After Saturday’s flying chocolate attack, I’m beginning to feel not so welcome in town anymore. Erstwhile and earnest conservative Petz, blogging over at RightonSCV.com in support of lightbulb legislation, advises readers to crush up compact fluorescent light bulbs and mail the toxic bits and pieces to me so that I’ll cut myself, get sick, and die:
It is ridiculous that we need to take time from our busy days to engage in such lobbying, but this is a matter of extreme importance and substance. CFLs contain Mercury and are very dangerous. If you don’t think so, crush one up and mail it to Jeff Wilson or a politician .please don’t you may hurt yourself, but you get the point.
Nice that he’s concerned his readers might hurt themselves, at least.
He’s right about one thing. It is ridiculous to take time away from your day and call Congress to support an absurd bill that would repeal efficiency mandates for obsolete incandescent light bulbs . For real? We’re like three weeks away from defaulting as a nation, the economy is stumbling, we’ve got three wars going on, and the House is worried about this?
At what point does Congress become a parody of itself? It feels like this is a story from the Onion and Petz just bought it hook, line and sinker. Only the joke is on all of us this time.
Loading ...
Jeff confirms the thesis of my argument that CFLs are harmful for children and other living things. My effort to get a vote on BULB legislation is two pronged, to expose RINOs and bring back the incandescent light bulb that saved the whales. It is a marvel of human ingenuity and made man more productive and thereby helped to build wealth…that is what the progressives really hate.
Yes indeed! May God bless the Wizard of Menlo Park.
REVEALATION FOR PETS. GE, that small American company, closed the doors of its last incandescent light bulb company. So most of our bulbs, including CFLs, will be coming from China.
Why unnecessarily restrict efficiency or safety standards of any product made in other countries? Fewer restrictions will allow Asian competitors to better compete and annihilate the remaining American makers of any product—even if those things are painted with lead and occasionally hurt someone. Better is cheaper.
Better is cheaper, not safer, longer lasting, or efficient, or made by adults not sucking noxious fumes.
No reason to legislate quality or product safety levels, or to give tax incentives to encourage innovation, that thing we used to be so proud of here,—along with building and selling those products to the rest of the world.
Oh that’s right. We can still invent things, build factories in Asia, without restrictions on worker safety or age. Better is cheaper.
Now I am fracked. Said the “worker” word. Must be a communist. Or a big union blob at least. Nothing more to say. My credibility is shot.
Congress to become China’s nanny. No! No!
BTW – the original incandescent light bulb _was_ a marvel of human ingenuity, and it saved the whales 120 years ago when there may have been 10 in a single town. If we can’t improve on our own inventions in 120 years, we’re doing something REALLY wrong.
What a low life to promote a violent and harmful act! This should be reported to Petz’ blog host as abusive. It’s a real bully who resorts to this b.s. instead of intelligently explaining the pros and cons.
Shouldn’t your “we’ve got more important stuff to worry about” argument have applied to the initial legislation, too?
Energy efficiency is important stuff and was the genesis of the original regulation.
I switched back to incandescent bulbs about 6 months ago — I had concerns about the mercury (both if the bulb broke in my house, and proper disposal to avoid contaminating a landfill). I also had concerns about electromagnet radiation put out by CFL’s.
Admittedly, I did not do a lot of research on the subject (there are only so many hours in the day), but I decided to err on the side of safety. I’d be happy to read any researched counterpoints.
I am big on conservation – haven’t owned a clothes dryer in almost 2 years now, for example.
Petz’s blog comment was in very bad taste. I hope that he retracts the statement, and gives an appropriate apology.
If Jeff gets a CFL in the mail, Petz will come over and dispose of it for him. That is the best he can do at this time.
While there is a very trace amount of mercury vapor that is contained in a cfl, the amount is minute, and properly contained and recycled (at any e-waste recycling event or location) it poses no additional health or safety threat. Should one break, the precautions to take are to simply shut off the AC and air out the area before cleaning up for 15 minutes. Dispose of the remnants in a glass jar or sealed plastic bag.
On the whole, the benefits of CFL far outweigh the drawbacks. They’ve saved me a TON of money so far, and are worth the extra hastle.
Thanks for the info. Still, I am not switching back. I try to keep as many toxins as possible out of the house – I make my own cleaners, I buy natural soap and detergents and skin care products, we eat organic, etc. I know it is impossible to eliminate all household toxins – computer disposal comes to mind – but I do try to use those products until they give out, rather than updating with each new version.
All that to say, I am not willing to bring possible mercury exposure into my house, or for disposal into the environment, or support an industry that exposes workers to dangerous toxins.
I am, actually, transferring our lightbulbs to LED, as WebGuru outlined below, and as our budget can allow.
