China now trying to strangle your kids with Dunkin Donuts glow sticks

[Porsche-O-Phile]

They don't even have to declare war on us. Just keep selling us defective crap to kill our pets, strangle our kids and sterilize us all with lead poisoning. They'll be the only country left in a generation or two. . .

http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/17/news/companies/glowstick_recall/index.htm?cnn=yes

[Vipergrün]

With all due respect, this is nothing more than a common sense issue. We as parents should be making better decisions about what are letting our children play with. Why the he11 should we have to have a label to tell us something like this is dangerous? Because some lame parent will give something like this to their kid to shut them up so they can yap on their cell phone, the kid chokes, the parent sues.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by bb80sc

With all due respect, this is nothing more than a common sense issue. We as parents should be making better decisions about what are letting our children play with. Why the he11 should we have to have a label to tell us something like this is dangerous? Because some lame parent will give something like this to their kid to shut them up so they can yap on their cell phone, the kid chokes, the parent sues.

Yeah, I agree. Personal accountability and common sense is seriously lacking these days.

[frogger]

Parents can take the glow sticks back to DD for a free donut. Now, tell me, as that great or what?

[andrew15]

This whole blame China thing is great - it allows western companies to dodge responsibility for poorly designed products by shifting blame to the Chinese boogy-man- sheer brilliance! It's sad that so many are falling for it.

Not to say China doesn't have lots of problems with wanting to add lead and plastics to stuff that should have it, but a lot of recent recalls are mostly based on poor design - not defective materials. The blame rests squarely on the North American companies commissioning those poor designs or not doing their due dilligence before the product is released.

This most recent case of the lanyard is a perfect example - would you give your young child a lanyard to play with? I suspect that this case boils down to a poor decision by some US excutive surfing the web and saying 'Hey I bet those would be cool for kids! They like lanyards right!?!' When reminded how dumb it can be to give kids a rope to put around their neck, blame magically shifts to the Chinese who only sold what Dunkin Donuts wanted, approved, and distributed.

AM

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by bb80sc

With all due respect, this is nothing more than a common sense issue. We as parents should be making better decisions about what are letting our children play with. Why the he11 should we have to have a label to tell us something like this is dangerous? Because some lame parent will give something like this to their kid to shut them up so they can yap on their cell phone, the kid chokes, the parent sues.

While I agree with you on that... but how about we take it back one more step and have the retailers rub a few brain cells together before handing out cheap dangerous crap to the general public.

Edit: Andrew beat me to it... DOH!

[Noah930]

In this instance, it's not China's fault. They just made a product--which is not even purported to be defective. It's not brilliant marketing by DD, either. But it's the fact that you, as a parent, would let your infant/toddler kids play with a string-type object without supervision that's improper. That's where our outrage should be: that people are stupid enough to need to be reminded of this type of stuff.

[Mule]

It's only a problem if you hang jr. up on the wall with it.

[berettafan]

damn funny how people are willing to jump on the 'screw China' bumpersticker bandwagon but have nothing to say about Phillip Morris and the like.

nobody in charge gives two *****s about safety. it's about money and politics (okay, i just said the same thing twice didn't i?).

[Rick Lee]

I've never had a problem with my Phillip Morris products. They've been great. Same for Smith & Wesson. In fact, the Zhong Nan Hai smokes I have right now have been great too. Never had a problem with them.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

LOL!

Some of you guys are WAY too serious. Original post was posted semi-jokingly and for amusement about how ridiculous it was. READ the original CNN.com article and look at how they slid "Chinese made" into it so gratuitously. It's OBVIOUSLY biased reporting (from CNN? How shocking!) Whether the glow sticks were made in China, Hawaii, Detroit or the North Pole has NOTHING to do with it in this case.

In all seriousness here, I COMPLETELY agree the problem is with stupid breeders (note that I'm deliberately not using the word "parents" here) giving potentially dangerous stuff to their spawn. If the kid is old enough to hold onto the glow stick and carry it or rope it to their costume somehow, fine. If they're going to chew on it or try to stick it in their pie hole, you probably shouldn't give it to them.

