Just a quick post
Since the mosques in The West are way more militant than ones in the land of islam, perhaps it is islam that cannot handle the freedom of The West.
And islam gets corrupted while it's adherents are in western lands, so in order to keep those who disrespect islam from disrespecting islam, it is time to send them pacting.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Hey taxing the rich hurts the poor??
Heard this on Rush today.
Derr, taxing the rich really only makes things worse, economicallly.
Tax every one the same % and the rich will always pay more and the poor always pay less. It goes back to those fractions problems we had in elementary school or basic math along the way. Unfortunately some folks thing taxing the rich makes them or the poor feel better.
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.aspx?Feed=AP&Date=20080128&ID=8100079&Symbol=TIF
Luxury shoppers' cuts could harm economy
NEW YORK (AP) - It's hard to feel sorry for well-heeled shoppers whose idea of tough economic times is passing on $1,000 Burberry raincoats or that $300 limo ride while the working poor skimp on vegetables and take the bus.
But economists say that recent signs of cutting back by the affluent could hurt the economy and deliver even more pain to lower-income workers, who are dependent on their business and fat tips.
Nathan Warren, a limo driver, knows this first hand: He has seen his monthly wages drop by 40 percent to about $1,800 since late last year. His work week at Newport Beach, Calif.-based Classy Ride Limousine Service was reduced to three days from five amid slow business.
"I have to struggle to get by. I am pinching pennies," said Warren, 30, a Costa Mesa, Calif. resident. "I am eating more cereal and am not buying clothing."
Cutbacks by the wealthy have a ripple effect across all consumer spending, said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers. That's because American households in the top 20 percent by income -- those making at least $150,000 a year -- account for about 40 percent of overall consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of economic activity.
Niemira expects the retail sector, whose growth was fueled in part by strong gains at luxury chains, will struggle to eke out a 1 percentage sales increase in stores opened at least a year during the next few months. That's below the 2.1 percent average for 2007 and 3.7 percent for 2006.
Just look at the cutbacks by Dali Wiederhoft, a 52-year-old marketing executive from Reno, Nev., made skittish by a volatile stock market, a 20 percent decline in her home value and recession fears.
Over the past three months Wiederhoft pared her spending on clothes to $500 per month from about $3,000; that means no more Jimmy Choo shoes and David Yurman jewelry. Her cutbacks also included canceling the services of a cleaning woman and a lawn care company. She also plans to trade in her BMW for a Ford when her lease expires in about a month.
"This is a time to have cash, not to spend. So, I'm cutting wherever I can," she said.
Such reined-in spending seems to be the end of a winning streak for luxury retailers that once appeared immune to the economic slowdown. Tiffany & Co. and Williams-Sonoma Inc. both reduced their earnings outlooks and Burberry PLC said it may miss its 2008 profit forecast. Coach Inc. reported a 1.1 percent decline in same-store sales at its North American stores for the second quarter ended Dec. 29, 2007 and Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA, the Swiss parent of Cartier and Baume & Mercier, reported a slowdown in holiday sales growth.
Soaring home values had made upper-middle class shoppers feel wealthy in recent years, causing them to trade up to $500 Coach handbags and $1,000 espresso makers, but a housing slump has wiped away their paper wealth. The woes are creeping into even the high-end luxury sector, as affluent shoppers are rattled by the turbulence in the financial markets.
American Express Co., whose customers are generally affluent, said it expects slower spending and more missed payments on credit cards throughout 2008.
The economy needs affluent shoppers to spend with enthusiasm. According to the government's latest survey of consumer expenditures, the top 20 percent of households spend about $94,000 annually, almost five times the bottom 20 percent and more per year than the bottom sixty percent combined.
Then there's also the multiplier effect. When shoppers splurge on $1,000 dinners and $300 limousine rides, that means fatter tips for the waiter and the driver. Sales clerks at upscale stores, who typically earn sales commissions, also depend on spending sprees of mink coats and jewelry. But the trickling down is starting to dry up, threatening to hurt a broad base of low-paid workers like Warren, the limo driver.
Classy Ride Limousine Service, which caters to clients with an average household income of $200,000, has suffered a 10 percent dip in business last year, according to general manager Jason Lattier.
