What would you think if someone sent you a gift promoting a sushi pocket guide that was supposed to, among other things, help protect you from the perceived evils of things like mercury… but the gift itself featured a warning label that said it contained a chemical that might “cause cancer or birth defects?”

Well, a group of industrious reporters at the Mercury News (the irony of the name is not lost on this blogger) found that The Monterey Bay Aquarium sent press kits to reporters promoting its pocket guide that included a coffee mug. And according to the Mercury news while, “it sported cartoon ocean critters on the side, the bottom also bore a sticker warning that the decorations contain lead, lead compounds and/or cadmium, which are chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects.'”

The Aquarium folks, who by the way do a lot of “dismissing,” dismissed the warning noting that because of California’s strict labeling laws the mug “falls under an umbrella of things for which there is an obligatory warning.”

So, let me get this right.

Trace amounts of mercury in your seafood- whoa, that’s a no go. But “lead, lead compounds and/or cadmium” in your coffee- not a problem.

You know, I’m still a little confused. If I only had a coffee-mug-pocket-guide to help me choose the best coffee mug.