Monday, March 8, 2010

TRUST YOUR GOVERNMENT...NO REALLY! TRUST THEM; ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LIBERAL

As you know, going green is all the rage these days.

From http://www.epa.gov/ we read: Buy or switch to energy efficient lighting fixtures and bulbs.

The bulbs they are recommending are those twisty fluorescent thingies...the ones with the mercury in them so if you break one you have to call in a HazMat team.

Before you purchase more, trusting that your government only wants the best for you, maybe you should watch this:



Now repeat with me: "We're your government and we only want to help you."

Again: "We're your government and we only want to help you."

Once more, with feeling: "We're your government and we only want to help you."

FOLLOWUP ON "GREEN" LIGHT BULBS

Here is the actual sequence to follow if you break a CFL bulb:




And you think that is OK?

37 comments:

sue said...

I bought some twisty bulbs and did not like them. I will not buy them again.

Xavier Onassis said...

You crack me up!

By all means, continue to waste your money on Thomas Edison's 100 year old tungsten bulbs.

Better yet, make your own candles from rendered tallow.

Go all hippie/Amish on us, Feel free to be as primitive as you like.

After all, you can afford it!

You're a successful entrepenuereal, job-creating, capitalistic Center of Excellence.

You're making the Big Bucks.

Science is a fraud, technology is evil and actual knowledge is an Abomination Before The Lord.

Modern civilization is a liberal conspiricy designed to corrupt good, God-fearing, Conservative, Main-Stream Americans who want to continue to selfishly rape the planet for their own profit.

You go for that and let us know how that works out for you.

Joe said...

sue: I'm with you.

XO: Technology is great! I love technology (witness my use of this computer...which I build myself...)

I also love real science...you know, science where the data isn't manipulated to support a particular agenda.

And knowledge! I LOVE knowledge. In fact, I have more of it than most people, especially snarky commenters on my blog.

My suggestion for you is to replace each of your incandescents with a couple of mercury-filled energy saving bulbs (you'll need two for each, 'cause you don't get as much usable light from one). They cost more, don't last as long as they say and if you break one, you have to call HAZMAT.

Candidly, I'm still working on that "successful entrepenuereal, job-creating, capitalistic Center of Excellence" stuff.

Happy additional brain damage!

sue said...

So Joe, XO was talking to you and not me.

Krystal said...

XO, it's very easy for you to spew at the mouth. Do you have a skin condition or photosensitivity? I do. Plus I have very fair skin which makes me prone to skin cancer. Do you realize at ALL what this means to me and others like me?

Also, I didn't know they contained mercury! Do you know the dangers of mercury exposure during pregnancy?! Mercury has been linked to developmental delays and brain damage. In fact, it's so dangerous that many states in the U.S. and large parts of Europse have BANNED THE SALE of mercury thermometers. There's a bill in the U.S. Congress to ban them all together!

Read this about the ban in schools and safety hazzard presented by a broken THERMOMETER in a school. The mercury can spread through a school and be inhaled. Where we live, the area has to be evaced and can't be used for THREE DAYS over ONE thermometer because the mercury is so dangerous!

http://www.newmoa.org/prevention/mercury/schools/MercuryAlternativesReport.pdf

Imagine if one of those bulbs get broken in a home full of children.

And yet you crack jokes ... like a donkey's behind.

Krystal said...

Just finished watching parts 2-4. I also looked up on U.S. EPA web site about clean up if one breaks in your home.

I have a few symptoms that have been mentioned. I'm going to remove all of my CFL's today and replace them with the old-fashioned irridescents. I'll let you know if there is any improvement in the next seven days.

I will be my OWN guinea pig.

Lone Ranger said...

Glenn Beck has already provided us with valuable guidance on how to clean up after breaking a bulb.

Joe said...

sue(small "s"): I know. I was just too lazy to reply in two boxes. My reply to you was simply that I agree with you. My reply to XO was a bit on the grumbly side. That part was not directed at you.

I still think you are a nice person.

Joe said...

Krystal: I don't take XO too seriously. He is basically reactionary and filled with self importance. He thinks he knows more than the rest of the world (almost as much as I know).

He has learned, in his old age, not to go over the edge with his language so he can avoid being deleted.

I have ridded myself of any inclination to buy those "green" bulbs, as their proponents are as twisted as the bulbs themselves.

