TURN OUT THE LIGHTS, THE PARTY'S OVER

With all the media attention on the switchover from analog to digital TV this month, you may have missed another significant piece of legislation that was quietly voted into law last December. Did you know that Congress has banned the use of incandescent bulbs by 2014?

That’s right, like it or not, we’re all going to be forced to have those weird-looking Dairy Queen bulbs in every socket in our homes. Now you may already be using and loving them but seriously, is this the kind of intervention in our personal lives we want from our government?

Oh, incandescent bulbs put out too much heat, they say. Whatever. During cold weather isn’t that a good thing? It means maybe the furnace won’t have to come on so much and use even more energy. Hell, my wife says I radiate too much heat under the covers but she’s not banning me to the sofa---um, yet.

The new bulbs last 5 times longer, they say. Well, guess what, they cost 6 times more (50 cents vs. $3), so that’s a big incentive, huh? These are the same people that got us a trillion dollar national debt, so their math skills are dubious at best.

Guess what? Those curly-q’s contain mercury, and there’s proper concern about exposure with breakage and disposal. Experts say a solution to the problem is at least 5 years away, but did that stop the Greeniacs from charging ahead?

Look, we turn off the lights when we leave a room and we recycle (although I still struggle with the concept of washing the trash before it goes in the bin. Is it just me?). I’m not an obstructionist, but I think we need to be careful about making laws that nobody asked for.

This intrusion is a pathetic “symbolism over substance” gimmick wrapped in the flag of the global warming scam. Didn’t we have an Ice Age awhile back? If dinosaurs had representative government back then their Congress could have passed (pardon the pun in advance) pro-farting legislation to create more methane gas in the atmosphere and avert their demise.

How lucky we are our elected officials have “seen the light” and are focused on important solutions like banning incandescent bulbs. Maybe next they’ll incentivize us to buy over-priced hybrid cars on which we’ll never recoup our investment. Oh, yeah, they already did that too.

(Sigh)