Amid Arab protests, U.S. influence has waned




By Liz Sly
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 4, 2011; 4:04 AM

BAGHDAD - In days gone by, it was pretty much guaranteed that any demonstration in the Arab world would feature burning American flags and a blazing effigy or two of the U.S. president.

At the pro-democracy demonstrations on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere, references to the United States have been conspicuously absent, a sign of what some analysts are already calling a "post-American Middle East" of diminished U.S. influence and far greater uncertainty about America's role.


For just as burning flags are not part of the current repertoire, neither are demonstrators carrying around models of the Statue of Liberty, as Chinese activists brought to Tiananmen Square in 1989. Middle East activists say they avoid references to the United States as a political role model for fear of alienating potential supporters, said Toujan Faisal, a veteran democracy campaigner in Jordan who has been advising young protesters in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

"I don't think America appeals to the younger generation," she said. "I'm cautious not to present them with the American example because there's a negative attitude to America, a disappointment."






















foolishness

Toys: Government Laws about Toys and Fines

Pay attention to the part where it says MOST of these accidents have occured where the children are below the age grade for the toy. That is then the responsibility of parents - who buy them toys not intended for them and then when something goes terribly wrong, want to sue. The responsibility lies with the parent, not the state.

Unless you are all too stupid to know the difference.



New Government Policy Imposes Strict Standards on Garage Sales Nationwide

Friday , September 18, 2009
By Diane Macedo

Americans who slap $1 pricetags on their used possessions at garage sales or bazaar events risk being slapped with fines of up to $15 million, thanks to a new government campaign.

The "Resale Round-up," launched by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, enforces new limits on lead in children's products and makes it illegal to sell any items that don't meet those limits or have been recalled for any other reason.

The strict standards were set in the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act after a series of high-profile recalls of Chinese-made toys.

The standards were originally interpreted to apply only to new products, but now the CPSC says they apply to used items as well.

"Those who resell recalled children's products are not only breaking the law, they are putting children's lives at risk,” said CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum. "Resale stores should make safety their business and check for recalled products and hazards to children."

In order to comply, stores, flea markets, charities and individuals selling used goods — in person or online — are expected to consult the commission's 24-page Handbook for Resale Stores and Product Resellers (pdf) and its Web site for a breakdown of what they can't sell.

Violators caught selling anything on the enormous list face fines of up to $100,000 per infraction and up to $15 million for a related series of infractions.

CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson says the fines are intended for large companies with serious infractions.

"CPSC is an agency that has used its penalty powers over its 30-year history against companies," Wolfson told FOXNews.com. "CPSC is not seeking to pursue penalties against individuals hosting a garage sale or yard sale, we are encouraging them to take the right steps to not resell recalled products."

But FOX News Legal Analyst Bob Massi says the law makes no distinction for families and small resellers.

"Most people having garage sales at this point don't have much anyway, so to have a fine levied against them is tantamount to harassment," Massi told FOXNews.com. "And if you or I asked 100 people about this, they would never even know the law exists."

Don Mays, senior director of product safety planning at the publisher of Consumer Reports, says the hefty penalties are necessary to have an impact.

"The former civil penalty limit of $1.87 million was too small to be an effective deterrent to large companies who flagrantly violated the law," Mays told FOXNews.com. "Mattel and its subsidiary Fisher-Price, for example, recently paid a $2.3 million penalty for importing about 2 million toys that violated the CPSC 30-year-old lead paint ban — that amounts to just over one dollar per toy."

When FOXNews.com came to his garage sale, vendor Ilan Broochian said the same was not the case for his household.

"You fine me in today's economy $1000 dollars and that would hurt me," Broochian said. "So, just make the fine bigger to them; don't take their responsibility and put it on me."

"It is scary to think that there could be such hefty fines imposed on unsuspecting households," another garage sale organizer, Patti Lombardi, told FOXNews.com. "I think I speak for many people when I say that the government spends too much time interfering in the individual citizen's personal life and this is almost bordering on the ridiculous ... what if it opens up a Pandora's box of litigation brought by the purchasers of items at garage sales?"

Wolfson says the law may be tough, but it's necessary to keep consumers — and especially children — safe.

"Many children have choked and died on small parts that have broken off or been incorporated into toys," Wolfson told FOXNews.com.

