Olympics & Tibet

Free Speech. We got it, they don't.

The Lady Doth Protest Too Much

Ooopsy! Looks like Barbie & her parent company Mattel are having to do a little poopy scooping. After playing holier than thou with the missteps from their Chinese suppliers they are now having to apologize to them. As blogged here before, although 2.8M toys were recalled due to excessive levels of lead in the paint, over 21M were recalled due to a defective magnet design that had nothing to do with the Chinese subcontractors. This Mattel design flaw has caused numerous toddler trips to the OR, no such direct injury has been reported from the tainted paint.

Bullets & Paint

Today Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) opened a series of hearings related to the toy industry's recent lead paint scare and their Chinese suppliers. Obviously protecting children is an important and laudable goal. However, if this is Mr. Durbin's actual agenda shouldn't he be talking to the gun manufacturers, the NRA & gun lobby?

I could find no reference to any child's death or injury directly attributed to lead poisoning (I'm sure it's happened, just not enough to garner coverage). Yet in 2002, 60 children under 14 were killed by guns and over 800 required hospitalization for gunshot wounds. If you raise the upper age to 19 (though obviously not playing with Thomas trains at that age) the statistic goes to 8 deaths per day!

Makes the China paint pursuit look a little hypocritical don't you think?

See No Evil

My blogs from Shanghai may be a little weird as due to the censors here, I can post to, but not view mine or anyone else's blogs! Oh yeah & I have to figure out how to get blogger to display in English.