Chesnuts roasting in an open fire

(I never quite understood that open fire thing... right out in the middle of the living room?)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some 7,000 jumbo-sized snow globes were recalled by Hallmark Cards Inc. because the holiday decorations can act as a magnifying glass when exposed to sunlight and ignite nearby combustible materials, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Tuesday.

The snowman-shaped snow globes were sold in October and November at Hallmark Gold Crown stores nationwide for about $100 each.

Getting the toxins out

Of the Bush government, of our children's toys. Start with this petition from Sierra Club:

Parents, local health departments, and children's health advocates have lost faith in the federal government's ability and commitment to protect children from lead poisoning. If the Consumer Product Safety Commission had the tools it needed to do inspections, then we could guarantee safer toys for our children. I call for the immediate resignation of Acting CPSC Chair Nancy Nord and nomination of a Chairperson and Commissioner with proven leadership on consumer product safety issues. We need more inspectors in the field and more testing of the products we buy for our children.

One by one, we will hunt down the incompetent cronies of the Bush administration and demand they resign or actually start doing their jobs. We demand accountability.

Remember what was allowed into the United States under the Bush administration:

Date rape drug:



Lead:





Anti-freeze:



Formaldehyde in baby clothes:



Poisons in pork and fish:



Melamine in both human and pet food:




And the reaction of the Bush administration? To try and hinder inspections, try and close half of the FDA's laboratories, and tell the American public that holding China to account would hurt the economy.

We demand accountability.

Thinking of the children?

The party of family values? I think not:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration and China have both undermined efforts to tighten rules designed to ensure that lead paint isn't used in toys, bibs, jewelry and other children’s products.

Both have fought efforts to better police imported toys from China.

Now both are under increased scrutiny following last week’s massive toy recall by Mattel Inc., the world’s largest toymaker. The recalls of Chinese-made toys follow several other lead-paint-related scares since June that have affected products featuring Sesame Street characters, Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer.

[snip]

Lead paint is toxic when ingested by children and can cause brain damage or death. It’s been mostly banned in the United States since the late 1970s, but is permitted in the coating of toys, providing it amounts to less than six hundred parts per million.

The Bush administration has hindered regulation on two fronts, consumer advocates say. It stalled efforts to press for greater inspections of imported children’s products, and it altered the focus of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), moving it from aggressive protection of consumers to a more manufacturer-friendly approach.

“The overall philosophy is regulations are bad and they are too large a cost for industry, and the market will take care of it,” said Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy at OMBWatch, a government watchdog group formed in 1983. “That’s been the philosophy of the Bush administration.”

Today, more than 80 percent of all U.S. toys are now made in China and few of them get inspected.

“We’ve been complaining about this issue, warning it is going to happen, and it is disappointing that it has happened,” said Tom Neltner, a co-chairman of the Sierra Club’s national toxics committee.

Just because Georgie ate lead as a child

Doesn't mean he gets to make our children consume it.

Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report:

Earlier this year, for example, the Bush administration decided to look the other way on lead in children’s lunchboxes. Here’s the deal: the CPSC had two ways of testing these vinyl lunchboxes used by children. One involves dissolving part of the vinyl to see how much lead is in the solution; the other involves swiping the surface of a bag and then determining how much lead has rubbed off.

Using the first method, the CPSC found that 20% of the lunchboxes exceeded safe levels of lead. In one instance, a lunchbox had 16 times the federal standard. Naturally, the CPSC ignored these test results, using the swipe/rub-off tests exclusively. What’s more, as the AP explained, researchers changed their testing protocol: “After a handful of tests, they increased the number of times they swiped each bag, again and again on the same spot, resulting in lower average results.” The test results also show that many lunchboxes were tested only on the outside, which isn’t where the food goes.

Alexa Engelman, a researcher at the Center for Environmental Health, said, “They knew this all along and they didn’t take action on it. It’s upsetting to me. Why are we, as a country, protecting the companies? We should be protecting the kids.”

Well, we should be, but the administration has a philosophical problem with government regulations. If that means more kids are exposed to more lead, well, it’s the market’s problem.