"We've been really slow," said Lattier, noting that 12 out of his 20 drivers are now working three days per week. With the average driver earnings $150 a day in tips and wages, that means a weekly shortfall of $300.
In Chicago, Montopoli Custom Clothiers, a tailor to consumers willing to spend $3,000 to $30,000 for a custom-made suit, has also seen business suffer. Sales dropped 10 percent in October and November from the year-ago period, according to president Jeff Landis. He noted that 20 percent of his clients, who include commodity traders and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, delayed buying suits for fall.
"I consider them a leading economic indicator," said Landis. He's taken more aggressive measures like increasing calls to clients to get them in the store, but hasn't laid off anyone.
"I'm not at the point of panic," he said.
Overall, the super wealthy -- consumers with a net worth of more than $10 million -- are still splurging on $1 million boats, $10 million diamond jewelry and other luxuries, according to Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a research institute based in New York.
But this crowd could stop splurging, simply because they're not in the mood. That happened right after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, though luxury spending rebounded soon after.
Jim Taylor, vice chairman of marketing consultancy The Harrison Group, said he's seeing a marked shift in the way people look upon spending.
"There's a real decline in enthusiasm for self-indulgent purchasing," said Taylor.
Orrin Feingold, a New York entrepreneur, decided to get out of his lease on a Volvo XC90 sport utility vehicle because he realized he didn't need to spend $650 a month and another $500 on parking. Feingold, 39, a former chief financial officer of a health care company, said the uncertain financial climate is making him think twice about spending.
"I want to be more practical," he said.
Luxury stores, which have a big presence in New York, are closely monitoring Wall Street. The financial industry accounts for about 20 percent of wages in New York City, according to the state comptroller's office.
Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates, a leading executive compensation consultancy, expects bonuses to fall as much as 30 percent this year. But more importantly, massive layoffs on Wall Street could cause the affluent to pull back even more.
Meanwhile, Warren, the California limo driver is focusing on day-to-day survival. Faced with a monthly rent of $1,300, he has no choice but look for a full-time job.
He's had training as a machinist before, but now things are too unsettled.
"There is so much uncertainty in the economy from what I see, so I am not sure where I am going to look," he said.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_012908/content/01125104.guest.html
RUSH: Get this. It's unbelievable, especially from the Associated Press. The slug line on this story is: "Luxury Squeeze -- It's hard to feel sorry for well-heeled shoppers whose idea of tough economic times is passing on $1,000 Burberry raincoats or that $300 limo ride while the working poor skimp on vegetables and take the bus. But economists say that recent signs of cutting back by the affluent could hurt the US economy and deliver even more pain to lower-income workers, who are dependent on their business and fat tips. Nathan Warren, a limo driver, knows this firsthand: He has seen his monthly wages drop by 40 percent to about $1,800 since late last year. His work week at Classy Ride Limousine Service was reduced to three days from five amid slow business. 'I have to struggle to get by. I am pinching pennies,' said Warren, 30, a Costa Mesa, Calif. resident. 'I am eating more cereal and am not buying clothing.' Cutbacks by the wealthy have a ripple effect across all consumer spending, said Michael Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers. That's because American households in the top 20 percent by income -- those making at least $150,000 a year -- account for about 40 percent of overall consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of economic activity." Why? Why? Wait, wait, wait! Ripple effect? You mean when the affluent and wealthy stop buying, it hurts people lower down the scale? Uh, so you got... Follow me on this here, folks. You got the wealthy and you got the affluent up here, and they spend, and when they spend, that spending sort of "trickles down" to others below them. Uh, so there is a trickle-down effect? A trickle-down effect! So when you give tax relief, tax cuts to upper income workers, they spend more, and there's a trickle-down effect? Does this woman who wrote this, Anne Dinnocenzio, want to keep her job? She has just done a story under the guise of feeling sorry for the poor and the middle class that they're having to eat cereal and go without new clothes -- and she just validated Reaganomics, the trickle-down aspect. So, the rich can't win. If they make too much money, it's not fair. If they don't spend what they make, everybody suffers (Women and Minorities Hardest Hit). This needs to be framed and put in the Smithsonian in the Newseum. They got this Newseum. This is incredible. "Recent signs of cutting back by the affluent could hurt the economy and deliver even more pain to lower income workers who are dependent on their business. The limo driver is just but one example."
