world peace, toxic bathrooms, and things that'll kill you

It says here that major candy companies are going to reduce the amount of lead from unwashed Mexican chilis in spicy candies, which brings us to the quote of the day, even though it may only be my status as a former editor that allows me to find so much humor in the use of 'safe' instead of 'safer:'

"Untold hundreds of thousands of children will now be safe and have a better life," said Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. "Lead is poison."

Speaking of poison, the Belfast Telegraph published this article about toxic bathrooms in October of last year, and I missed it. The upshot is that cosmetics, shampoo, baby soap, shaving cream, toothpaste, and at least one product I'd never heard of contain toxic ingredients for which the (US) FDA is making noise about requiring warning labels.

The article mentions that chemicals get deposited in people's fat cells, livers, kidneys, and brains. People like to talk about the blood-brain barrier as though it would actually keep things separate, but it doesn't seem to work that well with chemicals. If you want another example, it says right here that THC, the 'most active ingredient' in marijuana, penetrates the blood-brain barrier, and that's why it causes all those funky central nervous system effects.

Oh yeah, and second-hand smoke will kill you.