Once again we need to thank the Chinese for their continued supply of tainted products. This time, fake Halloween teeth.

The $2 packages of “Ugly Teeth” are only the latest in a long line of Chinese-made toys and novelty items recalled because of lead. The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall on Halloween, in a late-morning news release.

I am surprised that the United States continues to allow imported Chinese products. How many recalls do we need before we stop purchasing goods from China?

Update: I find it quite troubling that the fake tooth recall didn’t happen until today. We were out this evening and I saw kids with fake vampire teeth. Their parents were appalled when I told them about the recall.

In the midst of this recall one should ask who should be to blame? Do we hold China accountable? Most certainly. But everyone has known for quite some time that this was a problem. Ultimately the blame should fall on the U.S. government. Politicians have sold out to special interest groups, some more than others. Which begs the question, why aren’t politicians with deep ties to China held accountable for tainted food, lead filled toys, substandard metal, and just about everything else coming out of that country? This issue is not Partisan, both side are to blame. Think of that as you read the following:

About 142,000 purple witch buckets, manufactured by Family Dollar Stores in Charlotte, N.C., were recalled because of toxic lead levels found in the paint coating them. Also pulled were 55,000 candy-filled skull pails, made by R.L. Albert & Son of Greenwich, Conn.

Fears involving flammability were the reason 120,000 “Creepy Cape” costumes produced by the U.S.-based TONY Development and Manufacturing have been flagged. And the 97,000 recalled Mr. Potato Head “Make a Monster Pumpkin” sets were deemed a danger because they contained parts tots could choke on.

Also recalled earlier this month were about 63,000 green Frankenstein cups sold at Dollar General stores across the country.

Fake choppers called “Ugly Teeth” tested positive for lead too, with conflicting reports about whether the levels surpassed the limits set by the Food and Drug Administration.

The Halloween products are the latest in a toy recall blitz that’s reached staggering heights since the summer — with more than 21 million toys and other products manufactured in China taken off store shelves because of hazardous levels of lead and other dangers.

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A school in the UK forced faculty and students to dress up as Muslims for a day to belatedly celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid. Most of the students are Christians and only two teachers are Muslim but everyone was forced to dress as Muslims. There was also a gathering but men were not allowed there because Muslim men do not like their women mixing with other men. Many of the people involved are not happy about this but went along anyway to protect their jobs and keep from being labeled a racist.

News flash, Muslim is not a race; one should not be labeled a racist for not participating in this craziness. However, if it were factual they could call me anything they wanted because there is no way in hell I would have gone along with this. My children are grown and out of school but I can promise that my grandson will never participate in this kind of activity. Those who chose to do this rather than fight it have already indicated they are comfortable with being Dhimmis.

Imagine what the outcry would have been had a school full of Muslims been forced to dress as Jesus to celebrate Christmas? CAIR and every other group would be crying the blues about forcing a religion on other people and I would agree with them.

We have too many double standards in this world but I, for one, would never, ever, submit to this kind of stupidity. They could fire me, call me racist and say anything they wanted but there is no way I would submit.

The world as we know it is coming to a very abrupt end and the Dhimmis are helping it along.

Source:
The Sun UK

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I’ve posted repeatedly about the fact that one of the main things Islamists fear about the West is the fact that the West has decided not to subjugate its women. So much of Islamic energy is spent on women’s issues — only not in the way NOW defines them.

To NOW, women’s issues, at the extreme end, are comparable pay, unlimited abortions on demand, and GLBT rights. At the less extreme end, NOW’s acolytes focus on reasonable things such as equal pay for equal work, equal access to education and opportunities, and freedom from discrimination.

To Islamists, women’s issues include keeping women from driving, preventing them from being educated, confining them to the house, wrapping them in tents when they leave the house, executing them if they are raped, beating them for any infractions, allowing them to die rather than flee a burning building inadequately clothed, etc. (I’m lazy this morning, but you can readily find links for every one of the assertions I just made.)

