War Games, An Energy Crisis, and the Iranian Threat

War Games, An Energy Crisis, and the Iranian Threat

Girl tells Santa she wants Dad home from Iraq, doesn't know Santa is Dad. [VIDEO]

Girl tells Santa she wants Dad home from Iraq, doesn't know Santa is Dad. [VIDEO]

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Pretty Darn Cool

Watch: Pelosi claims paying people not to work will create 600,000 jobs - THE Talk Station

Watch: Pelosi claims paying people not to work will create 600,000 jobs - THE Talk Station

White House Signals Pipeline Provision Not A Deal-Breaker In Payroll Tax Cut Debate | Fox News

White House Signals Pipeline Provision Not A Deal-Breaker In Payroll Tax Cut Debate | Fox News

Do you believe they (dems) will follow through? I don't. Once he gets what he wants, his decision can easily be no.."-drm

Senate leaders reached a tentative agreement Friday night on legislation to extend Social Security payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits for two months while requiring President Barack Obama to accept Republican demands for a swift decision on the fate of an oil pipeline that promises thousands of jobs.

I ask again, is he nuts?

Is Newt Nuts?

Could Obama Be Headed for a Landslide? - The Daily Beast

Michael Tomasky: Could Obama Be Headed for a Landslide? - The Daily Beast

I think beheading Obama is a bit drastic...

Grey-Haired Brigade

  

They like to refer to us as senior citizens, old fogies, geezers, and in some cases dinosaurs.  Some of us are "Baby Boomers" getting ready to retire.  Others have been retired for some time.  We walk a little slower these days and our eyes and hearing are not what they once were.  We have worked hard, raised our children, worshiped our God and grown old together.  Yes, we are the ones some refer to as being over the hill, and that is probably true.  But before writing us off completely, there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration.

  

In school we studied English, history, math, and science which enabled us to lead America into the technological age.  Most of us remember what outhouses were, many of us with firsthand experience.  We remember the days of telephone party-lines, 25 cent gasoline, and milk and ice being delivered to our homes.  For those of you who don't know what an icebox is, today they are electric and referred to as refrigerators.  A few even remember when cars were started with a crank.  Yes, we lived those days.

  

We are probably considered old fashioned and out-dated by many.  But there are a few things you need to remember before completely writing us off.  We won World War II, fought in Korea and Viet Nam .  We can quote The Pledge of Allegiance, and know where to place our hand while doing so.  We wore the uniform of our country with pride and lost many friends on the battlefield.  We didn't fight for the Socialist States of  America , we fought for the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave."  We wore different uniforms but carried the same flag.  We know the words to the Star Spangled Banner,  America ,and  America the Beautiful by heart, and you may even see some tears running down our cheeks as we sing.  We have lived what many of you have only read about in history books and we feel no obligation to apologize to anyone for America .

  

Yes, we are old and slow these days but rest assured, we have at least one good fight left in us.  We have loved this country, fought for it, and died for it, and now we are going to save it.  It is our country and nobody is going to take it away from us.  We took oaths to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that is an oath we plan to keep.  There are those who want to destroy this land we love but, like our founders, there is no way we are going to remain silent.

  

It was mostly the young people of this nation who elected Obama and the Democratic Congress.  You fell for the "Hope and Change" which in reality was nothing but "Hype and Lies."  You have tasted socialism and seen evil face to face, and have found you don't like it after all.  You make a lot of noise, but most are all too interested in their careers or "Climbing the Social Ladder" to be involved in such mundane things as patriotism and voting.  Many of those who fell for the "Great Lie" in 2008 are now having buyer's remorse.  With all the education we gave you, you didn't have sense enough to see through the lies and instead drank the 'Cool-Aid.'  Now you're paying the price and complaining about it.  No jobs, lost mortgages, higher taxes, and less freedom.  This is what you voted for and this is what you got.  We entrusted you with the Torch of Liberty and you traded it for a paycheck and a fancy house.

  

Well, don't worry youngsters, the Grey-Haired Brigade is here, and in 2012 we are going to take back our nation.  We may drive a little slower than you would like but we get where we're going, and in 2012 we're going to the polls by the millions.  This land does not belong to the man in the White House nor to the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  It belongs to "We the People" and "We the People" plan to reclaim our land and our freedom.  We hope this time you will do a better job of preserving it and passing it along to our grandchildren.  So the next time you have the chance to say the Pledge of Allegiance, Stand up, put your hand over your heart, honor our country, and thank God for the old geezers of the "Grey-Haired Brigade."

