Posted on 11/11/2007 7:20:25 PM PST by Westlander
If U.S. lawmakers have their way, the lights may soon go out on Thomas Edison's greatest invention -- the incandescent light bulb. The 19th-century inventor brought illumination to the world's fingertips, but according to Congress, his invention isn't efficient enough for an age anxious about energy supplies.
"Only 10% of the power used by today's incandescent bulbs is emitted as light, while the other 90% is released as heat," Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said when she introduced her legislation to ban standard light bulbs.
To eliminate this waste, Harman has proposed legislation that would effectively eliminate incandescent light bulbs from store shelves nationwide as early as 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at realestate.msn.com ...
That's another point - want to save on lighting costs - don't have 24 light bulbs in the kitchen - etc...Houses today have far more lights that needed...
The amount of mercury in a compact fluorescent is so miniscule as to be almost insignificant. About the only way you would get mercury contamination (notice I did not say 'poisoning') would be if you were to EAT one.
At which point I think you would have bigger issues to worry about.
At the dentist office where my wife worked the girls used to play catch with the stuff.
Not me,...
Actually, I do have some - but only in non-crucial spots. I nave regular to read with , and over my PC and the ones that have dimmers and the motion detecting porch light.
I am stocking up and will be burning contraband light bulbs...and keep my shotgun by the door 
Just as the feminists support Islamic nut cases while
Islam brutalizes women.
Not a word from the enviro crowd about any of the horrid
pollution in their communist paradise. Of course not.
The ends justify the means.
Their goal is global Communism.
Bingo! Wonder how many of the naysayers here are sitting happily underneath the Americium 241 in their ionization type smoke detector.
Don't works with my motion detector porch light - which I need to get from my car to the door - I save lots more electricity other ways, besides all the ones I listed in post @ 151 -
I hang my laundry out 8 months of the year; I use the same bath towel all week; I use old fashioned 'flour sack" towels not only for dish wipers, but for hand towels - they take FAR less energy when using the dryer in winter...I keep my body clean and can wear a shirt more than once -
Light bulbs take much less energy than stoves, dryers, washing machines, etc...There are many ways to save energy - forcing us to buy a certain light bulb is NOT about saving energy, especially one that is a mercury hazmat nightmare.
This has NOTHING to do with saving energy. SOME people will be making big $$$ by forcing the whole country to buy one specific product - but most important - This is Communism, folks.
We are supposed to be a free market country -
Lambs to the slaughter
What next?
The breakfast menu?
[QUOTE]National News
Fluorescent Bulb Break Creates Costly Hassle: On March 13, Brandy Bridges was installing one of the spiral-shaped light bulbs in her 7-year-old daughter’s bedroom. Suddenly, the bulb plummeted to the floor, breaking on the shag carpet. Bridges, who was wary of the dangers of cleaning up a fluorescent bulb, called The Home Depot where she purchased them. She was told that the bulbs had mercury in them and that she should not vacuum the area where the bulb had broken. Bridges was directed to call the Poison Control hotline. Poison Control directed her to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Environmental Protection. Upon reaching the DEP the next day, the agency offered to send a specialist out to Bridges’ house to test the air levels. Bridges was told by the specialist not to clean up the bulb and mercury powder by herself. He recommended the Clean Harbors Environmental Services branch in Hampden. Clean Harbors gave Bridges a low-ball estimate of $2,000, based on what she described, to clean up the room properly. The work entailed removing anything with levels greater than 300 ng/m3, including the carpeting. Officials have said that Bridges has little to worry about and she could easily clean up the bulbs by hand. 04/12 The Ellsworth American [/QUOTE]
But how else could the enviro communist crowd turn you into a criminal over something as simple as a light bulb?
Yes, it’s the flicker and the coolness of the color that turn me off about flourescents. Don’t the Dems have eyeballs? If they force these things down our throats before the manufacturers have gotten the aesthetic defects solved, I’m going to join the Incandescent Resistance and perpetrate small acts of symbolic sabotage against the government.
You don't really want to know -
ah well, I'll you anyway. They are, seriously, getting ready to mandate even LOWER flush = then it will take 4 flushes to do the job.
dumb as*es.
Beside the Communism of it all, One size does NOT fit all.
I live in the country, on a ridge -= own septic, well - ridge surrounded by bogs...very high water level year round.
I don't need No fr*ging low flush...
But that wasn't in a fine powder form that would get into your lungs - BIG difference...
Well, that is true enough. We played with it, too. It was fun how it would form in little balls, dance on the floor, and then meld together into one puddle. Fortunately, we didn’t eat it.
The part that concerns me is the potential for ingesting the dust if they break. I can see my kitties traipsing across the floor where I dropped one and then licking their paws. A child breaking one and inhaling the dust—how much would have to be inhaled to be toxic?
I just don’t know how much would have to be ingested, but they certainly made a huge scene at the kids’ school a few weeks ago, and that was only on the bottoms of their shoes.
Well said. You’ve convinced me to try a CFL. I’ll add one - a Sylvania - to my cart the next time I’m at Walmart.
We'll all have to colonize some remote valley deep in the Rockies - it's location cloaked, like Galt's Gulch.
That reminds me, Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is supposed to come out (movie) next spring - 50 years after the book.
I hope it does as many people who wouldn't sit down to read such a 'big' book, will see a movie and just maybe they'll get a wake-up call re: Communism versus Capitalism.
That’s pretty good. I guess Communism is responsible for the automobile too.
I'm disheartened, doubly so because I am NOT amazed. I've seen this coming for decades...the gov't indoctrination camps aka schools, have been 'retraining' the last few generations - they don't understand that this is unconstitutional because they weren't taught the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the free market, Capitalist concepts this country was founded on.
I'm also a bit frightened = I'll bet there's not 1 in 20 that know we are NOT a democracy...This country is a Republic!
I even had that discussion with my editor ! lately. He looked at me like I had 2 heads.
I pray it hasn't gone to far - I am old enough to remember Kruschev banging his shoe on the podium at the UN and vowing "We will bury you within 50 years - and we will not have to fire a shot!" (That was in 1960...)
People didn't understand him.
But they had it all laid out, step by step - and one was taking over education...and the sheeple have been lulled to sleep...They embrace Communist principles, like the light bulb police - and some, have a bit of Communist personality - the ones that think they are a bit superior because THEY know this or that is best and would be be good for the "common good" and therefore, they are wiser - and we need, for our own good, to follow their example - and then it slips into - "or else"
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