The Continuing Saga Of Political Party Self-Immolation

Posted on October 18, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Tip O’Neil once said that all politics is local.  He had a point.  Local politics dimly makes sense while the National election has become so profoundly radioactive that Newt Gingrich is considered a reasonable man.  Thus I’ve refrained from commenting on Federal races.  On the other hand, I find myself fascinated by a local race for State Representative in my utterly unimportant district of a forgettable state.  This is partly because the low population density where I live means I statistically matter locally even through most Federal politicians would rather dine with Satan than listen to my opinions.

As I’ve written before, a very nice person came to my little farm to personally request my vote.  Rather than associate her campaign with me (which few candidates would want!) I called her “Candidate X”.  I gave her a good-natured lecture about reducing government size and then sent her and her Prius on their way.  Good for her for trying to win an election by honest door to door campaigning but I wasn’t her target audience and she didn’t close the deal.

Then the Republicans started doing everything they could to get Candidate X (Democrat naturally) elected.  I got two successive Republican sponsored mass mailings that claimed that Candidate X was more or less the antichrist.  No mention of their guy.  This prompted me to opine that Republicans were really good at snatching defeat from the hands of victory and didn’t seem to be qualified to be Wal-Mart greeters, much less political party operatives.

Then I got two more mailings.  Both identical.  Both mailed and recieved on the same day.  This time from a no-party group that existed only to sink Candidate X.  Both mailings claimed Candidate X was going to cause the planet’s orbit to decay until we spiral into the sun in a fiery Armageddon.  My only reaction was disgust that they were dumb enough to send the same leaflet twice to the same mailbox.  Searching for duplicates in their mailing list is too advanced?  As a Curmudgeon I’m revolted by waste.  The party of “small government” can’t even be frugal with THEIR OWN money?  Forget difficult policy choices, they can’t even be efficient with attack ads.  How do these people get dressed in the morning without hurting themselves?

At this point I wouldn’t vote for their guy if he personally came over to my house and cooked dinner.  (Well maybe if it was bacon.  I really like bacon.)

A few days later I got a nice little leaflet from Candidate X.  It was sweet and utterly positive.  Good!  It also mentioned all the shiny toys she was going to give me.  All the great “services” I was going to get for free using the magic tax dollars that apparently materialize from the sky just like rainbows.  It was positive stuff but I don’t want any part of it.  If I want stuff I’ll earn money and buy it.  If I can’t afford it I can’t have it.  Free shit from the government is brutally expensive and I refuse to play that game.  If I’d gotten a pamphlet that said “I’ll plow the roads minimally and do just enough to keep basic civilization on the rails and then shut the hell up”…I’d be her full time volunteer campaigner.

So now I veered back toward the Republican.  Perhaps the guy behind the bile spewing party that represents him is ok?  A little reading on the Internet and I’m unimpressed.  He looks like a clueless placeholder propped up by a party that wants to disembowel Candidate X.  He doesn’t have much to say and unless I’m misreading things he gets as much credit for his campaign as my hammer does for the last structure I built.  He’s there but he doesn’t look like he’s really doing much.  Is Karl Rove lurking in the bushes somewhere?

What do I do?  Vote for a genuine human being who wants the opposite of me?  Or vote for a clueless placeholder shoved in my face by a vile, negative, content free, disgusting, wasteful, dare I say it…evil…campaign?  Local politics are a shadow of national politics and this isn’t looking like leadership on either side.

Luckily for my mental attitude there is a sunny side.  Yesterday I stopped in the small coffee shop in my town (population about 150).  When I walked in the door all five customers looked up, recognized a stranger (I don’t hang out in my own town much…I don’t actually live in the village proper and I’m anti-social), and stopped talking.  One had a cowboy hat the size of Texas and was a bit younger than the rest.  (Though they were all old enough to remember one channel black and white TV.  Actually I’m old enough to remember that and they’d beat me in years.  I suppose our society of underfed vegan youth roaming city malls with iPods has taught us to expect younger groups.)  I smiled to put them at ease and got to work on a monster breakfast.  They soon went back to bitching about the weather and hunting regulations.  (Around here hunting regulations are a good reason to loathe far off bureaucrats.  The pause was because folks here are reticent to show any opinion about anything amid outsiders.  It’s a different world from cities where people will scream their opinion at you with a megaphone.)

