The Glade 4.0

Except they are banning a product that isn't marketed towards children because it's dangerous to children.

Guess what. So are balloons, and hot dogs, and guns, and bicycles, and halloween costumes, and bobby pins, and marbles, and ink pens/pencils, and scissors, and kitchen knives, and lawn mowers, and playgrounds, and LEGO's and Lincoln Logs, and swimming pools, and bathtubs, and slip and slides, and barbie dolls, and flat screen TV's, and shopping bags, 3rd story apartment windows, riding in the car, clothes irons, fireworks, and ELECTRICITY (OMG!)?

I don't think anyone is questioning whether buckyballs are dangerous for kids. They obviously are. For me, the question is why single out THIS brand over other brands, and all of the other dangerous things children are exposed to? There are many more things that represent much more risk/danger to children.

BuckyBalls isn't the only distributor of magnets. It's just one brand. In fact, Amazon, who is one of the suppliers the CPSC forced to stop selling BuckyBalls, still sells rare earth magnets of many shapes and sizes from other manufacturers. If these things are so fscking dangerous, why are they not shutting down magcraft, and other companies?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_ ... th+magnets

I was in a local hobby shop yesterday, and guess what was sitting right on the counter, next to the register? Magcraft Rare Earth Magnets!

Actually, there appear to have been a number of magnet-related recalls in recent years: http://www.cpsc.gov/cgi-bin/product/pro ... +ingestion. Why those particular magnet products and not others? Who knows. While I'm sure they have various metrics and rationales for determining when to ban something, when to issue warnings, when to sue a company, when to levy fines, etc., a brief tour through the CPSC's web site suggests to me that the whole agency is pretty much a Kafkaesque nightmare for anyone and everyone who stumbles onto their radar for whatever random and arbitrary reason. Hell, they're bragging on their main page about fining Burlington Coat Factory $1.5 million for having drawstrings on certain sizes of kids' hoodies! This Buckeyball thing is just par for the course over there, in my opinion.

Um this runs counter to your position as a liberal no?

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Hah, I was just looking at the link RangerDave posted and saw this about the Buckyballs ban.



So apparently this is all about protecting 13 year olds from swallowing magnets...

That said, these are tiny and probably very easy for an infant to swallow. I know when I have kids I'm probably going to remove these from the house altogether. I'd be too scared of accidentally dropping one without knowing about it. Although I suppose in theory it's okay if they just swallow one.

I don't know why, but your last sentence made me actually laugh out loud.

And as soon as the CPSC notified them of the 14+ thing, they changed all of their packaging and warning texts to reflect the 14+ age limit. Yet the ban was still implemented, without due process.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/consumer-produc ... y-magnets/

This should be the scary part...




Obama doesn't serve a useful purpose, can we ban him?

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Well, I guess we can look at the bright side. This surely means that Justin Bieber will be banned as well... right? RIGHT?

It is hard to imagine someone so ignorant of basic science that they would state buckyballs "serves no useful purpose".

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Ya know... if a 13 year old needs to be protected form eating magnets, the little **** better be special needs child or **** them: natural selection at work.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

"It is hard to understand why CPSC is trying to pry our balls from the hands of adult users"

Is this the Penn State thread?

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

It makes em easier to stick to the fridge.

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Holy shitsnacks!

when I got my first set, I spent a lot of time messing with them, including forming them into a single string, and trying to work that into different shapes. Handing them as a long string is a challenge.

At some point I tried to form them back into the original cube shape, and found out a few were missing. I looked everywhere for them, and eventually gave up and put them away.

I few weeks later, I turned my chair over to make an adjustment... and there were my missing bucky balls.. stuck to the bottom of my chair seat....

/happydance

i own half a dozen different sets.. original chrome set, chrome cubes, bars, and some different colors. I have three more sets coming that I ordered in honor of the CPSC's hijinx

Not really, to be honest. Most liberals I know aren't reflexively pro-regulation (unless they're talking to conservatives, in which case, both sides' knees tend to jerk). That said, I consider myself more of a "liberaltarian" than a true liberal, so I'm probably more skeptical of government regulation/restriction than most self-described liberals.

On a separate note, I'd say this is a good example of the kind of product that probably shouldn't be allowed in your average toy store:

People really bought their kids chemistry sets with freakin' cyanide and uranium dust in them? Holy shitsnacks.

I would remiss not to link this:

http://openmaterials.org/2010/03/18/banned-the-golden-book-of-chemistry-experiments/

Hey, kids! Let's make hydrogen gas and ignite it!

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Magnets (presumably Buckyballs) save a baby's life.

Link to article

Short, short version. Premature baby born with a blockage in his intestines. Magnets used instead of complex invasive surgery to puncture the membrane.

Take that CPSC!

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Awesome point. Clearly we should make high-powered magnets available to all children for their surgery needs. Banning magnets is just going to force children to perform more invasive surgeries on each other.

Awesome article, though. I imagine the doc that came up with that is feeling really good about it. Rewarding job - "I save babies for a living! (Except when I can't. Waah, my job sucks.)"

Not sure what's going on with the Stephen Colbert thing (it's one of the rotating banners on the home page)
https://www.getbuckyballs.com/

They're trying to get the Colbert Bump™

Wouldn't Mr. Colbert being the one to provide the "Bump"? I mean, he must have said or written something..

I'm just not finding it..

Here is the buckyballs blog. They have an open letter out to Obama as well.
http://www.getbuckyballs.com/blog/

Can't blame them for trying to save their business, especially considering how ridiculous this entire situation is.

Yeah, but I think what Lenas is saying (and I agree) is that they're trying to draw Stephen Colbert's attention in order to be featured on his show, thus providing the Colbert Bump™.

I'll put money on Colbert picking the story up. Do you know how many puns he's gonna make in the 60 second report? About 60 of them.

Nothing will ever top Munchma, though.

Wow. Does he even read his script before the show, or do they just toss **** up on his teleprompter?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades