Let’s face it, no parent can stand up against this alone. Try to ban the Princesses from your home, and you might as well turn yourself in to Child Protective Services before the little girls get on their Princess cell phones. No, the only way to topple royalty is through a mass uprising of the long-suffering serfs. Assemble with your neighbors and make a holiday bonfire out of all that plastic and tulle! March on Disney World with pitchforks held high! Barbara Ehrenreich

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Sign over a Gynecologist’s Office: “Dr. Jones, at your cervix.”

In a Podiatrist’s office: “Time wounds all heels.”

On a Septic Tank Truck in Oregon: “Yesterday’s Meals on Wheels.”

On another Septic Tank Truck: “We’re No. 1 in the No. 2 business.”

At a Proctologist’s door: “To expedite your visit please back in.”

On a Plumber’s truck: “We repair what your husband fixed.”

On another Plumber’s truck: “Don’t sleep with a drip. Call your plumber..”

On a Church’s Bill board: “7 days without God makes one weak.”

At a Tire Sho p in Milwaukee: “Invite us to your next blowout.”

On a Plastic Surgeon’s Office door: “Hello. Can we pick your nose?”

At a Towing company: “We don’t charge an arm and a leg. We want tows.”

On an Electrician’s truck: “Let us remove your shorts.”

In a Nonsmoking Area: “If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action.”

On a Maternity Room door: “Push. Push. Push.”

At an Optometrist’s Office : “If you don’t see what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place.”

On a Taxidermist’s window: “We really know our stuff.”

On a Fence: “Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive!”

At a Car Dealership: “The best way to get back on your feet — miss a car payment.”

Outside a Muffler Shop: “No appointment necessary. We hear you coming.”

In a Veterinarian’s waiting room: “Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!”

At the Electric Company: “We would be delighted if you send in your payment. However, if you don’t, you will be.”

In a Restaurant window: “Don’t stand there and be hungry, Come on in and get fed up.”

In the front yard of a Funeral Home : “Drive carefully. We’ll wait.”

At a Propane Filling Station: “Thank heaven for little grills.”

And don’t forget the sign at a Chicago Radiator Shop: “Best place in town to take a leak.”

The piece says that the manager of Rupp Arena, where this [Hannah Montana] concert will be held, has been getting calls from parents who want to know where they can drop off their 7-year-old daughters. What kind of parent “drops off” a 7-year-old at a huge sports arena for a concert? Does it occur to any of them that such an event might draw predators of one kind or another? Sherry Chandler

The United States House of Representatives has voted unanimously on a bill that strengthens sanctions on Myanmar and, in a jaw-dropping move, included in the bill actions that directly penalize Chevron Oil for doing business with the military dictators. Both the Senate and President George Bush must concur before the bill becomes law.

Nonetheless, it is astounding in its implications.

From Reuters:

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday blocking imports of Myanmar rubies and removing tax credits for U.S. firms investing in the military-ruled Southeast Asian country.

[Snip]

The bill… would stop the U.S. oil major Chevron Corp from taking tax deductions on its investment in Myanmar’s Yadana natural gas field.

“The vile reaction of the Burmese junta to peaceful calls for democracy showed the world the moral bankruptcy of this regime,” said [Tom] Lantos, [D-California] chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“Unfortunately, the thugs in charge are not in a state of economic bankruptcy to match. Today’s legislation hits these military dictators where it hurts — in the pocketbook,” he said in a statement after the bill passed unopposed.

What could this mean for Chevron and other multinational oil companies?

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from A Poetry Handbook: a Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry. by Mary Oliver

Analysis of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost.

Whose woods are these are I think I know.
His house is in the village through;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Analysis: The initial four lines are rife with w”s – whose, woods, know, will, watch, woods; and th”s – these, think and though; f is there – fill; and v. – village. Three sets of double ll”s; village, will and fill.

The heaviness of the vowels is increased by the use of diphthongs. [A diphthong is a gliding monosyllabic speech sound (as the vowel combination at the end of toy) that starts at or near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves to or toward the position of another.]

The two words that end with a mute – think and up – are set within the lines and thus are softened. All other mutes are softened within the words themselves.

Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: I do have choices and I can learn to be in charge. One happy outgrowth of being in charge is high self-esteem. As I come to control more of the events in my life, my self esteem rises.

It is difficult for Americans to imagine what it means to live as a refugee. We came close two years ago when Hurricane Katrina struck and the Mississippi River flooded New Orleans. Yet, that human tragedy cannot begin to compare with living in camps outside your native land hoping to return or, barring that, finding a new home.