As part of this wonderful world of viewing women as chattel who must constantly be demeaned and disciplined lest they make their manifestly inadequate men face their own inadequacy, the Islamists have come up with a new and exciting idea: The woman free wedding. Yay!

To heck with multiculturalism: the Islamists — by which I mean, not Muslims generally, but only those who choose to practice the religion in its most extreme, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-Western form — are bad news, and they practice a debased form of religion. To my mind, religion should bring out the best in people. Islamists use their religion to justify the worst.

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Warren Buffett, the billionaire who has not yet found a way to enjoy his wealth, complains that he does not pay enough income taxes and states that he pays less than his employees who make far less money. Buffett indicated that he does not have accountants, (I find that hard to believe), and that he just follows the government’s tax rules and he ends up paying less in taxes than he feels he should. I have news for Mr. Buffett; the treasury will accept money from citizens who want to pay more.

If Buffett feels so terribly guilty about not paying enough in taxes then I suggest he ease that guilt by going to Treasury Direct and following the instructions on how to reduce the debt through voluntary donation. This should ease whatever guilt Mr. Buffett feels.

I sincerely doubt he pays too little in taxes and I think his method of determining this was purely unscientific. In any event, he should not worry about the tax code and get out his checkbook. Over 2.5 million dollars was donated in 2007. Mr. Buffett could easily afford to donate 1000 times that amount and not feel it at all.

That being said, the US Chamber of Commerce agrees that Mr. Buffett does not know what he is talking about:

Meanwhile, Mr Buffett’s remarks drew a robust response from the US Chamber of Commerce, which said the top 1% of US earners accounted for 39% of tax revenue - and the highest earning 25% of the population delivered 86% of the tax-take.

The chamber’s chief economist, Martin Regalia, said: “Mr Buffett has made an awful lot of money and if he wants to pay more taxes, I think that’s fine. But I think he should get his facts straight.” Guardian UK

1% of earners pay 39% of the taxes and the “highest earning” 25% of pay 86% of the taxes. How is it that the government can say that the rich pay less than the poor? How is it that the government can say that tax cuts hurt the poor and only help the rich without acknowledging that the rich should be affected by and benefit from tax cuts because the rich pay nearly all the taxes?

Warren Buffett is a doddering old fool with too much time on his hands. He can spend some of that time writing a check to the treasury to ease his conscience. Of course, he could send me 10 million dollars. I promise I will pay every penny of taxes due on that amount of money and not complain a bit.

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Last night during the Democrat Presidential debate Hillary Clinton punted when asked whether or not she would allow the National Archives to release the docs of her communications during her tenure as first lady saying “They are releasing things as they do their process” followed by the claim that it is “not her decision to make“. This is both true and false, typical Clinton politics.

Hillary Clinton’s evasive answer in last nights debate came on the heels of two separate reports from judicial watch and an ensuing scandal surrounding a Judicial Watch claim that Senator Clinton was involved in the 2000 pardons by then President Bill Clinton in an effort to secure votes for her eventual Senatorial campaign.

The first report is regarding a Judicial Watch lawsuit that challenges a Bush administration executive order that allows both the current and the former presidents to take an indefinite amount of time to decide whether to release records from the archive even in the face of FOIA rulings that order the government to do so.

Judicial Watch had filed a Freedom of Information Act Request to obtain Mrs. Clinton’s office records, including phone logs, personal schedules, and other documents that may shed light on her activities during the Clinton years. A court ruled that 10,000 pages of those documents will be processed completely by the end of January 2008; however, the National Archives and Records Administration “cannot provide a date certain” to complete the processing of 20,000 additional pages of documents.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, says thanks to an executive order, the government cannot release any of the documents until they are reviewed by the president and former president.

While this is a sad reminder that President Bush was never the man that the conservative base though he was (quite the opposite) it also demonstrates (in my mind) that the Clintons have something to hide by their efforts to stonewall the release.

