zed??

Always a great song Eli!! We Must teach our children right from wrong!! Especially the wrongs that the Repuke party has been spewing non stop since POTUS was elected!!

My first choice was Kathy Bates in the Waterboy, saying stuff like “Benjamin Franklin didn’t invent electricity! I did! Benjamin Franklin is the Debil!”

But but he did find it in the sky!!
Read that crap about the doll WTF are these PUKES thinking?? Oh yeah they don’t think about anything but being in power so they can reap the money from their Corporate MASTERS!!

At least they are internally consistent. There is only one kind of child: a well off one living in an intact family, preferably white. No one else need apply. Certainly not the homeless or the poor.

So kids can’t know that in our “great” country other children have to sleep in cars or tents or under bridges because the top 1% control more wealth than 95% of the rest of the country combined? Lady, do your kids a favor. Take them to a soup kitchen once a month to volunteer. Take them to donate their used clothes and toys to other children. Let them learn so they may acquire empathy and maybe help others in their lives. Lord knows empathy is in low supply these days.

Is Gwen Thompson still homeless when you buy her and take her home? Does she has to live outside? Or can she stay in her box under a bridge?

Isn’t she then homeful? And if so, is her new “owner” then protected from the ugly knowledge of her homelessness?

oh they’ll protect your kids’ immortal souls… their health, education, lives, financial security, and safety are secondary considerations. Attendance at Teen Mania and Battlecry for Tomorrow (two Christianist youth organizations with a penchant for neo-fascist iconography) mass rallies are, however, mandatory and will be enforced.

sounds like slavery to me! and I thought that was already against the law!

I believe that the term slavery applies to living human beings.

“Bigger tits and a pink Corvette! or at least a Malibu!”, they cried. But their words were lost amidst a tsunami of Liberal Feel-somethingism…

And Jesus wept.

Weeping Jesus doll available via my website for 3 EASY PAYMENTS of $39.99. Order Now! But Wait – THERE’S MORE!!!! Order NOW and you’ll receive a FREE BOX!!!

Are we done with these people yet?

Good point, all dolls are homeless at the outset. Wards of the store.

Fathers abandon women without cause.
Well, that’s just not true. They have a barbie or a nancy on the side. That’s one of the reasons they abandon their families. Or, so I’ve heard.

Rip!!! How the hell are ya?

not according to Glen Beck, if KO last night got it right.

or a sweatshop in Bangladesh.

Keep an open mind, they might have a Ken on the side.

Kathy Lee Gifford just LOVES the children of Bangladesh… they work so much cheaper than those spoiled Guatemalan kids.

Rachel (on the left coast feed) talking now about Mike Ross, Jim Cooper and Firedoglake. Apapparently Mike feels there’s a conspiracy from left bloggers against him. Good thing that when I called yesterday and they asked me What Organization I was calling them from I told them My Family. It’s not my fault!

Hello, Rat? That’s what I meant with the “nancy”. You’d be surprised how open my mind is. Hell, a naked wedding on a nude beach? Ha.

The person working the phone probably wrote down “Manson Family.” :)

Yeah, this struck me as stupid too.

Would it be okay if men abandoned their families for cause? And what, exactly, qualifies as “cause” in this instance?

A hot secretary? Boredom? Forgot where I lived?

Nude beach weddings require lots of grit.

Manson Family minus one. Susan Atkins, dead.

Oh, Eli, Rachel Maddow is providing some lovely footage of your hometown police force’s deployment of sonic cannon, gas grenades, and SWAT teams.

Technically, NYC is my hometown. Pittsburgh is just where I live now…

Sometimes, however painful in the moment, it turns out to be good riddance. But, I like your third possibility. Third motel on the left, dude.

and he’s right. Leftyblogs forced him to accept a bribe and then sold him to Big Medicine. All our fault.

Wow, thanks for the info. One less parole hearing for Sharon’s sister to attend. What a senseless waste of so many peoples’ lives.

Okay, be careful out there in your adopted city then.

Makes me feel old thinking about how long ago that all happened.
And, just so you know…I will be wearing clothes at the wedding. And, shoes. And earrings.

Yeah, I’ve been staying in the last couple of days. Will be going out tomorrow, tho.

We bad. I feel, so dirty.

Pittsburgh, the underarm of America.

Just as well. It is a pretty small percentage of adults can be both dignified and naked. That percentage does not include me, even when I’m not doing jumping jacks.

