The Consumer Product Safety Commission Is Still Wildly Incompetent, But I Call Bulls**t On The Daily Show

So let me catch you up.  The CPSC is the part of the federal government that is responsible for protecting the public from unsafe products (More Info Here - http://www.cpsc.gov/about/about.html).  So when lab testing by The Associated Press found up to 1,000 times the maximum amount of lead allowed for children's products in the paint that was used on drinking glasses with pictures of superheroes and wizard of oz characters on them, you would think that it would be a no-brainer for the CSPC to issue a recall on the glasses right? (AP lab testing - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101211/ap_on_he_me/us_cadmium_lead_glassware)

Never underestimate the power of incompetence.  The following is a quote from CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson, "After thoughtful analysis by child behavior experts at CPSC, it has been determined that the glasses are not children's products," Wolfson said Friday. He added that "the size, weight, packaging and price of the glasses sampled by CPSC are consistent with glasses more commonly used for consumption of adult beverages."  (Wolfson quote - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101211/ap_on_he_me/us_cadmium_lead_glassware)  Maybe my old ass is out of touch with what the crazy kids are doing nowadays, but none of the bars I go to serve my "adult beverages" in a Wonder Woman glass. Nevermind the fact that somehow it's okay to allow adults to get poisoned by this lead.

These are exactly the points made by The Daily Show on Tuesday the 14th, except that they edited their show in a way that makes Wolfson's quote about the Wizard of Oz/Superhero glasses look like it was about McDonald's Shrek glasses.  The CPSC and McDonalds did recall these glasses ((This is from the CPSC wesbite - http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10257.html).

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I do like The Daily Show, and often times they're great at pointing out this kind of practice in the rest of the media, but I think it is important to point out its hypocrisy in this case: it makes entertainment of pointing out flaws and bias in the media, yet it also uses spin and tricky editing to its advantage - in this case to get a laugh.  Ultimately it is damaging to the show's credibility.  Unfortunately we have just one more example of the irresponsibility and INCOMPETENCE of our information media services.