  

Author, Anon. Grey-Haired Brigade Member

IQ Robot

  Guy goes into a bar in Berwick, Maine. where there's a robot bartender.
The robot says, "What will you have?"
The guy says, "Whiskey."
The robot brings back his drink and says to the man, "What's your IQ?"
The guy says," 168."
The robot then proceeds to talk about physics, space exploration and medical technology.


The guy leaves, but he is curious...So he goes back into the bar. The robot bartender says, "What will you have?"
The guy says, "Whiskey."
Again, the robot brings the man his drink and says, "What's your IQ?"
The guy says, "100."
The robot then starts to talk about Nascar, Budweiser, the Saints and LSU Tigers


The guy leaves, but finds it very interesting, so he thinks he will try it one more time.
He goes back into the bar.
The robot says, "What will you have?"
The guy says, "Whiskey," and the robot brings him his whiskey.
The robot then says, "What's your IQ?"
The guy says, "Uh, about 50."
The robot leans in real close and says, "So, you people still happy with Barrack Obama?

I Just Don't Know.

A thought  from the Greatest Living Scottish Thinker-Billy Connolly.

"If women  are so bloody perfect at multitasking,

how come they can't have a  headache and sex at the same time?"

Re: the left

"In the first month of his presidency, Barack Obama averred that if in three years he hadn't alleviated the nation's economic pain, he'd be a 'one-term proposition.' When three-quarters of Americans think the country is on the 'wrong track' and even Bill Clinton calls the economy 'lousy,' how then to run for a second term? Traveling Tuesday to Osawatomie, Kan., site of a famous 1910 Teddy Roosevelt speech, Obama laid out the case. It seems that he and his policies have nothing to do with the current state of things. ... Responsibility, you see, lies with the rich. ... For Obama, these rich are the ones holding back the 99 percent. ... A country spending twice as much per capita on education as it did in 1970 with zero effect on test scores is not underinvesting in education. It's mis-investing. ... In Kansas, Obama lamented that millions 'are now forced to take their children to food banks.' You have to admire the audacity. That's the kind of damning observation the opposition brings up when you've been in office three years. Yet Obama summoned it to make the case for his reelection! Why? Because, you see, he bears no responsibility for the current economic distress. ... This is populism so crude that it channels not Teddy Roosevelt so much as Hugo Chavez." --columnist Charles Krauthammer

Debt Ceiling Explained

Here's another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:

Let's say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood....and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings. What do you think you should do

1. Raise the ceilings, or

2. Pump out the crap?

Your choice is coming -
 Nov-2012

Reid says House payroll tax cut dead in Senate in Senate - Yahoo! News

Reid says House payroll tax cut dead in Senate - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says his chamber won't approve a House Republican bill extending the payroll tax cut that also clears the way for construction of a controversial oil pipeline.

House Republicans put the final touches on the payroll tax measure Friday. It would also give the Obama administration two months to grant permits needed for work on the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would run from Canada to Texas.

The pipeline is opposed by environmental groups but favored by business and some unions. Obama has threatened to kill the bill if opens the door for the pipeline to be built.

In a statement, Reid said if the House approves the payroll tax bill with pipeline language, they'd be wasting time "because it will not pass the Senate."

Gee, maybe the President and Democrats would rather appease the environmentalist than create jobs. This project has been studied so much blood is running out of the study agencies eyes...

He Wants a New Race

Some offensive language..., but spot on and VERY ENTERTAINING.

Soar Loser

The fine line between cynicism and naiveté.

By JAMES TARANTO

"Life seems to lack rhyme or reason or even a shadow of order unless we approach it with the key of converses," Saul Alinsky observed in "Rules for Radicals":

Seeing everything in its duality, we begin to get some dim clues to direction and what it's all about. It is in these contradictions and their incessant interacting tensions that creativity begins. As we begin to accept the concept of contradictions we see every problem or issue in its whole, interrelated sense. We then recognize that for every positive there is a negative, and that there is nothing positive without its concomitant negative, nor any political paradise without its negative side.

A nice example comes from Kevin Drum of the left-liberal magazine Mother Jones in a blog post titled "Next Year's Big Bout: Real Obama vs. Fantasy Obama." He borrows liberally from our Aug. 8 column, in which we observed that Obama's erstwhile supporters were struggling with "the disconnect between the fantasy Obama and the real one."