Teddy, since we’re watching Rachel together, sort of, doesn’t Sandra look pretty good?

Did you read director John Waters’ five-part series on why he thinks former Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten should be released? He lays out a pretty good case. I don’t think it will ever happen though.

Good pieces on Moyers tonight: first, about the war and troop numbers and a better approach; then, women’s issues, investment in women, etc. Both well-done.

Who is Sandra?

You have to get the Lego bridge to go with the doll’s house/box.

You do jumping jacks? I’m impressed. Ha, when my sister and I were shopping for the outfits, we were in the dressing room together and, as it’s been many moon since we shared a room, were both cracking up. Pointing at body parts and laughing. We all look Waaaay better in clothes these days.

Bernhardt. Has a new album out. Fabulously funny lefty comedian.

it actually cleaned up nicely. The new underarm is probably Lubbock. Or someplace in Joe Wilson’s district.

I missed that. Oops.

It’s true, actually. Just ask anyone who was at Netroots Nation this year. Steel out, high-tech, finance, hospitals and universities in.

Takes awhile, maybe bookmark the first part and read at a later date.

also educated either in a private (probably church-related) school, or home-schooled, so they never actually come into range of anyone who might be different.

Excellent modification.

Well, they can take solace that it taint Alabama.

No, I have it on good authority that that location is Cambridge, Ohio. Pittsburgh is much more civilized.

Saved. Thanks. Waters is so weird, isn’t he?

John Kyl is certainly not thinking about the children.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2995

Weird in a good way. :)

Part of what I love about this country is that it is possible for someone as eccentric as Waters to be (moderately) successful.

Weird is abnormal. I can relate to weird. Outside the box. Inclusive of all.
As long as no one gets hurt, bring it on.

Yeah, I always feel guilty after maligning geographic regions, even in jest. They all have good and bad points.

This is a great post Eli. I think this doll is important because way too many rich kids can’t identify at all with poor, homeless or hungry kids. It’s the kids who can afford $100/doll who need to read about Gwen and learn to identify with her.

Peyser was shedding all kinds of crocodile tears about how the *real* homeless kids could never afford $95 for a doll.

Which is true, and sad, but I don’t believe for a second that she gives a shit.

Humans should not learn to identify with toys.

As someone who grew up poor in a pretty rich neighborhood, I think I can say that real homeless kids would be grateful just to know that other people get it that they can’t afford dolls.

A lot of my high school classmates need to get that same understanding somehow.

Humans just need to learn to identify and I think it’s just fine if dolls help.

Hey, my dolls were almost my only friends when I was little, except for my imaginary friend, that is.

My one niece and two nephews each owned more toys before they were three than all four of the kids in my generation combined. They are all grown now. I have yet to see any evidence that they fared any better as a result.

I’m pretty sure that there is a Sarah Palin action figure out there somewhere….

Thanks, Eli. Doll reminds me of how recently Gates got all hot and bothered at a journalist for taking a picture and publishing it of a dying soldier. “Poor taste and insensitive” of her he ranted on and on. A journalist who was also in harm’s way with the troops. How could she show that picture to others and torture that poor boy’s parents? Wow, comparmentalized empathy, I guess. Hypocrisy on steroids. You can’t make this surreality up.

Of course. Michele Bachmann and Joe The Plumber too. I know because it says “Joe The Plumber” on his t-shirt.

Here ya go.

call BONEHEAD BOEHNER…he helped kill this young girl

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…..nstituent/

I have a friend who spent a year or so in Cambridge. The story about the guys who broke into the back room of a liquor store while it was open gives you some idea of what it was like. (Also, I heard that the cops could tell if bad guys were locals by whether they had a getaway car.)

You mean like this?

Oy, what is with the dislocated shoulders?

The Obama/Joker doll is a nice touch.

Hey, when my 15 year son was bumming about his new haircut, and no, it’s That Short, for his sister’s upcoming wedding, among other things I said to him was Consider this an opportunity to not cling to materialistic and transitory things. I also told him, just in case your worried about what your friends at school will say, they won’t notice. They’re too in to how They look. Next day, he told me No one said anything. You’re right again, mom.

I meant to say Not that short. Actually, looks like the original Beatle cut.

