President Barack Obama was "inadvertently" elbowed in the upper lip yesterday by his friend Rey Decerega, director of programs for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, during a five-on-five pickup basketball game at Fort McNair with friends and family visiting for Thanksgiving. Yep, the president's seemingly friendly, allegedly casual Thanksgiving athletic events get out of hand, too, as tensions just under the surface, perhaps, boiled over. (Or it was a total accident.) The president needed twelve stitches to repair the lip injury, received under anesthesia in the doctor's office on the ground floor of the White House. "I learned today the president is both a tough competitor and a good sport," a terrified Decerega said. "I enjoyed playing basketball with him. I'm sure he'll be back out on the court again soon." D'oh!

Obama gets 12 stitches after errant elbow to mouth
[AP via Yahoo]

Name: Fran Drescher
Age: Celebrating my ten years well from cancer, which is the birthday I celebrate!
Neighborhood: Upper West Side
Occupation: "You name it! Actress, 'tawk show' host, public diplomacy envoy, best-selling author, women's health activist, producer, director, beautician, writer, and visionary." Her new Tawk Show debuts Friday, November 26 on WNYW FOX 5, 12 p.m.

Who's your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Charlie Rose. He brings everybody that’s interesting in the world right into your living room, in a refreshing, non-biased way.

What's the best meal you've eaten in New York?
I love the décor of ABC Kitchen and that the menu is healthy and local. I also love the burger over at the Spotted Pig.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job?
Create, invent, and problem solve.

You didn't think The Wall Street Journal would let you go home to your families for the holiday without a new threat to online privacy, did you? The latest takedown in the paper's "What They Know" series looks at the reemergence of "deep packet inspection," which was supposed to have been shamed out of existence after consumer blowback and congressional hearings two years ago. The potentially invasive technology, which intelligence agencies use for surveillance, analyzes "packets" of data across all online activity, not just web browsing. Where websites can install "cookies" or tiny tracking files, this technology goes directly to the data packets that travel between your computer, your Internet service provider, and the websites you browse. According to the Journal, two U.S. companies, Kindsight and Phorm, are pitching deep-packet inspection as a way for Internet service providers, which are under pressure to offer faster services at lower prices, to cash in on the growth of online ads by sending users the lucrative targeted ads based on whether consumers are online "for work, or for fun."

’Tis the season for compassion, mythology, and hardball politics. Which makes next week, after Thanksgiving and before Christmas, the perfect time for the lame-duck U.S. Senate to be deciding the fate of a bill that would pay the medical costs for thousands of people suffering from illnesses caused by the September 11 terrorist attacks. Win or lose, though, the city has reason to be proud of its politicians, who’ve fought through scientific uncertainty and Republican shamelessness to bring the bill this far.

A pattern of military behavior is emerging from North Korea's military strike on Yeonpyeong Island yesterday. According to the Times, the strike, which has prompted President Obama to send a carrier and ships to conduct joint military exercises with South Korea, looks like a similar show of power from Kim Jong-il when he was named his father's heir. Now that the supreme leader's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, has been promoted to four-star general, a prerequisite for taking over his father's role, the strike is being read as a show of military credentials from Supreme Jr., who is rumored to be 25-years-old.

Pressing against a precipitous reaction is that the North’s attacks have a choreographed character, even a back-to-the-future feel. The last time North Korea engaged in acts this destructive was in the 1980s, when it blew up a South Korean airliner and also detonated a bomb in Myanmar in a botched attempt to assassinate the visiting South Korean president. Both attacks were said to be ordered by Kim Jong-il, who was then the heir to Kim Il-sung, his father and North Korea’s founder.

With the combination of fat salaries and fratty culture on Wall Street, it's inevitable that from time to time, some in the industry will say to themselves, "Wouldn't it be hilarious if we rented a dwarf for this party?" But is hiring a dwarf as entertainment a shortcut to ruin (pun intended)? Let's take a look back at the career trajectories of some Wall Street folks whose interest in little people may have caused them big problems.

When Bristol Palin lost on Dancing With the Stars last night, somewhere out in the television audience her mother, Sarah, must have heaved a quiet sigh of relief. After all, could her daughter getting more famous actually be any good for the potential presidential candidate? Every time a family member of hers has made the news so far, it’s been for something controversial. Back during the 2008 presidential campaign, the more reporters scrutinized Todd, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trigg, the more cartoonish she herself seemed: Was Todd really a member of an Alaskan secessionist group? Was Bristol really going to marry that thug from high school who got her pregnant, or was this just a sham? And that other baby, the adorable one with the Down syndrome — was it even hers? Every time one of the Palins steps into the spotlight, Sarah probably holds her breath a little.