NORM GERAS interviews Ann Althouse.

UKRAINE TV is breaking with the government. And lots more news has been rounded up at The Command Post.

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL THANKSGIVING: It’s all cleaned up now, and everyone has either gone home, or to bed, except me. The Insta-Daughter, by the way, made the rolls and the dressing this time.

I think it’s my favorite holiday, nowadays.

UPDATE: All right, all right, I’m busted. You can’t fool the blogosphere!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh.

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER POST about things to do to help the troops, a couple of readers emailed asking what they could do to help British troops serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Here’s a post with a couple of ways to do that. Good idea.

MAUREEN DOWD relives the (two-year-old) story of Laura Crane’s breasts. More here. Once again, the blogosphere is ahead of the curve.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Omri Ceren — blogged from an airport, no less — here.

MORE UKRAINE UPDATES HERE, AND HERE. Also here. Plus there’s a roundup at Fistful of Euros. And scroll down to the many other linked blogs for more.

Lech Walesa is “cautiously optimistic.”

UPDATE: More from Arthur Chrenkoff:

Poland is now right in the thick of things, trying to peacefully resolve the stand-off. The “Solidarity” icon and Poland’s first non-communist president, Lech Walesa is already in Kiev talking to the crowds and imploring the West to help Ukraine on its road to democracy. Poland’s current president Aleksander Kwasniewski is expected to fly in on Friday, after being asked by apparently both the opposition and Ukraine’s outgoing president to mediate. . . . Poland’s support for Ukrainian democracy is sincere (albeit coupled with a desire for a democratic buffer between herself and the increasingly autocratic Russia).

I hope it works. Once again, bravo for Poland. And read this.

THE MARKET TAKES CARE OF ANOTHER DEEPLY FELT NEED, with the Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie : Practical Mind Control Protection for Paranoids. I’m going to start emailing this link to various correspondents . . . .

IT’S NOT A TOFU TURKEY, or a plastic turkey. It’s 21 pounds and I’m cooking it on the grill, with a rosemary herb crust, to make room in the oven for other things.

It’ll soon be joined by the leg of lamb that’s marinating in red wine, olive oil, and garlic right now.

UPDATE: But this turkey is much bigger.

REFLECTIONS ON THE FIRST THANKSGIVING, from Jim Lindgren.

UKRAINE UPDATE: “The Supreme Court of Ukraine has barred the publication of disputed presidential election results until it can examine opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko’s appeal. The court will conduct its examination on Monday, the Interfax news agency said.”

INSTAPUNDIT’S AFGHANISTAN PHOTO CORRESPONDENT, Major John Tammes, sends this self-portrait and a Thanksgiving message:

Sir,

I wanted to wish you, the Instawife, Instadaughter and all the rest of the Instafamily (even your now-blogging-historian-Instabrother) a peaceful Thanksgiving.

I spent a good part of the day tramping through fields, vineyards and farm paths examining 107mm rocket impact sites. Somebody really wished us ill this past week. At least when I got back, I was able to follow the original purpose of Thanksgiving by being appropriately thankful for all the support from you and others – I have been astounded at the outpouring of help my family and I have been offered and have been given. After being thankful, I then nearly put myself into a food coma…

Sincerely,

Major John Tammes
Ordnance Corps, US Army
Bagram, Afghanistan

I’m thankful for Major Tammes, and those like him, every day. Here’s a list of ways you can help the troops.

Max Boot writes today in the Los Angeles Times:

It is all too easy to take the all-volunteer armed forces for granted. They’ve been around now for 31 years, ever since the draft was abolished in 1973. We have become used to having a high-quality military filled by dedicated young women and men willing to put their lives on the line for less money than Donald Trump hands out in tips every week.

It is worth remembering how extraordinary and unusual our service members really are — and how much we owe them this Thanksgiving.

He’s right. Read the whole thing.

THE HAVEL JUGGERNAUT just keeps rolling!

A SECOND STATEMENT FROM VACLAV HAVEL to protesters in the Ukraine: “‘All respected domestic and international organisations agree that your demands are justified. Therefore I wish you strength, endurance, courage and fortunate decisions,’ Havel said in a statement from Taipei where he was travelling.”

UPDATE: More developments, including an appearance by Lech Walesa:

Deputy economy minister Oleh Hayduk resigned in protest of the fraudulent vote count in the Ukrainian election, Ukrainian News reported.

“When the European Union doesn’t recognize the election results, what kind of European integration can we talk about?” Hayduk said Nov. 25 on the Channel 5 television station.

“That’s my position as a citizen. I wrote a declaration of my resignation yesterday, and now I’m confirming it,” he said.

Hayduk, 39, has been a deputy economy minister since April 21 of this year.