I considered sending bobble Jesus dolls to friends at Christmas a couple years back, ended up deciding against it. Must be getting old if I can’t even work up sufficient holiday enthusiasm to blaspheme.

Discretion & all that. Don’t wanna start more religious wars.

DoI have to identify with the Sarah doll? I just don’t want to.

pro-death penalty people obsessed with survival of fetus. they just can’t see the contradiction.

Did you hear about the football star High Schooler in Florida that got into discipline trouble in school? Although heavily recruited by the likes of Florida, Miami, Arkansas and other big name Colleges…his principal told him he was suspended from football for the next season.

He allowed to transfer to another school and play football, however…but only under the condition issued by the new coach (Mr. Shabazz, a MUSLIM) that he attend a MOSQUE, join its ISLAMIC YOUTH PRAYER GROUP and have evening counselling with an IMAM. Turns out he seems to have turned his life around, though. When tragedy struck a smaller school, and with his team up by a lot in the last minute, he took a knee on the opponents 5 Yard Line after breaking a wide open kick-off return.

Bet the wingnuts will go wild with this story…forcing the kid to go to the mosque, and all, just so he could play football. How could they allow such a Muslim teacher in the schools to do this????.

I May have got a couple of the details wrong though

It’s capitalism. You get consumer choice.

Next Christmas I will sing carols in front of your house to get you in the mood to blaspheme. :)

oh my. Nooooo!

Oh, it seems that her Chinese debut didn’t go over that well. The (page 4) headline in Ming Bao read, “Palin gives Hongkong Speech, Called Boring, Some in Audience Left Early”… one banker was quoted on his way out as saying, “What a joke”… assuming that was directly translated, one should note that the literal Chinese expression of the same is actually more derisive than the English equivalent.

Seems like the foreign press are more sensible than the U.S. press.

Weekly World News had some excellent coverage as well.

I heard it was an hour and a half long. How does anyone sit still that long?

Speaking of consumer choices and toys and all, we’re going to Yosemite for Christmas. No toys. No BS family gatherings. Just gorgeous scenery and hiking. I might stop to visit Mary Mc on the way.

Hi, Margot. Ms. Moore was on Rachel’s show and talked a bit about it.

Is the lodge open at that time of year? If so, will you dine there?

No, I won’t think of the children. I am childfree.

We’re going to stay in Curry Villiage, but we just got a flyer thingy in the mail. They have a huge Bracebridge Dinner which they claim is “without much doubt, the country’s, if not the world’s premiere Christmas Dinner”. If I wasn’t running out to the store this minute, I’d link you to it. The Ahwahanee Hotel: One-Night Package, from $1,244 for one night. We’re staying in a heated tent cabin for $100 a night. Will check out the dinner at Yosemite Lodge. We went for New Years a couple years ago and had after dinner drinks and dancing there.

it is demi – if you have a chance do the christmas dinner you will never regret it.

hence the people left early bit reported in the Chinese media, I suspect. Apparently she said a few things which might have been seen as patronizing or offensive by more attentive hosts, but given that half the audience was either asleep or had snuck out by the fire exits by that time, few seemed to notice, much less complain. I gather most people just walked out shaking their heads, wondering why CLSA thought it actually might be funny to have her speak. Remember, she spoke in a country where Hillary Clinton is venerated as a great statesman, schools teach English using Obama’s speeches, and where our president is still polling in the high seventies. Palin had about as much chance of scoring with the audience as a Taiwanese independence activist.

There are no “Democrats.” The pendulum has swung so far to the right that those that call themselves Democrats today are in reality Eisenhower Republicans without the integrity.

Hi Demi, yes, I saw her on KO (I think) talking about it.

Stockton

I have fond memories of the lodge. I was backpacking & staying in one of the camping areas in my tube tent. I met two 20-something guys, told them the lodge was supposed to be quite nice and that we’d see if we could be served a cocktail there, despite our backpacking attire. The clothes weren’t the problem; no one even gave us a second look. But we got carded. I told the waitress that I didn’t have any proof of age on me (the guys did), but I’d be perfectly happy not to drink as getting carded at age 32 was enough treat for one night. She served me.

BTW, demi, it sounds like a wonderful time. Enjoy every minute.

hey! My forbears are from around there!

do you think the patriot children attending Stockon’s George W Bush Elementary play with homeless dolls?

Michelle Bachmann greeted by street theatre, reports WCCO Minneapolis. Save the profits, not the patients…. [I paraphrase…] “Successful” townhall also featured Ron Paul.

