Dear Santa: Toys for Christmas?

This heads-up just received in my PIRG Newsletter:

For the last 22 years we've released our report about unsafe toys: "Trouble In Toyland." Every November, we catalogue unsafe toys that we find on store shelves. It seems even more important this year, after so many recalls of toys, food and other products. And it's even more critical as we get closer to the busiest shopping day of the year.

But even after all the recalls and all the media attention, we still found a Curious George doll with lead at five times the current limit, a toy cow with lead paint at nearly 50 percent more than legal limits, and lead-laced play jewelry -- one piece was actually 65 percent lead, which is more than 1,000 times the legal limit!

Click the links below to read our report, as well as the list of unsafe toys and tips for parents.

Report: USPIRG: Trouble in Toyland

Tips for toy safety.

With so many unsafe toys, we can't rely on the news coverage to inform shoppers. Please forward a link to this post to all of your friends and family who might be buying toys in the coming weeks.

Noam Chomsky: sustain the pressure

"If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that's something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can't live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organisations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time." --Noam Chomsky


Noam Chomsky was born Dec 7, 1928 in Philadelphia, PA (Rodden rating: A) with Sun 15Sag09 and Moon 24Lib06. His ASC/DESC and MC/IC cusps are same as the US ('Sibly') cusps...ASC 12Sag16, with Mercury Oriental (last to rise just before the Sun, concerns the career), and MC 00Lib55.

Mercury Oriental = dotting the i's and crossing the t's; respect for detail; getting things right with perhaps a need to conform to clearly defined procedures and expectations. (Tyl, Synthesis and Counseling in Astrology.)

Mars 4Can48 is Rx and out-of-bounds, plus his Sun-Moon personality blend can be quite iconoclastic.

Chomsky is now involved in a Mars Return (new cycle of activity) with three conjunctions to natal Mars:

1. Oct 10, 2007; 2. Dec 19 Rx; 3. Mar 17, 2008.

"5Can" = "At a railroad crossing, an automobile is wrecked by a train." (Lynda Hill, 360 Degrees of Wisdom.)

This car in this Symbol speaks of an individual with the ability to go in a chosen direction and the train represents the collective. The train can only go on the tracks and has no ability to maneuver tricky situations or to change directions quickly. There is a recklessness in this Symbol, of not considering consequences well enough to avoid catastrophe...of going "off the tracks."

With transit Pluto poised to enter Capricorn, Chomsky's n Mars will be opposed by Pluto beginning in late 2010 which is the 'powerful forces paralyze actions' transit.

And since Chomsky will be 82 by that time, a health crisis and/or surgery may apply--actually once Pluto enters Capricorn (Feb 2008), Pluto is within orb of opposition to natal Mars.

Born within the 2South Solar Eclipse Series, Noam Chomsky shares this PE Series with Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan; its key theme is:

involvement in unusal groups through which it is felt that a great deal can be gained.

The 2S Series last occurred Dec 25, 2000--and you remember what was going on then! It next manifests Jan 6, 2019 at "15Cap."

Here are his Sun Sag/Moon Lib Images for Integration:

Amidst a whirl of gaiety, a writer sits in a coffee house taking notes, and a painter paints...The Dead Poets' Society. (Sun Sign, Moon Sign, Chas & Suzi Harvey.)

Wonder if he prefers Starbucks coffee...I don't!


"... the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

--Alex Carey: Australian social scientist, quoted by Noam Chomsky in World Orders Old and New

Comet Holmes 'swallows' Mirfak

Space Weather News for Nov. 19, 2007

Comet 17P/Holmes is swallowing a star! Not really, but it looks that way. Tonight, the exploding comet is passing directly in front of Mirfak, the brightest star of the constellation Perseus.

Astronomers liken the view through a backyard telescope to a giant space-faring jellyfish gobbling a phosphorescent treat. Although Comet Holmes is now fading to the limits of naked-eye visibility, the star-comet duo is still easy to find in the northern sky after sunset.

Visit SpaceWeather.com for a sky map and photos.#

Here's some info on Mirfak and Perseus archetypes and myths.

Pentagon veils true casualty numbers

Pentagon Cover Up: 15,000 or more US casualties in Iraq War

By Mike Whitney

The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS News can prove it.

Read Whitney's article here thanks to Information Clearing House.