Drum begins by quoting a Los Angeles Times op-ed from Spike Ward, an artsy type who swooned for Sen. Obama in 2008 but suffered as her husband's business took a hit in the Obama recession (among other things, they dropped their medical insurance). She got "pretty mad" at the real Obama, dropped her Democratic voter registration, and changed her "Got hope" bumper sticker to read "Got nope."

But an unlikely turn of events brought Ward back on board. Diagnosed with cancer, she learned that she is that rara avis: a beneficiary of ObamaCare. Despite now having a pre-existing condition, she was able to buy insurance to cover her treatment.

Drum's response to Ward, however, is what we find interesting:

And there you have it: Obama's core problem with his supporters from 2008, the ones who listened to his soaring rhetoric and believed he really was going to transform Washington--and have since been bitterly disappointed. This has always been something I could understand only intellectually, since I never for a second paid any attention to his stump speeches. Of course they soared! Of course they promised a new era! That's what politicians always promise. Why on earth would anyone take this seriously, when every single other piece of evidence showed him to be a cautious, pragmatic, mainsteam [sic], center-left Democratic candidate?

Beats me. But lots of people did take it seriously, and now Obama is stuck trying to convince them in very practical, non-soaring terms that he really has done a lot for them.

At one level, Drum is breathtakingly cynical--so much so that his brazenness in admitting it is almost refreshing. Here's an Obama supporter acknowledging what we Obama skeptics have long known to be true: that all that "soaring rhetoric" was just hot air. Even the denunciations of cynicism were cynical.

Enlarge Image

Reuters

"Fantasy Obama" in 2008

But here's where the duality comes in: From another angle, Drum is breathtakingly naive. He has gone through the past four years assuming that all that "soaring rhetoric" was harmless fantasy--that no one, presumably including Obama himself, took it seriously. Now he has lost his innocence with the realization that Obama toyed with his supporters' feelings and left many of them hurt.

Here's a question, though: If one assumes--as Drum did, and as he apparently assumes politicians, including Obama, do--that no one takes "soaring rhetoric" seriously, why do pols bother with it at all? It's a puzzle but not a mystery. After all, the pleasure one takes from a novel, a play or a fictional movie is not diminished by the knowledge of its unreality. Less charitably, we might analogize an Obama speech to a pornographic movie or a romance novel--a fantasy that is designed to arouse desire (and that has been criticized for fostering unrealistic expectations).

Drum goes on to make a case for the real Obama, offering an enumeration of his putative accomplishments:

That list is pretty long and includes a big stimulus bill, a landmark healthcare reform bill, student loan reform, an end to the Bush torture regime, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a hate crimes bill, a successful rescue of the American car industry, resuscitation of the NLRB, passage of New START, the death of Osama bin Laden, withdrawal from Iraq, a decent start on rationalizing Pentagon procurement, repeal of DADT, credit card reforms, unprecedented gas mileage improvements, a second stimulus in 2010, and passage of financial reform legislation.

Problem solved, right? If a single ObamaCare regulation was enough to woo Ward back, there's something for everyone in Drum's list. Having done so much for so many people, the president ought to be able to top 60% next November. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich might as well just go home and spare themselves the humiliation.

OK, maybe not. It doesn't really work that way. Ward, who was predisposed to favor Obama in the first place, came back not because she admires his policies but because one of them provided her with a tangible personal benefit (albeit one she is probably overestimating; as J.E. Dyer points out, Ward's premiums are likely to skyrocket in a couple of years).

As he rattles off his list, Drum again naively assumes that the electorate is made up of people like him--i.e., liberal policy wonks. He ignores the costs of the policies he favors; he ignores the unpopularity of some of them; and above all, he ignores the dismal economic conditions that have persisted either in spite of or because of Obama's policies.

In that regard, we're especially amused by the very first item on the list of things for which voters are supposed to be grateful: "a big stimulus bill." We got a big bill all right: $731.9 billion and counting, according to the ironically named Recovery.gov. What we didn't get was the promised benefit: keeping unemployment from rising above 8%. It just dipped below 9% for the first time in many months.

Here we see the duality of cynicism and naiveté. Drum is too sophisticated to take soaring political rhetoric seriously, but he's foolish enough to boast of an abjectly failed policy as if it were a success. He's like an atheist who thinks only a dolt would believe in God but has no doubt that faith healing works.