Derr, taxing the rich really only makes things worse, economicallly.
Tax every one the same % and the rich will always pay more and the poor always pay less. It goes back to those fractions problems we had in elementary school or basic math along the way. Unfortunately some folks thing taxing the rich makes them or the poor feel better.
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.aspx?Feed=AP&Date=20080128&ID=8100079&Symbol=TIF
Luxury shoppers' cuts could harm economy
NEW YORK (AP) - It's hard to feel sorry for well-heeled shoppers whose idea of tough economic times is passing on $1,000 Burberry raincoats or that $300 limo ride while the working poor skimp on vegetables and take the bus.
But economists say that recent signs of cutting back by the affluent could hurt the economy and deliver even more pain to lower-income workers, who are dependent on their business and fat tips.
Nathan Warren, a limo driver, knows this first hand: He has seen his monthly wages drop by 40 percent to about $1,800 since late last year. His work week at Newport Beach, Calif.-based Classy Ride Limousine Service was reduced to three days from five amid slow business.
"I have to struggle to get by. I am pinching pennies," said Warren, 30, a Costa Mesa, Calif. resident. "I am eating more cereal and am not buying clothing."
Cutbacks by the wealthy have a ripple effect across all consumer spending, said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers. That's because American households in the top 20 percent by income -- those making at least $150,000 a year -- account for about 40 percent of overall consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of economic activity.
Niemira expects the retail sector, whose growth was fueled in part by strong gains at luxury chains, will struggle to eke out a 1 percentage sales increase in stores opened at least a year during the next few months. That's below the 2.1 percent average for 2007 and 3.7 percent for 2006.
Just look at the cutbacks by Dali Wiederhoft, a 52-year-old marketing executive from Reno, Nev., made skittish by a volatile stock market, a 20 percent decline in her home value and recession fears.
Over the past three months Wiederhoft pared her spending on clothes to $500 per month from about $3,000; that means no more Jimmy Choo shoes and David Yurman jewelry. Her cutbacks also included canceling the services of a cleaning woman and a lawn care company. She also plans to trade in her BMW for a Ford when her lease expires in about a month.
"This is a time to have cash, not to spend. So, I'm cutting wherever I can," she said.
Such reined-in spending seems to be the end of a winning streak for luxury retailers that once appeared immune to the economic slowdown. Tiffany & Co. and Williams-Sonoma Inc. both reduced their earnings outlooks and Burberry PLC said it may miss its 2008 profit forecast. Coach Inc. reported a 1.1 percent decline in same-store sales at its North American stores for the second quarter ended Dec. 29, 2007 and Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA, the Swiss parent of Cartier and Baume & Mercier, reported a slowdown in holiday sales growth.
Soaring home values had made upper-middle class shoppers feel wealthy in recent years, causing them to trade up to $500 Coach handbags and $1,000 espresso makers, but a housing slump has wiped away their paper wealth. The woes are creeping into even the high-end luxury sector, as affluent shoppers are rattled by the turbulence in the financial markets.
American Express Co., whose customers are generally affluent, said it expects slower spending and more missed payments on credit cards throughout 2008.
The economy needs affluent shoppers to spend with enthusiasm. According to the government's latest survey of consumer expenditures, the top 20 percent of households spend about $94,000 annually, almost five times the bottom 20 percent and more per year than the bottom sixty percent combined.
Then there's also the multiplier effect. When shoppers splurge on $1,000 dinners and $300 limousine rides, that means fatter tips for the waiter and the driver. Sales clerks at upscale stores, who typically earn sales commissions, also depend on spending sprees of mink coats and jewelry. But the trickling down is starting to dry up, threatening to hurt a broad base of low-paid workers like Warren, the limo driver.
Classy Ride Limousine Service, which caters to clients with an average household income of $200,000, has suffered a 10 percent dip in business last year, according to general manager Jason Lattier.
