Hmmmm. I agree the family could be far, far more sensitive. But I can't help but feel uncomfortable that an expensive video game console might now be perceived as a childhood necessity.

I do understand why this kid's feelings were hurt. But he was given clothes and I feel it's a matter of distorted priorities in an entertainment driven culture that reinforces the idea that clothes are without worth, when so many people around the planet don't have decent clothing, enough food or clean water, every day of their lives.

Absolutely stunning!

I'd be very curious to hear what Toni Morrison (the author and professor who famously dubbed Bill Clinton the "first black president") might say about Dick Gregory's sentiments, in light of the fact that she's endorsed Senator Obama.

Wow, that's Martina Navratilova and Barbara Walters joining in at the end.

Sesame Street - Put Down The Duckie (1988)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275667/plotsummary

While folks can quibble about Nader's (and Buchanan's) impact on the outcome of 2000 election in Florida, I feel pretty confident that he will have a very negligible impact this time around. My guess is that he gets less than 0.5% of the national vote and draws mostly from people who were unlikely to vote for the eventual GOP and Democratic nominees anyway.

6312 (0.01%) in 1992
685,297 (0.70%) in 1996
2,883,105 (2.74%) in 2000
465,650 (0.38%) in 2004

Desperate much?

(BTW, the stern nodding guy in the background is the Governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland.)

Here's another instance of Hillary "plagiarizing", and this one from what most view as the most effective lines of her debate performance in Austin, Texas.

Bill Clinton, New Hampshire, 1992: "The hits that I took in this election are nothing compared to the hits the people of New Hampshire are taking every day." *

Hillary Clinton, February 21, 2008: "You know, the hits I've taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country."

Another Xerox moment, perhaps? Certainly a double standard. I don't really think this is plagiarism of course. She's simply borrowing an effective theme from Bill here. This would be perfectly acceptable were it not for her ridiculous attacks against Obama for using powerful speech lines from his friend and supporter Deval Patrick.

*Note: It appears that Bill Clinton used variations of this line in speeches in 1992 and in 1996.

Update: Exhibit A: http://www.videosift.com/video/Hillary-Clinton-plagiarizes-Bill-Clinton

"I am neither surprised nor troubled that he used the words that I asked him to use of my own," Deval Patrick said in an interview Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I think it's a sad comment on the state of the race and the state of our politics that the Clinton campaign is taking this particular tact."

If there's any news here, it's that the Clinton campaign is resorting to especially aggressive tactics when feeling threatened. And is that really news?

I'm with the idealists.

The U.S. has a great many problems for sure. One of the largest in my estimation is that far too many of its citizens mistake name calling for some sort of constructive involvement.

As far as I know everyone here (including those who appear more jaded) donates their time and money to charitable causes until it hurts, helps organize for political campaigns or organizations that they feel are righting the wrongs that they see, and generally does tangible work to make positive improvements in their communities. Myself, I've spent plenty of my years as an armchair political analyst, and no doubt I will continue to be one. But as bad as things are, being mean spirited and indignant never proved useful to me.

lol. Well said schmawy. I appreciate your thoughtful and reasoned observations and opinions as well.

And you are correct that beyond voting there isn't much I can do. I write the occasional letter to my representatives, go to the occasional protest, donate here and there, collect signatures for political candidates, and other such minor political activity, but that's all tiny drops in a very deep ocean. And for what it's worth I haven't been interrogated by the thought police even once. Maybe that's just another decade or two down the road, or maybe I need to go fold up a tin foil hat myself.

At any rate, I will continue to be politically active, arguing for both civil liberties and a strong yet rational military. And I'm always glad to see that there are folks such as yourself who are not sleepwalking. Complacency might be the biggest obstacle we face as a society.

"If you want to be free, you must accept all the risks that come with it."

There was nothing in my comment that suggested I didn't feel there wasn't risks, or that freedom or security aren't worth fighting for. I said that the ideals of freedom and security go hand in hand. We should never trade one for the other, blindly assuming that there must be some equation between the two.

Say the United States government, military and intelligence agencies actually did turn into a full out Orwellian society; they monitored our every movement, watched and limited our every purchase, controlled what films and books are produced, posted cameras on every corner, required us to report every anti-government utterance made by our neighbors, etc. Now, imagine what this does to the collective identity of the United States. Are we safer? Look at other countries in history who have had similar controls of freedom. People are enslaved in such societies, not safer. Armies can be made to fight in totalitarian societies, but they are coerced through fear or other heavy handed manipulation.

Societies without freedom lose something truly great, self determination. Their armies join and assemble voluntarily and their police forces are community minded and less corrupt. Societies with freedom have more honor, more transparency, more self respect and more will power.

I am not a hardcore nationalist, but I think that freedom and personal liberties are assets to the U.S. fabric, and I believe in a strong and rational military to be used for defense.

^ I would add a third group, those who wish to be both free and safe. Those two ideals are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they quite often go hand in hand.

Surreal.

Plenty of us had a very good idea that we were being mislead.

Witness the sheer scope of global anti-war protests before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. There were approximately 36 million people around the planet who took part in about 3,000 protests against the war. That's radically unprecedented. I personally don't feel that those vast numbers of people would have protested in such historic numbers prior to the war if they felt the claims being made regarding Iraq's capabilities or intent were founded. This is hardly anecdotal. "The world" did not overwhelmingly believe the Bush administration's assertions regarding the threat posed by Iraq, only a percentage did. Other's were simply complacent.

So, while I agree that it's always wise to question the source of reports such as this, many of us remember quite well how events unfolded. We were lied to. I didn't need this report to inform me of that.

To be clear to anyone who might be just tuning in, this event actually occurred back in October of 2006.

Chilling