About 1.5 million Graco strollers sold at Wal-Mart, Target and other major retailers are being recalled after some children’s fingertips were amputated by hinges on the products.

The recall by Graco Children’s Products Inc. includes certain model numbers of its Passage, Alano and Spree Strollers and Travel Systems. The Atlanta company received seven reports of children placing their fingers in a stroller’s canopy hinge as the canopy was being opened or closed. Five children had their fingertips severed and two children received cuts on their fingertips.

The strollers were made in China by Graco and sold at AAFES, Burlington Coat Factory, Babies R Us, Toys R Us, Kmart, Fred Meyer, Meijer, Navy Exchange, Sears, Target, Wal-Mart and other retailers nationwide from

The US Mint’s sales of gold and silver bullion coins during June 2009 showed increases from both the prior month and year ago levels. The increases came amidst two interesting developments for the US Mint’s bullion coin programs.

In the middle of the month, the US Mint announced that their long standing rationing programs would be lifted. Authorized purchasers of bullion coins had been limited in the total number of coins that they could order. This had been cited by many as a sign of the high physical demand for precious metals which would eventually drive prices higher.

Later in the month, the US Mint made the seemingly contradictory announcement that the American Gold Buffalo bullion coin offering would be canceled for 2009. This had been the US Mint’s 24 karat gold bullion coin, launched in 2006 as a way of competing with other world mints that produced gold coins with greater fineness than the 22 karat Gold Eagle.

Here’s a look at the US Mint’s gold, silver, and platinum bullion sales during the month of June 2009. A year to date total appears in the last column.
June 2009 US Mint Bullion Sales
1 oz. 1/2 oz. 1/4 oz. 1/10 oz. Total oz. YTD Total oz.
Gold Eagle 116,000 - - - 116,000 670,000
Silver Eagle 2,245,000 2,245,000 13,824,500
Platinum Eagle - - - - -

Sales of the Gold Eagle were still confined to only the one ounce bullion coin. A total of 116,000 ounces were sold, which was close to double the prior month’s sales of 65,000 ounces. This also marks a huge increase from the year ago period when only 15,500 ounces of gold were sold. It’s interesting to note that the sales increase comes amidst a down month for gold. Physical gold buyers have tended to increase purchases during period of price decline and curtail purchases during periods of price appreciation.

Sales of the Silver Eagle reached 2,245,000 ounces. This was an increase from the prior month when 1,904,500 ounces were sold and an increase from the year ago period when 1,735,500. With the year now half completed, the American Silver Eagle remains on pace to exceed last year’s record sales of 19,583,500 ounces.

Once again, the US Mint did not offer the Platinum Eagle bullion coin in any size.

In a move designed to remind people of their duty to report offshore bank accounts and file Foreign Bank Account Reports (FBARs), federal prosecutors are beginning another wave of UBS tax evasion prosecutions just ahead of the April 15 tax-filing deadline. This newest wave reportedly includes accounts significantly larger than in previous cases. One tax lawyer has been quoted as saying that his client’s Swiss bank account held between $10 and $50 million.

In a separate announcement on Monday, April 5th, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said the IRS is still sifting through 15,000 records on foreign bank accounts that it received from individuals who took part in the IRS tax amnesty program. The IRS is looking for patterns in the records to identify other offshore banks and advisors that helped individuals hide funds in foreign financial accounts, and may have committed tax fraud. That area will be “the next wave” of the investigation, according to Shulman. Some tax attorneys have speculated that HSBC and Credit Suisse are the next ones on the IRS hit list.

Although the IRS tax amnesty program for unreported offshore income ended in October, it is not too late to make a voluntary disclosure of your offshore bank accounts, and possibly avoid criminal tax fraud charges. For more information contact the tax attorneys at Brager Tax Law Group, A P.C.

