CPSIA - CPSC Shows Its True Colors in the Annals of Absurdity

In a move calculated to test the limits of what I can get you to believe, the CPSC last week conducted a raid in New York City to confiscate imported chocolate Easter eggs to save America from a choking hazard. 

This event has garnered a little bit of publicity.  I wonder why . . . .   Seems so logical.

Here is a picture provided by Fox News coverage of this event.  I wonder who was there to capture the moment on film . . . .

You can see that the CPSC really means business now. The safety of children is just too IMPORTANT.

Admiring retailers could not wait to sing the CPSC's praises:

"Jigs Patel, who recently opened the London Candy Co. on the Upper East Side, where he is importing candy from the U.K., had already run out of his Kinder eggs by the time he got his visit from a CPSC official just before Easter.  'They obviously took this very seriously,' Patel said. 'I actually found it very amusing. It's a bloody chocolate with a toy inside. It's not smuggling crack cocaine.'"  [Emphasis added]

Perhaps strangely, the American public did not immediately appreciate the service provided by the federal government:  "[Mr. Patel] said that customers in the store that day found it funny, too. 'They were like, 'Don't they have better things to do than hunt down Kinder eggs?' The phone at London Candy Co. rang off the hook after DNAinfo's article ran with people seeking the hard-to-find chocolates. 'The phone went nuts,' Patel said. "The people still want it.'"  [Emphasis added]

As the Village Voice notes, "[c]hildren in Europe, where the eggs are manufactured, are apparently more impervious to choking than their American counterparts, or perhaps their parents are less inclined to let them eat plastic."  Still, other news outlets noted the severity of the safety threat:  "At least two children, one in England and one in Ireland, died after choking on the toys roughly 20 years ago, according to reports. . . . 'It is an ongoing investigation,' [CPSC spokesman Stacey] Palosky said. 'We want to continue to alert parents about these around Easter. We want parents to know these should not be in children's hands.'"

It's an ongoing investigation of the incidents 20 years ago.  Must find the real killers . . . .

Thanks, Mom!

Your tax dollars at work!  What would we EVER do without these guys protecting us so ably?

Dreaming of another budget crisis so we can find out . . . .