The stonewalling of the release is part and parcel of the Clinton strategy when it comes to understanding Hillary Clinton’s involvement with former President Bill Clinton’s wild night of pardons (dubbed pardongate) and whether or not any of those pardons were done in a quid pro quo fashion to solicit votes for the Hillary Clinton Senate campaign. It is this charge of favors for votes that has Judicial Watch interested in Hillary Clinton’s White House communications and her calendar.

A second release from Judicial Watch provides a partial answer to that claim. The release is titled Judicial Watch Uncovers New Photos from Clinton Presidential Linking Hillary Clinton to Clinton Presidential Pardons.

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that its researchers obtained 34 photos from the Clinton Presidential Library of Hillary Rodham Clinton, then-President Bill Clinton and Grand Rabbi David Twersky at a White House meeting during which the Grand Rabbi and other community leaders allegedly lobbied the Clintons to commute the jail sentences of four Hasidic men convicted of stealing $30 million in government education aid. The meeting took place in December 2000, just after the New York based Hasidim sect delivered 1,400 votes to Hillary Clinton’s Senate 2000 campaign and only 12 to her opponent Rick Lazio.

This was the second meeting between Hillary Clinton and representatives of the Hasidic men. Prior to the election, in August 2000, Hillary Clinton visited New Square, the Hasidic community just outside of New York City.

According to Judicial Watch that meeting in conjunction with the newly uncovered photos undermines Hillary Clinton’s claim that she played no role in commuting the sentences of these criminals and that the pardons weren’t done for any future political favor, specifically pardons for votes. This ties intricately into the National Archive records that are being stonewalled.

A picture is worth a thousand words. These new photos undermine Hillary Clinton’s claim that she played no role in the commuted sentences granted these criminals. If that is true, then why attend a White House meeting evidently set up to discuss the pardons? How did these community leaders get an invitation to the Clinton White House? The situation screams quid pro quo said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These new photos show the importance of releasing Hillary Clinton’s other White House records”

Judicial Watch is now pursuing a lawsuit against the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration to obtain Hillary Clinton’s White House official calendar, schedule, and day planner, and related documents.

Russert tried to lift the carpet a little on Hillary Clinton’s reluctance to to get involved with the release of these records and she deferred to both hubby Bill and current ally in the case, President Bush. Thus it is once again dropped, a softball question to be sure because it doesn’t get to the meat of why the records are being sought in the first place.

The longer it takes the court to come up with a decision in the case the longer it will be before the nation knows the full extent of Bill Clinton’s night of pardons. We will probably never know everything here but one thing is for sure, the Clinton’s have something to hide otherwise it wouldn’t take such monumental efforts to get at that calendar.

For the Clinton’s this is just another episode in many scandals that continue to unfold even though Senator Clinton hasn’t achieved status as the most powerful person in the world. (scary isn’t it?)

Do the American people deserve to know what is in those records? You bet, we should understand how the person sitting in the White House will act based on their past record. Will the Clintons acquiesce and help us understand more about that fateful night where 140 criminals were put back on the street with clean records (and 30 more commuted)? Don’t count on it.

See the rest of the photos here. Try not to mistake them as mug shots.

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Yesterday I wrote about an administrative meeting I attended at our local public school, relating how everyone assured me that the teachers understood a policy document that was to guide them. However, when I asked questions, it became apparent that the teachers, in fact, didn’t understand at least a few of the key concepts in the document.

What really troubled me was the document itself, one that various committees had written over the years. To my mind, it was incomprehensible. First off, every single sentence was passive voice. I don’t like passive voice. My blessedly good high school English teacher taught me that people use passive voice to avoid responsibility, and she was right. In this document, all sorts of things “will be done” for the benefit of the students, but it is never clear who will do them. The document cycled madly between apparently random passive voice references to the school, the teachers, and the administrations, with many sentences carefully avoiding assigning any responsibility at all.

