Another massive recall of toys made in China

This is really disturbing. Yet another recall of millions and millions of toys made in China:

Mattel Inc., the largest U.S. toy company, recalled millions more Chinese-made toys on Tuesday due to hazards from small, powerful magnets and lead paint, sending its shares down as much as 6 percent.

The toymaker's second recall this month came as Mattel launched a national advertising campaign to assure consumers it is on top of product safety.

The new recall includes 7.3 million Polly Pocket dolls and accessories with magnets.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said there had been reports of three children swallowing more than one magnet and suffering intestinal perforations that required surgery. When more than one magnet is swallowed, the magnets can attract each other and cause intestinal perforation or blockage, which can be fatal.

Also recalled on Tuesday due to magnet dangers were 1 million Doggie Day Care, 683,000 Barbie and Tanner play sets, and 345,000 Batman and One Piece play sets. No injuries were reported from those items.

About 253,000 Pixar Sarge die-cast toy cars with lead paint were also recalled. No injuries were reported in connection with the toys.

Lead has been linked to health problems in children, including brain damage.

How the hell has the Bush administration let this go on for so long? I know, stupid question.

Normally, I wouldn't understand the direct impact of a toy recall. But, I'm in Maine hanging out with Molly (age 7) and Little Joe (age 4). Today, Molly was sorting through her toys to see if any are on the list. They play with "Polly Pocket" and "Doggie Day Care." Even with my limited knowledge of kid's toys, I know about "Thomas the Tank Engine," which was on an earlier recall list. Turns out almost all of the kids' toys are made in China. Watching how a toy recall impacts kids is very disturbing. Very. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday night open thread

Monday's question of the day was about your top three outrages perpetrated by the Bush Administration. That was a lively thread.

Tonight's hypothetical:

Imagine that people in this criminal administration are finally going to be held accountable for their actions. Name the top five 10 Bush administration officials you want to see do hard time (and not in Club Fed). Again, I know this is a tough one, since there are so many of them -- at least I gave you five slots, rather than three this time. :) Read the rest of this post...

175 dead in northern Iraq in "one of the worst incidents of its kind"

Horrible attack in Iraq's civil war today. The death toll in the endless just keeps skyrocketing. Horrible:

Suicide bombers driving fuel tankers killed at least 175 people in apparently coordinated attacks in northwestern Iraq Tuesday, the Iraqi army said, in one of the worst incidents of its kind in the four-year-old war.

Iraqi army captain Mohammad al-Jaad said at least another 200 people were wounded in the bombings in Yazidi residential compounds in the Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair areas near the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.

The mayor of Sinjar, Dakheel Qassim Hasoun, gave the same casualty figures.

Police said the bombings appeared to target the Yazidis, members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect who live in northern Iraq and Syria.

The United States has sent an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq this year and moved them from large bases into small neighborhood outposts in an effort to reduce sectarian violence in the capital and surrounding provinces.

The United States cannot keep sending troops to quell a civil war. But, Bush has no real plan to end the quagmire that he created. He'll probably send more troops. So, you know, all that talk about a draft is real. Just because Bush said publicly he doesn't think it's necessary doesn't mean a thing. Bush lies.

AP has a list of the "deadliest attacks" in Iraq -- including the one today. Gruesome. Read the rest of this post...

Only in America

(I originally titled this "A sad sight," but changed it after I saw John's most recent post. I wrote it before I saw his commentary, and it is, I think, an interesting contrast, if purely anecdotal . . .)

In the grand scheme of things this is a decidedly minor event, but I was at the grocery store this morning, debating the merits of Granny Smith versus Golden Delicious, when I heard a torrent of footsteps and giggles coming down the aisle. As the stream of 20 or so kids rushed by, all in the same monochrome camp t-shirts, I idly wondered why they were in a supermarket rather than outside on a beautiful day.

On the other hand, I didn't really care that much, so I went about my shopping. A few minutes later, I rounded a corner to find the group all sitting in front of the deli counter looking up at an animated store employee. Eh?? I walked over, and caught the end of the excited explanation, ". . . and they live in the ocean, eating other small shellfish and plant life on the ocean floor. Now this guy won't bite, and his big claws have rubber bands around them, so you can even touch him! So are you ready to see a real live lobster?!?" Squeals all around.

So . . . when did the grocery store meat section become the place to learn about wildlife? With instructor Deli Guy, no less?? Very odd. Read the rest of this post...

Only in France

Mom and I were at the Musee d'Orsay today, a wonderful impressionist museum in a converted old train station along the Seine river in Paris. We were in one of the rooms on the top floor, looking at Monet's "The Turkeys at Montgeron" when all of a sudden a bunch of little French kids came running in and plopped down on the ground in front of us. Their instructor began to explain the painting to the assembled and rather oddly quiescent 5 year olds:

"Note that this painting is a collection of small brush strokes," she told the unusually attentive kindergartners. "The other paintings we've seen today were made up entirely of a series of small dots. As these are strokes and not dots, this is not an example of true impressionism."

