Government Regulation At Its Finest. Thank You Liberals.

[TripleB]

Buckyballs were small spherical magnets you could build into various shapes and play with. The government decided they were too dangerous to be allowed to be sold on the market due to the possibility of a child swallowing one and later swallowing a second. If they are swallowed separately, the theory was they would wind up in different parts of the the intestines, and then the magnets would find each other, stick together, and do damage to the intestines.

This never actually happened but thanks to the government they were banned from sale to anyone after being on the market for years, regardless if they were labeled for adult use only or not.

As it turns out, they weren't really banned. They were only banned from being sold in more than one. Because if you only swallow one, it's no problem. Of course, it's useless to have a single 2mm spherical magnet without others to stick to, so now you can buy them individually, but you're allowed to buy them individually in as many individual units as you want.

http://neoballs.com/

A big thank you to the federal government for forcing a company to go bankrupt, institute an expensive recall, and then reform under a new business entity that sells the magnets "individually".

Let's never forget that a portion of our taxes went to fund this federal agency that performed this public service. You could have left work 1 hour early last Friday except that extra hour of work went to pay a little bit of taxes which funded this agency.

[dualstow]

Future trend: Take the Buckyball Challenge

[Tortoise]

I actually ordered a set of these several years ago. They're really cool--hours of entertainment!

[Kriegsspiel]

Were you just sitting around swallowing them, or is there something else they can do besides destroying your intestines?