Of course, even if one could determine who had responsibility, I doubt it would be easy for the person with responsibility to figure out what he or she is to do. The document was rich with buzzwords, jargon and meaningless (but very high sounding) phrases. Incidentally, I recognize jargon’s usefulness within an industry. It’s a shorthand. As a lawyer, I use it all the time. It would take me forever to explain to you, the non-lawyer reader, what a demurrer is, but a lawyer instantly understands its meaning and purpose. In this meeting, though, I discovered that none of the participants, teachers, parents or administrations, had any idea what some of the document’s terms meant. I’m sure that, had I done a quiz, at least someone in the room would have been able to answer questions about most of the high sounding words and phrases, but it was disturbing that, as to the three phrases I picked at random, no one could answer my questions.

In other words, the document boldly announced a vision for the school’s future, but did not give anyone clear responsibility for implementing that vision, nor did it use intelligible terms explaining what the responsibility party should actually do. Rather than advocating responsibility, the document represented the abandonment of responsibility.

(Let me add here that I’m really poking at the document, not the school itself. Although I had problems last year, this year my children have superior teachers, and are benefiting from everything good this solidly suburban school has to offer. In other words, despite the document’s muddle, the teachers we have this year are doing just fine — and so are my kids. The school is also well run, which means that the administrators are doing their thing too. But back to my points about responsibility…..)

As often happens when I make a diagnosis (to my own satisfaction) about a problem that’s been vexing me, I suddenly see manifestations of the same syndrome all over the place. This morning, I woke to a wonderful article at American Thinker entitled “I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance policies.” The author is Charles J. Sykes, one of my favorite writers, and someone to whom I give credit for laying the intellectual groundwork that led me to my current neocon world view. In it, Sykes takes issue with the zero tolerance policies that see small children kicked out of public schools for doodling pictures of weapons (or, in the case of the really young, for doodling pictures that a suspicious, one-track adult mind could interpret as weapons). After describing myriad examples of the ridiculous practical effect zero tolerance policies have, Sykes has this to say:

None of this, of course, is really about keeping children safe or even teaching them how to behave: it is about administrators protecting their backsides.

Instead of encouraging children to exercise sound judgment, “zero tolerance” shows adults at their most arbitrary and stupid, especially when it punishes students for doing the right thing.

This is ironic, since these are the folks who are supposed to teach our children “critical thinking skills.” (PS: I also drew pictures of dinosaurs eating people. Shudder.)

In other words, as with so many things that go on in schools today (such as writing unintelligible policy documents), zero tolerance represents the school’s complete unwillingness to think or take responsibility for things. A zero tolerance policy relieves each school teacher or administrator from thinking about the magnitude of the child’s “sin,” or even from thinking about the child at all. It is a way for the school and its employees to avoid responsibility entirely.

I hope the parental worms start turning soon, because we’re creating schools that have bright pictures on the wall, and computers in the classroom, but that are just as bad as, if not worse than, any juvenile hall, complete with lockstep mentality and “zero tolerance.”

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has more on what schools are doing in lieu of stepping up and taking responsibility.

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It did not take long for people to blame George Bush for the wildfires in California because of his [past] opposition to global warming and because of a general hatred of the man. People compare the response to the wildfires with the response to Katrina and there are those who believe that the wealthier Californians made out better than the poor folk in New Orleans. The fact is, all response starts at the local level and then rapidly involves state resources. The local responders put their plans into effect quickly in California and the state rapidly became involved. The National Guard responded proactively by moving planes equipped to fight fires closer to the action by placing them on training missions until they were requested and the official request could be initiated.

The state asked for help early and it got that help. Unlike the leaders of New Orleans and Louisiana, the leaders of California acted responsibly and did not wait for the federal government to swoop in to help. Had Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco acted as quickly and decisively there might have been a better outcome in New Orleans. I heard someone state, on one of the news shows, that the response of the military (especially the National Guard) was hampered because of the deployments of our reserves to the war on terror. The truth is, a very small portion of California’s National Guard members are actually deployed and those deployments did not hamper the efforts in fighting the wildfires. In fact, the military was in place and had to wait to assist because the system had to play catch up with other entities necessary for the military to assist.

