Next Black Market Item: Light Bulbs

Tomorrow marks the end of the incandescent bulb.

Jan. 1. marks the end of a seven-year effort to outlaw the ordinary lightbulb, thanks to a 2007 law that raised minimum efficiency standards for traditional incandescent bulbs far beyond what the technology can manage. 

It’s lights out for the traditional light bulb, in other words, which was essentially killed by that bill. 

“The government started phasing out incandescents in 2010, starting with the 100-watt bulb, and then followed by the 75-watt,” explained Melissa Andresko, communications director for lighting-automation company Lutron. 

“Come January 1, both the 60- and the 40-watt bulbs are going away. And that’s really going to have the most impact on consumers because those are the most popular incandescent bulb types right now,” she told FoxNews.com earlier this month.

Because we all want the federal government telling us what kind of light bulbs we can use, right?  Freaking nanny state.  The Heritage Foundation:

The “so what” is that the federal government is taking decisions out of the hands of families and businesses, destroying jobs, and restricting consumer choice in the market. We all have a wide variety of preferences regarding light bulbs. It is not the role of the federal government to override those preferences with what it believes is in our best interest.

It's not too late to stock up on bulbs.

Graphic via Heritage Foundation

Dim Bulbs

Not a single 100 watt bulb on the shelves today.  Not unless you count those Reveal bulbs (made in Mexico) at $8.71 for four bulbs.  Not to mention that they blow out almost as soon as you screw them in.

Glad I have a stockpile of 100 watt American made bulbs to light up my life for a very long time.

2012 Doesn't Look So Bright After All

As January 2012 rolls in the incandescent light bulb begins to fade away.

The Energy Independence and Security Act - signed into law under president George W. Bush in 2007 - requires light bulbs to use at least 25 percent less energy and that friend endangers the good old-fashioned incandescent bulb.

Here’s the good news: those bulbs don't disappear immediately because the law unfolds in phases.  But starting Sunday - the traditional 100-watt bulb will no longer be manufactured in this country.  The next to go is the 75 watt bulb next January... And in 2014 we'll be saying goodbye to the 40 and 60 watt versions.

It doesn't exactly speak well of the Republicans that they couldn't even save the light bulb.

The squirrely, curly CFL light bulbs, as we all know by now, practically require a hazmat team to come in when you break one:

• Have people and pets leave the room.
• Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment. 
• Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one.
• Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb: 
  • stiff paper or cardboard;
  • sticky tape;
  • damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces); and
  • a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.

Once you've cleaned up the mess (don't use the vacuum!), sealed it and placed it outdoors, you should continue to air out the house for several hours and leave the heat or a/c off.

Look, incandescent bulbs are inexpensive, provide nice light, and can even be a heat source, thus potentially reducing heating bills.  But the bottom line is the total nanny-state-ness of the government, Republican or Democratic, telling me what kind of light bulb I can use, well, it's just intolerable.

And in case we're all too stupid to figure the light bulb situation out, some greenie has even developed an app to help us out:

View bulb images, cost, savings, and environmental impact.  Create shopping lists, and buy bulbs directly through the app or at local stores.

If you haven't planned ahead and stocked up on incandescent bulbs, there is still time.  Stores will be allowed to sell them until supplies run out.  Home Depot and Lowes are reported to have plenty at the moment, and there's always Amazon.

As for me, I've been stockpiling 100 watt bulbs for a couple of years. I'm not likely to ever run out unless I open a black market operation.  I hate the CFLs and am not a big fan of the LEDs.

I guess we could just go back to candles and do away with all of them.  But then, it wouldn't be too long before liberals found something wrong with that, too.

Black Market Light Bulbs

You know, in the total scheme of things, a light bulb just isn't a big deal.  Right?  It's a light bulb.  In the big picture where people die of cancer from which there is no cure, where people like Casey Anthony or Susan Smith kill their children, in a world where tragedy strikes so suddenly and tornadoes wipe out whole towns or wildfires burn through massive acreage, a light bulb just isn't very important.

But it is.

Via The Corner, Andrew Stuffaford points to this Bloomberg article by Virginia Postrel about the upcoming banning of the bulb.  Well, of the incandescent bulb,  anyway.  Postrel points out that technically, it's not a ban or a mandate, but a "standard" with which we must comply.  Semantics.  She discusses the plethora of choices in the light bulb aisle at Target:

It seems to be a dazzling profusion of choice. But, at least in California, where I live, this plenitude no longer includes what most shoppers want: an inexpensive, plain-vanilla 100-watt incandescent bulb. Selling them is now illegal here. The rest of the country has until the end of the year to stock up before a federal ban kicks in. (I have a stash in storage.) Over the next two years, most lower-wattage incandescents will also disappear.