Such is the plight of tens-of-thousands of people from Myanmar. From ReliefWeb:

Last week, under the world’s largest refugee resettlement programme, the number of Myanmar refugees who had left Thailand to begin new lives in third countries passed the 20,000 mark. Since the programme started in January 2005, a total of 20,878 refugees have departed as of December 10, with a further 3,471 approved for resettlement and just waiting for their departure date.

Nearly every day, Myanmar refugees leave Thailand for third countries. The largest number have gone to the United States, which made an open-ended offer in 2005 to take refugees from the camps in Thailand. Since the start of the programme, 11,737 Myanmar refugees have resettled in the United States, in such cities as Minneapolis, Minnesota; Fresno, California; Lansing, Michigan; Dallas, Texas and Syracuse and Buffalo in New York State.

Good on us. It’s wonderful to have a bit of good news about what our government is doing for a change.

Most of the refugees fled fighting and oppression in Myanmar over the past 11 years, and have been sheltering in nine refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border, which now have a population of 124,300 registered refugees.

Resettlement is an important solution for refugees for whom returning home or integrating into their countries of asylum is not possible, and we are grateful to resettlement countries for giving so many refugees the opportunity of a new life.

What ought we to do to ensure that none of these new Americans have second thoughts about our kindness?

Also: US House passes bill on Burma sanctions; Taxes Chevron
Military junta bans 19 writers and performers; poet questioned

THE PRESIDENT DESIRES TO KNOW IN THE FULLEST AND MOST CIRCUMSTANTIAL MANNER ALL THE FACTS . . . FOR THE VERY REASON THAT THE PRESIDENT INTENDS TO BACK UP THE ARMY IN THE HEARTIEST FASHION IN EVERY LAWFUL AND LEGITIMATE METHOD OF DOING ITS WORK. HE ALSO INTENDS TO SEE THAT THE MOST VIGOROUS CARE IS EXERCISED TO DETECT AND PREVENT ANY CRUELTY OR BRUTALITY AND THAT MEN WHO ARE GUILTY THEREOF ARE PUNISHED. GREAT AS THE PROVOCATION HAS BEEN . . . NOTHING CAN JUSTIFY . . . THE USE OF TORTURE OR INHUMAN CONDUCT OF ANY KIND ON THE PART OF THE AMERICAN ARMY. President Teddy Roosevelt

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is No email privacy rights under Constitution, US gov claims.

SPC Freeman: The Ziggurat of Ur. Built on the edges of the al-Hijarah Desert in the early 2100’s B.C.E., it once served as both a temple and a royal crypt for the Sumerian city of Urim. For half a millennia, it towered over the banks of the Euphrates River, the highest point in a crowded, walled city. Despite being only four kilometers in width, it housed an esti-…

While no candidates are perfect people, nor are they perfect candidates, I challenge everyone to search their own heart on this matter and see if they can spot the candidates who are secular humanists, pro-abortion, pro gay rights (including gay marriage) and tax and spenders.

There are several “front-running” candidates who are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. That”s great. But let”s back up a second. They are socially liberal. Are you socially liberal? If they weren”t fiscally conservative, would you vote for them? So why ignore what is important in hopes they will also remain true to their supposed fiscal responsibility?

If your values don”t have to be bought, then for goodness sake, what happens when you are presented with an ethical dilemma related to money? Craig Adamson

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees, Robert Feinman, Peter Sayles and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

YOU CAN”T EVEN ESCAPE WAL-MART BY DYING… Back at the beginning of July, I asked the question: Could Wal-Mart really be that stupid? Despite my own incredulity, it now appears that the answer to that question is yes. And for an extra good measure, I”ll add: Wal-Mart is that evil. Keep reading…

WANT FAKE ID…? GO TO WAL-MART… In yet another exclusive deal with a manufacturer gone bad, Wal-Mart blithely entered the fake ID business by distributing a special release DVD set for the movie Superbad. The fake Hawaiian driver”s license included in each pack isn”t very good. Keep reading…

AT THE WALLY PLEX… There are sound stages on Hollywood”s back lots smaller than Bentonvile”s behemoths, so it”s no surprise that budding video talent has been sneaking cameras in at odd hours. And now for the midnight show at the Wally Plex featuring Raddfood. Keep reading…

WHAT KIND OF SOCIETY ARE WE…? Yesterday I read Brian White”s analysis of the University of California at Berkley study: Living Wage Policies And Wal-Mart, How A Higher Wage Standard Would Impact Wal-Mart Workers And Shoppers. Keep reading…