Eventually someone mentioned he had to get back home and fix his busted truck and the gabfest broke up.  As they all stood up and shuffled to the door, the fellow with the monster cowboy hat handed me a business card and shyly asked that I write him in for some small County level position I would hardly recognize.  Big smile, friendly attitude, and he apologized for imposing on me in case I wasn’t a voter in the county.  (I’m new to this area.  It wouldn’t be uncommon for a fellow with a good memory to recognize many of the residents and a sizeable portion of the voters.)  I assured him that I was a voter and thanked him for his card.  He strode out and was gone.

After breakfast (which was excellent!) I saw most of the guys (including the guy with the hat) peering under the hood of a trashed old Ford Ranger and discussing which parts store was the nearest.  Indeed a government of our peers is within our reach.  I didn’t see Karl Rove anywhere in sight.  The guy with the big hat was the closest thing to “government of our peers…of the people” I’ve seen in a long time.  There’s hope if you go far enough down the food chain.

Posted in Harangue-a-bang-bang! | Leave a comment

Shafted Undone!

Posted on October 15, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Unless you live under a rock in a monastery in Calcutta you know that the 33 trapped Chilean Miners (which I’ve mentioned before) are now safe.  Good job everyone!

I’m shocked and delighted.  It’s heartening that such a great opportunity to screw up has passed without mishap.  As far as I can tell everybody has acted with class and responsibility.  A tip of the hat to Chilean miners!

Since I live in America I can only comment through the filter of American recent history.  Thus I’d like to point out a few special lights of nobility which we Americans should emulate.

  1. Nobody blamed George Bush.
  2. Nobody blamed global warming.
  3. The Chilean government didn’t (as far as I know) shit all over everyone in an effort to look “in control”.  For example, assistance was offered and assistance was accepted.  Consider the counterpoint of the EPA stopping European skimmers lest they clean the water above BP’s oil spill without massaging the-EPA’s…um…ego.
  4. The Chilean miners, who were in a living hell, did not descend into a Lord Of The Flies free for all.  I can’t claim without reservations that I could spend 69 days in the dark with a bunch of smelly miners without becoming unhinged.  Their example has been excellent.
  5. Families of the miners didn’t get on TV all weepy eyed to bitch about safety regulations and demand money.
  6. Families of the miners didn’t line up lawyers and demand money.
  7. The Chilean government didn’t throw gobs of money at anyone in sight like the American government does whenever there’s an emergency (human caused or otherwise).
  8. Everyone appeared to keep heart and stay focused.  Superb!

It’s boring to simply say “man that was a great performance” but that’s all I can say.  Chile and the miners have done well.  I hope they keep up the good work as they face the next ordeal.  Book deals and Oprah spots will arrive en masse.  Despite the good fortune (or at least money) that this might bring it’s not without risks of it’s own.

Stay cool gentlemen.  The world needs more class acts like you!

I hereby remove them from my list of “The Shafted” and put this entry in “The Unstoppable”.

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Word For The Day: Awareness

Posted on October 14, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

One of my favorite coffee shops is hosting an art show.  They do this regularly and usually I like it.  Anything that pretties up the walls is a good thing.

However this particular show apparently has a “purpose”.  I know this because it’s plastered all over the write-ups next to every piece of work and all over the works themselves.  It’s nearly as subtle as a mallet to the head.  The “purpose” is to “raise awareness” that “domestic violence is wrong”.

I’m pretty sure most folks capable of getting to the coffee shop without adult supervision know the score.  If you don’t know that domestic violence is wrong then what are you doing walking around zombie-like amid regular human beings?  Furthermore we have a whole cadre of people who will help you out with the concept.  We call them police.  You see it’s not only wrong but it’s a crime.

So, if anyone more evolved than the blue green algae on a wet rock knows that it’s “wrong” and also “a crime”, who is left on earth that is “unaware”?  Why is this cretin in my coffee shop? Also is there some law against art which is simply uplifting or beautiful?  Is it not art unless it annoys?

