tikistitch

Shadow Governor?

In the aftermath of the Walt Monegan firing, one question keeps surfacing over and over again; why does the governor's husband, Todd Palin appear to hold so much power?

The stories started last year when Representative Ralph Samuels told me about going into a meeting, he thought would be private, with Governor Sarah Palin. Much to his surprise, Todd Palin was there and proceeded to sit through the entire meeting.

Takara Tomy to Massively Cut Down the Production Quantities of Made in China Toys

Major toy maker Takara Tomy (Tomy Company Ltd) announced to have a massive reduction to its production line in China.

A newspaper article reported by the Sankei Newspaper on October 31, 2007, told Takara Tomy (Tomy Company Ltd) has announced to undergo a massive reduction to the production quantity of toys made in China. The decision was made taking many of the toys were found with excess amount of lead and other harmful substances above the inclusion criteria, thus caused distrust over the safety of toys produced in China.

Currently, Takara Tomy has 90 percent of its toy production (based on value) in China, but it aims to shift the number of toy productions outside China to increase up to 60 percent in other Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam in three years time. Another reason behind the shift of its production line to such countries is because of the rise of labor cost in Guangdong, China, due to lack of labor power.

Halloween and the Lead Monster

...In recent years, our government has signed free trade pacts with many developing-world countries — countries with minimal product safety laws. Incredibly, the pacts do not include product safety standards, either. The result is that manufacturers relocate to these countries, make cheaper goods with less expensive, toxic compounds, and then, thanks to the trade pacts, dump these unsafe products into the U.S. market....

This might be less frightening if our government were expanding product safety enforcement at home. But a new report shows the budget of our Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has been halved during the free trade era — all in the name of deregulation.

"We have been disarming our ability to protect ourselves, even as the need to do so has been soaring," says the report from my colleagues at the Campaign for America's Future.

The few recalls the resource-starved commission has mustered highlight how dire the situation is. This summer, 20 million Chinese-made toys were recalled because of lead paint and other hazards. The Ashland University study makes clear such recalls are too rare, and that lead-soaked foreign products remain on store shelves....