Starting today's news with a shocker, the follow-up to the Gary Stocklaufer story has many people, me included, fuming ... and wondering what the heck is going on with the world.

Can an adoptive father go much further than to put himself under the knife to prove how important a child is to his family?

Please read Deb's blog post today for a deeper look, and ways to help.

The Wall Street Journal has an article on adoption-related issues from possible employee benefits to new restrictions coming into play when adopting internationally.

And very worrying for me, and the rest of the world that doesn't happen to live in America, this from the Washington Post says a lot about how much US manufacturers and the Consumer Product Safety Commission care about us.

Dumping ground. Yep. That's the world outside the good old US of A.

From toys to pacifiers and a lot in between, goods that don't make the safety standards are shipped to other countries, so while the Federal Government is creating hoops for killer toothpaste and such coming INTO the US, no one is much bothered about what is going OUT.

Commissioner Thomas H. Moore of the CPSC said in a list of legislative proposals regarding the agency. "Our export policy is based on a desire to see U.S. manufacturers be able to compete in foreign countries in terms of price and marketability, not safety."

Gee. Thanks.

And for parents concerned about the possibility of eating disorders in our kids, and we all should be given the epidemic rate of anorexia in the developed world, here is an excellent article that will clue people in on what NOT to say to kids ... things that, although seemingly well-meaning, can crank up a downward spiral for a child on the edge and suck them into a very dangerous vortex.

Put together by a group of girls who are overcoming eating disorders at a facility in Minnesota, it's a list of five things they wish they had never heard. Comment like, "You're big boned," and "I hated my body, too, when I was your age," can be the lettuce leaf that puts the camel in danger of sciatica.

Knee jerk remarks like, "You look great! Have you lost weight?" send wrong and dangerous messages and need to be weeded out of the vocabulary of parents.

"You can put up with how painfully cold you are all the time," says 18-year-old Edie Kuss from Minneapolis, "and that you're so weak you can't stand up. What you crave is the praise—and that's what you remember even when it stops because you've gotten too thin."

As proven by the Gary Stocklaufer case, weight is the last bastion of acceptable prejudice. The bias against fat is not only responsible for the mess in Missouri that has removed a happy child from a loving family, it is also killing our kids.