As a dog trainer there are two questions I get more than any others:
“How do I get my dog to stop doing (insert annoying, yet often natural, behavior here)?”
“How do I punish my dog when he’s just being bad?”
There are also a few statements I get more than any others:
“She knows better!”
“She’s just being stubborn.”
“He doesn’t respect (me, my wife, my children).
Anyone see a pattern here? I’ll give you a second…
It’s all so adversarial and puts the entire responsibility on the dog. A dog! Blaming the dog for lack of communication skills or not understanding human language or desires is scape-goating and also gives a supposedly lesser creature (according to that whole “he doesn’t respect” me malarkey) a heck of a lot of power and responsibility. It’s also quite egotistical of us humans to think that a dog should respect us simply because we’re human. Even if dogs are capable of feeling the human notion that is respect, it’s something that is earned, not just inherently awarded.
Looking at, and dealing with, your dog from an adversarial perspective sets both of you up for failure. From this perspective every perceived transgression is an insult. When your dog doesn’t come when called it’s a slap in the face! “How dare Rover ignore me when I’ve demanded his presence!
The thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. Presumably you got a dog because you wanted a companion, a sidekick. Presumably you live with a dog because you like dogs. Your dog is your friend, the two of you have so many great moments of fun and affection every day, yet you don’t even give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his perceived transgressions.
Ever consider that your dog isn’t listening to you because she doesn’t know what the heck you are saying, let alone understand what is expected of her in a given situation?
Most dogs don’t comply to your requests, commands, or more accurately, cues, because they haven’t been sufficiently trained to do so – by you.
Newsflash: Dogs are not born with a reverence for, or submission to, humans. Nor do they inherently “know” what we want them to do, how to behave in the presence or home of another species, or the meaning of human language. They also aren’t born with a penchant for world-domination.
Dogs are, however, born with a unique ability to “read” humans really well, better than any other species, and a desire to survive: be safe, fed, comfortable, socially accepted.
They’re pretty easy to manipulate, especially by more intelligent beings with bigger brains, greater access to all resources (including good dog training information), and opposable thumbs. (Hey, that’s us!)
When it comes to dog behavior there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that dogs often have a very different idea about what acceptable behavior is any given situation. The good news is that dogs are generally very malleable and willing to learn our strange human ways if given the opportunity via clear instruction and rewards.
So next time your dog doesn’t come when called at the park, or jumps up to greet someone think about whether she’s had sufficient instruction and repetition of recalls or if she’s ever been taught what a polite greeting looks like from the human perspective. Has she been taught what is “right” versus merely been told what is “wrong”? Has she been given an acceptable alternative to her natural doggy behavior and has it been heavily practiced and reinforced? Because behavior doesn’t lie, and it’s likely if your dog is doing something you don’t like it’s probably your fault and it’s definitely your job to teach her what to do.

This week, Toronto City Councilor Adam Giambrone was caught in a position that seems to be familiar with a number of male politicians and celebrities: with his pants down. But Giambrone, a 32 year-old wunderkind who was (until yesterday) running for mayor of Toronto, was unmarried but living with a long-time girlfriend.

I lived down the street from Giambrone for six years. I would see the tall, gangly and quite geeky/cute guy at the Portuguese coffee shop at the corner of my street, chatting to residents and being more visible and accessible than most politicians. Giambrone seemed like a very friendly guy who — by all accounts — cared about the constituency and neighborhood where he had been raised in for the majority of his life. He is also the youngest chair ever of the currently troubled Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), which has been going through a public relations nightmare stemming from a public backlash on their lack of customer service.

Apparently Giambrone met a 19-year-old university student, whom he told he was single (which technically, he was); slept with her a few times; and then dumped her. What was interesting is what came out of the e-mails he sent the woman, Kristen Lucas, who graciously turned over the electronic correspondence to the media:

She also kept the one in which he described his long-suffering girlfriend, Sarah McQuarrie, as nothing but a prop for his mayoral bid. “You know I will be announcing I have a partner,” he wrote. “It is important for the campaign … I had to have someone political.”

It is certainly not surprising that a disgruntled ex-lover decided to air their dirty laundry in public, and obviously (if true) Giambone thought that his current girlfriend would be a better “fit” than the woman for whatever reasons (I have my personal opinion, but I’ll keep it to myself).

With the latest spate in media reports about celebrities and public figures who have cheated on their spouses and the reports from a few of the women themselves, I wondered what, if any, responsibility women have in these situations. Some of the women, like Tiger Wood’s ex-lovers, have used their notoriety to propel their careers.

Lucas, Giambrone’s alleged ex-lover, has an agent and apparently wants to be famous:

Photos of her surfaced yesterday on a gossip blog called Drink the Glitter. David Robert, who runs the blog, said Ms. Lucas called the website and sent them 10 pictures from her portfolio.

“She didn’t want ugly pictures of her out there … she wanted good pictures,” he told the National Post. She approached the blog, he said, because she is a fan who has attended several Drink the Glitter parties, and has become friends with the men behind it.

“She is freaking out” at all the attention, Mr. Robert said, but he suspects that she is not disappointed because “she wants to be famous.”

He said she told people at the website about her relationship with Mr. Giambrone recently. “She wants to be a model. She wants to be an actress,” he said.

But is this how you do it?

Call me old-fashioned, but I think some of these women are getting involved with men in the public eye because they think that it is the only way they can build their careers. Last week I wrote over at my blog about groupies that I see at the concerts I attend:

The whole thing kinda puzzles me. Maybe it’s because I’m old, but it is really tragic, especially watching guys grope the inappropriately dressed girls who were crowd surfing through the pit. The girls I witnessed didn’t seem to mind, so I don’t even know what to say. But for those of us who work in the industry as roadies, management or writers / reviewers like myself who are not using our sexuality to get a leg up, I have a bit of a problem with it. But I also believe in personal responsibility, which is why I am not that worried … or would go out of my way to ensure that the jail-bait I saw was not getting into trouble backstage. Personal responsibility. But I have seen young scantily-clad girls, especially at the Down show, that caused me some concern, but part of me says, just mind your own business. Hell, I’ve always preferred metal dudes, but even when I was in my twenties, trying to get backstage to give some random guy a blow-job didn’t cross my mind. The 80s are over, folks.