"We've been really slow," said Lattier, noting that 12 out of his 20 drivers are now working three days per week. With the average driver earnings $150 a day in tips and wages, that means a weekly shortfall of $300.
In Chicago, Montopoli Custom Clothiers, a tailor to consumers willing to spend $3,000 to $30,000 for a custom-made suit, has also seen business suffer. Sales dropped 10 percent in October and November from the year-ago period, according to president Jeff Landis. He noted that 20 percent of his clients, who include commodity traders and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, delayed buying suits for fall.
"I consider them a leading economic indicator," said Landis. He's taken more aggressive measures like increasing calls to clients to get them in the store, but hasn't laid off anyone.
"I'm not at the point of panic," he said.
Overall, the super wealthy -- consumers with a net worth of more than $10 million -- are still splurging on $1 million boats, $10 million diamond jewelry and other luxuries, according to Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a research institute based in New York.
But this crowd could stop splurging, simply because they're not in the mood. That happened right after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, though luxury spending rebounded soon after.
Jim Taylor, vice chairman of marketing consultancy The Harrison Group, said he's seeing a marked shift in the way people look upon spending.
"There's a real decline in enthusiasm for self-indulgent purchasing," said Taylor.
Orrin Feingold, a New York entrepreneur, decided to get out of his lease on a Volvo XC90 sport utility vehicle because he realized he didn't need to spend $650 a month and another $500 on parking. Feingold, 39, a former chief financial officer of a health care company, said the uncertain financial climate is making him think twice about spending.
"I want to be more practical," he said.
Luxury stores, which have a big presence in New York, are closely monitoring Wall Street. The financial industry accounts for about 20 percent of wages in New York City, according to the state comptroller's office.
Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates, a leading executive compensation consultancy, expects bonuses to fall as much as 30 percent this year. But more importantly, massive layoffs on Wall Street could cause the affluent to pull back even more.
Meanwhile, Warren, the California limo driver is focusing on day-to-day survival. Faced with a monthly rent of $1,300, he has no choice but look for a full-time job.
He's had training as a machinist before, but now things are too unsettled.
"There is so much uncertainty in the economy from what I see, so I am not sure where I am going to look," he said.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_012908/content/01125104.guest.html
RUSH: Get this. It's unbelievable, especially from the Associated Press. The slug line on this story is: "Luxury Squeeze -- It's hard to feel sorry for well-heeled shoppers whose idea of tough economic times is passing on $1,000 Burberry raincoats or that $300 limo ride while the working poor skimp on vegetables and take the bus. But economists say that recent signs of cutting back by the affluent could hurt the US economy and deliver even more pain to lower-income workers, who are dependent on their business and fat tips. Nathan Warren, a limo driver, knows this firsthand: He has seen his monthly wages drop by 40 percent to about $1,800 since late last year. His work week at Classy Ride Limousine Service was reduced to three days from five amid slow business. 'I have to struggle to get by. I am pinching pennies,' said Warren, 30, a Costa Mesa, Calif. resident. 'I am eating more cereal and am not buying clothing.' Cutbacks by the wealthy have a ripple effect across all consumer spending, said Michael Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers. That's because American households in the top 20 percent by income -- those making at least $150,000 a year -- account for about 40 percent of overall consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of economic activity." Why? Why? Wait, wait, wait! Ripple effect? You mean when the affluent and wealthy stop buying, it hurts people lower down the scale? Uh, so you got... Follow me on this here, folks. You got the wealthy and you got the affluent up here, and they spend, and when they spend, that spending sort of "trickles down" to others below them. Uh, so there is a trickle-down effect? A trickle-down effect! So when you give tax relief, tax cuts to upper income workers, they spend more, and there's a trickle-down effect? Does this woman who wrote this, Anne Dinnocenzio, want to keep her job? She has just done a story under the guise of feeling sorry for the poor and the middle class that they're having to eat cereal and go without new clothes -- and she just validated Reaganomics, the trickle-down aspect. So, the rich can't win. If they make too much money, it's not fair. If they don't spend what they make, everybody suffers (Women and Minorities Hardest Hit). This needs to be framed and put in the Smithsonian in the Newseum. They got this Newseum. This is incredible. "Recent signs of cutting back by the affluent could hurt the economy and deliver even more pain to lower income workers who are dependent on their business. The limo driver is just but one example."