Fooled Again 
All that said, President Obama does seem to be solidifying his political base. Yesterday he gave a speech in Kansas that is drawing plaudits from lefty pundits. The headline from The American Prospect tells us all we need to know: "Obama Takes Cues From Occupy." Maybe he plans to win independent voters by erecting tents and organizing drum circles in their backyards.

Robert Reich, at the Puffington Host, gives the Obama speech a reverse fisking (a reiching?). That is, he quotes it extensively, interspersed with his own comments about how awesome it is. Reich's conclusion is the funniest part:

Here, finally, is the Barack Obama many of us thought we had elected in 2008. Since then we've had a president who has only reluctantly stood up to the moneyed interests Teddy Roosevelt and his cousin Franklin stood up to.

Hopefully Obama will carry this message through 2012, and gain a mandate to use his second term to take on the growing inequities and game-rigging practices that have been undermining the American economy and American democracy for years.

So the Obama "many of us thought we had elected in 2008" is one who gives speeches that excite left-wingers. As noted in the preceding item, that is the Obama of 2008. Obama has now convinced Reich that he's good for more than delivering speeches--by delivering a speech! That says more about Reich than about Obama.

The Last Incarnation of Barack Obama

The Last Incarnation of Barack Obama

If there was any doubt where President Barack Obama’s ideological heart lies, yesterday he let it be known loud and clear in a wide-ranging speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. President Obama is at his core a dyed-in-the-wool progressive who sees the federal government as the answer to all of America’s problems. And he is charging full steam ahead on this far-left course toward Election Day 2012, despite the total failure of his big-government policies and an American people who have flatly rejected the message he is trying to sell.

True to form, President Obama yesterday did what he does best: He delivered a flowery speech and flexed his rhetorical muscles. It’s a talent that won him the presidency, but unfortunately it hasn’t won the future for the American people. And that’s because the President’s underlying philosophy is terribly flawed. After three years of a massive expansion of government, the enactment of Obamacare, hundreds of billions of dollars in failed stimulus spending, government ownership of General Motors, a Big Labor/pro-unionization onslaught, threats of even higher taxation, the promulgation of more unnecessary regulations, and a total failure to confront the entitlement challenge, the verdict is in on President Obama’s record and the soundness of his statist, progressive philosophy. Deficits are soaring, the economy is stagnant, 13.3 million Americans are out of work, and job growth is flat. Not surprisingly, the President’s speech did not touch on those facts.

Instead of confronting the reality of America under his watch, President Obama hearkened back to the days of Bull Moose progressive Theodore Roosevelt, citing him as his model of good governance, quoting his 1910 “New Nationalism” speech and calling for “fairness” in America–along with more infrastructure spending, more federal education programs, more regulations, and higher taxation on job creators to redistribute wealth and pay for his big government programs. And in order to raise the temperature of his rhetoric–and inflame the passions of his audience–the President fell back to his class warfare ways, demonizing the haves in order to win over the have-nots while painting a picture of an America where “unfairness” reigns and opportunity cannot be found.

Matthew Spalding, vice president of The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics, explains why President Obama’s reliance on class warfare and his perverted view of “fairness” is so contrary to what America is really about:

There are no class distinctions in America. That’s why Steve Jobs could start an adopted child in a broken home, start Apple in a garage and become a billionaire eight times over. The real distinction here is caused by the rise of a new governing class of experts, bureaucrats and political elites who insist on ruling us to enforce “fairness” rather than letting us govern ourselves under the rule of law.

Indeed, the new fairness inevitably leads to bureaucratic favoritism, inequalities based on special interests and undue political influence. The real class warfare, as Paul Ryan argued in his recent speech at The Heritage Foundation, is caused by “a class of governing elites, exploiting the politics of division to pick winners and losers in our economy and determine our destinies for us.”

Ironically, the President’s conception of America–that it is a land of no opportunity–stands in stark contrast to his own personal story, which he even trumpeted in his speech. Barack Obama came from meager beginnings and now sits in the Oval Office. There are countless stories of other Americans who have risen and found success on their own merit in this fertile land. But speaking to America’s rugged individualism and the notion of achieving success without the helping hand of the government would not serve President Obama’s progressive agenda. In his world, the government is the giver of all things, the defender of the middle class, and the architect of prosperity. Likewise, success is not something to be championed but to be demagogued in the name of the expansion of the state.