He noted that dozens of children have swallowed powerful magnets that fell out of magnetic toys and have needed open-chest surgery as result.

"We don’t make haphazard decisions about risks here at CPSC," he said. "So much of what we do here and what this new law aims to achieve is looking at issues where children have been hurt previously."

But critics say the Resale Round-up is just another example of the government overstepping its boundaries.

"It's absurd when nanny-state bureaucrats want to regulate things we buy at mom-and-pop shops or second-hand stores," Wes Benedict, executive director of the Libertarian National Committee, told FOXNews.com. "Consumer product safety is best left to a free market where suppliers can compete based on reputation and track records. American grown-ups aren't stupid, and they know they need to be careful about what they buy for their children from complete strangers at no-name stores."

Toy industry expert and TimetoPlayMag.com content director Chris Byrne says the law is well-intended, but it may be taking things too far.

"The overall law I think is awfully broad and doesn't take all of the science into effect," he told FOXNews.com. "You can't consume lead by touching something and putting your finger in your mouth. That's not how it happens. The lead has to be injested and has to be injested in particles small enough to enter the bloodstream or on a material in the stomach where it will be digested in the stomach acids and go into the bloodstream — and that's never happened from toys."

In cases where toys have injured children, Byrne said the injuries often resulted from misusing the product.

"In virtually all the cases of magnet swallowing these were things that were swallowed by kids that were below the age grade, or in the case of the older kids they were pretending to have tongue piercings. By banning magnets, you're not going to stop that level of play," Byrne said.

"When you bring something into your home there should be an assumption of risk," he added. "And if you have a child under 3 and you bring in something age graded for 5 and up – who's responsibility is that? I think it's the parents'."

And toys aren't the only issue. Byrne said the biggest challenge now is for all school products.

"If I've got a wirebound notebook, the lead content in that wire binding is now under scrutiny, even though the chance of ingesting lead in any amount from something like that is virtually non-existent," he said. "It's a level of political grandstanding to say 'we're taking care of everything,' but the science clearly demonstrates that the transference is not really possible — I mean, a child who eats the wire binding from a notebook is going to have significantly worse health problems than lead."

The Resale Round-up has led some resale stores and charities to stop accepting children's goods altogether, something President and CEO of Goodwill Industries Jim Gibbons said has some clients concerned.

"I saw on blogs, consumers saying, 'Don't take away my ability to shop at Goodwill for children's clothing – this is how I clothe my kids and get them to school,'" Gibbons told FOXNews.com.

The problem, he said, is every not-for-profit and 'mom and pop thrift shop' has different capabilities and resources and a broad-brush approach may leave them unable to provide services.

Still, Gibson said, Goodwill generally has been able to continue serving its communities, and he believes CPSC is working hard to take a law "that was probably written in haste" and implement it in an effective manner.

"They're really committed to common-sense approaches and working in good faith with at least the social services kind of thrift segment," he said. "And we've been working very proactively with them to make sure that folks at Goodwill are educated, have access to the CPSC guidelines and are making themselves available for as much training as CPSC can provide as they try to figure out how to work with this legislation."

For more information on the Resale Round-up go to www.cspc.gov.

















toys

Federalism

We have a federalist system, otherwise known as 'federalism', and in a federalist system, power is shared by written declaration (or a constitution in our case) between a central government (federal), and regional (state) or subdivisions of regional (county/city). All must consent to the other intruding upon their areas of control. In a federalist system, in many cases, it begins at the bottom and works up, but for issues only the federal can control - invasions, treaties, war.


If you do not like how our system works, changes to it will result in modifications that may give us a Thailand, Russia, China ... we cannot maintain our system and culture of government and change it.





In the event of an earthquake in California, the responsibility begins as follows. The process moving up the chain of need/responsibility will occur pretty quickly, but it begins first with - where was the earthquake. So we will say Los Angeles.

City government is primarily responsible, but, if it is too great for the city, the county gets involved. Quickly the county would call for state intervention. That brings everyone from the police, fire department, to the national guard to bear on the event. It releases emergency funding from the state. Then responsibility moved from state to federal and it begins with FEMA and then moves to congressional/executive.