One little boy in front then pointed across the room at a still life by God-knows-who and said "look, there's fruit behind that monsieur over there!" Read the rest of this post...

Pew poll: most disliked institution - the GOP

Glenn Greenwald hits the nail on the head yet again.

After six years of George Bush, right-wing control of Congress, neoconservative dominance, endless liberty-infringement and lawbreaking at home, and the Iraq War, what is the most disliked institution in America? According to the new Pew Poll:



Notably, there is an erosion in the favorability of virtually every political and media institution in the United States, but the Republican Party is at the very bottom -- lower than the press, the judges, the liberals, the Congress and all of its other Evil bogeymen. Yet the Democrats continue to give them whatever they want, dreadfully fearful of their great power and popularity.

The Pew report is primarily about the public's view of news organizations. It included these nuggets.

Fully 63% of Americans who count Fox as their main news source say news stories are often inaccurate – a view held by fewer than half of those who cite CNN (46%) or network news (41%) as their main source.

...Further analysis of the data shows that being a Republican and a Fox viewer are related to negative opinions of the mainstream media. The overlapping impact of these two factors can most clearly be seen in the favorability ratings of network TV news, major national newspapers, and the daily newspapers that respondents are most familiar with. For all three, Republicans who count Fox as their main news source are considerably more critical than Republicans who rely on other sources.

Read the rest of this post...

Hastert Expected To Retire This Weekend

Obviously, this would have been bigger news if it happened a few years ago, but former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert is expected to retire this weekend.

The congressional retirement season has started, and it appears former Speaker Dennis Hastert may soon announce his own plans to ride off into the sunset.

The Illinois Republican sent supporters a letter over the weekend asking them to join him for a speech this Friday at the Kendall County Courthouse in Yorkville, Ill.

The letter does not say whether he'll run for reelection in 2008 or announce his retirement, but speculation skews heavily toward retirement. And neither Hastert nor his aides have done much to dispel the widely accepted opinion back home that he'll call it quits. For example, an aide did not respond to an e-mail about the weekend letter.

Like the retirement of Ray LaHood a few weeks ago, Hastert's decision to leave Congress isn't a monumental thing all by itself. But it adds another district the GOP has to protect. With limited resources (yes, we once again have more money than they do), the Republicans are going to have to make tough choices - where do they play, and whether they need to protect seats or go after seats held by vulnerable Democrats. With each retirement, the chances of the GOP retaking Congress get slimmer and slimmer (and no, that wasn't a shot at Hastert's weight). Read the rest of this post...

What do you do when your job sucks and the other guy goes off for a month's vacation, leaving you to do all the dirty work?

An Andy Cobb/AMERICAblog production. Enjoy.

Read the rest of this post...

Bishop Harry Jackson: Obama's 'misinformed' about homosexuality and faith

During the HRC/LOGO Democratic presidential forum last Thursday, Illinois Senator Barack Obama was asked about homophobia in the religious black community, and how he would handle the intolerance coming out of some pulpits in this community, which has been a bonding point with the professional anti-gay white evangelical movement.

Part of his response, which includes what he said to a group of black ministers at a forum in Tennessee:

I specifically talked about the degree to which the notion of gay marriage in black churches has been used to divide, has been used to distract. I specifically pointed out that if there's any pastor here who can point out a marriage that has been broken up as a consequence of seeing two men or two women holding hands, then we --you should tell me, because I haven't seen any evidence of it. .

And what I've also said -- and what I've also said is, if you think that issue is more important to the black family, which is under siege -- if you think that's more important than the fact that black men don't have any jobs and are struggling in the inner cities, then I profoundly disagree with you.

...And the black community, I think, has a diversity of opinion, as you and I both know. There are people who recognize that if we're going to talk about justice and civil rights and fairness, that should apply to all people, not just some. And there are some folks who, coming out of the church, have, you know, elevated one line in Romans above the Sermon in the Mount.

And so my job as a leader, not just of African-Americans but hopefully as a leader of Americans, is to tell the truth, which is this has been a political football that's been used. It is unfortunate. It's got to stop. And when it stops, we will then be able to address the legitimate and serious concerns that face the black family.

It set off this response from the infamously anti-gay tool that trots out to defend religion-based bigotry, Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., of the High Impact Leadership Coalition (which paid for this outlandish ad in Roll Call and USA Today against hate crimes legislation). From OneNewsNow, the "news" organ of the American Family Association:

"He's dead wrong concerning what the Scriptures say, and more importantly, he's dead wrong in terms of the Scriptures and in terms of reading the culture.The culture has gone in a different direction, and the devaluation of marriage is a major problem, and I believe that he's a very dangerous man because he sounds reasonable, he sounds engaging, but he's misinformed"

Bishop Jackson calls Obama a "junior or infant Christian speaking out as though he were an ambassador of the faith." Jackson says he does not buy the notion that the homosexual rights movement is similar to the black civil rights movement either.