In a totally unrelated noncoincidental bit of reporting, the lead story tonight was of two different beatings inflicted on black cousins in Brooklyn Park on the north end of the Minneapolis metro. Racial ephithets, beating with an ax, two young white men arrested, another sought. Young woman not arrested because she was passed out in the car.

Bet their parents are Bachmann voters.

passed out drunk while her boyfriends carry out a brutish racial assault. that just about sums up rethug/orcish politics today…

Thanks, I’ll look forward to that. :)

I hate that kind of stuff. I’ve lived too long. I thought after the 1960s’ race riots things would be better. Naive me.

Ever since Ronald “government is the problem” Reagun, the government has willfully worked at destroying democracy, the middle class, and thinking.

Don’t know which is sadder today…these racial crimes [this hits close to home, I have family and friends in that part of the metro], the census worker’s death, the 22-yr-old in Boner’s district who died from H1N1 ’cause she put off going to doctor for lack of insurance.

’tis a world made uglier by those charged with its stewardship.

Yep, human progress does not occur in a linear fashion.

Phil Munger at Progressive Alaska has video up of the cops using the high intensity sound weapon in Pittsburgh today

It is 14 second clip. I read the Honduran military is using this toy too.

My puzzle is just how cyclical is it. We seem to have left the Enlightenment behind. Are the Dark Ages ahead? Back to hunting & gathering?

Saw this on Rachel.
Where oh where is our Congress?

There was a headline on rawstory a couple of days ago that said the cops tased a man in a wheelchair, “just to be mean,” according to him.

Gregg Levine is upstairs!
Late Night: Blue Dog Frog March

Did you see Mr. Pierce today? The end of his last paragraph was awesome.

Now that the national Republican party is solely the province of meathead politicians and radio maniacs, there are “sensible” conservatives who are alarmed by what they see. It should be agreed upon in our politics that these people drift into the wilderness for a while and muse upon where their movement has led them. But the first thing they all should do is apologize to the nation for choosing to take a course 45 years ago in opposition to the transcendant moral issue of America. They prospered through bigotry, and then through a deft ability to package it, and they made the ensuing four decades immeasurably crueler as a result. There’s not enough sackcloth in the world for these clowns.

as far as I’m concerned, someone should be charged with her murder, if there was any justice in this world. When the healthcare reform bill finally passes, that girl should get a callout.

Seems to be headed that way.

I’m shocked to see it was implied that a mother should not be “helpless” enough to be in a situation, where their homeless child has to sleep in a vehicle, in fact, it was implied she should lose custody in this situation. Republicans have no shame, they have love and sympathy only for a fetus, but once that child is born, hey, they’re on their own. Take responsibility for yourself, don’t expect us to have to take care of you. Evidently they believe that only conservative Republicans are rich enough to even be allowed to have children, and this is due to their very special status of being more beloved by God. Sorry, I have to go find the Maalox.

This reminds me of the time my wife, who was at various times in her career, was an Executive Director of a local Planned Parenthood and later a fund raiser, decided to invite a Planned Parenthood educator to our daughter’s charter school to SPEAK TO THE PARENTS ABOUT HOW TO DISCUSS SEX AND DRUGS WITH THEIR CHILDREN. A large group showed up with quite a few prepared to object to learning about how to communicate with their children about drugs and sex.

It’s like they *want* their kids to be completely unprepared for the world.

While not right on point, this explains, or at least offers one version, of how and why…
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow – Frank Schaeffer: GOP sub-culture is “a fifth column of insanity
A short clip from the 16th.
Key phrase: ” bred… to reject facts as a matter of faith.”

Republicans are assholes.

Considering how many homeless mother-child families are homeless because the man insisted on being the sole breadwinner while the mother raised the kids (without much help from the father), and the father then split, leaving the mother with no job skills, no resume, no savings, no experience, no degree and at least one mouth to feed… and with the father doing everything he can to avoid even paying child support.

I’m certainly glad the Republican Party — the Party of such great and loyal husbands as McCain, Reagan, Giuliani, Gingrich, Vitter and Sanford — is putting the blame for homeless mothers where it certainly belongs… not to mention doing everything they can to eliminate programs that would help such mothers!

Republicans are assholes.

And just what might she do? The mind boggles.

Try Detroit.