I've had over 21 basil cell carcinomi removed, and just don't want any more.


LR: Thanks for the Beck link.
I'll zip over and check it out.


XO: If you'll fax me over a box of rendered tallow I'll make some candles. I'm into crafts.

American Yankee said...

"TRUST YOUR GOVERNMENT"


Sorry Joe, I don't trust THIS Government, No! Not at all.

Tapline said...

Joe, I think of late left leaners are frequenting this blog...Why????? Truth shall set you free!!!! you'd think they would be in the dark someplace plotting another lightbulb fiesco......stay well....

Z said...

I trust NOTHING they say anymore...I hate that I can't get too bulbs here in our CAlifornia stores anymore, too.
I know! We'll just buy MORE lamps and use more electricity to compensate that I can't SEE well in my home...and MORE BULBS, that's EFFICIENT, right? :-)
At least with my normal bulbs, I could throw them away without a Hazmat SUIT ON.

Joe, your comment about the Israelites sinking in the mud at my Faith Blog ROCKED :-) You won xx heh

Joe said...

AY: Thanks for the visit! You do well not to (trust this government, that is).

Tapline: I think they are!

Z: Yeah, there are some "modern" conveniences that just don't make any sense (except to those who sell them).

JMK said...

"Science is a fraud, technology is evil and actual knowledge is an Abomination Before The Lord.

"Modern civilization is a liberal conspiricy designed to corrupt good, God-fearing, Conservative, Main-Stream Americans who want to continue to selfishly rape the planet for their own profit." (X Onassis)

Whoa!

Now that constitutes what could best be termed a "cruel and unusual NON-refutation of the stated facts"....or more succinctly, "a vicious non-sequitor."

Ironically enough, all the existing science is on Joe's side in this.

There are indeed significant levels of mercury in those bulbs. They do require a private contractor for disposal if they should break...and they are and remain UNfiltered for UV radiation.

Didn't Leftists trot out "science" over the canard of "Anthropomorphic Global Warming" (AGW), at least until the scandal at East Anglia University's CRU bared the truth that AGW is entirely based on "junk science."

So it turns out that it's the Left that is really anti-science, standing against the empirical method and letting the FACTS lead where they may.

Ultimately there is no such thing as "scientific heresy"....and there is no "heresy," since new facts and the empirical method leave NOTHING ever FIXED, KNOWN, or "SETTLED."

Joe said...

JMK: I don't know how much interaction you've had with XO. He's an expert in outrage and disagreeableness.

He can't understand why I'm still alive, given my political bent, since my heart has acted up and I am a Medicare recipient.

He thinks I'm a hypocrite for accepting payment from an entity I have been forced to pay into since its inception.

Trekkie4Ever said...

My husband bought one and the light was horrid. Not bright at all and I couldn't stand the blue iridescence.

I wouldn't let him trade out the rest of the light bulbs in the house.

Needless to say, we are not back to using regular light bulbs again.

Everyone should be aware.

Joe said...

Leticia: That's what we're here for.

JMK said...

"He thinks I'm a hypocrite for accepting payment from an entity I have been forced to pay into since its inception." (Joe)


On the contrary, it's both honorable and acceptable for a Medicare recipient to oppose Medicare.

As you note, every Medicare recipient has paid into that system through a lifetime's worth of FICA taxes.

Medicaid recipients, who overwhelmingly come from the chronically indigent did NOT pay into that via payroll/FICA taxes.

Ironically enough, I've dealt with the same sort of idiocy - I've been a NYC firefighter for the past quarter century, an Uncle of mine is an extremely Conservative and Libertarian judge...and I've run into no small number of mouth-breathing dolts who believe such people are doing a "disservice to government" by supporting its being cut, made more efficient and ever more LIMITED.

Of course that's NOT the case at all, in FACT, in my view, ONLY people who believe that our government (which is sworn to be a SERVANT of the people and as LIMITED as practical) should be as streamlined, cost-effective and small as possible are fit to work in public service.

Such people seem to hold to no shortage of inane ideas. For instance, the idea that there is "an educated elite" who must rule and control everyone else is an insipid canard.

There is no such "elite."

Just as there is no example of a working Command Economy, which is why socialism cannot work.

