Raising Kids Today

The many-talented HopeSAT over at Deep Confusion somehow found the picture above, which perfectly sums up what it feels like to raise a young child today. Lead toys to the left of them, melamine to the right of them, and a Consumer Product Safety Commission that would approve of a cheese-grater slide behind them. It seems the head of the commission (Nancy Nord) has been accepting gifts and trips from the toy-makers she's supposed to police. Nancy Pelosi called for her resignation, but I'll bet she stonewalls for another year and a half or so. To quote Hope:

Former Reichmarshall of "New Mexico Lawyers for Bush," Nancy Nord was made head of the government agency that is currently making sure all those lovely lead toys make it into your kid mouth. WaPo has the scoop and Jon Carroll at SF Gate piles on. If I had children, they would be screaming, "Mommy make the scary lady go away!!"

Hope also has an interesting travelogue of her trip to Cozumel, where she and her active-duty Air Force doctor husband were exposed to two vacationing Blackwater mercenaries. There was a casualty involved.