After eight paragraphs blasting the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Nancy Nord, for the record number of toy recalls this year (apparently they are doing their job too well) and demanding her resignation for her reluctance to accept more taxpayer money, we finally learn this:

Nord noted that the legislation would compel the agency to take on additional duties like “the dramatic and unprecedented mission of hearing and acting upon employee whistle-blower complaints.” Those, she said, would divert time and resources away from current enforcement work.

Nord also said she opposed stiffer penalties for manufacturers that violate safety standards, insisting that raising penalty caps to $100 million as the bill proposes would induce companies to flood the agency with every safety complaint they get as a precautionary measure, “making it more likely that true safety issues will go unrecognized in the process.”

See, there are strings tied to that money and Nord is bright enough to understand that those strings could undo any advantage to be gained by the extra money.

I hope this father can now find some kind of peace:

BALTIMORE  —  The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the family’s privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marine’s funeral.

The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress to the Marine’s father, Albert Snyder of York, Pa.

Snyder sued the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified monetary damages after members staged a demonstration at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.

So far, so good:

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill to bar states from levying taxes on Internet access through 2014, clearing the way for President George W. Bush to sign the measure into law before an existing ban expires.

The unanimous House vote today resolved a dispute with the Senate, which last week called for the longest-ever Internet-tax ban by passing the seven-year moratorium. The House had voted Oct. 16 to prohibit the taxes for four years. The current ban ends Nov. 1.

It is remarkable how many political “solutions” today are dealing with problems created by previous political “solutions.” Three examples that come to mind immediately are the housing market crisis, the wildfires in southern California, and the water shortages in the west…

…Study after study has shown that housing prices are highest where government restrictions on building are the most severe. That is the ugly result of pretty words like “open space.”

Why were lenders lending to people whose prospects of repaying the loans were below average — that is, “subprime”?

Government laws and policies, especially the Community Reinvestment Act, pressured lenders to invest in people and places where they would not invest otherwise. Government also created the temporarily very low interest rates that made the mortgages seem affordable for the moment.

Now that politicians have created this mess, they are ready to play heroes riding to the rescue.

Read the whole thing.

Recent political ads featuring images of children with a narrator saying “George Bush just vetoed Abby” are the latest weapons in a battle between Republicans and Democrats over The State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/29/fema.newser/?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The man who oversaw public affairs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency when it held a fake news conference last week will no longer be taking over as head of public relations for the director of national intelligence.

Pat Philbin, FEMA’s external affairs director, was scheduled to become director of public affairs for National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell on Monday. It was not immediately clear whether he offered his resignation or was fired just as he was set to begin the job.

As the decades-long war between the Free World and the subjugated nations and peoples behind the Iron Curtain (mainly the USSR) was a contest of bluff, propaganda, lying, deception and only in a few instances HOT combat, it was known for decades as The Cold War. (USSR lost the war when it could no longer finance its arms race. And a few dozen OTHER problems.)

In like manner, the ongoing conflict between liberal, forward-thinking leftists and stubborn, logic-dependent conservatives has been named “The Cold Civil War” by uber-pundit Mark Steyn.

Stay tuned, this subject is going to be a showcase discussion piece here, for a long time!