There is no way to improve America's Founding Design.

Yes, to some degree at least, individual liberty and private property rights do allow the strong/rich to take advantage of the weak/poor and the clever to take advantage of the strong....but that is, quite simply, the way of the world...and the way it's ALWAYS going to be.

Socialism always and everywhere leads to the pathological dolts who comprise "the political class" to take advantage of both the strong and worse still the clever....at least for a time, which is one reason why such regimes always end badly.

Anonymous said...

Excellent post! Nothing like a little demo to showcase government incompetence.

Joe said...

JMK: Quite right. There are always those who learn to work the system, either to become rich or to become lazy.

It is a universal truth that government overinvolvement leads to decline while liberty leads to enrichment of society as a whole, along with the perhaps extreme enrichment of some.

Anonymous said...

# He has handled promises poorly, breaking many.
# He has shown incredibly poor screening procedures for cabinet members, and even MORE egregious, actually followed through on the appointments of people who should not have been allowed to be considered in the first place.
# He has rushed things which deserve far more attention and scrutiny and caution.
# He has ruined any chance of bipartisanship, changing the tone in Washington, mostly by his handling of the stimulus package, but he has contributed to that with several other actions which flaunt his arrogance and have undermined our position on the world stage. I find this to be his largest mistake, as he lost a lot of opportunity to move the country ahead, right there, in trade for ramming through a far left agenda. His second largest mistake derailing bipartisanship could still grow to be #1; releasing the documents concerning Bush administration interrogation procedures.
# He has had high ambitions for foreign policy changes and greater cooperation with Europe and others, only to come away with little more than an opportunity to give conciliatory, apologetic speeches and glad hand with people we should be stern with. The G20 and South American Summit showed that people loved to meet our new rock star, but he really did not seem to carry much "gravitas." I think Bono from U-2 might have had more impact.
# He has shown himself to be a pretty boy propaganda hype driven candidate that knew more about how to get American's to vote for him than he actually did about the "facts on the ground" concerning many of the items he listed that he would "change." Several very glaring examples of this head in the clouds ignorance have come to show that he knew little about the reality and effect of such changes on the United States.
# On domestic policy, all he has really done so far is ceremoniously attack principles with pen by taking down executive orders, many of which are slaps in the face of people of faith all over the country.
# Obama is leader by proxy. He has shown that he doesn't like to get his hands dirty, so he hands the reigns to the Congress, which is "led" by zealots from the left. At least then, he can blame them, stating it was the best that the officials elected by the "American people" could give him at the time, and therefore, he "inherited" any problems which might arise from their legislation

Joe said...

Anonymous: You have made some salient points about President BO.

Thanks.

JMK said...

"It is a universal truth that government over-involvement leads to decline while liberty leads to enrichment of society as a whole, along with the perhaps extreme enrichment of some." (Joe)


That's 100% right.

The last time we had a fiscal implosion it came at the end of a prolonged Keynesian period, that began with LBJ's excessive overspending, continued unabated through the Nixon/Ford years (Nixon, an obsessive over-regulator and government expander said, "We are all Keynesians now") and ended with the real WORST U.S. economy since the Great Depression at the end of the Carter administration, with STAGFLATION (double digit interest, inflation and unemployment rates) and the HIGHEST Misery Index (the inflation and unemployment rates added together) post-WW II (22) and a nearly 23% Prime Lending rate!

G W Bush presided over one of the most excessively regulatory administrations in history, one that delivered over 1,000 pages of new fiscal regulation per year, including Sarbannes-Oxley, one of the most expensive and far-reaching pieces of financial regulation in decades, coupled with a tremendous growth of government AND an additional $1.3 TRILLION borrowed over 8 years.

Just as Carter upped the ante on Nixon, Obama's upped the ante on Bush, borrowing some $1.6 TRILLION in this administration's FIRST year!

China's considering moving from tethering their currency to the USD and they, along with some of our largest creditors, are looking at raising the cost of servicing our debt (raising our rates), which would put a very strong upward pressure on both our interest and inflation rates.

Over the past year the economy has gotten significantly worse. That's a wrong path.

When Reagan moved us off our disastrous Keynesian path, the economy improved markedly and immediately. The Misery Index improved the very first year and decreased EVERY year until it reached single digits in 1986, and it remained in the single digits throughout the rest of his tenure.