The news was read to the hundreds of thousands of protestors thronging Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) on this third full day of protests against Ukraine’s Nov. 21 run-off presidential vote, which has been widely condemned as fraudulent. Solidarity leader and the first post-communist Polish president Lech Walesa also addressed the crowd, which was in high spirits as it gathered under blue skies on this clear, windless day.

Much of central Kyiv is now a solid block of protestors, most bedecked in orange, the signature color of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko. A carnival atmosphere predominates.

Estimates place the crowd at up to a million.

Stay tuned.

ORIN KERR is thankful for our civil liberties: “Public debates about the war on terrorism are filled with lots of delicious ironies. The fact that the French government has many powers that are orders of magnitude greater than anything in the Patriot Act surely ranks up as one of the better ones. . . . It’s also worth noting that in the French system, judges don’t serve as a check that can monitor potential abuses of the executive branch. Rather, French judges work closely with investigators and themselves are in charge of gathering the evidence. On this Thanksgiving Day, let’s all give thanks that we live in a country that respects civil liberties a lot more than that.” Indeed.

HELPING THE TROOPS: Reader Ron Ford sends this very comprehensive list of support-the-troops websites — click “read more” for the full list.

(more…)

UKRAINE UPDATE: The Washington Post editorializes:

Some have described the crisis in Ukraine as a contest for influence between Russia and the West, with the West backing opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in the same measure that Russian President Vladimir Putin has supported the official candidate. That is a gross distortion. For the Ukrainians who have spent four freezing nights in the streets of Kiev, the fight is not about geopolitical orientation — most favor close relations with Moscow — but about whether theirs will be a free country, with an independent press and courts and leaders who are chosen by genuine democratic vote. Mr. Putin, who has channeled hundreds of millions of dollars into the prime minister’s campaign, is backing the imposition of an authoritarian system along the lines of the one he is creating in Russia — with a propagandistic regime, controlled media, official persecution of dissent, business executives who take orders from the state, and elections that are neither free nor fair.

Nice to read that the Post sees “business executives who take orders from the state” as a sign of thuggish autocracy!

Anti-government rallies continue, and are reportedly growing larger. More blog-photos here.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I just put the turkey in the oven, and have some other preparations to make, but I’ll be back and blogging intermittently as time permits. I hope you’re having a good one. And you might want to spend a few moments contemplating the James Lileks Hummel figurine. Talk about losing control of the brand . . . .

UPDATE: Out in California, my cousin-in-law Brad has photos of a Turducken being prepared. At least it’s not a Tofu Turkey!

LOSING CONTROL OF THE BRAND. And then some.

THE WASHINGTON POST has video of Ukrainian protesters outside the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, D.C.

UPDATE: A rally in Krakow. Pictures and audio here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Protests continue in Kiev. More here. And Canada has rejected the election result.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a roundup story from The New York Times.

THANKSGIVING IN FALLUJAH: Firsthand reports from Marines via email.

RALPH REED, LIQUOR LOBBYIST: “Long ago, Bruce Yandle postulated the ‘Baptists and Bootleggers’ theory of regulation . . . until now it has been thought to be metaphorical, but with Ralph Reed on the wholesaler’s payroll, it appears that it has become literal.”

CORRUPTION AS A WAY OF LIFE AT THE U.N.:

Even the much praised UN technical agencies, such as those dealing with refugees, are bastions of waste and corruption. No need here to discuss the disaster that is called UNRWA and what it has done to set back peace in the Middle East for nearly 55 years, all the while providing lucrative employment for generations of UN bureaucrats. The much-ballyhooed UN Development Programme (Note: Although the USA pays the lion’s share, the UN uses British spellings) likewise is hugely expensive, over-staffed, painfully slow in delivering meaningful assistance, and rife with anti-Americanism. These programs [or, if you prefer, programmes] generate a blizzard of statistics showing that everything, everywhere is getting worse all the time, and desperately requiring more money for more UN programs and agencies.

The American taxpayer is getting ripped off in a big way by the UN. The “need” to play the UN’s political games damages the US ability to act forcefully in its own interests. If the UN wants to stay in New York and frequent the bad restaurants and bars that have sprung up around UN HQS, that’s fine — but not with US tax money.

It’s time for the US and other serious countries (e.g., Australia, Israel) to get out of the UN.

Or to replace Kofi Annan with Vaclav Havel!

THE QUEEN OF THE SKY: Cathy Seipp writes on politically correct prudery at 30,000 feet.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES IS UP: Check out the many linked blogs. You might find some new ones that are worth reading daily. Or more often!

MORE UKRAINE-BLOGGING HERE, AND HERE — and scroll down for many more links to continuously updated sites, many of them from within Kiev.