Also Komen foundation is still leaving room to weasel out on future grants.

[link]

I suspect the development of the more structured toys--castles and Harry Potter tie-ins and whatnot--are part of what's created this divide.

Exactly. I grew up with the old ones, too, and liked them just fine -- plus Lincoln Logs (my favorite!) and ... damn, the other ones, with the sticks and the wheels and the cogs. Total brain fail there. What the hell were they called?

Pink gun has issues bigger than taste. One reason water pistols are brightly colored is so that they don't get mistake for, you know, actual pistols.

The federal colour requirement for a fake gun is the blaze of the barrel. You're allowed to make a fake gun in dark colours if you plug it in orange. Your state may vary. Similarly, I've never seen a mandate that a real gun has restrictions on appearance other than not having the bright tipped barrel.

Walther makes another pink gun.

Look at Wisconsin's gun description table: [link] They allow for lots of lovely colours.

As long as I'm not getting less performance for my pink, I have no issues with getting pink.

Tinkertoys! And I didn't even Google.

I don't have a problem with a pink gun, or pink tools, if you want them. I do have a problem with SGK trying to make everything they touch their particular brand of pink, and with other manufacturers assuming I might not buy a hammer if it's not *pretty*. That said, if I could find a set of purple tools, I would totally buy them, because PURPLE.

That's what I get for speaking ex cloaca.

From the Washington Post article:

Yesterday, the Komen Foundation said the investigation was not the cause of their reduced support for Planned Parenthood, and that the real issue was that Planned Parenthood did not directly provide mammograms.

A: Bull fucking shit that was the real issue.

B: How do you get a mammogram? 99% of the time you don't bloody well just call and make an appointment. Most places won't take walk-ins or self-referrals, even from women who fall into the age group where regular mammograms are recommended. You have to see a primary MD or an OB/GYN, who does a screening exam and then refers you. That's what PP does; it doesn't matter how many mammogram providers SGK funds if women can't get in to see them because they're un or underinsured and can't find an affordable primary or OB/GYN to do the screening exam in the first place.

Stupid, mendacious, or both?

Tinkertoys! I was never very good with Tinkertoys, but that might be because the set we had was missing half the pieces (I'm the 4th child of 5, and rarely got anything new).

I think the Komen foundation has well and truly sunk themselves. Absent firing Handel and admitting openly that the decision was made for political reasons, and committing to never doing that sort of thing again--and re-funding the stem cell research they cut off--they've lost all their credibility.

I'd been hearing dodgy stuff about them recently anyway: they apparently sued some other organization for using the phrase "For the Cure". Which is just tacky for a non-profit supposedly invested in women's health. Plus the business where they sandbagged some legislation that would have paid for cancer treatment for low-income women, because they think private charities should pick that up.

The main complaint I've heard about the "girl" Lego sets are that the redesigned minifigs no longer have interchangeable heads. Otherwise, they have a "girl" pirate ship set and a "girl" laboratory set - it's not just housework and pets.

Our legos got pulled out a week ago after being in the back of CJ's closet since the move. I was suprised to see that we had some pink and purple legos (just blocks) mixed in with all the other colors. The three year old boy who was playing with them didn't care, he built with all the blocks. The only time we noted the color was when we were getting him to clean up. "Let's up all the red ones away. And now the purple ones...".

Stupid, mendacious, or both?

Both.