Light Bulbs and Boneheads
"We cannot make good news out of bad practice."
Edward R. Murrow
Amidst all the major news stories of the past week (the US government trying to figure out how to give rich people more money while making the poor taxpayers whose grandchildren will be paying the interest believe it is somehow for THEIR benefit, and the pathetic inexorable genocide in Trans Jordan) two "minor" items caught my attention.
The first was that Britain has banned sales of 100 watt incandescent light bulbs and will, over the next few years, ban all incandescent bulbs. The reason is obvious; those hideous fluorescent alternatives that cast a light making everyone look like Nosferatu or Casper the Ghost are "energy-efficient". That is, it's a great opportunity for the government cynics to appear as if they actually give a damn and are doing something about the environment. Yuck. Of course many members of the public are not thrilled and bought up every incandescent bulb they could get their hands on. I imagine bulb manufacturers are pretty pleased though. I mean it's perfect, isn't it? Now the public cannot buy what it wants but must, by law, purchase an alternative it doesn't want but that the manufacturers can charge 10 times as much for.
The first point reminds me of a similar stupidity in the US; banning toilets with large capacity holding tanks. This, we are supposed to believe, will save precious water. Huh! The results were twofold. Firstly, booming traffic in smuggled Canadian toilets (is there a Commoda Nostra in the making?), and secondly, people simply flush two or three times, thereby using more water. Politicians and bureaucrats!
The second item is actually more disturbing personally. It should be clear from earlier posts that intellectually I am anything but big on patriotism and national pride, subscribing more to Oscar Wilde's view that "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.", but my genetic tribal imperatives do from time to time compel me to feel a degree of either pride or shame in Canada's actions. This week it is unmitigated shame. Canada, long a refuge for those from south of the border who just don't care for the thought of going abroad, be it Indo China or the Middle East, to murder people, has started to reverse its position and taken to sending people back to the Empire to face jail terms or whatever punishment the Praetorian Guard might have in store. Shame shame shame. Be they draft dodgers or volunteer army deserters who have seen the light and decided killing foreign babies is not fun, I do not care. You do not punish someone for doing the right thing.
Washington: Jump!
Ottawa: How high?