Posted in Where vocabulary goes to die, Word For The Day | Leave a comment

Fat Lady: Not Yet Ready To Sing

Posted on October 13, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I like politics and I like rodeos. They’re both incoherent and violent yet shamefully entertaining. Nothing makes me happier than seeing someone get stomped into the dirt because they’re stupid enough to try riding a bull. The freak show emanating from DC has made riding bullshit a religion.

 

Nanci Pelosi executes the "Flying Fillibuster" on a newly elected U.S. Representative.

 

However a good election requires both parties in heated competition. When one goes all limp (Democrats) or implodes (Republicans) it’s just a mind numbing slog of mediocrity. Luckily, this year has all the hallmarks of an exciting upset with a charged up Republican party out to tear the shit out of Democrats who spent 2008 looking infallible.

I love big shifts of party control because incumbents get thinned out. The table is set for big Republican gains and everybody and their dog is predicting it. However, I’ve been thinking this over and have my doubts. I’ve stumbled across a historical fact which may mean a huge Republican sweep is not a foregone conclusion. Here comes another patented Curmudgeonly Gem of Insight:

It is not humanly possible to overestimate the Republican party’s ability to snatch defeat from the hands of victory.

I was reminded of this by two negative campaign mailings that the Republican party sent me last week. They both said something like this:

“Candidate X, who is a Democrat, is unmitigated evil. She has sex with communist gay nuns, sets fire to churches, stole Federal money to open a whorehouse, causes gout, is related to Saddam Hussein, and beats puppies with a tire iron. She is single handedly trying to end all of western civilization and life as we know it. Vote for her and your life will forevermore be bereft of joy and your dick will fall off.”

Wow! That’s a whole load of negative. Bile dripped from the page. My mailbox needs to be fumigated. I burned the mailing and buried the ashes and the grass there has since died.

What about all the good things they said about their guy? Whoops…no mention of him. It took some Internet sleuthing to figure out the name of their candidate. It appears the guy doesn’t know how to register with Google. Good grief! I got two mailings saying candidate X would cause cancer and was in league with Satan but they couldn’t spare a word to sell me on their sainted choir boy? That just pisses me off!

Surprisingly I’ve met Candidate X. She came to my house to personally ask for my vote. I harangued the poor woman with a long list of things I did NOT want from the government. I carefully pointed out that I live in the middle of nowhere and therefore have no expectation of big city government services and will go apeshit at big city tax rates. She tried hard to convince me to vote for her and I give her credit for her perseverance. In the end she seemed too willing to promise me shiny toys for a vote and I expected to vote for her opponent. I took her pamphlet (which I threw out) and promptly forgot all about her.

The table was set for the Republicans to get my vote merely because the Democrat hadn’t closed the deal. Then the Republicans sent me two handy reminders of the humble and considerate person who came directly to my house and a contrasting text that vomited disgusting hyperbole all over the kitchen. They put me in a quandary. If I vote for their guy…whom they failed to mention…I’m going to feel dirty and used. If I vote for Candidate X I get someone I didn’t quite want but it’s a solid “fuck you” to the jackoffs who sent all that frothing bile and hatred to my mailbox. I’d almost vote for Stalin if the Republicans sent me a mailing like that against him. They’ve worked mighty hard to chase my vote to the other side.

Remember that I said it first. If Republicans don’t sweep huge now it’s because they took a winning hand and shit all over it by running bad campaigns. If they sweep huge now they’ll self immolate by 2012. Either way they’ve internalized failure too completely to come up with anything remotely truthful or inspiring. If, after the votes in 2012 are counted, it turns out I was wildly incorrect I’ll issue a mea culpa (and blame everything on space rays getting through my tinfoil hat) but in the meantime the Republicans should find a way to win an election without acting like feces flinging monkeys.

Posted in Curmudgeonly Gems of Insight, Harangue-a-bang-bang! | Leave a comment

Newsflash: I Am NOT A Bonehead

Posted on October 12, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I love living in the country. I pay special attention to everything about my environment; especially the sounds. I love birdsong and coyote howls and I’m always alert in case something rare and interesting is afoot.