In fact, the Defense Department was so aggressive in responding to the dozens of wildfires that scorched nearly 500,000 acres this week that military pilots and crews were in place and set to fly a full day before they were finally allowed to do so, McHale explained.

~snip~

Some 2,500 National Guard soldiers were deployed to help fight the fires, McHale said, as were 350 active duty and civilian Defense Department employees. An additional 17,000 National Guard troops were on standby for activation to the fire lines should they be needed, he said.

“The military response to the wildfires in California was not inhibited in any way, to any degree, by deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan,” McHale said. “The capabilities that we needed in Southern California were fully available from our domestic inventory of resources, and those capabilities were made available as fast as was humanly possible.” [DOD News]

Proper leadership is necessary in response to any disaster and the leaders in California demonstrated how it should be done. While I certainly realize that the disasters in New Orleans and California were two completely different entities, I also have heard and read the complaints by people who compared the two events. There is this feeling that California fared better because of its demographics and that is simply not true. There are many ILLEGAL immigrants in the Southern part of California (who hope to find jobs rebuilding the place) so the poverty vs well off does not completely wash, though there were many more rich people affected in California than New Orleans. Additionally, wildfires progress differently than floods and are a different beast to tame all together but since people brought it up…

The overarching theme is that proper leadership in the time of disaster is key to providing the best possible outcome and California outclassed Louisiana in that arena. California leaders gave firm evacuation orders and people obeyed. New Orleans gave half hearted orders and did not enforce them and certain parts of the population did not take them seriously. People died because the leadership of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana failed the people who they were elected to protect.

Let us hope that Bobby Jindal can change the culture of corruption and welfare entitlement that is pervasive in Louisiana, particularly in New Orleans, and get that once great state back on its feet.

BTW, contrary to what people think, arsonists, not global warming, were to blame for the wildfires.

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Would it surprise any of you to learn that the media’s coverage of the President horse race accords more coverage, and more favorable coverage, to the Democratic candidates? It didn’t surprise me, but it’s still useful to see it in black and white:

Campaign coverage of the 2008 presidential election has been both biased and shallow, according to a study released today by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

One party dominates, and there’s way too much partisan fluff.

Numbers reveal all: Democratic candidates were the subject of half of the 1,742 recent print, broadcast and online news stories analyzed in the research. Republicans garnered 31 percent.

“Overall, Democrats received more positive coverage than Republicans (35 percent of stories versus 26 percent), while Republicans received more negative coverage than Democrats (35 percent versus 26 percent),” the study said.

Just as interesting is the fact that, while the public really, really wants to know about the candidates’ positions on the issues and their voting records during public office, that’s not what they’re getting:

The public pines for substance. A separate survey found that 77 percent of the respondents said they wanted more solid information on candidate policies and ideas. The press did not deliver.

Instead, almost two-thirds of the coverage focused on the “game” of the political horse race and candidate “performance.” Accounts of their marriages, health and religion followed in importance in 17 percent of the stories — with just 15 percent examining domestic and foreign policies. A mere 1 percent shed light on candidates’ public records.

“The press and the public are not on the same page when it comes to priorities in campaign coverage,” the study said. “This disparity indicates there is room for the press to calibrate its coverage differently to make it more useful and possibly more interesting to citizens.”

You can read (and weep over) the rest of the report here.

Hat tip: American Thinker

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If only we could convince the rest of the country that the trillion dollar War on Drugs is a failure. If liberal politicians had the same testicles to declare that War a failure instead of the War on Terror, we would have enough money to fund a couple of real wars worth winning.

