Save our Children's Books!

The poorly-conceived, overly-broad Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act which went into effect on Feb. 10, was intended to protect children from lead in toys and other products for children. However, an unintended side effect could ban access to all children's books printed before 1985. What a horrifying loss to our culture.

What can you do? For easy, but probably ineffective, action, sign a petition. For the chance to actually make a difference, contact your congressman! Representative Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska has sponsored H.R. 1692, which would exempt normal books from the CPSIA. Urge your representative to support this resolution!

And if the impact on books isn't enough to get you upset about this dreadful law, think about it's impact on everything from secondhand clothing to hand-me-down bicycles. Handmade toys and clothes are likewise contraband. Have a favorite toy from your childhood? Forget about passing it on to your kids.

The more I read about CPSIA and how it is absolutely destroying entire industries, the more it sickens me.

Judgment Day for Judges

Tomorrow is Election Day. Everyone pretty much already knows who they're going to vote for in all the major races, but what to do about all those pesky "Should this judge be retained in office?" questions. How should we know if they should be retained? We've never heard of most of them!

Well, there exists a useful tool to help one make informed choices for these judges. The Nebraska State Bar Association provides the Judicial Performance Evaluation, wherein legal professionals rate the judges on various factors, from legal knowledge to punctuality.

http://www.nebar.com/publicinfo/judicial_eval.htm

For those of you not in Nebraska, check to see if the bar associations for your states have something similar. They very well might.

And get out and vote tomorrow!