Yesterday I was in the chicken coop letting the chickens out for the morning. Suddenly I heard the strangest sound. It came out of nowhere. A long low steady wail. It came from a great distance almost as if I were hearing it from underwater. It was clearly not a mechanical sound and must have come at great volume from something fairly large. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before and I paid rapt attention. The wail played out and was replaced by a much closer sound. Still a low wave sound but with tremolo and increasing pitch. Then it shifted to a higher pitched series of individual sounds with decreasing length and increasing frequency. A lot like when a coyote howls and ends a long croon with a series of yips. Whatever it was seemed much closer; just outside the barn door.

What could be making such noises? Especially in broad daylight?

Then I realized I was on my knees in the sawdust gasping for breath. I put my hand to my head and felt blood.

I’d walked into a low beam and had clobbered myself. My head was spinning and only gradually did I realize I was still making sounds which no human should utter. So much for the strange wild animal.

There’s nothing cool or dramatic about slamming your noggin into a beam and the recovery has been as uneventful as it has been unpleasant. I’ve been living on a steady diet of Tylenol and self-pity. Despite the many times I’ve been accused of it; I am not a bonehead. I wish I were because my skull hasn’t yet stopped aching.

Posted in Libertarian Outpost | Leave a comment

Don’t Eat Crap: Bread Edition

Posted on October 7, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

 

In the 1950s additives were incorporated into mass produced bread to enhance flavor. The little girl in this ad is hungrily anticipating the newfangled slice of bread...which, judging from her eyes, is enhanced with crack. (Image linked to source.)

 

As a public service announcement I’m providing the following Curmudgeonly Gem of Insight.  You might want to get a pen and write this down because it’s absolutely true:

Bread should improve your sandwich; not wrap lunch meat in disappointment.

Unless you paid a boatload for it, the bread you’re eating is crap.  If you paid a whole lot, it is probably the same crap with seeds sprinkled on top.  This leads me to my second Gem Of Insight:

Idiots can bake bread.

Peasants in mud huts make bread.  It requires almost no technology whatsoever.

 

This photo I took while cooking lunch demonstrates that fire is the only technology truly needed to prepare meals. (Source here.)

 

Being an American I bought an appliance.  (I need an appliance to make something that can be created by a goatherd with a pan and a sack of flour?  Yes!  Yes I do!  God bless our mechanized world!)

 

An American tends to use a great deal of technology to do anything. For example, I bought a machine to make bread.

 

Armed with a second hand bread maker and no skill whatsoever I’ve made eleventy gazillion loaves of bread.  I know one recipe and it’s on page four of the book from the bread maker.  (Curmudgeons don’t mess with any recipe that takes too many ingredients.)  Every loaf of bread tasted pretty good.  Not astounding but darned tasty.

There was something missing before I could crank the dial to eleven; better ingredients.  Since my loaves of bread were nothing but flour and some minor components I decided to upgrade the flour.  Because I’ve got too much time on my hands I read up on the subject and made a discovery which I’ll provide as my third Gem of Insight:

All the flour you’ve ever bought was stale and shitty.  All the food you’ve ever eaten was probably made from stale shitty flour.

How to rectify this?  Buy another machine!  (Curmudgeons like machines.)  Some time ago I bought a wheat grinder (or flour mill if you want to sound sissy).  I dump wheat in the top and flour comes out the bottom.  It’s noisy enough to be satisfying without requiring any real knowledge to operate.

My flour is 100% whole wheat (unlike a lot of stuff that looks and is packaged like whole wheat).  How do I know this?  Because I looked everywhere and there is no secret portal to outer space within my mill.  What goes in must come out in the flour.

Wheat lasts forever but flour (especially if it’s 100% of the wheat) goes stale.  (Originally commercial flour was enriched and subjected to various black magic to make it last longer.  Over time, the ability to grind shit and put it in a bag without further tinkering was mostly lost to humanity.  Go figure.)  I dump wheat into the mill, dump the resulting flour into the bread machine, add a few crude ingredients, and then drink beer while the machine does the work.  (The beer is optional but why would you forgo it?)