"I think what most African-Americans buy is that there should be justice for all, in terms of the outworking of civil law. What they do not buy is that we should rename sin as something righteous and holy," explains Jackson.

Jackson says the average person in a black community says, "wrong is wrong, and right is right, and even if I'm not living right myself, I refuse to call that which is morally wrong right."

Yes, and some in the evangelical movement that you are in bed with now, Bishop Jackson, thought segregation was biblically justified, and that it was "morally wrong" for people of different races to marry, based on scripture. Slavery is endorsed in the bible, as well as stoning adulterers. Cherry picking on the issue of gay rights -- and we're talking about civil, not religious rights -- doesn't fly, particularly with the tragic levels of HIV/AIDS in the black community. This sort of holier-than-thou ignorance and hypocrisy is inexcusable, because it shuts down rational dialogue, silencing and intimidating black LGBTs and potential allies. That's the whole point of the professional anti-gay religion-based bigotry machine.

Related:
* High Impact, Low Maintenance: The GOP is counting on Bishop Harry Jackson and his High Impact Leadership Coalition to bring African Americans to the Party. [You must click over to see the photo of Jackson as the spot of color in a stage full of right-wing luminaries back in 2005 -- Schafly, Perkins, Ted Haggard (!), Zell Miller, Daddy Dobson, Bill Donahue, and more.]
* Reporting from the NBJC Second Annual Black Church Summit
* Clergy Against Hate web site
* Faith in America (an organization that challenges individuals and institutions that use religion to justify discrimination and persecution of LGBT citizens). Read the rest of this post...

Susan Collins is freaking out already

It's well established that Susan Collins has a very thin skin. It's also well known that she tries to portray herself as a moderate while in Maine, but acts like a Bush-Lott-Santorum Republican back in D.C. So, it's probably no surprise that she's already freaking out. Know why? Because she's being filmed at public events. Not kidding:

The state's Democratic Party called it research, but U.S. Sen. Susan Collins' re-election campaign said the man with a video camera who tailed her at a recent parade was a low-down political nuisance.

The two sides clashed Monday over the increasingly popular tactic of "tracking," where campaign workers with video cameras follow opposing candidates, hoping to catch a YouTube-worthy blunder to be exploited for political gain.

The latest exchange in what is expected to be a hotly contested senate race stemmed from a Collins parade appearance Saturday.

Democrats, who are working to help U.S. Rep. Tom Allen unseat the Republican incumbent in November 2008, sent a man with a video camera to record Collins' every move. They said the tactic is a way to track what candidates are saying publicly and should be expected in a high-profile race.

Collins' campaign disagreed. Her chief of staff sent an open letter to Allen's campaign Monday, asking the congressman to persuade Democrats to abandon the strategy.

"Tactics such as tracking demean the political process, contribute to voter cynicism, and have no place in the type of substantive issues-oriented campaigns that our voters deserve," wrote Steve Abbott, Collins' chief of staff.

Yeah, right. Susan Collins, who broke her promise to Maine voters that she would only run for two terms, doesn't want to be held accountable. No Republicans want that.

Imagine whining like this so soon in the campaign. And, you have to wonder, what is she trying to hide? This is an election, not a coronation. But, hey, if you were a close friend and colleague of George Allen, like Ms. Collins, you wouldn't want to be watched either. It's going to be a long campaign for Susan Collins if she's so hysterical already. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Still pondering that Rove resignation. What's the real reason he's leaving? Since he aaid it's to spend more time with his family, that can't be true. Rove never tells the truth....

Crank it up. Read the rest of this post...

Paris Blogging Open Thread

(click photo to see larger version)

Mom and I went to a Gregorian Chant concert last night at Notre Dame - it's all part of the Assumption of the Virgin celebrations that take place every August 15 in Europe (not such a religious continent, but still, August 15 is big). Was quite nice, though after a while it was all the same thing over and over again - felt vaguely like being at church. Will have some video, with music, edited later today.

Interesting aside: The red light at the top of the cathedral was the sunset shining in through the beautiful rose window at the front of the cathedral. I'd never been inside at sunset, it's rather amazing the light that comes through. Read the rest of this post...

GOP YouTube debate is on

Mitt is the only holdout at this point. It will be great to see them sweat this one out. (WaPo):

In an interview with Manchester Union Leader, Romney said, "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."

That drew a video response from Billiam, the snowman who questioned the Democrats on global warming last month in their YouTube debate. This time, he riffed on another Romney quote from the campaign: "Lighten up slightly."

...Many of the questions already submitted for the GOP candidates, from a diverse set of YouTubers, are thoughtful. A 21-year-old asks the thrice-married Rudy Giuliani if he really has the character for the presidency. A 26-year-old Mormon asks Romney, also a Mormon, to explain his changing views on abortion. A 69-year-old asks how the candidates to detail their plans to reduce the size of the U.S. government.

Read the rest of this post...