Again, called me old-fashioned, but I wonder why in this land of opportunity there are (mostly) young women who feel that by getting involved in an extra-marital or being the “cheatee” is a way to enhance their careers? Or to just get close to someone that they admire? Do they not know that it does not usually end well, or is five minutes of fame worth embarrassing your family and friends? And themselves?

As for Giambrone, I am not too critical of his actions. Yes, he behaved in a way that is really, really unfortunate, but he is not a rarity. Also, I believe that there are other motives as to why the Canadian media is raking him over the coals: a) slow news week and b) they didn’t like him from the get-go. You have a young phenom who isn’t the most strongest politician but seems to have pretty awesome luck in his political career. They were looking for a way to bring him down, and it looks like they have accomplished that.

What do you think? Is sleeping with a public figure the new way for women to enhance their careers?

For those who are frustrated by the seeming shortage of high-resolution images of great paintings on the web, and are tired of navigating little zoom windows to try to get a glimpse of brushwork or paint surface, one resource for full screen high-resolution images of artwork is the auction catalog preview feature on the Sotheby’s auction site, as I mentioned in my previous post about Sotheby’s.

This is an ever changing resource; you have to be patient and continue to watch for new auctions as time goes on if you want to catch the kind of images you want to see.

There are two current auctions at Sotheby’s that I find of particular interest. The online catalogs contain some beautiful museum-quality gems for which the auction house has provided high-resolution images.

One is an auction of 19th Century European Art that includes works by Giovanni Boldini, Gustav Courbet, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Joaquin Sorolla, and such well known paintings as Bouguereau’s L’Amour et Psyché.

The other is an auction of Impressionist and Modern Art, which is divided into an Evening Sale and a Day Sale. There, amid a plethora of Picassos, you will find gems by Eugéne Boudin, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and Henri Le Sidaner.

Yes, these are still zooming images, but you are zooming within a the full resolution of your screen instead of a little box. Many of the images are high resolution enough that they rival what you could take with your own camera standing in front of the original (not quite as high resolution, but better in terms of lighting). Some of them are a bit pixelated or soft at highest resolution, but still well worthwhile because of the level of detail.

Once in an online catalog, you can browse by thumbnails in a grid or list view, or simply page through each image individually with forward and back arrows. Zoom in to your hearts content and pan around the larger than full screen images.

These listings will be gone before long, but the site bears watching for the next group of museum level paintings changing hands among the hyper-rich.

(Images above, with accompanying full resolution details: Eugéne Boudin, Joaquin Sorolla Y Bastida, Claude Monet, Gustav Courbet)

[Addendum: Great new E-Catalogue added for exhibition of 19th Century European paintings, with Orientalist painters, Spanish painters, including Sorolla, and Scandinavian painters, including Frits Thaulow and Peder Monstead! Great stuff]

Today, there are 46 detached single family homes listed for sale in Aliso Viejo, Orange County, Ca. The lowest priced home is valued at $399,900. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1,400 square foot house, located in the Hamptons subdivision. The highest priced home is $1,149,000 for a 4 bedroom, 5 bath, 3,737 square foot estate built in 2008, featuring view of the golf course and city lights. The current median price is $457,472.

There are 66 detached homes located in the city of Aliso Viejo that are now pending in escrow. The lowest priced property currently in escrow is valued at $339,000. It is a charming 2 bedroom + loft, 3 bathroom, 1,100 square foot home built in 1996. This property is conveniently located directly across the street from an elementary school. The highest priced property currently in escrow is priced at $1,250,000. It is a 3,400 square foot, 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom estate located on a cul-de-sac, offering a fully equipped entertainers backyard and a stunning panoramic view. The median price of homes currently in escrow is $650,000.

In the past 90 days, there have been 80 detached properties that have sold and closed escrow in Aliso Viejo. The lowest sales price for a detached property was $340,000 for an attractive 3 bedroom, 3 bath, 1,301 square foot home built in 1998. The highest priced property sold was a 5 bedroom, 5 bath, 3,757 square foot estate located in the Silver Oaks gated community. This home was valued at $1,135,000 and its features included a large, lush yard and a breathtaking canyon view from virtually every room. The median home price is $538,000 and the average sales price in the past 3 months was $566,923. The average price per square foot was $281/SqFt. The average days on market was 65 days.