Using the freshest possible ingredients results in some damn fine bread.  How good?  Astounding.  Otherworldly.  If I ever go to page five of the recipe book I’ll probably die of joy.  Luckily I’m too lazy.

Now you know the secret.  If an ignorant chimp like me can make delicious healthy bread so can you.   Aside from the sunk cost in the mill, it’s cheaper than dirt so you’ll save money in the long run.  What’s more important is feeling smug and superior whenever you make good food out of something that looks like gravel.  It’s priceless.

 

When you bake bread you'll feel better than the peons around you. A feeling that is priceless.

 

Go forth and bake bread.  Leave the the garbage they sell in the stores for the masses dumb enough to eat crap and pay for the privilege.  Enjoy the satisfaction that self reliance can offer and have fun doing it.

 

When you make your own bread you are no longer dependent on grocery stores. Being truly self reliant means you can carry a parasol without being gay.

 

Posted in Curmudgeonly Gems of Insight, Libertarian Outpost | Leave a comment

The Dojo And The Playplace

Posted on October 5, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

The first part of being a parent is the realization that you’ve no idea what you’re doing.  The second is the fear that you’re doing something wrong and your kid is going to wind up either a serial killer or (God forbid!) a lawyer.

Tragic failures of the parenting process such as lawyers should be avoided at all costs.

In keeping with our “don’t raise a loser” policy we’ve been taking our urchin to a Karate dojo.  It’s an expense we can ill afford but I wanted him to see an environment where progression is based on merit to counter the public school’s method of rewarding time served.  I’m clueless about martial arts but his dojo seems to know the score.  I love them for it.

My kid appears to love it too.  He aspires to be something between a Jedi Master and a superhero.  I think he grooves on the cool uniform and was inspired by Ralph Macchio.  I haven’t yet convinced him that Yoda is cooler than Obi-Wan but at least we’ve got a way to discuss the value of character.  It’s a deeper well than exchanging fart jokes.

It is unwise to mess with those who are properly trained in the martial arts.

Alas he’s just starting out.  Everyone gets to be a white belt when Mom and Dad cut a check but his first belt test looms.  Like most modern overprotective parents, I wonder how he’ll react if he doesn’t pass his first belt test.  Am I putting too much pressure on him?  My concern weighed on me.

After class, as a reward for his genuine effort, I took him to his favorite restaurant; a McDonalds with a Playplace.  McDonalds is hell and a Playplace is purgatory.  I’d rather be gnawed to death by weasels than go there but he’d earned it.

Frank Zappa wouldn't be caught dead at McDonalds.

It was pandemonium.  A birthday party was winding down and sugar addled feral children were shrieking like howler monkeys suffering heroin withdrawal.

Children need discipline.

The cavernous room echoed with the noise of squealing, yelping, whining, crying, manic devil-beasts (for no human can screech at those frequencies).  They ran about in random directions bouncing off walls, tables, and each other in a frenzied mammilian chemical reaction of stupidity.  Fries, plastic trinkets, spilled soda, and shoes were strewn about.  I desperately wanted to douse the entire place in antiseptic lest I contract something unimaginably gross.  Some of the more rambunctious hellions could use a few shots with a taser to knock some sense in them too.  (Did I just say that?  Yes I did.  Children needn’t act like berserk four foot tall disasters that scream loud enough to make the paint peel.)

My kid tore off into the jungle gym like a hound dog on the scent of something exciting.  I was pleased to note that he wasn’t shrieking like a banshee.  Nor was he covered in ketchup and fry slime.  Nor did he inexplicably run full tilt into solid structures like walls and plate glass.  He was having fun without the gear stripping unhinged caterwalling of the thundering herd.  A few other kids played happily without being self contained Jerry Springer shows.  Their parents and I exchanged mutually sympathetic looks as other parents ignored their broods of demon-spawn engaged in full tilt melee.

