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How many congressmen does it take to screw in a light bulb? (MERCURY may kill your children)
Daly Caller ^ | 09/23/10 | Alexis Levinson

Posted on 09/23/2010 11:58:18 AM PDT by American Dream 246

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To: massgopguy

Oh I’ll bet the discharge effluent HG levels at the Chinese factory are at least 10e6 higher than safe levels.

I would NOT want to breather the air OR drink the water anywhere near those plants.


41 posted on 09/23/2010 1:01:22 PM PDT by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitur)
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To: Blueflag
According to the "Environmental Quality Standards", 5 mg of HG would pollute over 10,000 liters of ground water. One million times that is a lot of water.

http://www.env.go.jp/en/water/gw/gwp.html
42 posted on 09/23/2010 1:01:24 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: PATRIOT1876

so... I thought I kept up on all the leftist/new age/cosmic humanist crap in our culture,

but I haven’t heard of this 10-10-10...


43 posted on 09/23/2010 1:05:51 PM PDT by MrB (The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
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To: American Dream 246

How many Kennedys does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Two.

One to hold the bulb, and one to drink booze until the room starts spinning.


44 posted on 09/23/2010 1:10:22 PM PDT by Disambiguator
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To: MrB
*so... I thought I kept up on all the leftist/new age/cosmic humanist crap in our culture,

but I haven’t heard of this 10-10-10...*

Yep. they're working hand in hand with the hideous 350 YouTube spammers:

http://www.350.org/campaigns/1010

“With your help, 10/10/10 is going to be the biggest day of practical action to cut carbon that the world has ever seen.

We're calling it “A Day to Celebrate Climate Solutions”—together we'll get to work in our communities on projects that can cut carbon and build the clean energy future.

But we won't stop there—we'll be using the day to pressure our leaders to Get To Work themselves by passing strong climate policies promoting clean energy and reducing emissions”

Sorry if anyone was having dinner.

Please alert the flight attendant that my paper bag did not drop from the ceiling when I read this!

45 posted on 09/23/2010 1:17:56 PM PDT by PATRIOT1876 (Language, Borders, Culture, Full employment for those here legally)
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To: MrB
*so... I thought I kept up on all the leftist/new age/cosmic humanist crap in our culture,

but I haven’t heard of this 10-10-10...*

Yep. they're working hand in hand with the hideous 350 YouTube spammers:

http://www.350.org/campaigns/1010

“With your help, 10/10/10 is going to be the biggest day of practical action to cut carbon that the world has ever seen.

We're calling it “A Day to Celebrate Climate Solutions”—together we'll get to work in our communities on projects that can cut carbon and build the clean energy future.

But we won't stop there—we'll be using the day to pressure our leaders to Get To Work themselves by passing strong climate policies promoting clean energy and reducing emissions”

Sorry if anyone was having dinner.

Please alert the flight attendant that my paper bag did not drop from the ceiling when I read this!

46 posted on 09/23/2010 1:17:57 PM PDT by PATRIOT1876 (Language, Borders, Culture, Full employment for those here legally)
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To: American Dream 246

Don’t forget the Michelson - Morley experiment. To damp out vibrations they floated a 5 foot square block of sandstone 10 inches thick in a pool of mercury. At 120 lbs. / sq. foot x 25 sq foot they needed enough mercury to displace roughly 3000 lbs.


47 posted on 09/23/2010 1:21:06 PM PDT by ADemocratNoMore (Jeepers, Freepers, where'd 'ya get those sleepers?. Pj people, exposing old media's lies.)
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To: American Dream 246; All
We in our household can NOT use those “evil” light bulbs in here to use. They flicker at a rate of about 30 hrtz [cycles per second] and they “trip” my seizures. So we use regular light bulbs and are slowly converting to LED bulbs. They cost a lot more and use a lot less electricity too.
48 posted on 09/23/2010 1:22:39 PM PDT by TMSuchman (John 15;13 & Exodus 21:22-25)
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To: American Dream 246

The despots at the EPA insisted that MBTE be used as a gasoline additive, discovering too late that it was poisoning the ground water all over the country. These bureaucrats are too ignorant to be fooling with chemistry.