CHINA PERMITS FURTHER WAL-MART EXPANSION… China is rapidly becoming a great energy black hole and American consumers are doing their best to make the dark pit even bigger (and drive their own energy costs ever higher) by buying products made in that country. Keep reading…

LIGHT A CANDLE… SHINE LIGHT ON WAL-MART… A week from Wednesday I”m looking forward to getting together with my Cleveland blogbuddies at the monthly Blogger MeetUp. But before I do, I”ll be swinging by the Steelyard Commons Wal-Mart for a candle light vigil sponsored by Jobs With Justice. Keep reading…

CABBAGE PATCH KIDS MEET JESUS… Naked Ken Barbie and Jesus won”t be happening in some households come Christmas afternoon. Wal-Mart has sold out of the 12-inch talking action figure and barring serious fishes-and-loaves action, toymaker One2Believe won”t restock before Christmas. Keep reading…

GNOME GRUMBLES OVER EXPANSION IN CHINA… Wall Street gnome and Motley Fooler Alyce Lomax ponders the news of late from Wal-Mart in Asia. She cautions that while overseas expansion makes sense, investors might watch events in Japan before getting excited about Wal-Marts growth on the mainland. Keep reading…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

And you’re having a bad hair day?

How many parents understand that Wal-Mart doesn’t care about community. It doesn’t care about their values or the world their children will grow up in. Wal-Mart cares only about what all corporations care about: maximizing share holder wealth. Do you know what your teen daughter is buying at the Steelyard Commons Wal-Mart?

From Feministing:.

Reader Scarlett saw these oh-so-charming panties in the junior department of her local Wal-Mart on Kildare Farms Road in Cary, NC. There’s nothing quite like telling adolescent girls that they don’t need to worry about finances since they have their very own moneypot between their legs.

What parent would find this acceptable for their under-age (hell, any age) daughter?

[Update — 0719, 13 December — The message on the back of the panties? When you have Santa Claus.]

Joshua Kurlantzick repeats the message I wrote about two days ago that world attention has moved on from Myanmar and the Democracy marches there in September are now passé. I think the rococo media is paying too much attention to itself since I have great difficulty choosing from all the stories for what I will write each day.

From The New Republic:

Three months later, the protests already seem long ago. After making a few initial concessions to the international community, like allowing in a UN human rights investigator and permitting a government meeting with pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese junta has stood firm.

Which is why bloggers and other new media are keeping up the pressure.

[A]fter the immediate burst of interest, the world has moved on, just as it has after many other color revolutions. The Western media has once again relegated Burma to the back pages (if it reports on it at all); on Saturday, for example, The New York Times featured a thoughtful analysis of the Burmese crisis–but it ran on page A10. And on a political level, the UN has not imposed an arms embargo or financial sanctions on the Burmese regime. The Bush administration, though still clearly concerned about Burma, has had to turn its attention to other crises, like the even worse one in Pakistan.

China, the junta’s most important patron, has continued to back Burma as well. Chinese officials clearly are worried about the junta’s harsh tactics: Behind closed doors, China has prodded the Burmese to engage with Suu Kyi and to embrace economic reforms. Yet with few other nations applying real pressure on Burma, China will not step forward to push the regime.

China may not (unless it realizes how much Face it could lose at next year’s Olympics), and President George Bush may have moved on, but First Lady Laura Bush has not.

Yet, Kurlantzick’s conclusion is not unreasonable.

The aftermath of the Burmese revolution fits into a much larger pattern of neglect. Burgeoning democracies, from Georgia to Lebanon, Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan, have triumphantly celebrated one color revolution after the next in recent years. Yet once the actual street protests die down, the West simply averts its gaze, or remains so enthralled by the initial protests that it ignores the challenges of post-revolution societies. And without continued foreign attention, the color revolutions rarely deliver upon their promises.

As individuals, we can’t save everyone. There are too many starfish on the beach. But we can make a difference to the ones we fling back into the safety of the sea.

Which will you choose to help?

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from A Poetry Handbook: a Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry. by Mary Oliver

A mute is a consonant that cannot be sounded at all without a vowel, and which at the end of a syllable suddenly stops the breath, as k, p and t in ak, ap and at. There are eight mutes – b, d, k, p, q, t and c and g hard. Three of these – k, g, and c hard – sound exactly alike. B, d and g hard stop the voice less suddenly than the rest.

Mutes may be “calmed down” by following them with a vowel or a liquid. P-l-ease [liquid]. B-e [vowel]. Q-u-iet [vowel]. A mute preceded by a vowel is brittle and explosive. Sh-u-t. U-p!