By
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
When I was a kid, one of my greatest pleasures was to build giant log cabin mansions with my Lincoln Logs and all kinds of contraptions with Tinkertoy. The lesser-known Wikki Stix were cool to make creations with, too. Play-dough, Crayons, etc.–I loved it all.
But a column in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Fun Was in Short Supply at This Year’s Toy Fair,” says that kind of childhood is OVER. Dan Ackman writes:

Kids today are GOYs, and everybody knows it. For toy people, the question is what to do about it. A GOY is a kid who is getting older younger. The phenomenon means that children are outgrowing traditional playthings earlier and falling into the clutches of Sony and Microsoft, never to be seen again.

From Lincoln Logs to VTech: The End of Imaginative Childhood

The result is an industry in slow fade. While U.S. toy sales climbed by less than one-half of 1% between 2005 and 2006, the small rise followed three years of low-single-digit declines, according to NPD Group, which tracks the industry.
This week, as the toy industry gathered at New York’s Javits Center for the 104th American International Toy Fair, there was plenty to attract the 0-to-8 set. But there was less to lure older kids, whose interests tend to wander toward iPods, cellphones and videogames.
Apart from its almost absurd abundance — 100,000 different items are on display — Toy Fair demonstrates childhood’s condensation. According to Eric Clark, author of “The Real Toy Story,” a recent book about the industry, toy makers are trying to emulate electronic gadgets. “The danger is toy makers will drive kids to real electronics,” he says, “which are getting cheaper all the time.” Toy makers acknowledge the problem, but there is no clear way around it.
Even teddy bears are getting techy. Gund, the 109-year-old family-owned maker of stuffed animals, prides itself on its refusal to sell through mass-market retailers like Target and Toys “R” Us. But this year, for the first time, it introduced a line of animated bears.

Apparently, even another one of my childhood favorites, LEGO, is going electronic with something called “Bionicles.” Sad.
An Associated Press report from the same American International Toy Fair confirms the Wall Street Journal column:

As kids keep getting plugged into the Internet, toy makers are following them online.
At the annual American International Toy Fair this week, toy makers showed playthings like Power Rangers helmets which store secret missions found online, plenty of online games and even devices that take kids to secure Web sites where they can play activities without wandering into the darker corners of the Internet.
“Toy companies are looking at where kids are playing and targeting product against it. Younger and younger kids are becoming more comfortable with the Internet,” said New York-based toy consultant Chris Byrne.
Children as young as 3 years old are using the computer, said Julia Fitzgerald, vice president of marketing at VTech Holdings. . . .
“We have become a download nation,” said Fitzgerald, noting that children are constantly downloading music to their digital music players.
According to Nielsen/Net Ratings, an Internet research company, the number of online users in the 2-to-11 age group rose 19 percent to 15.1 million in December 2006, from 12.6 million in December 2002.
The latest strategy comes as the nation’s toy industry has been under pressure to bring back children bombarded with other entertainment options from iPods, cell phones and online community sites.

Still, Ackman writes that you can still expose your kid to real, imaginative toys, if you go out and dig for them:

Engaging toys that foster the imagination are still out there. “The toys are good, you just have to go search for them,” says Allison Holmes, co-owner of Oranges and Lemons, a children’s boutique in Greenville, Del. “I don’t think it’s the industry,” Ms. Holmes says. “It’s the parents.” The kids, old and young, ever-well supplied, need to be encouraged to get out and play.

Here, here.
****UPDATE: Reader Rick writes:

Debbie,
I am an avid reader of your website. I read what you wrote about GOYs and it makes me love my daughter-in-law all the more. She and my son have three daughters (6,3,10 months) and Jennifer is absolutely committed to the idea that her children are going to have a childhood, where they play outside, learn to ride bikes, learn to read and to love books, and do all the things that the plugged-in generation are missing. She is so determined that she is home-schooling the 6 year old (who is reading the first Harry Potter book right now). I love being around my granddaughters because they have manners and they like doing things like puzzles, coloring, and just being kids. I don’t necessarily pine for the “good ol’ days”, just “the good ol’ ways” where feminism and political correctness hadn’t gained a foothold yet.