49 posted on 09/23/2010 1:34:13 PM PDT by kittymyrib
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To: American Dream 246
How many congressmen does it take to screw in a light bulb?

None. They prefer to remain in the dark.

50 posted on 09/23/2010 1:51:16 PM PDT by lowbridge (Rep. Dingell: "Its taken a long time.....to control the people.")
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To: DrC
Re a million lightbulbs: So renaming this thread “How many congressionally-approved light bulbs does it take to screw your kids?” may not make much sense.

It's a plausible question, but the answer will be a large number. Of course, one might argue that a billion or several billion flourescents is a much larger number than we were talking about. In that case we're talking about 1/2 a ton per billion flourescents, or maybe a tractorload volume of mercury.

Maybe the right conclusion is that recycling is a good idea since there are so many, but panicking over the 5 mg in a single busted bulb in the house is idiotic.

51 posted on 09/23/2010 2:07:38 PM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
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To: American Dream 246
The land fills are going to be full of them. It's too much of a bother to keep them separate from the other garbage.
Speaking for myself, I'll just throw them out along with all the other garbage. Using them wasn't my idea.
52 posted on 09/23/2010 2:08:36 PM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: American Dream 246

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 banned almost all use of incandescent bulbs (the normal looking ones that pop up over cartoon characters’ heads in moments of brilliance) by 2014. They are to be replaced by more energy efficient bulbs.


They won't be replaced in my house. I've been buying extra incandescents whenever I find them on sale. I have enough to last at least 15 years. And if they don't repeal this stupidity, then I'll buy even more.

The EPA, DOE, and the rest of the federal wonks can shove their 2014 deadline up their asses.

53 posted on 09/23/2010 2:09:03 PM PDT by EdReform (Oath Keepers - Guardians of the Republic - Honor your oath - Join us: www.oathkeepers.org)
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To: American Dream 246

Liberals don’t care about danger to our children - they care about feeling good about themselves. And forcing all of us to use something we hate makes the little control freaks feel good about themselves...


54 posted on 09/23/2010 2:10:24 PM PDT by GOPJ (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2589165/posts)
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To: MrB
"...how are they going to get in there?"



I suggest using the SLEDGE-O-MATIC.

55 posted on 09/23/2010 2:11:56 PM PDT by HKMk23 (Duck Season? No! Rabbbit Season? No! RINO Season? ALWAYS!!)
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To: TMSuchman

If the CFL that is causing your problems is fairly old, you might want to try a newer one. You can tell if it uses the old style electromagnetic ballast by seeing if it takes time for the light to come up to full intensity. The old types take up to 1 minute. The new electronic ballasts should provide full intensity within 1 second. The electronic ballasts flicker at about 60,000 Hz, although poor filter capacitors can cause there to be some 120Hz modulation on this from the input power.

LEDs flicker a lot more than any CFLs do. There are 2 reasons for this. One is that the phospher in a CFL doesn’t respond as quickly to power changes as an LED does. If you could turn off all three types in slow motion, you would see that the incandescent takes the longest to go from bright to dim, while the LED dims out almost immediately. This is why you never notice the 60Hz flicker from an incandescent light. The changeover in your AC line polarity is too fast for the flourescing element to respond to in any great degree. Also, LEDs operate on DC power that is usually not current regulated. (It can be regulated; but unlike flourescents, LEDs don’t require a filtered DC input.) That means the DC power supply will completely switch at twice the input line frequency. For the US that means they’ll flicker at 120Hz, but the flicker itself will be much more abrupt than it is with the other 2 types.