Saturday, January 19, 2008
State of the USA
Check this, what a bunch of ass-hats, they banned lightbulbs.
Great, what next? I know lits ban kitchen sinks.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles/000/000/014/519kutui.asp
A Nation of Dim Bulbs The nasty little surprise hidden in the new energy bill. by Andrew Ferguson 12/31/2007, Volume 013, Issue 16
On December 19, President Bush signed an energy bill that will, among many, many other things, force you to buy a new kind of light bulb. He did this because environmental enthusiasts don't like the light bulbs you're using now. He and they reason, therefore, that you shouldn't be allowed to have them. So now you can't.
Ordinary consumers may be surprised, once they understand what's happened. They probably haven't known that the traditional incandescent light bulb, that happy little globe shining so innocently from the lamp in the corner, has been a scourge of environmentalists for many years. With their stern and unrelenting moralism, the warriors of Greenpeace have even branded lightbulb manufacturers "climate criminals" for making incandescents, which are, they say, a "silent killer." In Europe and in a few individual states in the U.S., professional environmentalists have managed to persuade their colleagues in government to ban the bulbs altogether, on the grounds that incandescents use energy inefficiently.
Ninety percent of the energy a traditional light bulb uses, for example, is thrown off as heat rather than light. This waste contributes to the overproduction of energy from coal-fired power plants, which contributes to the emission of carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming. Professional environmentalists prefer a different kind of bulb, the compact fluorescent light (CFL), which is much more expensive to make and to buy but also much more efficient in its use of energy.
American environmental groups have long called for an outright national ban on the old-fashioned bulbs. But then they came to the realization, as a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council told the New York Times this spring, that such a ban might "anger consumers." "We've given up a sound bite, 'ban the incandescent,'" the spokesman said.
Instead the groups joined with the Bush administration this year in advocating a steady increase in federally mandated efficiency standards for light bulbs. The effect of the tightened standards is to make it illegal to manufacture or sell the inefficient incandescent bulb by 2014. So it's not a ban, see. It's just higher standards. Which have the same effect as a ban--a slow-motion ban that's not really a ban. Not surprisingly, in long, self-congratulatory remarks at the bill signing last week, Bush neglected to mention that he and Congress have just done away with the incandescent light bulb. Maybe most of us won't notice until he's back in Crawford.
Some people really like the new bulbs, of course. Not all of them are professional environmentalists, though all of them are cheapskates. CFLs produce the same amount of light (lumens) as an incandescent bulb while using only about a quarter of the watts. With proper care and moderate use, they can last as much as six times longer than a typical incandescent. Even if you consider their higher purchase price--six or seven times the price of a traditional bulb--CFLs can lower your monthly lighting bill by as much as 20 percent. And because they're deemed environmentally sensitive, switching them on can give you the same hard-to-define feeling of exaltation you get shopping for organic vegetables at Whole Foods. Then you can donate the money you've saved on your electric bill to the Natural Resources Defense Council or the George W. Bush Presidential Library.
Other people, however, perhaps a very large number, will prefer the old, pre-Bush bulbs. Their reasons have less to do with the wonderfulness of the incandescent and their disdain for environmentalists than with the inconveniences of the CFL. The new bulbs are particularly vulnerable to extremes of temperature, for example; you won't want to use them in your garage in winter. CFLs are also 25 percent longer in size than the average incandescent. This makes them unsuitable for all kinds of lighting fixtures--particularly chandeliers and other ceiling lights--which will have to be either discarded or reconfigured, at considerable expense, after the Bush ban goes into effect. You can't use most CFLs with dimmer switches, either; ditto timers. Newer models that can be dimmed and are adaptable to timers will require you to buy new CFL-compatible dimmers and timers.