Over the past three years, we have seen the President articulate many ideas and cloak himself in many different philosophies. Of late, he has even called himself a tax-cutter and posed as a deficit hawk, all while calling for massive amounts of new spending. But with yesterday’s speech, he has emerged in his truest incarnation–a hard-line progressive to the core. The speech fits perfectly with reports that the Obama 2012 campaign has come to the realization that it will lose white blue-collar voters by large margins and is concentrating instead on cobbling together a coalition of culture elites and racial minorities. The abandonment of the middle class–or, rather, the fact that the middle class has abandoned him–puts in context this latest incarnation of the President as he prepares to run next year.

This is not the way to lead America to prosperity, to stand the economy on its feet, or to put the millions of unemployed Americans back to work. Rather than make government bigger and more intrusive, now is the time to make it smaller and more responsible so that entrepreneurs can achieve what Washington cannot manufacture: new jobs, new ideas, and a better America for future generations. But that America is quite different from the one President Obama envisions.

Quick Hits:

• Seventy years ago today, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a moment that President Franklin Roosevelt said would be “a date which will live in infamy.”
• Germany expressed concerns that European leaders may fail this week to agree on a plan to tackle the region’s debt crisis and could take until Christmas to reach a resolution.
• The House Budget Committee is set to unveil a series of reforms to the budget process, including stronger spending controls, enhanced oversight, and greater transparency. Representative James Lankford (R-OK) explains at FoxNews.com.
• Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday that yesterday’s suicide attack against Shi’a worshipers in Kabul that led to dozens of deaths was plotted in Pakistan, according to a Washington Post report.
• It’s another year and still another hopeless United Nations climate change talk. Find out what’s being proposed and how it could affect the United States.

Obama and the Hezbollah Terrorist

In Jan. 2007, Ali Musa Daqduq helped kill five Americans in Iraq. He may soon be released into Iranian custody.
By DAVID B. RIVKIN, JR. And CHARLES D. STIMSONCall it the triumph of ideology over national interest and honor. Having dithered for nearly three years, the Obama administration has only a few weeks to bring to justice a Hezbollah terrorist who slaughtered five U.S. soldiers in Iraq in 2007. Unfortunately, it appears more likely that Ali Musa Daqduq will instead be transferred to Iran, to a hero's welcome.
In the early evening of Jan. 20, 2007, in the city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, five black SUVs approached the location of a regular meeting between U.S. and Iraqi military officers. Inside the vehicles, which mimicked U.S. transports (to avoid heightened scrutiny), were a dozen individuals dressed in U.S. military uniforms and bearing U.S. weapons. Their drivers spoke English.
Upon reaching their target, the occupants opened fire on the Americans. One U.S. soldier was killed on the spot. Four others were kidnapped, tortured and executed.
The mastermind of this brutal attack? Ali Musa Daqduq, a Lebanese national and Hezbollah commander. U.S. forces captured him in March 2007, and, in interrogation, he allegedly provided a wealth of information on Iran's role in fomenting, training and arming Iraqi insurgents of all stripes.
With U.S. troops set to exit Iraq at the end of December, all detainees in American custody there have been transferred to the Iraqis except for Daqduq. He is set to be turned over in a matter of weeks. Based on past experience with released detainees who were in Iranian employ, U.S. officials know that Daqduq will promptly re-emerge in Iran, shaking hands with dignitaries and leading parades, before rejoining his Hezbollah colleagues.Enlarge ImageMultinational Forces IraqMultinational Forces Iraq provided the photo of Ali Musa Daqduq during the briefing in July 2007.
This outcome would be an insult to the American servicemen who have lost many comrades to insurgents such as Daqduq, who consistently failed to comply with the laws of war. Indeed, the Iraq war is the first conflict in modern history where the U.S.—having complied with the laws of war by promptly prosecuting American troops believed to have violated those laws—did not bring to justice a single one of the hundreds of captured enemy combatants who have killed Iraqi civilians, American soldiers and contractors. Impunity for war criminals debases the laws of war, violates our international legal obligations, and is inconsistent with American values.
We have already failed to stop Iran's nuclear-weapons program. We have also failed to punish Tehran for facilitating the deaths of American soldiers, or for plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Allowing Daqduq to slip through U.S. hands would further reinforce the impression of American impotence. That will have serious repercussions, measured in diplomatic defeats and lost lives.
There is an obvious solution: Transfer Daqduq from Iraq to Guantanamo Bay to be tried by a military commission there. But this is where the Obama administration's rigid ideology comes into play—beginning with flawed, self-defeating legalistic arguments.
A successful prosecution of Daqduq would be relatively easy. He killed American soldiers and, as an unprivileged belligerent, has no combatant immunity. Yet the administration purports to be troubled by our lack of an extradition treaty with Iraq. It also points out that the Iraqis have refused to accord the U.S. legal custody of Daqduq, although the U.S. has him in physical custody. The Iraqis, of course, are being pressured by the Iranians not to accommodate this legal-custody request.
Yet we don't need an extradition treaty with Iraq to transfer Daqduq, a Lebanese citizen captured by American forces in a war zone. Since his capture occurred when the U.S. and other coalition members were the occupying power in Iraq, there is ample basis in existing international law for the American exercise of legal jurisdiction over him.
A more serious obstacle is the administration's policy of eschewing military tribunals. Earlier this year, the administration considered bringing Daqduq into the U.S. to face trial in a civilian court. In response, six Republican senators wrote President Obama, warning against trying Daqduq in federal court, and urging the president to refer him to a military commission.
The administration briefly flirted with the idea of a military commission, perhaps in Charleston, S.C. or at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. That idea seems to have been dropped after a Nov. 8 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told Attorney General Eric Holder that if the administration were to bring Daqduq to the U.S. for a civilian or military trial, "all hell would break loose."
The administration believes that bringing anyone new, even high-value detainees, to Guantanamo is inconsistent with the goal of eventually closing the facility. This proposition is absurd, and not only because that facility remains vital and relevant to this day. It raises the question of whether administration's detention policy is actually shaped by a crass political calculus of not antagonizing its liberal base in advance of what promises to be a difficult 2012 election.
The administration should press the Maliki government in Baghdad harder to allow the U.S. to maintain custody of Daqduq following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. If the Iraqis still refuse, the administration should unilaterally transfer Daqduq to Guantanamo to face justice.
While the Maliki government may protest publicly, it will rejoice privately, since Daqduq's rendition would demonstrate Washington's resolve in the face of Tehran's pressure. Allowing him to go unpunished is both inexcusable and dangerous.
Mr. Rivkin served in the Justice Department during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Mr. Stimson, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, was a deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs at the Defense Department.

