Merry Christmas, kiddies. Guess what’s in the toys Santa left you? And just lay off calling me a grinch, willyuh?

I woke up this morning wondering: To grinch? Or not to grinch?

I’ve decided to Grinch. So get off my case about it. I don’t need you to tell me I’m in a bad mood. And now for the reasons I took the trouble to post today:

• Hundreds of different kids toys – made in China for the likes of American “manufacturers” like Mattel – are lead-poison poisonous.

• All kinds of fish products from – you guessed it, pal, China – are poisonous. And we don't even know which ones.

• Earlier this year, it turned out dog food containing ingredients from China were poisonous. The key ingredient was wheat gluten, which is also in your bread, spaghetti, cookies, soups.

I could go on and on. Do you know where the wheat gluten in your breakfast toast came from?

It’s easy to blame China. To tell you the truth, they deserve a lot of the blame. But our own government, yours and mine, deserves a lot more of the blame.

The imbecile-in-chief we somehow let get elected and re-elected believes in unfettered capitalism. The idea is supposed to be, just get government out of commerce and the marketplace will fix all ills. Poison toys? They’ll go away. Poison fish? It’ll go away. Poison dog food? It’ll go away too, thanks to the wisdom of the unfettered market.

And how does that work? Easily. After you discover your kid is dead, your dog is dead, and you yourself are dead, you’ll stop buying the poisoned stuff. The market then will say to itself, “Hmm, we’ve lost three customers. We’d better get the lead out. Oh, and also the melamine, the antibiotics, the bacteria, the viruses, the mad cow prions and other toxins.”

Do you see a slight fallacy in that reasoning? Me too.

Even if you can keep on making rational purchasing decisions when you’re dead, it’s pretty hard to purchase anything rationally if you don’t know where it came from. Besides, once you're dead, why should the poison sellers wonder whether you'll boycott them or not – unless the government puts enough people with policing authority in there to bop the malefactor marketers over the head with the threat of a prison sentence?

I bet you can’t answer any of the following questions:

•Where did the fish that went into your last fried fish sticks dinner come from? Not the company that sold it to you. The raw ingredients.

•Where did the wheat gluten in your “healthy” 7-grain bread come from?

Where did the food eaten by the turkey that you’re eating from Christmas come from?

And how come the U.S. Government isn’t testing any of this poisonous stuff before it gets unloaded in American ports?

The U.S. Government belongs to the American people. That, pal, means you and me. It’s time to take the government back and put it to work for us. National defense means defense against poisoning and unscrupulous profiteers here and abroad, as well as against Al Qaida.

But tell that to a Republican! Tell them we need more government inspections of goods and services. Tell them the government needs sharper teeth to bite off the ears of any company that purchases and redistributes poison. Tell them we need a labeling law that will tell you where not only your kids' toys and your dog's food came from, but also your own fish, and steak, and the mucilage you licked the last time you mailed back a bill to the phone company.

Feeling sick yet?

Okay, enough for today.

Merry Christmas.

And watch what you stick in your mouth.