Dear Santa: I would love more toxins under the tree this Christmas

Absolutely nuts, but it's not as though Congress or anyone else really gives a damn. Like the silly new credit card changes by the Fed (thanks for nothing, Congress) the new laws against lead, mercury and other toxins won't start for a while so be sure to fill up on the kids favorite toxic goodies while you can.

One of every three toys tested in a study of 1,500 popular children's toys contained potentially harmful levels of lead, arsenic, mercury and other dangerous chemicals, according to findings released earlier this month by the Ecology Center, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based consumer safety organization.

On Feb. 10, 2009, a new federal law — the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act — will set new limits on the amount of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead and other potentially unsafe chemicals allowed in children's products. The new legal limit for cadmium in children's products will be 75 parts per million, arsenic will be 25 ppm, mercury will be 60 ppm and lead will be 600 ppm. Based on these limits and related safety standards limiting bromine levels to 1000 ppm, the Ecology Center generated its list of the year's "worst toys," which includes, but doesn't rank, the toys with highest levels of lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury or bromide.

Click through to see which toys were the worst. Read the rest of this post...

Hanukkah starts tonight

We, of course, don't think our Jewish friends are going to hell (Ari, you're safe), but Barack Obama's bff Rick Warren outright told a Jewish woman, in front of a large gasping crowd, that she was going to hell because she hasn't converted to Christianity. That's not civility we can believe in.

From all of us, we wish our Jewish friends a very Happy Hanukkah - even though none of you made it into the cabinet either. Plus ça change... Read the rest of this post...

What? No Speaking Slot for Sean Hannity? Or the Guy Who Named His Kid "Adolph Hitler"?

That's Dan Savage's headline. Here's Dan's post:

I guess Obama—who also described himself as "a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans" in his press conference this morning—doesn't think there's anything disagreeable about Warren comparing the relationships of adult gays and lesbians to incest and child rape. But if we're all going to agree to disagree without being all disagreeable and shit, why not invite Sean Hannity to speak at the inauguration? Or one of the anonymous authors of those Obama's-a-secret-Muslim emails? Maybe that crazy "Obama's-a-scawy-Ayrab" lady from McCain's town hall meeting would like to attend the inauguration? Or how about a white supremacist who, while not at all happy about our first black president, happens to agree with Obama about the importance of early childhood education?

Or are only gays and lesbians required to tolerate people who refuse to tolerate us?

Read the rest of this post...

Bailed out bank executives walked away with $1.6 billion

Brother can you spare a billion six? What American would not be happy to hand over their hard earned money to Wall Street to fund their lifestyle? It's probably best that Congress sits on its hands and not take any fast action because what's most important is that Congress is properly appreciated by Wall Street. No waves, no problem. Just keep business as usual and pretend as though this was all a little hiccup and not a defining moment.

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses and other benefits last year.

An Associated Press analysis finds executives were rewarded even at poorly performing banks. Some trimmed their executive compensation but still forked over multimillion-dollar pay packages.

The benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management.

The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars.

Read the rest of this post...

Gluttonous bigot keeps opening big mouth

"Pastor" Rick Warren, the obese far-right homophobe who Barack Obama inexplicably invited to give the invocation at the inaugural swearing in, is doing more interviews, trying to put a soft face on his bigotry. Check out this latest quote from Warren:

"You don't have to see eye to eye to walk hand in hand," said Warren.

Maybe, but you do have to be able to walk in the front door in order to walk hand in hand, but Rick Warren explicitly bans gays from membership in his church. (I guess there's no room at the inn.) Warren doesn't have a problem, however, with Syrians. He thinks the Syrian government is "moderate" and a model for the world on how to treat Jews. Mind you, Syria is a terror state that is technically still at war with Israel. Maybe that's who Warren wants Barack Obama to walk hand in hand with, Jew haters.

So let's review. Barack Obama's buddy Rick Warren bans gays but loves Syrians. He also thinks Jews are going to hell. (I wonder if Rick Warren thinks that theory is also a model for how the world should treat Jews?) Anyone seeing a pattern here?

PS Here is why it's relevant that intolerant bigot Rick Warren is a glutton. Read the rest of this post...

Madoff scandal "staggering admission of negligence"

Since I first heard of this scandal it's been obvious that quite a few people lived in the same fantasy land as the "real estate in American never declines" people. It seems extremely unlikely that any serious investment business (whether a large international bank or posh investment firm) could have run the numbers and believed them. Ten years ago at least one competing business analyzed the figures and found them to be false so it would be shocking to hear that the big players failed to see the same. This is an industry that lives and breathes due to math brainpower.

As much as the Wall Street analysts are unimaginative sheeple they still have teams dissect numbers and tend to know what is real and what is fake. What they say in public versus private appears to still be a problem despite numerous exposed problems a few years ago During the Bush/Clinton market collapse of 2001 Wall Street was exposed as stories came out about the public cheerleading for particular stocks and the private concern about those same stocks. Any investor that was encouraged to invest in the Madoff funds are surely already speaking with their attorney about gross negligence and they would be right to do so. There's so much more that will be exposed in this $50 billion scandal, including who else was involved in producing the numbers to those eager clients.