The Toys That Will Drive Parents Nuts

The Holiday Toy Popularity Contest

To Be More Interactive, Dolls Tell Jokes, Answer Kids; No 'Watch Me' Toys

By ANN ZIMMERMAN

It used to be that Elmo just wanted to be tickled. This Christmas, he wants kids to hand him musical instruments so that he can play and sing along with them.

It used to be that Elmo just wanted to be tickled. Now, kids have to hand him one of three instruments so he can play rock songs. Toys are getting more complicated but are these toys that kids really enjoy? Ann Zimmerman has details on Lunch Break.

Toys are getting increasingly complex, responding to voices or touches and mimicking human behavior. Mattel's Fijit doll utters 125 phrases and responds, via voice recognition, to 30 commands. When you tell the doll to dance, she will ask whether you want her to groove to your music or her own. My Keepon, a round-eyed robot that looks like two oranges fused together, coos when touched on the head and bobs and twists rhythmically to music.

Since the 1930s introduction of Betsy Wetsy, a doll that drank from a bottle and then wet its diaper, the toy industry has long sought to create lifelike dolls. But the latest toys take interactivity to new levels. While parents love to hate talking toys, the new sophistication, in part, aims to blunt a common parental objection: that electronic toys make children too passive.

Also driving the complexity is a simple quest. In recent years, the must-have toy of the holiday season has often been a cute—and innovative—electronic toy. There hasn't been a toy blockbuster since 2009, when parents went mad trying to track down scarce Zhu Zhu Pets, motorized pet hamsters that could propel themselves through elaborate hamster habitats. For manufacturers and stores, a hot toy can be the difference between a decent and great Christmas selling season.

The Strong, Rochester, NY

The 1996 Tickle Me Elmo giggled.

Interactive toys also appeal to a valuable demographic, says independent toy analyst Chris Byrne. Grandparents buy a large number of children's toys—even more since the economy has remained sluggish, he says. "Grandparents tend to gravitate toward the toys with lots of bells and whistles, the ones that are met with an explosion of joy on Christmas morning," Mr. Byrne says. "Let's face it, we're buying love here."