The obvious contrast came to mind.  Ten minutes earlier my kid had been at the dojo eagerly watching sensei’s every action.  He had the full and earnest desire to be every bit as excellent as that sensei.  Every session involves behavior beyond “good” and veering into attempts at excellence.  In ten minutes I’d dropped out of the dojo where “seek perfection of character” is not ironic and sunk into a cultural morass where having a temper tantrum on a pile of french fries is unremarkable.  Such a wide gulf.

Talk about a feeling of validation!  Concerns about too much pressure abated.  He seems to have mastered his kata but even if he doesn’t, he’s already risen above the abhorrent freakshow I was watching.  Good for him.  There’s hope for us all.  Though I heartily recommend that all adults avoid McDonalds Playplaces just in case the howler monkeys are rabid.

Posted in Libertarian Outpost | Leave a comment

One More Grumble About Light Bulbs

Posted on October 4, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

On September 29th I wrote:

I remember a few years ago when “corkscrew bulbs” finally met my price point. …I thought to myself; “This is great.  I wonder how they’ll screw it up?  Probably some tofu eating jackoff will outlaw the regular bulbs.“

And so it has come to pass. 2014 is the cutoff date.  Of course we’re shipping jobs overseas too.  I’m sure loving those imaginary green jobs that The One promised.

Mostly Cajun added the following tidbit of data:

Today in History – October 1

1880 – First electric lamp factory opened by Thomas Edison. These are rapidly going the way of buggy whip factories.

There you have it.  A consumer good was invented and manufactured on American soil (and sold profitably!) for 130 years.  It survived such horrible events as a Great Depression, two World Wars, Disco, and the AMC Gremlin .  Buggy whips (or rather horses) were supplanted by something better (any car except the AMC Gremlin) but it took environmental regulation to kill light bulbs and ship the jobs overseas.

I’m impressed by that.  130 years of basically the same technology yet it doesn’t seem archaic in the modern world.  A good run by any standards.  Who knows how long it would have lasted without the helpful bureaucrats?  I’ll bet 200 was in the running.

Posted in Technology of Indignity | Leave a comment

Overheard Recently

Posted on October 1, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I was sitting there minding my own business when two folks started talking past me.

Person 1: “Guess who visited my window last night?”

Person 2: “Who?”

I realize I wasn’t invited to the conversation but they were talking right over my head.  I’m nothing if not socially awkward and willing to grasp an opportunity.  So I made my guess:

Adaptive Curmudgeon:  “Nosferatu?”

Person 1: “Who?”

Adaptive Curmudgeon: “Dracula?”

Person 1: (Regarding me as the sort of thing you’d find under a log) “It was a raccoon.”

So there you have it.  I was heartbroken.  I was hoping for a chance to go vampire hunting.  Raccoons just don’t get the blood pumping in the same manner.

Oh well.  If I find the undead among us I’ll be sure to inform my readers.  I’m still looking.  Stay tuned.

Posted in Things That Must Be Said | Leave a comment

This Is A good Idea…I Wonder How They’ll Screw It Up.

Posted on September 29, 2010 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Lets get something straight, I’m an Adaptive Curmudgeon.  Unlike generic Curmudgeons I don’t sit around pining for the “good old days”.  When something new is truly better; I’ll buy it.  In their times I liked Kodachrome, Black and White TV, 33 RPM Records, and Carbureted Truck Engines.  All have been supplanted by new technologies and I’m not sitting in a corner weeping about it.

Another technology which I’ve largely discarded is the incandescent light bulb.  Edison’s genius invention had a good run but I’m all about efficiency and have never been afraid to experiment.  I got my first “corkscrew fluorescent” from an obscure green program (probably tied to a Federal subsidy).  It came free in the mail from an east coast electric company in 1991. (I have no idea how I made the request…probably mailed in a cereal box top.)  I stuck it in a socket and thought “when these things cost about 80% less they’ll be an OK idea”.  Since then the percentage of light in my house has steadily become more fluorescent and less incandescent.  Not because I’m some Al Gore disciple but because I’m a cheap bastard.