I can sort of understand how Raven could have been so deceived, because he was not involved in the investment business. But I don't understand how the brains at some of the world's biggest banks were taken in. Just what were the asset managers at Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander, HSBC and Nicola Horlick's Bramdean thinking? Or hedge fund star Arpad Busson or Ezra Merkin, chairman of General Motors' financing arm, for goodness sake? Did they ask to see the risk models? Did they question how Madoff and his investment team made 9 per cent a year?

One can only assume they didn't. It's a staggering admission of negligence. And, as with so many of the other terrible scams now emerging from the past decade, there were warnings. In 2001, an American journalist, Michael Ocrant, wrote a piece questioning Madoff's claims to greatness, but the bankers and investors chose to ignore the critics. Sadly, there are only three explanations – incompetence or greed, or both. The usual suspects these days.

Read the rest of this post...

"Anybody but the gay"

My friend Chris, who's been involved in DC politics for probably as long as me, is starting to see a larger, more disturbing, pattern. He just wrote me the following:

You know that I’m less likely than you to read bad signs into things, but I have to say that the last couple of days have been pretty bad on the Obama front.

Rick Warren was disturbing, but potentially a tactically useful move, so I was willing to cut Obama some slack. But it’s worrying to me that neither one of the unambiguously qualified potential gay appointees actually got an appointment.

I can’t speak to Mary Beth Maxwell because I’ve never met her and our paths haven’t crossed. I’m sure she’s terrific; I just can’t personally vouch for that.

The fact that John Berry got passed over for Interior really bites – he’s the best there is, knows the Interior Department like the back of his hand and has already been through Senate confirmation previously. I’m sure Ken Salazar has his good points, but somebody needs to tell him it’s rude to wear a hat at a press conference. If you have to have a straight Secretary of the Interior, couldn’t he at least avoid being tacky?

But the one that gets me is SBA. Fred Hochberg has worked his ass off for Obama, he’s on the transition team, and he’s the former Deputy Administrator at SBA. The nomination that got made – well, I’m sure she’s fine, and I hope she does well, but there’s nothing compelling about her appointment.

It’s the same with Salazar – with Solis’ nomination, especially, there was no compelling need for another Latino appointment, but I acknowledge the political benefit. But that’s not true with SBA, and what happened there makes me question the Interior appointment, too. I can’t think of any common reasoning on these appointments except “anybody but the gay guy.”

Read the rest of this post...

An untimely death of a top GOP Internet strategist

UPDATE: Last July, there were reports that Karl Rove had allegedly threatened the man who just died. Another rather interesting coincidence.

A top GOP Internet strategist dies. I'm not convinced by the theories I'm hearing about him having been a snitch regarding the White House email scandal, and that perhaps he was murdered for that reason, but if he was starting to cooperate, his death would be a rather interesting coincidence. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Morning Open Thread

Joe is off for the week, so Chris and I will be covering for him, and then Chris and I will be off the following, while Joe picks up the slack for us. I'm in the balmy land of Chicago, where tomorrow's high is forecasted to be around 5. Lovely weather for Christmas shopping, but at least we have snow on the ground - a white Christmas is a very important thing. In good news, Al Franken still appears to be ahead in Minnesota. In bad news, no, the Rick Warren controversy has not run its course. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I hear the non-gay majority in this country give their view on "diversity," the more incensed I get. There aren't two views on civil rights, unless you mean the right view and the wrong view, the moral view and the immoral view. Obama knows the difference. Obama has lectured his own community on the difference. But now that he's seeking to curry political favor with the bigoted evangelicals, suddenly civil rights is just another policy debate with multiple legitimate points of views. Suddenly, when the color changes to gay, civil rights become relative and humanity negotiable. They aren't. Read the rest of this post...

At least we can count on Obama to remain steady on the environment

Maybe. Then again, maybe not. He has already wobbled on offshore drilling so it's anyone's guess what he will do, much like the wiretapping position that was all over the place. Friend today, stabbed in the back tomorrow and then we're all supposed to be friends as though nothing ever happened.

Obama can play this game only so many times before he burns everyone. A worrying pattern is developing and he hasn't even been sworn in yet. One of these days he's going to have to take a position and then stick to it. Read the rest of this post...

Ghost Town

Maybe not August ghost town, but everyone seems to be gone right now for the holidays. The stores were hardly crowded and the shelves are fully stocked. I have hardly noticed significant shopping this season as consumers pull back which will lead to more panic in Q1 when the official numbers arrive. We do our (limited) holiday shopping throughout the year when we see a deal as I can't stand hectic stores and become grumpy in about 2 seconds. Unless it's at my Inno and something new just arrived or I've spotted a discount item with an orange sticker. We did some shopping at a brochantes a few weeks back and all we had to do was look at something (not even touch it) and they were discounting. It's that kind of climate this year. Read the rest of this post...

More riots in Greece

Reading this article, it's difficult to see some of these people, the ones protesting today at least, as little more than thugs. Read the details of what they did, especially in Salonika. I'm very divided about these riots. At times, I get the sense that, in Europe at least, becoming violent is what the cool kids do (and I say that as a citizen of a country with a nasty history of violent crime). Not to belittle real problems these folks are facing, but jeez, disrupting a Christmas event for kids with sickle cell anemia? Come on guys. Read the rest of this post...