The Wisconsin Department of Health Services found it necessary to issue a tweet reminding the local populace that raw meat is dangerous.

Evidently, there is a holiday custom of eating raw meat.

For many #Wisconsin families, raw meat sandwiches are a #holiday tradition, but eating raw meat is NEVER recommended because of the bacteria it can contain. Ground beef should always be cooked to 160 degrees! Get more holiday food safety tips: https://t.co/h3fi4TfPye #foodsafety pic.twitter.com/jDqmkt6uOU

— WIDeptHealthServices (@DHSWI) December 12, 2020

Missed it by that much.

As I get older Fred the Dog becomes the best part of Smokey and the Bandit.

Something just came out of the back of the helicopter…

If I put these here next-year I will only have to search once:

The Campbell's Green Bean Casserole Recipe: This is essentially vegetarian Tuna Noodle Casserole. I am always OK to skip this but my daughter and mother both demand it.

Emeril's Bourbon Sweet Mashed Potatoes: I love these, as does my mother. My daughter hates them. This is what denotes 'Thanksgiving' from 'Another Turkey Dinner' for me. I only make them at holiday time.

Bon Appetit Extra Buttery Mashed Potatoes: My father will complain about the dairy, as if there isn't heavy cream in the Sweet Mashed Potatoes. He and my mother will take lactose pills. There will be no leftover mashed potatoes.

I have made cranberry sauce before but the jellied stuff out of the can is what my daughter and I prefer. Stuffing comes from a box. Gravy I usually just buy a few jars as I am not entertained by making it. Turkey we've discussed elsewhere.

I will be preparing food for my parents, and delivering it, but we will be dining in our respective homes and joining the rest via teleconference.

Some family members insist on playing 'Alice's Restaurant' every Thanksgiving. I don't really understand why, but this version is different.

I prefer smoked turkey but my father hates it so every year for this holiday we put the turkey in the oven!

I can not recall ever thinking oven roasted turkey was particularly better or worse dependent on seasonings, methods, rituals, or even the price paid for said bird. Turkey for .49 cents/lb is often indistinguishable from $2.49/lb turkey.

Wine? After the first bottle who cares!

This year, to facilitate diving the turkey and delivering ½ of it to my parents for our tele-Thanksgiving dinner, I will be spatchcocking our turkey.

I just like saying spatchcock. I read someplace once it comes from 'dispatched cock.' In practice spatchcockin' is just cutting the spine out of a bird, flattening it and cooking it.

I usually spatchcock my chickens for smoking or pan roasting, I have never before spatchcocked a turkey — but everything about it makes sense for this years holiday. The bird will cook faster and it will be very easy to just cut it in half (it is easy with a chicken anyways — I am prepared for an epic disaster.)

Aficionados of spatchcock and roasted turkey sure do go on about it.

UPDATE: The Georgia Peach Corps effort has been fully funded! I believe they have far exceeded the initial goal of $100k. The organizers thank you as Boing Boing readers led the charge! We donated almost $10k. The fine folks from The Georgia Peach Corps asked me to let you know that our donations and sharing of links gave them a lot of momentum. Thank you!

In addition to sending out postcards, I have donated to the Georgia Peach Corp and to Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock directly.

It feels like turning the two senate seats in Georgia blue would help things here a lot.

Georgia Peach Corps:

The Georgia Peach Corps is a nonpartisan voter education campaign created by a volunteer Los Angeles-based group to help inform and inspire voter participation in the upcoming Georgia special election runoff on Jan 5th, 2021.

The Sweet Georgia Ground Game: This Georgia Peach Corps campaign will focus on voter educa>on efforts including nonpar)san information about absentee ballot requests, early vo)ng, making a plan to vote and vote tripling. While many organizations pulled their ground game amid the COVID-19 crisis, organiza)ons across the Peach State are rising to the challenge of scaling up the COVID-safe in-person voter outreach methods that made the crucial difference in mobilizing new and infrequent voters in the state's 2020 elec)on. The Georgia Peach Corps will be enhancing these efforts using a coffee and donut truck to promote unique contact-free methods of nonpar)san voter educa)on and mobiliza)on. It is a safe, effec5ve, and fun way to engage voters!

The coffee and donut truck will target difficult-to-reach low-propensity voters by mee>ng them in their neighborhoods. The truck will come from the community, bring in local revenue, and serve free coffee and donuts while safely offering important and >mely informa>on to would- be voters. The truck will be instantly recognizable by it's bold "Sweet Georgia Ground" logo and dis)nct colorful wrap. Not only will we be saving our democracy, but we will also be employing local vendors in the part of the food industry hit hardest by COVD-19

How do we know this strategy works? We are working with Roaming Hunger, the premier mobile food truck industry expert. They have experience in registering and mobilizing the people that they feed in a COVID-safe way. They produced "Pizza to the Polls", "Vote.org feeding the 2020 elec)on campaign", and the "Black Lives MaXer Conversa)on Trucks". In their "Pizza to the Polls" campaign alone, they produced 68 specially branded trucks, that served 856,747 free meals, across 275 polling loca)ons, in 29 U.S. ci)es, over a 9-day period, serviced by 460 trained staff.

