During the 1980’s I used RT. 684, a modern limited acess highway, to go to work. The speed limit was 55 mph and I could not afford a ticket so I kept my speed around 65 mph. Nobody went 55 and the public set a more reasonable speed limit. If a sufficiently high percentage of businesses ignored CPSIA then it just won’t be enforced.

Certain sodomy crimes committed by consenting adults (husbands and wives) in Virginia are routinely ignored. But prosecutors used a dormant sodomy law to get a plea from Marv Albert. CPSIA is a real hazard.

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There is mention in the Bookroom link of a Minnesota case of lethal lead poisoning of a child who swallowed a trinket. That case is almost certainly bogus.

Alcohol seldom kills people. There are millions of young people, and some of them do not understand the risk from alcohol. A few of them kill themselves every year. It is a well known problem.

There are millions of children and trinkets. If the lead was that potent, you would have several deaths a year. The Minnesota child is the only case I ever heard of.

It would be worthwhile for the Academy of Science to set up a completely independent panel to review the lead data, which is very weak in my opinion, and compare the risk of lead to the risk from a representative sample of low concentration elements in the environment. It is beyond foolish to be afraid of children’s books and ball point pens!

Please email me if you want to be involved.

Marshall’s had adorable kids clothes and accessories with rhinestones and such, shelves filled with kid’s toys, certainly closeouts from before Feb. 10. Amazing Savings (a deep discounter) had shelves all sorts of toys and Fortunoff (going out of business) had tons of Easter kid items not to mention baby clothes.

Are there certificates on file for all of these items? I seriously doubt it. So exactly who is paying attention to this law and how are they paying attention?

As I mentioned at WW – I had a dark thought yesterday, it is this: that we Americans move more quickly to pack up duffle bags and ship our children off to fight for our freedom than we are to stop our own world and QUESTION laws like CPSIA (to do the investigation and inform ourselves of the FACTS), much less pick up a telephone for a whole ten minutes, to call our PUBLIC SERVANTS and dictate to them, OUR will. We citizens have a duty and a role of authority far greater than any of those holding public office – it’s time we drafted OURSELVES to fight for the cause of OUR children’s future (the rights and freedoms they stand to inherit).

Walter Olson, thank you for your continued and most excellent coverage of CPSIA!

Warm Regards,
Tristan Benz
Maiden America

But the children that CPSIA will hurt are real. We put up CPSIAHURTSKIDS.COM to show that this is not just a matter of grown-ups inconvenienced and disappointed. When businesses are devastated, children are affected. When a barrier is placed between children and the products that meet their basic needs and supply their education, children are affected.

CPSIA, for all of its good intentions, is really an assault on American children. For the sake of America’s kids, we can’t accept any more of congress telling us, “Yes, but it’s for the children.”

It’s not in their best interests at all, and we’ll do our best to show that.