ONE OF MANY REASONS WHY GW BUSH WAS A TERRIBLE PRESIDENT....THOMAS EDISON WEEPS...

[Whirlaway]

Byline Andrea Peyser of NY Post:

It's coming faster than a speeding bullet. Starting Jan. 1, the government is taking away your light bulbs.

This sounds like a twisted plot to mate George Orwell’s Big Brother with the Taliban. But I could not make up this sinister state of affairs on a very large bet.

In a scant few weeks, a wicked psychosis is taking over the land of the free. From Tampa to TriBeCa, from Des Moines to DUMBO, the last vestiges of consumer liberty —not to mention your eyesight —will be damaged irreparably.

On New Year’s Day, Uncle Sam snatches the cheap, reliable and gentle-on-the-eyes 100-watt incandescent bulbs, by which hundreds of millions of schoolkids have done homework since Thomas Edison perfected them in 1879.

Then 75-watters, by which generations of adults have calculated extortionate taxes, vanish in 2013. By 2014, 40-watt lights will be history. And a Borscht Belt comedy staple is toast:

Question: How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: None. Mom says, “Don’t mind me. I’ll sit in the dark. Not that I have any letters to read, anyway!”

America weeps.

The incandescent ban was hatched in 2007 by a nanny-fixated Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush. The overlords decided that expensive LED and compact fluorescent lamps should reduce energy consumption by 30 percent, thus saving the planet from global warming. What were they thinking?

No one cared that buzzy, dim fluorescents, which daily torture office dwellers, contain levels of mercury that, when discarded, harm the planet far worse than anything Edison devised. And that atmosphere-dirtying coal-fired plants are, as we speak, being built in China to meet America’s lighting needs, erasing any environmental benefit won by energy-efficient bulbs. Already, General Electric’s incandescent factory in Virginia has closed; American jobs destroyed.

Finally, has it occurred to government interlopers that headache-inducing light may cause postal workers to go postal?

As the days tick by to the darkest, literally, chapter in American history, there has been precious little panic —yet. Matt Mazzone, owner of Mazzone’s True Value Hardware in Brooklyn, hasn’t seen customers hoard bulbs as they did before the European Union’s 2009 ban. Few want to believe this kind of insanity will happen here. But it will.

Mazzone has seen a 10 percent hike in the price of compact fluorescents due a shortage of raw materials. The bulbs already cost $3 to $5 a pop, compared with 60 cents for an incandescent. (True, they last longer, but not as long as manufacturers claim.) As the bulb ban kicks in, the cost of lighting your house legally will continue spiraling.

“People will pay more for not having the kind of light they’re accustomed to, that’s the bottom line,” said Mazzone.

“Whatever they intrude into, the government will find a way to mess it up.”

Conservative speechwriter Lisa Schiffren says she’s “both unhappy and a little bit scared by the fact that this capricious, politically correct ban on the incandescent light bulb has not been rescinded

“The fact that Congress is meddling at such a granular level, for such specious reasons, that scares me.”

Schiffren added, “I have been collecting bulbs against the possibility that Congress will not reverse itself.”

The light lunatics are winning. Yet the country’s biggest environmental hypocrites are sticking by the collapsing belief that something good will come from this.

Ozone bozo Al Gore, for one, sings the praises of the bulb ban. But I have yet to hear of legislation in the pipeline that would force Gore to raze one of his energy-guzzling mansions in Tennessee and California.

And there has been no mention of compelling Hollywood’s warming elite (Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney) to quit using Gulfstream jets. One cross-country flight, in terms of Persian Gulf oil consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions, equals a year behind the wheel of a monster Hummer, wrote the New Republic’s Gregg Easterbrook. What illicit lighting fixture can come close?

So hoard your bulbs, America. No telling what the government will come for next.

[Guest040616]

Apparently, Whirly is out of mourning!

[IIFFOFRDB]

Whirly don't give a shit. It's you that keeps mentioning Marshalls ban.

[wellendowed1911]

Wow it must be a full moon Whirly is actually attacking a Republican??? So Whirly who did you vote for in 2004?????

[CuteOldGuy]

When incandescent bulbs are outlawed, only outlaws will have incandescent bulbs!

[Cpalmson]

I will buy regular light bulbs on the black market. Hell, I might run the black market. Fuck the government. Fuck Al Gore!

[dilbert firestorm]

black market stuff is not cheap.

there's the matter of the low-water toilets....

[IIFFOFRDB]

Originally Posted by wellendowed1911

Wow it must be a full moon Whirly is actually attacking a Republican??? So Whirly who did you vote for in 2004?????

He voted you MOST likley to be a Douche.

[Munchmasterman]

WAAAHHHH! WAAAAHHHH!

The bulbs won't be produced in the US but you will still be able to buy them. If you look at the internet there is no sharp price increase or run on the bulbs.

I don't use 10 new bulbs a year. So what if the price increases? Do some bulb research and you'll find out there is a bulb with the right light for most circumstances. And on top of that, I'm glad such a nothing issue bothers those certain people so much. You guys thought you would never learn how to use an ATM either (I'm talking about the automated teller machines, y'all were already experts at performing the ATM you find on this site).
Remember assholes, you will still be able to buy them.

No one is telling you what kind of bulb to use. They are telling you which ones you can't manufacture.

Does everybody understand? The bulbs are not illegal. If there is a market for the bulbs you must have, the bulbs you must have will be there.

In case you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of fucking things that aren't made in the US anymore. You cry about light bulb factories leaving (all 3 of them) and don't say shit about losing wafer fabs.

It's called knowing which battles to fight.


And besides, what difference does it make?

The world ends this next year anyway.

[CuteOldGuy]

Thanks, Munch. On this issue, it's nice to get the perspective of a dim bulb.

[Munchmasterman]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Thanks, Munch. On this issue, it's nice to get the perspective of a dim bulb.

Why do you say something when you have nothing to say? Why try to recover when you are going to die anyway?

I remember when you made some small effort at refuting something. Now you cut and paste articles and tell people who offer thoughts, from their own minds (of course they are shills if you disagree with them) which they can easily explain and show a logical trail for, "That's stupid" or "You're stupid". Not a single reason or counter-fact. Yep. You're dying.

You had a stroke, didn't you?

[Munchmasterman]

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

He voted you MOST likley to be a Douche.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that a world record sized douche bag hanging out of your ass? The reason I ask is because it seemed to me that colostomy bags were made small for the purpose of conceal-ability and discretion (and probably not the color of the t-mobile girl's dress).

[CuteOldGuy]

Munch, your nonsense didn't require a serious response. How can one respond to a person who doesn't mind government micromanagement of such a small issue as light bulbs? It's ridiculous.

No, I didn't have a stroke. Nice try.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Munch, your nonsense didn't require a serious response. How can one respond to a person who doesn't mind government micromanagement of such a small issue as light bulbs? It's ridiculous.

No, I didn't have a stroke. Nice try.

Munch we much!!!

[CuteOldGuy]

And besides, I thought calling you a "dim bulb" on this thread was funny.