While I do not support this legislation, I might want to point out a few light bulb facts to keep things real:
Incandescent bulbs last approximately 300-1000 hours.
Pros: Cheap and contain no life-threatening elements (Unless you slip and fall onto a broken bulb, landing directly on your jugular vein).
Cons: Incredibly inefficient. 98% of energy input is emitted as heat, and they tend to go out at the worst time.
CFL bulbs last approximately 1200-20,000 hours.
Pros: Longer lasting. Does not emit a lot of heat.
Cons: Contains mercury.
LED lights last up to 25,000 hours.
Pros: INCREDIBLY efficient and long lasting. Contains no poisonous substances.
Cons: Pricey.
While the latter is much more expensive, their longevity, as well as their low energy consumption, make the costs comparable, if not lower overall, than the original 19th century incandescent technology, or the poisonous 20th century CFLs.
Also, you can always take any CFLs to your local Home Depot or Lowe’s and safely dispose of them there, so the landfill argument is now null and void. Please make a note of it!
PS: DON’T take Petz’ disposal advice!!!
Using those CFLs in the theater world ? LEDs used in traffic lights in the northern states have caused deaths because they fail to melt snow.
Petz withdraws his call to send them to Jeff, and encourages you to send them in a non padded envelope to YWG. He’s so smart.
Stage lighting is going LED with a quickness. I know several grizzled, Keuring-drinking, Android-obsessing, lighting pros and that’s the scoop there.
Grizzled, Keurig-drinking, Android-obsessed lighting pro here. Not only is LED rapidly becoming the way to go for stage lighting, now that they’re making beautifully warm white 2700 degree K LEDs that are so buttery they’re almost lickable, but the reality is that theater nearly did away completely with traditional incandescents years ago. We don’t have the time or money to waste with 97% efficiency, with the possible exception of old-fashioned R40 strip lights and cans still floating around. Nearly everything is halogen, and has been for _literally_ decades.
A common misconception is that this law is going to leave us with nothing but CFL and LED for light sources – that is completely inaccurate. What is being banned are old-fashioned incandescent lamps that use vacuum or inert gas as a filler, and fade over time as the filament looses molecules. Halogen lamps, on the other hand, are filled with halogen gas which both makes them more energy efficient (produces more lumens per watt) and allows the tungsten particles to re-deposit back onto the filament as the lamp cools, ensuring that the lamp maintains its brightness over the life of the lamp. It also ensures a lamp life nearly double that of a traditional incandescent.
Under the current legislation, halogen lamps will also be phased out around 2020 when efficiency requirements reach 45 lumens per watt – but by that time, if we haven’t figured out a better way to create light than a bulb that is little better than whale oil, we don’t deserve to be world leaders.
I have no idea what is being used for stage lighting as I’m not a lighting designer. As long as there are lights to step into when I hit the stage is really what I’m concerned with.
That being said, I know how hot stages get due to high-wattage incandescent bulbs. Combine that with a show I did one time where the air conditioning went out, and the audience sat in 91 degree heat so you can imagine how hot the stage was. LED stage lights would be a great relief to cast and crew.
On another note, is it just me or has rightonscv.com turned into a Jeff Wilson Bitchfest; only rarely interspersed with thought-provoking conservative points of view? I swear some of the posts on that blog remind me of overhearing a group of 13 year old girls at the mall hating on Miley Cyrus’ hair color.
I mean “Looney Left” is thought provoking enough of a title while simultaneously not to be taken too seriously (seriously, you should consider changing the tagline if you really want to be taken seriously…SERIOUSLY!), but it makes me think Jeff is on to something when so much vitriol is displayed over there on his behalf.
Wow. That is some serious hate. What gives when people cannot argue ideas, and instead attack individuals? I am sorry, Jeff. That really sucks, and speaks volumes about the immaturity and lack of morality of those who make personal attacks. It’s like being caught on a bad talk radio program — wait, that is redundant –
Someone who is banned from here just got scolded over there lolol
Jeff Wilson is representative of the liberal progressive “we” all love to hate. RightonSCV.com was largely created in response to Jeff’s seeming unwillingness to allow TALKER particiation by noted conservatives in the community. We wanted our own sandbox to play in-and now it is time for you to “eat your peas”. Obama graduated from Harvard? We want to see the diploma and his transcript.
While it is hard to believe that anyone would actually believe that Petz would want you to mail a crushed CFL bulb to Jeff Wilson based on my original post at rightonscv.com , allow him say it explicitly.
DO NOT MAIL OR DELIVER A CFL BULB TO JEFF WILSON OR ANY OTHER PERSON. DO NOT BUY THEM, TOUCH THEM, PLAY WITH THEM, OR USE THEM ! THEY SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS TOXIC MATERIAL AND MAY CAUSE GREAT BODILY HARM.