The Supply Side period from the early 1980s through the early 2000s (Bush's ONE Supply Side act was his across-the-board income tax rate cuts, saw tax revenues surge in their wake) was a period of unrivaled prosperity, especially when compared with the two Keynesian periods before and after it.

Dan said...

Ugh...

If you are going to argue against Keynesian economics, please show me your economic models that prove what you are saying. If you don't have them, then please stop.

Also, I run many of these light bulbs in my home almost constantly because I have several vivariums that require very specific lighting wavelengths and have never broken a bulb in the 5+ years and 6 tanks with 2 bulbs on average changed ~every 6 months. They are built tougher than normal bulbs and last much longer. I don't know why you wouldn't use them except in certain medical circumstances.

Joe said...

Dan: Thanks for the wealth of information supporting the Keynesian model. I am just overwhelmed with your examples, math models and philosophical insights.

Wait...wait...I re-read your comment.

There is absolutely nothing there!

Nothing!

I am so disheartened.

I thought your refutations would be exemplary and your arguments full of substance and merit!

Imigine how disappointed I was to find nothing.

As for your use of the light bulbs, I say, "Have at it." Just don't require me to do so, too.

If you trust the government, then go ahead. If you have no reservations about their use, then by all means use them.

Do me a favor, though. When I come over for dinner, please take them out temporarily and replace them with incandescent bulbs while I'm there.

Thanks so much.

Joe said...

JMK: I compared your comment with Dan's. Your had substance, his had nothing.

He has the Ricky/David Nelson syndrome. "Did, too!" "Did not!"
"Did, too!" "Did not!" "Did, too!" "Did not!"

Anonymous said...

Trust a Liberal, and a Marxist yet?

I don't think so..

Dan said...

Why is this about trusting the government? The light bulbs are made by private corporations...unless you are complaining that the light bulb industry requires more regulation....

As for my mathematical models?

Here they are...

http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/NOTES/CHAP9.HTM

http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/TheKeynesianISLMModel/

http://web.uconn.edu/cunningham/econ309/is-lm.pdf

And that's non-recession Keynesian economics. Keynesian economics during a recession are much more complicated, but are based off the premise that during a recession, the only entity with capital to spend is the government. Individuals certainly don't with unemployment so high. Big business certainly doesn't as by our current economic uncertainty (large banks reinvesting liquidity as opposed to lending it even after large bail outs.)

I know ant-intellectualism is rampant in a lot of conservative land, but I trust people who have a PhD in a subject I do not, and they overwhelmingly support a Keynesian approach.

http://www.tnr.com/article/how-i-became-keynesian

I'm still baffled how people can be so against a policy that they know nothing about.

JMK said...

There are plusses and minuses to CFLs, those who’ve adviocated for them here, have yet to point out a single plus, so I’ll do that for them.

First, while the purchase price of an integrated CFL is typically 3 to 10 times greater than that of an equivalent incandescent lamp, the average rated life of a CFL is between 8 and 15 times that of incandescents and that apparently makes CFLs somewhat more cost-effective.

However, CFLs produce less light later in their lives due to luminescence decay over the course of their lives. This light output decay is exponential, with the fastest losses coming soon after the lamp is first used. By the end of their lives, CFLs can be expected to produce about 70–80% of their original light output. This would appear to diminish the cost-effectiveness of the CFLs.

Moreover, there are a number of competing alternatives, including solid-state lighting, which has already filled a few specialist niches such as traffic lights and may compete with CFLs for house lighting as well. LEDs providing over 200 lm/W have been demonstrated in laboratory tests and expected lifetimes of around 50,000 hours are typical, compared to a 6,000 to 15,000 hour lifespan of most CFLs.

Most of the health and environmental concerns are centered around the fact that CFLs, like all fluorescent lamps, contain small amounts of mercury as vapor inside their glass tubing. Because mercury is poisonous, even these small amounts are a concern for landfills and waste incinerators where the mercury from lamps may be released and contribute to air and water pollution.

Due to health and environmental concerns about mercury, it is unlawful to dispose of fluorescent bulbs as universal waste in the states of California, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Spent lamps should be properly disposed of, or recycled, to contain the small amount of mercury in each lamp, in preference to disposal in landfills.