By modeling where the trend line was heading for several key greenhouse gases, and then comparing said trend line to what actually happened after COVID19 forced the world to shutter major cities, NASA's study suggests humanity is responsible for global warming (even if they don't just say it.)

NASA:

Wuhan, China was the first municipality reporting an outbreak of COVID-19. It was also the first to show reduced nitrogen dioxide emissions—60% lower than simulated values expected. A 60% decrease in Milan and a 45% decrease in New York followed shortly, as their local restrictions went into effect.

"You could, at times, even see the decrease in nitrogen dioxide before the official policies went into place," said co-author Emma Knowland with USRA at Goddard's GMAO. "People were probably reducing their transit because the talk of the COVID-19 threat was already happening before we were actually told to shut down." Once restrictions were eased, the decreases in nitrogen dioxide lessened, but remained below expected "business as usual" values.

Keller compared his estimates of the nitrogen dioxide decreases to reported economic numbers, namely, the gross domestic products, of the nations included in the study. According to Keller, they lined up shockingly well. "We would expect them to be somewhat related because nitrogen dioxide is so closely linked to economic activities, like people who travel and factories running," he said. "It looks like our data captures this very well."

The OG Star Wars Holiday Special was a legendary train wreck. The newly released LEGO special on Disney+ is a wonderful good time.

No drugs, no dopey singing numbers, no cartoon Boba Fett. The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special brings back Wookie Life Day with all the LEGO Star Wars sarcasm and trolling you could hope for.

A Star Wars adventure that may as well be treated as canon erupts as the modern era SW gang decides to celebrate Life Day with Chewbacca's family on Kashyyyk. Distracted by some Jedi bullshit BB-8 and Rey take us on a wild adventure, while Poe tries like crazy to screw everything up.

Katee Sackhoff has a YouTube channel. It is wonderful.

This woman is just floored to find out she is on a video call with President Obama, and it is absolutely priceless when he starts speaking directly to her.

On Jimmy Kimmel, a woman thought she was going to simply hear a segment of Obama's new book but Jimmy put her on live with the former President. The reaction is priceless. Obama is great. Can you imagine Trump trying to do this? 🙄 pic.twitter.com/UqUz3qnTVp

— Daryl (@TheSpinDoctor) November 20, 2020

Talk about moving!

Leo and his covers help me recover many a shitty morning and turn my day around.

The Pilot Capless is my beloved fountain pen, the Pilot Vanishing Point, rebranded and for 33% less.

In my fairly large collection of pens, my Pilot/Nishiki Vanishing Point stands out as number one for travel and number two overall. This fountain pen has traveled with me around and around the world. Designed with a retractable nib and o-rings to keep the ink inside, this is the only fountain pen I've felt safe flying with.

The weight of the Vanishing Point is just lovely. The clip is in a funny place but not in the way at all, and kinda charming. The fine nib flows ink well, and I routinely use this pen as my instrument for writing with blue ink.

If I owned only one fountain pen the Vanishing Point would probably be it. The $150ish price tag, however, makes it harder to swallow for folks who just want to write with a fountain pen.

This Pilot Capless is reportedly the same pen with an alloy instead of a gold nib. It also appears to cost 1/3rd less! Having used many pens with stainless and alloy nibs, you will find it slightly stiffer than gold but if you don't have one to compare to, you probably won't notice the difference. This is approaching audiophile territory.

I absolutely suggest buying a converter so you can use any ink you chose. The Pilot cartridges are fine and I have a few around for travel, but prefer Noodler's Ink.

PILOT "Capless (special alloy nib) / Dark Blue" [nib: Fine] via Amazon

I bought this lovely glass' Tulip' jar for keeping my sourdough starter on the counter.

Last Spring I decided to not bother keeping sourdough starter in the fridge. Having started a starter from scratch and found it super easy to work with during the cooler months, it went rancid on my counter during a brief trip out of town. I wasn't going to bake until temperatures dropped back into pants range anyway. I was keeping that starter in a Ball Jar.

The Ball Jar looked boring but putting a rubber band around it at the 'just fed' level let me see how it was doing. This was far better than the stoneware crock I had been using for 11 years.

I wanted less boring. I wanted glass. I found this Toysdone Tulip Jar. It is darling and has a strawberry on it.

I removed the rubber gasket and put it away with the metal clips. The glass lid stays nicely in place for me and allows the gases produced by the yeast to vent without allowing any bugs in.

1 liter is the perfect size.

Toysdone Tulip Jar – Single 1-Liter Jar via Amazon