Ask Dr. Helen: Home For The Holidays From Hell

"Have some turkey, you fascist..."

Not everyone looks forward to sitting around the Thanksgiving table with their extended family, notes PJM advice columnist Dr. Helen Smith - particularly those whose politics differ from members of the clan. She offers a food-fight prevention survival guide.

Pass the Cranberry Sauce: Political Smearing Season Has Begun There’s not much to give thanks for this week in the presidential race after both the Democratic and Republican contests began mud-slinging, observes PJM’s political Monday Morning Quarterback William Bradley, who also discusses why both Democrats and Republicans are calling CNN the Clinton News Network.

Who Lost Pakistan? For decades after the 1949 triumph of communist forces in the Middle Kingdom, a question haunted American politics: “Who Lost China?” Pakistan has been a U.S. ally since the mid-1970s and an imperfect democracy since the 1940s, writes PJM Xpress blogger Richard Miniter, and all presidents from Carter onward have tried to nurture its imperfect democracy. Now Pakistan seemed poised on the verge of civil war—and, if chaos comes, the Bush Administration will have no one to blame to itself.

Carly, Barone And Jonah: Blogomatic For The People.

Six Year-Old Suspended for Drawing Stick-figure Shooting (Mail Tribune)

The US Mulls Arming Pakistani Tribes Against al-Qaeda (UPI)

"Public Diplomacy" Finally Gets a Clue (Tigerhawk)

Norman Podhoretz Produces Khomeini Source Quote on Andrew Sullivan's Dare (Commentary)

Obama Takes the Lead From Hillary in Iowa (Hot Air)

Blitzer Accused of Tending Garden of "Plants" (Gateway Pundit)

Why the Military Might Charge AP Photographer (Michelle Malkin)

AP Pulitzer-Winning Photographer Bilal Hussein to be Charged (AP/Breitbart)

Obama Accuses Clintons of Plotting to Establish a Dynasty (TPM Election Central)

SheBlogs Carnival #4 (Sex and the South)

Carnival of the Insanities: Happy Thanksgiving! (Dr. Sanity)

The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean “Por Que No Te Callas” Edition (Fausta’s blog)

Shouldn't Every Day be Thanksgiving? (Obi’s Sister)

Bill to Make Debate in Congress English-Only Defeated (ScrappleFace)

Military Desertion Rates and the Associated Press (Alan Fraser @American Thinker)

The World Series of Theological Questions (One Cosmos)

Phillipines: Victory of the New Society (Manuel Quezon III)

An Inconvenient Truth about Iraq (James Hudnall)

British Versus the Americans: The War Over Strategy (The Captain’s Journal)

Parents and Homework Wars, Now—and Then (Neo-Neocon)

‘Megan Had It Coming,’ Or How To Kill A Child Twice (Sigmund, Carl and Alfred)

2006 FBI Hate Crimes Report: Jews Suffer Over 5 Times More Attacks Than Muslims (Jihad Watch)

American Colleges Are Becoming Mirror Images of American Kindergartens (Gabriel Schoenfeld)

Heather Mills Suggests Drinking Rats' Milk to Reduce Global Warming (This Is London)

'Paint it White,' And Other Simple Non-Interventionist Solutions to Fight Global Warming (Bjorn Lomborg)

Germany, The Soft Underbelly of Europe: a Tempting Target for the Jihadists and Others (Mark Helprin)

King Juan Carlos' Putdown of Chavez Becomes a Hit, Brings in Over $2m in Ringtones (Iberian Notes)

What's Wrong with the Plan to Speed Up Thanksgiving Air Travel (James Fallows)

Baghdad by Night -- Juice Bars, Neon Lights, Bustling Streets (AFP)

Nada Nadim Prouty, aka "A National Security Nightmare" (Michelle Malkin)

Let's Get the Euros To Celebrate Thanksgiving! (Jules Crittenden)

It's True That Iraq is a Quagmire: But For Who? (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Bill Clinton, "Conservative Ideologue?" (Say Anything)

My Uterus. A UPS Box. What's the Difference? (Lawyers, Guns, and Money)

Another Clinton Donor Scandal, Complete With Groping (Gateway Pundit)

How To Help Bangladesh (Third World View)

Musharraf Gets The Court Ruling He Needs (Reuters)

Tom Kean Endorses McCain (Politico)

Week 44 in Progress Over 130,000 votes have been cast in the weekly PAJAMAS MEDIA PRESIDENTIAL STRAW POLL. The thirty-ninth week has officially begun.

NEW DEAL: Pajamas Media editors have noted that the number of weekly votes in our poll has diminished drastically from the tens of thousands cast at the outset. For months now, many readers have been complaining to us about the increasing inutility of the poll because of vote-swarming by second tier candidates. Many voters have lost interest and are not participating. Websites that had run our widget were no longer doing so.

Something needed to change.

Therefore, especially since the campaign itself appears to be narrowing its focus to front-running candidates, henceforth the Pajamas Media Poll will be restricted to those first tier candidates listed on the front poll page of the leading online poll aggregator Real Clear Politics. As of now, that is four candidates on the Democratic side and six on the Republican. We will change our lineup on the Sunday after RCP does, if it does.

DON’T FORGET: You can put the poll on your website or blog with our free voting widget and become a precinct in the Pajamas Media Straw Poll. Learn how the readers of your site are voting and compare it the the total.