The quality of the light given off by CFLs is quite different from what we're used to from incandescents. The old bulb concentrates its light through a small surface area. CFLs don't shine in beams; they glow all the way around, diffusing their illumination. They're terrible reading lights. Many people find fluorescent light itself to be harsh and unpleasant. Moreover--in a variation of the old joke about the restaurant that serves awful food and, even worse, serves it in such small portions--a CFL bulb can take two to three minutes to reach its full illumination after being turned on. And once it's fully aglow, according to Department of Energy guidelines, you need to leave it on for at least 15 minutes. In a typically chipper, pro-ban article last week, U.S. News and World Report explained why: "Turning a CFL on and off frequently shortens its life."
Odd, isn't it--an energy-saving device that you're not supposed to turn off? Such complications undermine the extravagant claims made for the CFLs' energy savings. Let's say you're a CFL aficionado and you want to fetch your car keys from your darkened bedroom: You switch on the light, wait a couple minutes, finally find the wallet as the room slowly brightens, and then leave the light on, because you don't want to shorten the life of your expensive CFL. Will you remember to go back and turn it off 15 minutes later? Or will you get in your Prius, drive to Whole Foods, and leave the light burning for several more hours while you absent-mindedly fondle the organics? If you're not a CFL aficionado, by contrast, you turn on the incandescent light, get your car keys, and then switch it off. Who's wasting more energy? I'm sure some green-eye-shade in the depths of the Department of Energy could calculate an answer, and maybe already has. But we're unlikely to hear about it.
Sam Kazman, of the antiregulation Competitive Enterprise Institute, likes to cite the now legendary Great Light Bulb Exchange sponsored by a local power company in the tiny town of Traer, Iowa. Half the town's residents turned in their incandescents for free CFLs--and electricity consumption rose by 8 percent. The cost of burning electricity went down, and demand increased. Funny how that happens.
There are other complications that might give environmentalists pause, if they were the kind of people who paused. When a CFL bulb finally dies--after years and years and years!--it cannot be dropped in the trash like an incandescent; it must be recycled by specially equipped recycling facilities. CFLs contain mercury. If one breaks in your home, Kazman says, EPA guidelines suggest you open windows and leave the room for at least a quarter of an hour before trying to clean up the mess. And for God's sakes don't use a vacuum, which could disperse the poison into the air. Even when they're intact, U.S. News happily tells us, "the bulbs must be handled with caution. Using a drop cloth might be a good new routine to develop when screwing in a light bulb."
The mind reels at the joke-like possibilities: How many Bush administration officials does it take to screw in a CFL? As many as it takes to screw American consumers! But the Bushies aren't the half of it. In creating the ban, Bush and his environmentalist allies were joined by Philips Lighting, which is--you should probably sit down--the world's foremost manufacturer of CFLs. The phased-in ban will position Philips to crowd from the market any troublesome competitors. It's a perfect confluence of interests: the Big Environmental Lobby, Big Business, and Big Government Conservatives.
But back to the screwees--those American consumers, also known, not so long ago, as the citizens of the United States, a free people, rulers of the world's proudest self-governing nation. Will there be protests of some kind, expressions of disgust at least? And what if there aren't? What if, as the ban slowly tightens, we hear nothing, not a howl, not a peep, just a long mellow moo? Then maybe it really will be time to turn out the lights.
Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
© Copyright 2007, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
Great, what next? I know lits ban kitchen sinks.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles/000/000/014/519kutui.asp
A Nation of Dim Bulbs The nasty little surprise hidden in the new energy bill. by Andrew Ferguson 12/31/2007, Volume 013, Issue 16
On December 19, President Bush signed an energy bill that will, among many, many other things, force you to buy a new kind of light bulb. He did this because environmental enthusiasts don't like the light bulbs you're using now. He and they reason, therefore, that you shouldn't be allowed to have them. So now you can't.
Ordinary consumers may be surprised, once they understand what's happened. They probably haven't known that the traditional incandescent light bulb, that happy little globe shining so innocently from the lamp in the corner, has been a scourge of environmentalists for many years. With their stern and unrelenting moralism, the warriors of Greenpeace have even branded lightbulb manufacturers "climate criminals" for making incandescents, which are, they say, a "silent killer." In Europe and in a few individual states in the U.S., professional environmentalists have managed to persuade their colleagues in government to ban the bulbs altogether, on the grounds that incandescents use energy inefficiently.