My current house is about half lit with decrepit shop lights (Curmudgeoning isn’t a path to riches).  A little at a time I’m upgrading fixtures and ballasts but I’m sticking with the four foot bulb format because they work, they’re cheap, and I don’t care if they’re ugly.  A few years ago I noted that the cost of corkscrew bulbs had dropped (as had the quality!).  I gradually switched the bulbs in my regular light fixtures.  By now our house is 95% florescent.  This is good because it’s apparently a natural law that the man of the house runs around turning off lights and everyone else runs around turning them on.  With low wattage I feel ahead of the game when I come home at night to find my home lit up like an Aircraft Carrier floating on the prairie.

I remember a few years ago when “corkscrew bulbs” finally met my price point.  A new technology could effortlessly reduce consumption and I could voluntarily/incrementally upgrade.  Win win!  I thought to myself; “This is great.  I wonder how they’ll screw it up?  Probably some tofu eating jackoff will outlaw the regular bulbs.”

And so it has come to pass. 2014 is the cutoff date.  Of course we’re shipping jobs overseas too.  I’m sure loving those imaginary green jobs that The One promised.

Since I’m using fluorescent corkscrew bulbs anyway you might think I’m ok with their mandate.  Absolutely not!  Why?  Because voluntarily using florescent where it makes sense is wise but a bureaucrat/regulator who’s never left the beltway trying to force it everywhere is made of fail.

Here’s a situation social engineering Government technocrats can’t imagine; my barn gets cold in the winter and I only need light a few minutes a day.  Efficiency is irrelevant because  I need a half hour of light daily to do chores and then hightail it for the warm house.  On the other hand, the dim glow of a sputtering fluorescent which can’t handle the cold is a special kind of hell.

Same story for exterior floodlights.  They only work if you give them forever to warm up.  Another fixture that I use only rarely.  Since I keep them off 99% of the time I don’t care about their consumption.  However, when I flip the switch I want light to instantaneously blaze forth like Zeus hurling lightning.  If a raccoon is probing the barn’s perimeter I need the element of surprise to aim a shotgun and the action will be over (one way of or the other) in five minutes.  With the Al Gore specials I might as well dismember the chickens myself and save the raccoons the trouble.  I doubt a DC bureaucrat was thinking of a redneck chasing raccoons at 2:00 am when they wrote the rules.

Without incandescents my solutions are counter to good stewardship.  If I left them on 24/7 all winter long they would probably stay lit, but what a pathetic idea!  Wasted electricity to light a barn an entire winter just so I can find a feed bin after sunset sticks in my craw.  Nor can I digest the irony of lit floodlights 24/7 harshing my mellow with abhorrent light pollution.  My dark starry skies are priceless!  (Envy me city dwellers; my skies have more stars than you’ll ever see!)

So there you have it.  When a mature and superior technology showed up a free citizen voluntarily upgraded wherever it made sense.  Result?  Saved electricity and lower power bills.  A herd of nameless cretins with regulatory powers run amok.  Result?  Higher power bills, annoying light pollution, and wasted energy.

Not to mention the stupidity of it all.  Didn’t we spend decades making fun of Russia for centrally controlled market disasters?  In my lifetime I’ve gone from feeling smugly superior to Russians standing in line for toilet paper to stockpiling contraband incandescent light bulbs.  I’m not surprised but remain dissapointed that common sense was taken out back and shot.

I’m not alone in my opinion either.  Mostly Cajun tied it in with politics and added this elegant flair:

I want small government. I don’t want government looking at the size of my toilet tank, and I resent paying somebody to sit in an office and write rules about my light bulbs.

Small Dead Animals also jumped into the fray with Y2Kyoto: Not With A Bang, But An Edict.

If I had any readers I’d encourage them to click on over.

It’s not as if we didn’t see it coming.  In 1991 outlawing incandescents would have been an unbelievable Tinfoil Hat theory.  By 2007 I assumed it was coming.  In 2010 the last factory is closed.  In 2014 it’s a done deal.  I suppose I’d better get ready for the next jokes I made about Communist Russia to rebound.  I half-jokingly wonder which will win in the race between my first Obamacare denial, rationed toilet paper, or a regulation bludgeoning me into buying a Federally funded hybrid Chrysler.  Russia’s Economy was more fun when it was in Moscow.

Posted in Nanny State Moralizers, Technology of Indignity | Leave a comment