Some people still report getting headaches even with the new CFLs though. If the cause of the headaches actually is the flicker, I can pretty much promise you that LEDs will make it worse. The headaches could also be caused by the light temperature (color,) a hum from the ballast, or a change in the lighting conditions (brighter or dimmer than it used to be.)

Anyway, I hope this helps.


56 posted on 09/23/2010 2:19:58 PM PDT by truthfree
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To: Pearls Before Swine

Especially since the household thermometer that we used to stick directly in our kids’ mouths actually has about 100 times as much mercury.

Even if every single lightbulb in the US is replaced with a CFL, and every single one of them is thrown in the regular trash, we will still have less mercury released into the environment than if we stuck to regular incandescents. (Power plants generating electricy for old bulbs create much more mercury pollution than could be released through CFLs in landfills.)

Environutalists get way too focused on the small stuff and never look at the big picture.


57 posted on 09/23/2010 2:31:52 PM PDT by truthfree
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To: truthfree
(Power plants generating electricy for old bulbs create much more mercury pollution than could be released through CFLs in landfills.)

I'm not sure that's true. Lessee... the average 100 watt litebulb lasts 1000 hours, so it uses 100 kw-hr of electricity. According to Google, there's 1700 kw-hr in a gallon of oil, and assuming 30% efficiency (burning to electricity), that would mean that it takes 1/5 of a gallon of oil to run a lightbulb for its average life. Does anyone know how many mg of mercury there are in oil?

The first google link I found suggested it was from .001 to .004 ppm (1 to 4 parts per billion). The amount in a 1/5 of a gallon of oil would be measured in micrograms. So, the mercury released from the extra energy used by an incandescent lightbulb is neglible compared to that contained in a CFL (which is stated as 5 mg).

Environutalists get way too focused on the small stuff and never look at the big picture.

I couldn't agree more, but it doesn't hurt to demonstrate that by calculation.

58 posted on 09/23/2010 2:45:12 PM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
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To: American Dream 246

We bought enough light bulbs to last us the rest of our lives and the lives and the lives of at least 2 future generations. When they are on sale of buy one get one free, I get cases of them. They can take those new bulbs and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine. I tried them. Hate them.


59 posted on 09/23/2010 2:46:14 PM PDT by mojitojoe ("Ridicule is man's most potent weapon" Saul Alinsky... I will take Odungo's mentors advice)
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To: Pearls Before Swine

When you landfill a used CFL, you aren’t landfilling 5mg of mercury. You are only landfilling what is left when the bulb goes out. Most of the mercury will be bonded to the glass by then. EPA says 14% of the mercury will eventually escape from the bulb if used up, broken, and in a landfill.

And not all of our power is generated from oil. Coal causes at least twice as much mercury pollution escape. Here in Wisconsin, oil is only 1.4% of our electricity. Coal is 65%.

5mg * 14% = 0.7mg of Hg released in a landfill.
8,000 hours use * 13W CFL = 104kWh of electricity.
national average Hg released per kWh produced from all sources of power nationwide is .012mg (EPA)
104kWh * .012mg Hg = 1.25mg Hg released through power consumption.
1.25mg + .7mg = 1.95mg of mercury pollution for 8000 hours of CFL use.

Incandescent bulb contains no mercury.
8,000 hours * 60W incandescent bulb, (equivalent to 13W CFL,) = 480 kWh of electricity.
480kWh * .012 mg Hg = 5.76mg Hg

There you have it. In 8,000 hours of use, (typical lifespan of a CFL,) you will get 1.95mg of mercury pollution from a CFL and 5.76mg mercury pollution from incandescents even if you dump the CFL into a landfill.

Note that some municipalities incinerate trash and this will certainly result in the release of more mercury from a broken CFL when the glass melts I would guess.

As I’ve said, I don’t think the environutalists have done this type of math before. Painting signs is much easier.


60 posted on 09/23/2010 3:43:04 PM PDT by truthfree
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