Ninety percent of the energy a traditional light bulb uses, for example, is thrown off as heat rather than light. This waste contributes to the overproduction of energy from coal-fired power plants, which contributes to the emission of carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming. Professional environmentalists prefer a different kind of bulb, the compact fluorescent light (CFL), which is much more expensive to make and to buy but also much more efficient in its use of energy.
American environmental groups have long called for an outright national ban on the old-fashioned bulbs. But then they came to the realization, as a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council told the New York Times this spring, that such a ban might "anger consumers." "We've given up a sound bite, 'ban the incandescent,'" the spokesman said.
Instead the groups joined with the Bush administration this year in advocating a steady increase in federally mandated efficiency standards for light bulbs. The effect of the tightened standards is to make it illegal to manufacture or sell the inefficient incandescent bulb by 2014. So it's not a ban, see. It's just higher standards. Which have the same effect as a ban--a slow-motion ban that's not really a ban. Not surprisingly, in long, self-congratulatory remarks at the bill signing last week, Bush neglected to mention that he and Congress have just done away with the incandescent light bulb. Maybe most of us won't notice until he's back in Crawford.
Some people really like the new bulbs, of course. Not all of them are professional environmentalists, though all of them are cheapskates. CFLs produce the same amount of light (lumens) as an incandescent bulb while using only about a quarter of the watts. With proper care and moderate use, they can last as much as six times longer than a typical incandescent. Even if you consider their higher purchase price--six or seven times the price of a traditional bulb--CFLs can lower your monthly lighting bill by as much as 20 percent. And because they're deemed environmentally sensitive, switching them on can give you the same hard-to-define feeling of exaltation you get shopping for organic vegetables at Whole Foods. Then you can donate the money you've saved on your electric bill to the Natural Resources Defense Council or the George W. Bush Presidential Library.
Other people, however, perhaps a very large number, will prefer the old, pre-Bush bulbs. Their reasons have less to do with the wonderfulness of the incandescent and their disdain for environmentalists than with the inconveniences of the CFL. The new bulbs are particularly vulnerable to extremes of temperature, for example; you won't want to use them in your garage in winter. CFLs are also 25 percent longer in size than the average incandescent. This makes them unsuitable for all kinds of lighting fixtures--particularly chandeliers and other ceiling lights--which will have to be either discarded or reconfigured, at considerable expense, after the Bush ban goes into effect. You can't use most CFLs with dimmer switches, either; ditto timers. Newer models that can be dimmed and are adaptable to timers will require you to buy new CFL-compatible dimmers and timers.
The quality of the light given off by CFLs is quite different from what we're used to from incandescents. The old bulb concentrates its light through a small surface area. CFLs don't shine in beams; they glow all the way around, diffusing their illumination. They're terrible reading lights. Many people find fluorescent light itself to be harsh and unpleasant. Moreover--in a variation of the old joke about the restaurant that serves awful food and, even worse, serves it in such small portions--a CFL bulb can take two to three minutes to reach its full illumination after being turned on. And once it's fully aglow, according to Department of Energy guidelines, you need to leave it on for at least 15 minutes. In a typically chipper, pro-ban article last week, U.S. News and World Report explained why: "Turning a CFL on and off frequently shortens its life."
Odd, isn't it--an energy-saving device that you're not supposed to turn off? Such complications undermine the extravagant claims made for the CFLs' energy savings. Let's say you're a CFL aficionado and you want to fetch your car keys from your darkened bedroom: You switch on the light, wait a couple minutes, finally find the wallet as the room slowly brightens, and then leave the light on, because you don't want to shorten the life of your expensive CFL. Will you remember to go back and turn it off 15 minutes later? Or will you get in your Prius, drive to Whole Foods, and leave the light burning for several more hours while you absent-mindedly fondle the organics? If you're not a CFL aficionado, by contrast, you turn on the incandescent light, get your car keys, and then switch it off. Who's wasting more energy? I'm sure some green-eye-shade in the depths of the Department of Energy could calculate an answer, and maybe already has. But we're unlikely to hear about it.
