If it doesn't kill you, it must be regulated

When I was showering earlier today, I noticed the shower curtain moving ever so slightly. I pulled it back and was greeted with a sheepish looking set of brown eyes staring up at me. I couldn't figure out what had the dog worried until I realized he had just eaten the last of the bar of soap I was intending on using. Who would have thought he would do that?

Kids and dogs share a lot of the same traits and neither has much, if any, common sense. I guess that is why Congress feels compelled to pass law after law after law after law in an effort to protect little Johnnie from everything from hot soup to airplane peanuts.

Most of these laws and regulations make sense. Strapping junior in to a car seat not only could save his life in a fender bender but it will also keep your target stationary when you have to turn around and pop him one for refusing to stop signing "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" at the top of his lungs. V-chips on all televisions keep little eyes from seeing errant boobage on late night Cinemax and also let's me block the Oxygen channel so I don't see the Burning Bed three times a month.

Of course no good deed goes unpunished and coming to a head soon are two decisions made with the best of intentions by people with IQs similar to the weight of your average 6-8 year old. Thankfully they juxtapose very nicely.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, enacted August 14 of last year, was set to go into effect and ban all products designed for children ages 12 or under which contain lead over specified limits. Regulations are outlined under Title I of the Act and sets the lead limit at “600 parts per million total lead content by weight for any part of the product.” That limit will drop to 300 ppm one year after the date of enactment and 100 ppm three years after unless deemed technologically unfeasible.

That sounds good in theory until you ask your local All Terrain Vehicle salesman. You see, children's ATVs contain lead and are thus banned under this new law. The ban is estimated to cost the industry over $100 million and will force dad's all across the country to share their rides with the kids greatly cutting in to their precious weekend riding time. Of course there is nothing to stop a child under twelve from trying to eat Dad's (or mom's) lead filled ride so I don't see the protection working as planned. In a moment of clarity of thought, the Consumer Product Safety Commission voted on April 3 to grant a one-year stay of enforcement on the lead ban. But it is still coming.

If you've read this blog for any length of time you are aware that in a few years, those bright incandescent bulbs that permit you to push back the night and function after dark will be replaced with CFLs, those less bright planet savings pieces of crap. CFLs happen to contain Mercury, a neurotoxin and they pose a health hazard when broken. So much of a hazard that the there is a warning on the back of packages and the Maine Bureau of Remediation & Waste Management gives the following advice if a fluorescent bulb breaks in the home:

1. Never use a vacuum to clean up the breakage because it may spread mercury dust in the air.
2. Keep people and pets away from the scene of the break.
3. Ventilate the area.
4. If possible, reduce the temperature of the room.
5. Wear protective equipment such as rubber gloves, safety glasses, a duck mask and old clothing.
6. Remove large pieces and place is secure, closed or airtight plastic bag.
7. Collect smaller pieces and dust using a disposable dustpan and broom.
8. Put all material into an airtight plastic bag. Pat the breakage area with the sticky side of something like duct tape. Wipe the area with a damp cloth or paper towels to pick up the rest.
9. Put the debris and any materials used to clean it up into a secure closed container and label it "Universal Waste -Broken Lamp."
10. Take the container for recycling of universal waste.

That seems easy and these bulbs will be mandated in the near future!

Putting these two regulations together begs the question: What is more likely to happen, a child breaks a light bulb or he eats an ATV? I don't have time to ponder it now, the dog has been drinking out of the toilet and now he is burping soap bubbles.

S2

A bright future? I don't really see it.

I was up working late, again, last night and I found myself squinting more and more while trying to read the words on the laptop screen. I initially blamed my clouded vision on the fact that, in the past few days, I've had about as much sleep as a long haul trucker hauling energy drinks and coffee beans on a three day coast to coast trip who is sampling his freight and swallowing copious amounts of "Speedballs". I then feared it was middle age manifesting itself through the shortening of my arms, which in turn had changed the relation between my head and the screen causing the entrenched focal length of my eyes to become out of whack. After all, the past few years have gone by faster than the miles which roll under the aforementioned trucker's semi on a newly paved interstate highway somewhere other than formerly pothole laden Pennsylvania. Thankfully, I was wrong in both these suppositions.

A quick peek under the lampshade of the light to my right revealed the source of my visual frustration. The hotel had installed energy saving, environmentally pure and agonizingly dim compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). These electronically charged spirals were putting out about as much candlepower as the prayer offering candles at an atheist's altar. Having identified the source I relaxed as, after all, I was only going to be in this hotel one more night. Unfortunately, the light bulb of recognition burst when it became apparent these CFLs are the wave of the future thanks to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

Signed in to law December 19, 2007, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 is an omnibus energy policy law that consists mainly of provisions designed to increase energy efficiency and the availability of renewable energy. If you ask me, in many ways this omnibus bill misses the boat.

Items addressed in this law include increased Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and the current darkened cloud over my desk, Appliance and Lighting Efficiency Standards. Check out some of these not so bright ideas. According to a National Center for Policy Analysis review of the law, under the new standards:

* 100-watt light bulbs are banned entirely in 2012.
* 70-watt light bulbs will have to be 36 percent to 136 percent more efficient.
* 50-watt bulbs must be 50 percent to 112 percent more efficient.
* 40-watt bulbs will have to improve 50 percent to 110 percent.

Incandescent bulbs cannot meet these new standards absent a significant technological breakthrough and currently there isn't a light at the end of the tunnel heralding this. Thus, the common light bulb will soon be extinct.

For all their hype, CFLs are a poor substitute. Not only will they foster return to the darker ages, the supposed environmental benefits are grossly overestimated. And God forbid little Timmy, unable to see well enough in the low light to avoid it, knocks over the floor lamp at the day care center and breaks one of these toxic filled glass grenades. In addition to spreading shards of glass all over the lead painted toys from China that the center picked from the bargain bin at WalMart, the breached CFL will spread "dangerous" amounts of mercury powder in a cloud of death nearly as fatal a the cloud of death surrounding the dirty diaper bin after a lunch of mashed fruit.

From the same NCPA review:

...when a CFL broke in her daughter’s bedroom, Brandy Bridges of Prospect, Maine, called on the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to make sure she cleaned up the broken glass and mercury powder safely. A specialist found unsafe levels of mercury in the air and recommended an environmental cleanup firm, who estimated the clean up cost of at $2,000. Beause her mother was unable to pay the exorbitant cleaning bill, the girl’s room remained sealed off in plastic for more than a month.

Just like electric cars, windmills and Ed Bagley Jr's bicycle powered toaster, CFLs have not caught on with mainstream consumers. The government is required to force feed what it has deemed is in our best interest. Check out this link to see what the dim whits in Washington have come up with. They've been busy little beavers and this bill contains more ideas than Edison's notebook. I am especially proud that this "energy policy" bill includes provisions for Swimming Pool enclosures to prevent drowning and an extension of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) for another year.

S2