Handmade Quilt, $58, Um, Make That $3,530
Walter Olson, over at the excellent site, Overlawyered, shouts out that today is CPSIA blogging day -- a day to make blognoise (and, he hopes, incite noise in the offices of our Congressturds and Senaturds) in hopes of repealing the dumbass Consumer Product Safety Act of 2008, which mandates, well, here's an excerpt from a post from Overlawyered:

Sold as a measure to protect children from the perils of Chinese and other foreign-made toys which may contain lead paint, the law was written with good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions sometimes produce bad consequences. While this law may never save a child, it will certainly have consequences for small businesses which produce toys, as well as other products intended primarily for children under 12.

As always, the devil is in the details, and Publius Endures has given the details careful scrutiny. Among other little details, this law may require toy manufacturers and importers to perform costly outside testing, at a cost of over $4000, on each lot of toys shipped. If the law is so interpreted by the people who draft its enabling regulations, that will simply put small manufacturers out of business, leaving the American toy market to giants such as Mattel or driving more of the business to overseas competitors who produce on a larger scale and can absorb the cost. The result, probably not intended at all by lawmakers, may be monopoly or oligopoly in the American toy market, accomplished through regulation rather than market forces.

Please contact the elected idiot who represents you (unless you're one of the rare few represented by somebody smart -- and please contact that person as well), and tell them you want them to work to repeal this disastrous act.

In a time when our economy is so far down the crapper, and people are turning to any means (toymaking, prostitution, whatever) to make ends meet -- it's hard to think of a stupider and more destructive law they could pass to "protect" the children.