Sam Kazman, of the antiregulation Competitive Enterprise Institute, likes to cite the now legendary Great Light Bulb Exchange sponsored by a local power company in the tiny town of Traer, Iowa. Half the town's residents turned in their incandescents for free CFLs--and electricity consumption rose by 8 percent. The cost of burning electricity went down, and demand increased. Funny how that happens.
There are other complications that might give environmentalists pause, if they were the kind of people who paused. When a CFL bulb finally dies--after years and years and years!--it cannot be dropped in the trash like an incandescent; it must be recycled by specially equipped recycling facilities. CFLs contain mercury. If one breaks in your home, Kazman says, EPA guidelines suggest you open windows and leave the room for at least a quarter of an hour before trying to clean up the mess. And for God's sakes don't use a vacuum, which could disperse the poison into the air. Even when they're intact, U.S. News happily tells us, "the bulbs must be handled with caution. Using a drop cloth might be a good new routine to develop when screwing in a light bulb."
The mind reels at the joke-like possibilities: How many Bush administration officials does it take to screw in a CFL? As many as it takes to screw American consumers! But the Bushies aren't the half of it. In creating the ban, Bush and his environmentalist allies were joined by Philips Lighting, which is--you should probably sit down--the world's foremost manufacturer of CFLs. The phased-in ban will position Philips to crowd from the market any troublesome competitors. It's a perfect confluence of interests: the Big Environmental Lobby, Big Business, and Big Government Conservatives.
But back to the screwees--those American consumers, also known, not so long ago, as the citizens of the United States, a free people, rulers of the world's proudest self-governing nation. Will there be protests of some kind, expressions of disgust at least? And what if there aren't? What if, as the ban slowly tightens, we hear nothing, not a howl, not a peep, just a long mellow moo? Then maybe it really will be time to turn out the lights.
Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
© Copyright 2007, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
honor killings
so pathetic those a-rabs and their honor.
the sad fact is they have none(honor that is), they kill their women for no reason at all.
can we as westerners start reciprocating on our honor?
I mean never turn your back on a muslim but face to face, westerners win most of the time.....
,
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/01/islam-killing-o.html
the sad fact is they have none(honor that is), they kill their women for no reason at all.
can we as westerners start reciprocating on our honor?
I mean never turn your back on a muslim but face to face, westerners win most of the time.....
,
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/01/islam-killing-o.html
2008 Pres cliff notes
On the Conservative side from most Conservative to least
1. Thompson or Hunter ( tough call for me)
2. Nobody comes close, next the damaged Republicans.....
3. Rudy, I don't think he will try to cross the NRA, but...
4. Romney, flip flopper, previous anti gun, MACare.....
5. toss up between ick factor on McCain and the Huckster(one is a lib and the other is a lib, can't tell, Huck would be better on guns but McC is better on National defense, both suck on illegal immigration.
Ron Paul finally has some crossover libertarian but his foreign policy/national defense bites.
On the Liberal side from conservative to NON
1. Richardson, only on his 2Amendment stuff
2. Hill/Bill, Obamma, and the Breck girl are all the same, pick a color or gender.
Kuchnnich, etc. whatever.
1. Thompson or Hunter ( tough call for me)
2. Nobody comes close, next the damaged Republicans.....
3. Rudy, I don't think he will try to cross the NRA, but...
4. Romney, flip flopper, previous anti gun, MACare.....
5. toss up between ick factor on McCain and the Huckster(one is a lib and the other is a lib, can't tell, Huck would be better on guns but McC is better on National defense, both suck on illegal immigration.
Ron Paul finally has some crossover libertarian but his foreign policy/national defense bites.
On the Liberal side from conservative to NON
1. Richardson, only on his 2Amendment stuff
2. Hill/Bill, Obamma, and the Breck girl are all the same, pick a color or gender.
Kuchnnich, etc. whatever.
USA Primaries and Cauci
My question is did more dead people vote for Hillary or Obama in New Hampshire on today's primary??
We all know Democrats have the edge on vote fraud, see the lawsuits to prevent ovter ID all accross the USA)
We all know Democrats have the edge on vote fraud, see the lawsuits to prevent ovter ID all accross the USA)
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