Here’s a politician with some backbone:

FOX News,
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Says Marijuana Not a Drug

Arnold Schwarzenegger told the British edition of GQ magazine that he had not taken drugs. The former bodybuilder and Hollywood star has acknowledged using marijuana in the 1970s and was shown smoking a joint in the 1977 documentary “Pumping Iron.”

“That is not a drug. It’s a leaf,” Schwarzenegger told GQ.

The War on Drugs is not just heroin and cocaine, but on harmless drugs like steroids and diet pills. I expect the DEA will soon have the authority to declare Aspirins a controlled substance. When Muslims have taken over countries in Europe then we will wonder why we spent so much time fiddling with nonsense while Rome burns.

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The vermin trash on the American Left can claim another victory in the assault on all things religious by shutting down the historic ritual of flag-folding recitations at Veteran’s burials by employees of the Veterans administration. This is what you get when you elect Godless Democrats to office:

RIVERSIDE,California - Complaints about religious content have led to a ban on flag-folding recitations by Veterans Administration employees and volunteers at all 125 national cemeteries. It all started because of one complaint about the ceremony at Riverside National Cemetery in California.

During thousands of military burials, the volunteers have folded the American flag 13 times and recited the significance of every fold to survivors. For example, the 12th fold glorifies “God the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost.”

The complaint revolved around the narration in the 11th fold, which celebrates Jewish war veterans and “glorifies the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”

The National Cemetery Administration decided to ban the entire recital at all national cemeteries. Details of the complaint weren’t disclosed.

Administration spokesman Mike Nacincik said the new policy outlined in a Sept. 27 memorandum is aimed at creating uniform services throughout the military graveyard system. He said the 13-fold recital is not part of the U.S. Flag Code and is not government-approved.

I personally don’t know how I missed this 3 day old story but it is important. Michelle Malkin lists the meaning of each fold:

These meanings, not part of the U.S. Flag Code, have been ascribed to the 13 folds of American flags at veterans burial services:

1. Symbol of life.

2. Symbol of our belief in the eternal life.

3. In honor and remembrance of the veteran departing our ranks who gave a portion of life for the defense of our country to attain a peace throughout the world.

4. Represents our weaker nature, for as American citizens trusting in God, it is to Him we turn in times of peace as well as in times of war for His divine guidance.

5. A tribute to our country, for in the words of Stephen Decatur, “Our country, in dealing with other countries, may she always be right; but it is still our country, right or wrong.”

6. Represents where our hearts lie. It is with our heart that we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

7. A tribute to our armed forces.

8. A tribute to the one who entered in to the valley of the shadow of death, that we might see the light of day, and to honor mother, for whom it flies on Mother’s Day.

9. A tribute to womanhood.

10. A tribute to father.

11. In the eyes of a Hebrew citizen, represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon, and glorifies, in their eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

12. In the eyes of a Christian citizen, represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies, in their eyes, God the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost.

13. When the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost, reminding us of our national motto, “In God We Trust.”

Anyone that doesn’t realize what is at stake in 2008 is simply clueless. Liberalism has been the worst thing to happen to this country, ever. Rather than create tolerance it has grown more intolerant, bigoted and closed minded. Today’s crop of leftists is even more entrenched within the Democratic party thanks to the Clinton’s, Hollywood and a mainstream media brought up in the fog of bongs, acid and cocaine. Some people just never grow up, others are just plain stupid. These people have ushered in a Congress whose job approval ratings are matching historic lows on the following October polls, CNN 75% disapproval, FOX 54% disapproval, LA Times 69% disapproval, CBS 59% disapproval, Reuters 87% fair/poor, Harris 77% fair/poor, NPR 69% disapproval, Gallup 71% disapproval, AP-IPSOS 74% disapproval. Most approval ratins are even more dismal in the range of 11-22%. At best only 2 out of every 10 people approve of the job that the Democrat led congress is doing. The attack on religion, especially Judaism and Christianity is a major reason. Moral values, family values and faith mean something to a majority of Americans.

Stop Democrats NOW and save America’s future for our children.

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