Lighten up guys. While I certainly believe Chinese-made stuff is 99.9% junk, they're not the problem here. Our insatiable demand for the junk is, as is our lack of discretion in who we give it to.

[berettafan]

agree POP. the attitude is 'if they sell it then it must be safe'.

ignorance like that is infuriating.

[Noah930]

Sorry, missed your smilie in the original post, P-O-P.

So I emailed the author that question: what does being made in China have to do with it?

I also find it a bit ironic that they're replacing potentially dangerous lanyards with known-to-be-dangerous doughnuts.

[HardDrive]

I'm tired of the whole ****** anti Chinese product BS.

If people REALLY give a hoot, they will pay American workers (and the higher product cost) to make the products. But they won't, so lets all STFU about it, m'k? You pay for crap and you get.....wait for it......crap.

More to the point, and lot of these product issues are not the fault of the Chinese manfactures. They are caused by poor design and a lack of specifications coming from the US companies.

[Rick Lee]

Luckily, I don't have any kids. But for stuff I buy that has to be 100% safe and quality controlled, I buy the best I can afford. Yes, some of my riding gear was made in China. But having seen photos on motorcycle BBS's of how some of it has held up in crashes, I feel pretty confident that it's the best I'm gonna do. What difference does it make if your helmet is made in China, but is DOT and SNELL rated? Who are you going to trust? The Consumer Product Safety Commission is usually late to the game. I go by what others say when they've used stuff in crisis conditions. If my harbor freight floor jack breaks, no biggie. Buy another. If my jack stands break, it would scare me, but I always have wheels and an extra jack under the car too. Redundancy is key here.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Forgot the green. There, fixed it. . .

[cmccuist]

China is fair game. Anyone who wants to be a major player in global economics needs to accept bashing. look at the former soviet union. Look at the US now - everyone hates us because we're rich and invading other countries.

Look for India to take some heat in the coming years.

China has some real problems of their own doing. Mainly 119 men for every 100 women aged about 18-35. Unless they want to embrace rampant homosexuality, someone's not going to have their "needs" fullfilled.

Also, much of China is rural (inland) and not sharing in the huge economic benefits of the coastal areas. Since they're commies, maybe that will equal things out, but I doubt it. Those Chinese billionaires and millionaires don't want to give up their loot any more than a US or EU rich guy would.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Drop the Gay Bomb on 'em.

Didn't the USAF finish development of that?

[Rick Lee]

Most amazing thing about China is that there is never any criticism of their government in any of their newspapers. Simply amazing, even for Commies, that a country of 1.4 billion with unimagineable poverty and environmental issues has no complaints whatsoever and think their gov't. leaders are perfect.

[MRM]

Rick, I can tell you from personal knowlege and experience that Chinese citizens do not believe the government is perfect. The lack of criticism is a function of four factors: 1) the averege Chinese despises his government but feels powerless to do anything about it 2) since the end of the cultural revolution (the ten years of upheaval) and the begining of the economic reforms culminating in the Tianamen Square Massacre, the average Chinese has established a non-aggression pact with the government: the government leaves the people alonem doesn't take their stuff if they get rich, and doesn't engage in random massacres and pogoms. In return the people stay out of politics. Three, the media is all owned by the government. In Hong Kong the media is privately owned but has to have a license to publish or broadcast. Criticism of the government results in revocation of the press license or worse. And finally, there are legal restrictions on expression and there are still political prisons filled with people who refuse to take the government's offer of being left alone to try to get rich in exchange for agreeing to not say dangerous thoughts out loud. The secret police keep busy doing something and it isn't looking for counterfit DVDs.

If the average Chinese thought he could get away with it there would be a revolution tomorrow. The average Chinese knows that talking like that, especially to a big nose is unhealthy, even when in America.

Next time you meet a PRC native who is older than 40 or so, remember that person survived the cultural revolution. Maybe 50 million died under Mao.. No one knows how many died during the Ten Years of upheaval. Even today they don't use the term "Cultural Revolution" in the PRC. The refer to "After 1966" and just look at you until they see you get it. They don't say things got better after Mao died, they talk about "after1976". Surviving the Cultural Revolution isn't quite like wearing a 7 or 8 digit tatoo on your forearm, but it's a scar that runs through the Chinese psyche.