In the European Union, CFLs are one of many products subject to the WEEE recycling program. There, the retail price includes an amount to pay for recycling, and manufacturers and importers have an obligation to collect and recycle CFLs. Safe disposal requires storing the bulbs unbroken until they can be processed.

Most CFLs are NOT labeled for dimming control. Using regular CFLs with a dimmer is ineffective at dimming and can shorten bulb life, in most such cases, voiding the warranty of those products.

Many of the worries about the health concerns of CFLs, comes from reports of factory workers making those products suffering extremely high levels of mercury poisoning.

In the past decade, hundreds of Chinese factory workers working in the manufacture of CFLs have been poisoned and hospitalized because of mercury exposure. Examples include workers at the Nanhai Feiyang lighting factory in Foshan city where 68 out of 72 were so badly poisoned that they required hospitalization. At another CFL factory in Jinzhou, 121 out of 123 employees were found to have excessive mercury levels with one employee's mercury level 150 times the accepted standard.

JMK said...

“I know ant-intellectualism is rampant in a lot of conservative land, but I trust people who have a PhD in a subject I do not, and they overwhelmingly support a Keynesian approach. (Dan)
<
<
Actually few (VERY few) contemporary economists disagree at all with the man who was almost certainly the greatest economist of the modern age, the late Dr. Milton Friedman, an ardent advocate of market-based, Supply Side economics.

Keynesianism’s primary flaw is that it fails to distinguish between positive and negative action.

In that regard it supposes that public sector/government jobs are as “productive” and can expand the GDP as effectively as private sector jobs can.

THAT is without question erroneous.

The fact is, without a vibrant PRIVATE sector, there can’t be a large, well paid PUBLIC sector.

NEED itself counts for nothing.

If NEED made those jobs necessary and economically viable, OR if public sector jobs “were as good for the economy as private sector ones,” then Zimbabwe could find prosperity by merely hiring an Army of bureaucrats!

The Keynesian view that posits that “government spending and government jobs can generate as much productivity and GDP as private sector jobs,” is a ridiculous, even an absurd assertion, as public sector jobs (teachers, cops, firefighters, social workers, etc.) exist, only because they can be and are paid for by private sector revenues based entirely on producing value, making things and as such. Public sector jobs, are entirely funded by tax revenues and as such, they are, for better or worse, a net drain on GDP.

That’s why the public sector must ultimately be coldly efficient, utilizing small workforces that work smarter to constantly do more with less, so that the private sector can not only flourish, but expand, because the private sector’s gains allow the public sector to exist....

JMK said...

....Harare, Zimbabwe has as many needs as any American city, perhaps even more, BUT there is no money in Zimbabwe to fund all those “necessary” public services.

WHY?

Primarily because there’s no vital, expansive private sector to provide those revenues, from which a workable public sector might be funded.

Keynesianism’s primary flaw is best represented by its own “broken window” theory. John Maynard Keynes saw a vandal throwing a brick through a storefront window as “a good thing” because it resulted in a good deal of economic activity. He started off with the premise that the store owner, himself, was inconvenienced, but effectively unharmed, since that store-owner was insured. From there, John Maynard Keynes outlined a flurry of activity that Keynes believed led to a greater overall economic vitality, as from there, the insurer goes to work, the insurance company sends in the assessor and the assessor gets to work, after that, the glass maker, the window framer and the glazier all get work...and so on.

That perfectly illustrates the key flaw of the Keynesian view - makes no distinction between positive (productive) and negative (destructive) activity. That’s as absurd as someone observing two people in two different scenarios, in the first, seeing two people engaged in a cooperative, productive venture, while in the second, seeing the same two people observed in a brawl, rolling around on the floor throwing punches...AND making no real distinction between them, as in the second scenario, the emergency room doctors get work, perhaps the local dentist, as well as the police and court officers and eventually, defense attorneys all get to work. If the two combatants must buy new clothes and other items damaged in their brawl, even more economic activity is generated.

That failure to distinguish between positive/productive action and negative/destructive action is why Keynesianism fails to realize that ALL productivity and creation is delivered by the private sector, as it’s produced by a combination of investors, entrepreneurial owners and workers who cooperate in producing all that.