You should really all understand this because failure to understand this role is a failure to understand our system of government is not based on top down but bottom up. The mayor of Los Angeles MUST CALL the COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS who will contact the GOVERNOR who will call for federal aid - FEMA who will in conjunction with other federal offices (including legislative/executive) take action. The president cannot impose himself in the first minutes as that violates our Constitution. The president MUST WAIT to be called upon AND HE CANNOT BE CALLED UPON every time you have an emergency. Expecting that the executive or legislative branch intervene every time dismantles our system of government and installs a government you do not wish to have for it is closer to a state run totalitarian government than a democratic government.

The Civil War included the argument that state's had rights - the state has the right and OBLIGATION to serve its citizens. This is one issue that was considered in Dred Scott. The debate is quite old and we have generally agreed it is up to the state to respond to disasters FIRST before it moves up the ladder to federal offices.

Trust me - you do not want the federal government jumping in three minutes after the earthquake. Ironic - liberals are terrified of government intrusion into their lives yet want big government to tell everyone to leave them alone. You cannot have it both ways - let the government in and it doesn't leave entirely. It leaves behind its DNA and the next time, more DNA, until at some point, it reconstitutes itself in its entirety within the state and you have no choice.

For people who are petrified the government is listening and violating all the laws created by man over the last 100 years, it is odd they have faith that a law will get the government out when the emergency is finished. Ironic and odd.







.

Home of the what

Today, Americans should consider, if only for a moment, the sacrifices that have been made in order that we might live. In order that we might live in freedom, with opportunity, hope, ideals, and liberty, many men and women from our military and intelligence services have given their lives.

For the intellectually dishonest, it is the teacher/ writer/ poet that have provided us the freedom to live out our wildest aspirations. Several would quote Kennedy and his statement on poetry and war. They honestly do not see, and in some ways are so much more dangerous than any enemy we face. They cannot see evil, refuse to acknowledge evil exists outside of the limits of the United States, and when they stretch their imaginations to admit that evil does indeed exist, outside of US actions, it is usually because of US actions that their brand of evil exists. They are hopeless, yet they have control of academia and shape the minds of the young far more than any brainwashing of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. They are hopeless, and dangerous.

Evil knows that it exists, although it often colors itself as liberator, and it knows what academia fails to understand - we are at a disadvantage because we refuse to acknowledge its existence. Western Civilization has progressed and become progressive, with little room for such trinkets of old, as evil, good, and bad. That may be our fatal flaw. Hopeless and dangerous.

Instead, evil will work with academia, shape, mold, and concede when needed, to mollify the questioners, and lead them further astray - to create a fantasy world where academics believe that negotiation, or talking actually accomplished its intended goal. They will revise their history, establish academic educational standards for teaching, and control what the young hear - for they know that the war is won with the young, and they must win, or face oblivion. Hopeless and dangerous.

Our freedom is not due to academia, for wisdom is not achieved from sitting at desks, but begins with common sense, a virtue akin to leprosy for academics. Yet today men and women join our military and intelligence services, to serve and protect the American people. They do not join with malice nor indifference, for they reflect you and me in what they have done and wish to do, and most certainly you would question any designation of your intentions as hateful. With each life lost and each battle won, the teacher, and poet is more free to express their acarpous and bombastic arguments opposing any war, than they were before American men, and women joined our military, and intelligence services.

Today we remember and honor the loss, and while many will call it a pyrrhic victory, it is far from that definition of defeat – so many men and women understood that some events are ineluctable, and must be faced, or their families and friends they left behind would face the same evil, on a different day. These men and women, many who would never consider themselves heroes, have fought and many have died serving the highest ideals of freedom, allowing us the opportunity to live out our lives without undo fear and anguish of knocks in the dark, rockets destroying neighborhoods, or our school buses blown up with children aboard.

Pedantic politicians do not make long lasting peace, nor do unilateral treaties with enemies that understand only total and complete victory or death. Our men and women have faced these evils in every battle and war in our nation’s history and they continue to serve, despite the dangerous and feckless ranting of the extreme left - and they will serve, all people who desire freedom, for they protect the ideal of freedom and liberty when they stand and fall for the United States.

We do not find the opportunity anywhere else on earth, and it is not that we took it, for we gave much to possess much, and we do not help mankind by giving, when instead we can help others develop the same opportunities.

Deo volente we will never forget the sacrifices that have afforded us all that we have, and we will not abdicate our responsibility in favor of temporary safety and security.