Mattel says Fijit is selling as well as TMX Elmo—a 2006 version that fell to the ground in convulsive laughter—did when it premiered. Fijit, aimed at girls 6 to 9 years old, was sold out at most retailers before Black Friday, but shipments are starting to trickle back in. Sales also are reportedly brisk for Let's Rock! Elmo, geared for children 18 months and up, and for My Keepon. The latter is sold exclusively at Toys "R" Us, which says adults also are buying it to keep on their own desks.

Interactive toys landed on lists of the season's hot holiday gifts issued by retailers and assorted toy experts. Let's Rock! Elmo and Fijit also are in contention for the Toy Industry Association's hot product of the year.

Increasing Technology

"The technology in these toys increases every year," says Patricia Hogan, a curator of toys and dolls at The Strong's National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y. "Elmo's progression alone over the last 15 years is pretty impressive."

Enlarge Image

Of course, talking electronic toys don't always arouse enthusiasm from parents, who have to listen to them all day. Some parents also wonder whether the "wow" is worth it, as the toys don't come cheap, ranging from $50 for Fijit and My Keepon to $60 for Elmo (and an extra $20 a pop for three additional instruments sold separately).

Kim Tracy Pierce of Los Angeles has two boys, ages 4 and 6, whose past experience with an interactive Elmo doll didn't go well. "They played with him for a few minutes and then just smashed it," she said. "The new Elmo toy looks like they would play it with a little longer—and then still smash it."

With the newest generation of toys, "I think they take the fun out of what a toy is, which is to get you imagining what a creature or item is all about," says Rebecca Wolf, a Los Angeles mother of four children under the age of seven. "When [toys] come with voices of their own, what is the point?"

Hasbro Inc. said it listened to the concerns of parents before it embarked on creating Let's Rock! Elmo two years ago. Above all, mothers said they didn't want "watch me toys" that made their children simply spectators, says Jerry Perez, Hasbro's senior vice president for preschool toys.

So Hasbro says it made sure children could play with the toy in more than one way. They can use Elmo's instruments themselves. Kids can also play with additional toys—a keyboard, guitar and microphone, all sold separately—that prompt Elmo to harmonize.

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F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal; The Strong, Rochester, N.Y. (6)

Technological advances can raise the potential for hiccups. For example, Mattel packaged Fijit so that parents could activate it on the toy shelf—but used batteries that didn't last long. Unaware that they were supposed to replace the batteries upon purchase, parents complained that Fijit didn't work when they got home. Mattel says it since has put a sticker on the package alerting customers to install new batteries.

How-To Video

Parents also complained that Fijit was hard to operate, so Mattel created an instructional video for YouTube explaining how to get the doll to interact by pushing her belly when it lights up, using one of 30 phrases printed on a card in the package, speaking clearly, and standing no more than two feet away from the doll.

The video has had been viewed more than 200,000 times and "has changed the conversation to a very positive one," says Sara Rosales, a Mattel spokeswoman. However, parents still wish she came with volume control, according to Internet reviews on Amazon and Toys "R" Us.

My Keepon—a contraction of the Japanese words for yellow and bounce—is also a YouTube sensation. The toy began life as a $30,000 robot in Japan used as a therapeutic tool with autistic children to encourage interaction.

Keepon's Famous Dance

In 2007, its creators made a video of Keepon dancing and posted it on YouTube. The video has drawn more than two million views since then—as well as the attention of British toy maker Wow! Stuff, who convinced the scientists to let them make a commercial version. Though it has a simpler construction than the therapeutic model, My Keepon still has many sensors and four motors that allow it to react to touch and the sound of music. It doesn't always respond with the same movements to a song.

Deb Boline, a single mother of girls ages 6 and 8, has been watching her daughters make lists for Santa since October. While the girls have crossed off some toys, the Fijit has remained on the list, so she bought one last week. Ms. Boline, of Wichita, Kan., is aware that the Fijit might get noisy but doesn't mind. "If it is something my children enjoy, I am willing to put up with it to a certain extent, or ask them to leave the room."

Write to Ann Zimmerman at ann.zimmerman@wsj.com

Note: When we were young, my dad thought it would be funny to buy my cousin David, age 5, a snare drum set, thinking it would drive his sister "Toots" nuts.  However, by the end of the evening, the drum set disappeared until folks started to leave.  Dad had hid it cuz it was driving him nuts...  This is the same guy, may he rest in relative peace, who would give our kids ice cream cones as we were leaving their home, "for the drive home".