By
Today, the U.S. grants thousands upon thousands of visitors, student, and assorted other visas to the most undesirable individuals from the countries that cheered in the streets for the 9/11 attacks. Individuals with extremist Muslim backgrounds are welcomed with open arms. Ditto for criminals and assorted other malefactors.
Contrast that to the plight of Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank. Yesterday, letters from Frank released by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research showed that Otto Frank tried to arrange visas for his family before they went into two years of hiding (which ended in the Nazis capturing them and sending all but Otto to their deaths; My grandfather was an inmate at Bergen Belsen, the camp where Anne Frank Died).
Warped U.S. Immigration Policy: No to Them . . .

Otto Frank and Daughter Anne
But Yes to Them . . .

His efforts to secure visas to the U.S.–like those of hundreds of thousands of other Holocuast victims–were hampered when Allied and Axis countries tightened immigration policies. Frank sent desperate letters to friends and family in the U.S., pleading for help with immigration to the U.S. as they tried to escape Nazi-occupied Holland.
It’s incredible: Yesterday, we turned away the innocent victims of Nazis. Today, we welcome the New Nazis–Islamists and Jihadists–to our shores.
Go figure.

By
This cartoon, by “Mr. Fish,” was posted on the Harper’s Monthly website, where it remains. While Harper’s and Fish pretend they are merely making fun of President Bush, these consistent America-haters are actually making light of this maimed soldier who gave his limbs while serving. Sick.
But Harper’s loves the Islamist enemy. Harper’s Washington Editor, Ken Silverstein, has a new piece telling us that Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood will not force Islam or Sharia down the throats of those who don’t want it. Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that, Ken.

By
I’m constantly being told by Pan-Islamists about all of the Muslim Arabic translators and soldiers we have and how patriotic and dedicated they are to America.
Actually, their numbers aren’t so large, and their patriotism, well . . . . I think the many stories we’ve had about Muslim soldiers–from Wassef Ali Hassoun (who faked his kidnapping in Iraq, went AWOL, twice, and is now on the NCIS Most Wanted List) to Assan Akbar (who shot at fellow American soldiers in the name of Islam) and a host of similar others (Ahmad Al-Halabi, Ali Mohamed, Ryan Anderson, Semi Osman, John A. Muhammad, Jeffrey Leon Battle, etc., etc., ad nauseam)–makes the case otherwise.
The latest story–about Army Arabic translator Mr. X a/k/a Noureddine Malki a/k/a Almaliki Nour a/k/a Abu Hakim a/k/a Abdulhakeem Nour–makes the same case, ie., that we must be suspicious, instead of bending over backwards to welcome those whose co-religionists around the world (and here) are openly bent on our destruction.

The story of the Muslim Arabic translator Mr. X–we don’t even know his real name–is chronicled in an AP report in New York Daily News, which I strangely didn’t see in any of my print newspapers.
Mr. X/”Malki” deliberately hid information about insurgents, their location, and the location of their weaponry. By doing so, he knowingly cost American soldiers their lives. Plainly, this Muslim translator is a mass-murderer of Americans. Even worse, he is believed to have provided classified Coalition Forces intelligence (which he illegally downloaded) to insurgents in the Sunni Triangle. Again, he’s a mass-murderer.
More incredible is that this man was allowed to become a U.S. citizen and a translator despite professing allegiance to Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks. Prosecutors have made no attempt to strip him of his citizenship, which was likely obtained under false pretenses.
He should be given the death penalty (a little torture first would be appropriate). But, instead, he’ll only do a maximum of 60 years . . . if we’re lucky. Who is responsible for hiring this man? That’s another person who should be tried, if it can be shown he/she knew of the man’s open loyalty to Al-Qaeda and hatred of America. If so, that person is an accessory to mass murder.
More:

A former Arabic translator for the Army in Iraq pleaded guilty Wednesday to illegally possessing secret documents detailing the 82nd Airborne Division’s mission against insurgents.
Among the documents was a report with precise information about U.S. weaponry and targets, court papers said. Another document contained “information about 82nd Airborne strategies for interfacing with various tribal groups in Iraq,” the court papers added.
The defendant, who goes by the name Noureddine Malki, also pleaded guilty in 2005 to using an alias, Almaliki Nour, while becoming a U.S. citizen. Authorities say his true identity remains unknown.
He faces up to 60 years in prison for both charges, prosecutors said. No sentencing date was set.
U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said the case demonstrated the importance of “safeguarding military plans and intelligence.”
The 47-year-old defendant, who had been scheduled to go to trial next week, “fraudulently obtained security clearances and then stole classified military information,” Mauskopf said in a statement.
Using his false identity, the defendant was hired in 2003 by a contractor as a translator and interpreter for an intelligence unit of the 82nd Airborne stationed in the Sunni Triangle, authorities said. After he returned to the United States, authorities discovered the documents – some marked “secret” – during a 2005 raid on his Brooklyn apartment.
While entering his plea in federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, the defendant admitted he knew he was not authorized to have the documents and made no attempt to return them, said his lawyer, Mildred Whalen.
The defense attorney said her client did not address a motive. She declined further comment.
In a memo filed last week, prosecutors had warned that if the defendant professed his loyalty to the United States at trial, they would present evidence that he supported al-Qaida and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The evidence included propaganda downloaded from the Internet to his computer, the memo said.
Prosecutors also said they would argue the defendant “had an opportunity to provide stolen classified information to anti-coalition forces” because he was in phone and e-mail contact with people in the Sunni Triangle, including Sunni sheiks who gave him thousands of dollars in bribes.

“Religion of Peace.” “Loyal Americans.” “Very Patriotic.” Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Thanks to reader Kent for the tip. He writes:

His true identity is unknown? What the hell was he doing having any access to anything without having been vetted?

Amen. Why? I think we all know the answer: Political correctness in favor of Muslims–at the cost of safety and security.
It’ll kill ya, every time.
More info in The Washington Post.

By
Well, we can thank the Bush Administration for not fighting all the way to the Supreme Court on this issue and allowing terrorist Jose Padilla a/k/a Abdullah Al-Muhajir to be tried in a regular court. (And we can thank liberal Supes on the Court for causing the Bushies whimper away from the fight that never was.)
The front page cover story of today’s USA Today is a giant Valentine to terrorist Padilla/Al-Muhajir. The gist of the story is that our interrogators “tortured” Jose Padilla, and therefore, he is too traumatized to ever be tried.
The torture? Well, he was forced to sleep on a cement slab for a bed. Hello . . .? I have had criminal clients in jail for drunk driving and minor assault, and that’s where they all sleep. It ain’t a night at the Ritz. There aren’t any lush mattresses and 3,000-thread sheets. So sad, too bad.

USA Today Hearts Padilla
Read the article and have a barf bag ready. That USA Today would devote an entire page-and-a-half to these absurd claims and lean so heavily in favor of this terrorist–who was in Qaeda leadership and wanted to destroy America–is nauseating. The New York Times , but even that paper was far more balanced on this issue and didn’t put it on the front page.
But not surprising. That USA Today is pushing this non-issue is a hint of what’s to come during the Padilla trial. As I’ve noted, the judge-atrix, , who is presiding (“presiding” is a generous term in her case and this trial) over the case, has already (fortunately, the Federal Court of Appeals overruled her on some of them).
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY AMERICA . . . FROM USA TODAY.

By
About a week ago, the government of Ethiopia reported that two American fighters were caught among the Al-Qaeda terrorists in Somalia. Although it was reported in the weekend papers (in, predictably, a tiny blurb), I was waiting to hear the names and stories of these two U.S. citizens.
Today, one of the names was in the papers (also in a tiny blurb–USA Today), as well. The Associated Press has the full story on American Muslim convert, Daniel Joseph Maldonado a/k/a Daniel Aljughaifi a/k/a Abu Mohammed, who was indicted:

A former Houston man arrested in Kenya last month has been charged in Texas with teaming with al-Qaida to overthrow the Somali government and form an Islamic state there.
Daniel Joseph Maldonado, 28, a Muslim convert also known as Daniel Aljughaifi and Abu Mohammed, was ordered held without bail Tuesday on federal charges of undergoing military training with a terrorist organization and conspiring to use a destructive device.
Maldonado was returned to the United States on Monday night and appeared Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Calvin Botley, the U.S. attorney’s office in Houston said. A detention hearing is set for next week.
Maldonado’s arrest marks the first criminal prosecution of an American suspected of joining terrorists in Somalia, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein said in a statement.
According to the criminal complaint, Maldonado, a Boston native, traveled from Houston to Africa in November 2005. By December 2006, the complaint says, he was in Somalia and had joined with the Islamic Courts Union and elements of al-Qaida to fight in a rebellion designed to overthrow the Somali government and install an Islamic state.
The complaint says Maldonado was issued an AK-47 rifle and attended two military training camps at which members of al-Qaida were present.
Maldonado was captured by the Kenyan military on Jan. 21 as he fled Ethiopian and Somali forces. He was expelled by Kenya and turned over to U.S. officials for his return to Houston. . . .
Maldonado told FBI agents in Kenya that he went to Somalia to fight “jihad,” or holy war, for a true Islamic government, according to the complaint.
“I would be fighting the Somali militia, and that turned into fighting the Ethiopians, and if Americans came, I would fight them, too,” he is accused of telling the agents. He also told the agents he had “no problem” with killing Americans or with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the complaint says.

But, it’s the “Religion of Peace,” right?

By
A reader sent me this info:

Hey Debbie,
I occasionally complain to Carl Levin via email and now I’m on his mailing list. I got this from him today:
The new Majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has scheduled four days of debate this week on the President’s plan to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.
I hope you will add your voice to this important debate.

Say Nice Things About Troop-Betrayer, Senator Carl Levin

The Resolution states the following:
Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007 to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.
Please click here to take the survey.
I look forward to hearing from you. I will send along my comments and the results of the Congressional debate late this week.
Thought your readers might like the opportunity to tell Carl what they think.

Yes, I think they would. Please readers go take the survey and tell Senator Carl Levin what you think of him and his opposing of our troops. Here’s the comment I posted in his comment section (unfortunately, he is my Senator):

Senator Levin:
Please retire. Also, your hanging beak glasses thing is atrocious. Ditto for your combover. We know you are bald. So, get a haircut. Please

Needless to say, I opposed that silly, troops-betraying resolution.

By
. . . Unfortunately, it’s only in a computer-generated new game by EA Sports, “NBA STREET Homecourt.”
It figures. Real-life WNBA players would NEVER play NBA players. They can’t even beat the men’s high school basketball teams they practice against. So much for “equality.”
They’re only “equal” in a computer program, which by the way–at least–does not make them–the WNBA players–look any less like men than they do in real life . . .

By
The latest issue of Newsweek has a very sarcastic (has to be) piece on the annoying Anna Nicole Smith hype. Had to reprint these excerpts detailing how silly it is that this trashy woman is now being worshipped by all the media:

At 17, she married the 16-year-old cook at a fried-chicken restaurant where she was waitressing in Mexia, Texas, and soon divorced him. She left their baby boy with her mother and went to Houston to make her way as an exotic dancer in a topless bar. Stage-named “Sweet Cheeks,” she was initially put on the afternoon shift because she was a little on the zaftig side. But she made a series of important career choices. She got breast implants, sent her photos to Playboy and began flirting with J. Howard Marshall II, an octogenarian who-only in America-had taught trusts and estates at Yale Law School, made hundreds of millions in oil and lost his mistress when she died in plastic surgery. . . .

Vickie Lynn Hogan a/k/a Anna Nicole Smith & 1st Hubby

In one of several rulings, a federal judge wrote that Smith’s “illiteracy is striking.” . . . New York Magazine published a cover photo of Smith, squatting and eating Cheez Doodles, under the headline WHITE TRASH NATION. (She promptly sued for defamation; the case was dismissed.)

Yup, this is the new national heroine.

By
. . . “Intergalactic Garment.” That’s the latest euphemism for astronaut diapers (another euphemism: “astro-wear”), in the wake of the Astronut/Lust in Space Lisa Nowack story from last week, as reported in the February 19 print edition of Newsweek.
(It reminds me of the disgusting “” euphemism used in the equally disgusting “.”)
Newsweek also reports that NASA calls them DACTs–Disposable Absorption Containment Trunks–and has a very interesting story about them. They are superabsorbant, absorbing 1,000 times their weight in water, and can last 8-10 hours. Sodium polyacrylate powder is woven into the fabric which soaks up the fluid and pulls it away from the skin.
They need to develop these for babies.