U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized the ducks — dressed as snowmen, gingerbread men, penguins and reindeer — which were valued at $18,522, after determining they contained the chemical phthalate in excess of the limit which may be harmful to children.

Yes, there was an attempted chemical attack right here in the United States, and the perps were wearing disguises.  The plan was to slaughter children by poisoning them with some unpronounceable chemical.  Yes, they rounded up 35,000 rubber duckies!

The downside is that 18,000 children won’t find a rubber ducky under the tree this Christmas because the government rounded them all up on some pretext.  Call me cynical, but I don’t believe for a second that one child would have been harmed by those duckies.  I have no doubt that phthalate (yes, I copy and pasted that one) can be harmful, but is there enough in a ducky to harm a kid?  Probably not.  The biggest danger from that stuff would be to give it to kids on a spelling test, and hurt their self esteem when they can’t get it right.

So what’s the real story here?  How do they find these things out?  Do they pry open crates with crowbars and use a phthalate testing kit?  Were they tipped off by some whistleblower?  Are unions involved?  (The last one is likely, now isn’t it?)  Who knows, but it’s certain we’ll never know the backstory on this one.