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Saturday, December 3, 2011

My name is Sarah, and I'm a lightbulb hoarder

The ban on incandescent bulbs is one of those egregious abuses of Congressional authority that just illustrates everything that's wrong with our federal government.

We've outlawed a perfectly good product that provided excellent light for over a century safely and for minimal cost, and worse, we've done it before we have an adequate replacement product. LED lights do not provide adequate illumination and the compact florescent light bulbs (or "CFLs") are a toxic waste nightmare if you break one.

Sigh. The whole thing is just so aggressively stupid. I had some hope that the Republican Congress might be able to repeal the light bulb ban, but they've been completely ineffective so far. Maybe if we elect some good conservatives to the Senate next year we'll have some hope.

The same environmentalists who panic about cigarette smoke in outdoor parks are somehow completely fine with mercury in fragile glass containers? And don't get me started on the hypocrisy of how they react to minute amounts of mercury being found in the environment, but they are fine with the much larger amounts of mercury present in each one of these bulbs?

I've been semi-jokingly calling CLFs "mercury bombs" for a few years now, but am I out of line with that description? Just check out the complicated instructions on the EPA's website, "Cleaning Up a Broken CFL" and tell me that this is a product that you want in your home, around your children.

So, in the meantime, I'm hoarding incandescent light bulbs. I'm a bit of a klutz, and installing mercury in glass containers all over my house sounds like a terrible idea.

Here's someone who feels my pain...the latest video from Remy Munasifi (who also did the excellent Arlington Rap song):


YouTube | Remy: Missing You - The Incandescent Light Bulb Song


[Hat tip: Hot Air]

1 comment:

  1. I'm hoarding also. My husband was installing a mantel in a home (he's a custom cabinetmaker) and knocked over a lamp. People were not in town. He swept, tossed it out and then vacuumed the area. He just said, screw it, that's all I'm doing. Shouldn't have the damned things anyway. We replaced it...I won't have them in the house. I don't need another migraine trigger.

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