. On that last point, see Lee Smith’s Tablet Magazine expose from last year.

U.S. Troops Celebrate Last Thanksgiving in Iraq

At Fox News:

American troops marked their last Thanksgiving in Iraq Thursday with turkey, stuffing and a rocket fire alarm.

Fewer than 20,000 American troops remain in Iraq at eight bases across the country. All of the forces must be out of Iraq by the end of this year, and American soldiers have been busily packing up their equipment and heading south.

Many of the bases no longer have civilian contractors making meals for them, so the troops have been eating prepackaged meals.

These folks deserve our everlasting thanks.

Also: "Video: Thanksgiving Feast: Last Real Meal in Iraq."

Occupy Movements Nationwide Celebrate Holiday

A break from the mayhem.

At USA Today:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Most Americans spent Thanksgiving snug inside homes with families and football. Others used the holiday to give thanks alongside strangers at outdoor Occupy encampments, serving turkey or donating their time in solidarity with the anti-Wall Street movement that has gripped a nation consumed by economic despair.

In San Francisco, hundreds of campers at Justin Herman Plaza in the heart of the financial district prepared turkey dinners that were handed out by volunteers, church charities and supporters of the movement against social and economic inequality.
Across the bay in Oakland, where protesters and police previously clashed when an Occupy encampment was broken up, occupiers enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast outside City Hall with music and activist speakers, including Clyde Bellecourt, co-founder of the Minnesota-based American Indian Movement.

And in New York, Occupy organizers distributed Thanksgiving meals at Zuccotti Park, where the protest movement began on Sept. 17 before spreading nationwide. Protesters were evicted from the park on Nov. 15.

"So many people have given up so much to come and be a part of the movement because there is really that much dire need for community," said Megan Hayes, a chef and organizer with the Occupy Wall Street Kitchen in New York. "We decided to take this holiday opportunity to provide just that — community."

Oh, please.

These people need to take a bath and start pounding the pavement for jobs.

Losers.

Ndamukong Suh Ejected as Lions Lose to Packers

Thanksgiving football.

At New York Times, "Lions Lose Their Cool and Game Against Packers."

Egyptian Generals Apologize for Bloodshed but Reject Calls to Leave Power

At New York Times, "Egypt Military and Protesters Dig In for a Long Standoff."

Also, at Business Week, "Egyptian Army Says Holding Power Is a 'Curse' It Can't Escape."

GOP Voters Skeptical of Mitt Romney

At Los Angeles Times, "Mitt Romney still faces a trust deficit with GOP voters."

As other Republican candidates have stumbled their way toward the presidential primaries, Mitt Romney has put together what would seem to be all the elements of a winning campaign: an effective staff, a robust treasury and smooth, knowledgeable performances both in debates and on the trail.

But for months, the threshold of support for the former Massachusetts governor hasn't inched above a quarter of Republican voters in national polls. For many GOP voters in early primary states, hesitation about Romney comes back to one thing: their perception that he has routinely molded his views to suit the political mood, with ambition his overriding principle.

"He's not a person we could trust to lead our country," said Angela Cesar, a 41-year-old Republican from Ypsilanti, Mich., who said Romney had changed his position on too many issues. "He's going to be listening to voices outside. I want someone who can hear his own voice — a clear voice."

Steve Holroyd, a 54-year-old chef from Rye, N.H., was initially attracted to Romney's candidacy, but now describes him as evasive: "The more I listen to him, the more he just kind of flip-flops and doesn't know where he stands on anything."

Romney's advisors say the argument that their candidate is a political contortionist will not resonate because voters are concerned about the economy — and little else. But in his failed 2008 bid, when the issue was raised — as now — by opponents, it hit its mark not because of the issues involved but because of what Romney's flip-flops suggested about his character.

The campaign demonstrated sensitivity to the problem in this race: Romney has strongly defended the health insurance mandate that he instituted in Massachusetts, even though it is reviled by GOP voters, rather than reverse himself on it. Romney's aides have also leveled charges of flip-flopping at GOP rival Rick Perry and at President Obama, who Romney strategist Stuart Stevens said has "a new slogan and a new mission every day."

Asked about the criticism during a recent Michigan debate, Romney said: "I think people understand that I'm a man of steadiness and constancy."

Steadiness and constancy.

Right.

Video: Via Right Klik.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Serves Thanksgiving Meal to Troops at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson

At Boston Globe, "Giffords serves Thanksgiving meal at Ariz. base."

Early Thanksgiving Dinner

This wasn't as bountiful a spread as we usually lay out. My wife had to be at work at 2:00pm. She's an assistant store manager at a major national arts and crafts retailer. I'd mention the name, but it's not worth having my wife's life threatened by the likes of Walter James Casper III and his demonic progressive totalitarians.

She cooked turkey breast with mashed potatoes and gravy, green-bean casserole, stuffing and hot rolls. And there's cranberry on the side, of course. It was lovely.

And don't miss the Thanksgiving blogging at Maggie's Farm, "Why is American Thanksgiving about food?", and "Very Fitting For Thanksgiving."

Obama Neglects to Thank God in Thanksgiving Address

At Los Angeles Times, "Obama criticized on Twitter for Thanksgiving remarks omitting God." And see Todd Starnes, at Fox News, "Obama Leaves God Out of Thanksgiving Address."

Progressive Heads Explode Over Islamic Butterball Turkeys!

I saw this on Twitter earlier, from the Israel-hating pro-terror progressive blog Mondoweiss, "Pamela Geller’s Islamophobia hits new low with Thanksgiving Day smear of dietary laws."

Right. "Islamophobia." It's not Islamophobia when they're really trying to kill you. Come to think of it, it's not like authorities are overreacting, or anything.

And Pamela has a huge roundup on the exploding progressive hatred, "CLEAN UP, MEAT AISLE: TALKING HEADS EXPLODING OVER HALAL BUTTERBALLS."

Great News! Molotov Occupy Protester Released from Jail, Returns to Zuccotti Park

At New York Daily News, "Molotov madman who said on YouTube he would bomb Macy's is out of jail and back at Zuccotti Park: Nkrumah Tinsley is bailed out by Occupy Wall Street movement and has rejoined protest."

And check Pamela's, "WEAPONS CACHE FOUND DURING CLEANUP OF OBAMA-ENDORSED #OCCUPY WALL STREET."