If not for these pasty Irish women then thousands of dress makers would go out of business, as would all those people who write music and lyrics for these Enya wannabes.
I actually don't have an axe to grind with these women, it's more with the PBS stations in my area who are running their Christmas concert TV show incessantly. 
Seriously, channels 2 and 7, if I hear one more "hey nonny nonny" from those women I'll disable your transmitter. You think I'm not serious? Try me, my trip to destroy your transmitter will be 'The Greatest Journey' of all.
It's times like these I wish Mojo Nixon had a PBS Christmas special out.
Pity poor Mattel. They are going to lose $30 million dollars this year because they are too cheap to make their toys in the USA. 
Yep, that's right. They are too cheap to make their toys in the USA so they contracted some companies in China to make their toys for them. But it turns out those rascals in China used too much lead paint on the toys and now the nosy Parker Feds in DC are making Mattel take those toys off the market, hence losing them $30 million dollars. Everybody together now and let's tell the pricks at Mattel how we feel, "Awwwwwwww."
The thing about this is if those toys had not been tested they'd still be on the market. Mattel did not test them for lead paint content, the Feds did. Mattel, no matter what they claim now that they have been caught, could care less about the lead content in the paints used in China. Why do you think they got the toys made in China in the first place? They got the Chinese companies to make their toys for them because they wanted to make more profits and to escape the labor laws and environmental laws of the USA. They wanted more profits for themselves and their shareholders even if that meant using Chinese companies who get the job done for the least amount of money and with the least amount of environmental oversight.
The top brass at Mattel are trying to place blame for this shit storm on the Chinese. One of them said, "Our safety record is exemplary. All of us at Fisher Price are devastated." Fisher Price is a subsidiary of Mattel. He might as well say, "It wasn't our fault, it's the damn Chinese fault! We didn't do nothin' wrong. Honest!" Bull shit. Their safety record is exemplary because they shut down most of the plants that used to make their toys here in the USA and they then contracted the making of their toys out to the Chinese. It's not hard to have a great safety record when you don't make a fucking thing.
Honestly, you can't blame the Chinese for making these toys so cheaply, that's what Mattel and Fisher Price paid them to do. So the blame for toys coated in lead based paints lays with Mattel and especially with their management team. Give them a ring sometime and ask to speak to their CEO and tell his or her ass that they are a bunch of greedy pigs who only care about how much moneythey can squeeze out of us and that they could care less about kids and families, send them an email with those sentiments as well.
If I had small children or very young grandchildren I'd be off the hook mad at these greedy bastards. I'd package up all the Mattel and Fisher Price toys and I'd send them to the CEO and I'd demand a refund and a written apology. But I know what I'd get back for my trouble, not a damn thing because they dont care. Oh sorry, they only care when they get caught and then they act like they care so very much. 
As long as we let the multi national corporations run roughshod over us and we do not reign them in, then we can expect more of this type of crap. And we can expect their handmaidens in crime in Washington DC to stand by them and to shield them from lawsuits. Corporations will never do the right thing, they will always put profits before people and we will always get screwed over until we demand that the corporations stop being given the same rights as flesh and blood citizens. A corporation is not a person and they do not deserve the same rights as we do. When we reign in the corporations and the runaway greed that they instill in all of us then we will see a huge drop in terrorism and we will begin to heal the divisions in our society.