That, in a nutshell, is why Keynesian economic policies reliably deliver poor economic results, as shown in the Hoover/FDR government expansions extending the Great Depression and the nearly two-decade long Keynesian experiment that took hold here in the mid-1960s, imploding in the Carter years prove.

Joe said...

FTTM: Thanks for the visit. Good post on Massa vs Rham. You should post more often...you do it well.

Dan: Thanks for the links. I checked them out. They are very unconvincing because they are based on a false premise: the government pouring money into the economy during tough times can lift us from recesson or depression.

There is a major problem with Keynesian economics as it relates to recessions and depressions is that the money used is "government money," which does not exist unless it is confiscated from the governed or printed by the government.

Either way it not based on productivity.

In its simplest form, the government takes $10.00 from me and pays me back $12.00 with my own money, borrowing the shortfall, thus perpetuating a deficit and debt that cannot be repaid without taking more from me.

Since the government is a minimal producer, it does not contribute significantly to the gross national product.

Keynesian economics is unsustainable.

JMK: What a great presentation of the issues with Keynesian economics! Well done!

Dan said...

Wow, where to begin,

JMK: I won't be able to address your post while at work with the thoroughness it requires, but 2 brief comments.

Mitlon Friedman was not part of supply side economics, generally refered to as the Austrian School. He founded the principal of monetarism, which advocates monetary policy as opposed to fiscal policy as it relates to government action during recessions and argues that monetary equilibrium is key, and there are certaintly many economists who disagree with him.

The second is your insistence that Keynes says that public sector jobs are the same from a growth standpoint as private sector jobs and advocates that they are interchangeable. Can you cite this please? Because I've never seen that ever.

Joe said...

Dan: You said: "I know ant-intellectualism is rampant in a lot of conservative land..."

Assuming you meant "anti-intellectualism," is it your contention that only liberals have significant intellect?

Conservatives with college degrees and post graduate degrees have less intellect than liberals with the same...is that what you are saying?

How do they graduate without an intellect?

Are you suggesting that the more realistic, practical approach of conservatives is somehow inferior to the head-in-the-clouds, sophomoric approach of the majority of liberals?

Interesting from someone identified with the group that complains that conservatives are so narrow minded.

My personal IQ has been measured as significantly higher than average. Does that mean I should "convert" to liberalism?

Nah! I'll stay where I am, thank you very much.

Joe said...

Dan: With regard to Mitlon Friedman you said: "...and there are certaintly many economists who disagree with him."

Are there also those who agree with him?

How did you come to agree with Keynesian economics?

Was it based on what was programmed into your head in college, or by some politician, or did it just sort of "sound good" to you so you decided to adopt it?

Have you looked at actual results in the years following the application of Keynesian economics compared to the years following other theories?

JMK said...

Monetarism and Supply Side Economics are BOTH "market-based economic models."

Monetarists emphasize the role of money and the government's monetary policy in economic affairs and they vigorously defend the free market in their work.

Supply side economics, another modern branch of free market economics, emphasizes the harmful role of impediments to production (such as over-regulation and high tax rates).

BOTH Monetarism and Supply side economics advocates government policies that would stimulate increased overall economic production, rather than to redistribute existing production.

Public policy economists (all of them Keynesians) have ALWAYS advocated more government/public sector hiring...ergo the Keynesian principle that fails to distinguish between positive/productive action (ie. private sector productivity) and negative, non-productive action (ie. public sector activities....many public sector actions are necessary, but ALL of them are a cost, or "drag" on the GDP).

Today's public policy viewpoint evolved from J M Keynes own argument that government policies could be used to increase aggregate demand, thus increasing economic activity and reducing unemployment and deflation....ignoring the fact that all such public sector activities MUST BE funded by a vibrant, productive private sector.

JMK said...

Hong Kong, the worlds least regulated and MOST free market economy also consistently has its LOWEST Misery Index....6.0 in 2008.

When the Gingrich Congress cut government spending, starting in 1995, that not only resulted in all those vaunted budget surpluses, BUT some of this nation's lowest Misery Indexes (6.5) since 1956.

On the other side, NO "Command Economy" (government-run economy) has ever worked, despite the likes of Laura D'Angela Tyson and Paul Krugman claiming it can work, "under the right conditions."

Seems those "right conditions" always include the eradication via mass murder of those recalcitrant and obstinate property owners.