Illegal! Light bulbs are fixing to go black market.  Seriously.

I did a rant on this back in September and my position remains the same.  Why in the world, in our free market economy, is the government going to tell us what kind of light bulb to use?  It's so much more than just a light bulb.  It's all about over reach of government into the minute details of our lives.   In September I wrote:

It's not JUST a light bulb, of course.  It's the ruling class telling you how to live your life.  Krikorian is absolutely correct that before you know it, the government will be so big and so powerful they'll tell you what kind of car to drive (oh..wait....) or how much water you can use, how much gasoline you can consume, where you must buy that gasoline and the exact chemical makeup of that gasoline.  Heck, before long they'll even be telling you what doctor you can see and what you can see him for and whether or not you can have that prescription regardless of your own ability to pay for it.  They'll even be telling you we can't be innovative and search our own oil reserves.  Worse than that, they'll try to tell us we can't tap those reserves even though we know where they are because, you know, we might kill a caribou in Alaska or offshore drilling could possibly be *gasp* dangerous.

Yes, well, and here we are.  The deadline is looming. 

Stuttaford suggests:

...some stockpiling might be in order.

I'm way ahead of you on that one, buddy.  I've been stockpiling 100 watt incandescent bulbs for months.  My local Albertsons had a sale of 10 (four packs) for $10 and I wiped them out.   You can order a 24-pack for $14.21 here!

Black market light bulbs, indeed.

Grouchy Rant

I'm too grouchy to blog today.  Ever have one of "those days"?  I'm on vacation!  I shouldn't be this ornery!  I can't even blame it on unruly teenagers!

I had to go to the doctor today for simple lab work for my annual checkup.  I had a 10:00 appointment to get blood drawn.  I had to wait 30 minutes and then the tech couldn't find the vein, had to stick me twice and now I'm bruised.

My neighbors (whom I like very much and we're good friends) had a tree trimmed.  A big one.  This was a necessary thing.  But the dumb trimmers stacked the limbs on the city property 8 to 10 feet high and the length of the property and now I can't see to back out of my driveway.  I called the city to see if they could pick them up and was told I'd be put "on the list."  The dreaded list.  The neighbors on the other side of this neighbor have been "on the list" for three weeks.  They had to cut up a tree that fell during a storm three weeks ago.  Those limbs are all dead and brown now.

Well, so I called my neighbor and asked him if he could call the city also and that might speed things up.  He said the tree guy is going to pick them up but it might be a week.  Might be tomorrow; might be a week.  Meanwhile, we have to park on the street so we can come and go, or else have someone else run interference when we back out of the driveway.

Normally things like that I just take in stride and don't get ruffled.  I'm very easy going.  But my street is pretty busy - people use it as a cut-through to avoid a busy traffic intersection nearby.  Can't see around the limbs.  Gonna get hit.  Danger.

So I get online looking to distract my aggression and it only gets worse.  Obama and the Democrats continue to run this country into the ground.  What is he thinking offering a bailout for Greece when we can't even manage our own affairs?

And WTF is wrong with the Government Motors CEO who wants to add a dollar a gallon tax on gasoline to force people into more fuel efficient cars?  I'm going to drive my V-8 Crown Vic until the damn wheels fall off.

And as God as my witness, I'm stocking up on incandescent light bulbs as fast as I can.  Damn nanny state Democrats trying to tell me what kind of light bulb to use.  Instead of my incandescent bulb, you want me to use a squirrely bulb that puts out weak light and requires three pages of EPA instructions on what to do if you break one in your house?   And yes, I know GWB signed this stupid law but it was still stupid.  Still is stupid.  I bought a case of light bulbs today.

Meanwhile, we still have to put up with Obama's hypocrisy and arrogance, his constant blaming Bush for things unless it's something that suits him.  Victor Davis Hanson sums up the current state of affairs:

The stock market is sliding. Gas and food prices are soaring. The housing market is as bad as it has been for the last three years. Unemployment is back over 9 percent. Economic growth is anemic. The national debt has risen $5 trillion in just three years. This year’s $1.6 trillion budget deficit is not stimulating anything but uncertainty and despair. Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable at present rates of payouts. Record numbers of Americans draw food stamps and unemployment insurance. An unpopular Obamacare has not even been implemented yet, and the administration has already granted 1,400 exemptions from it.

But it's all Bush's fault.   Still.

See?  I'm too grouchy to blog today.

On another note, the raccoons in the neighborhood are multiplying!  Two babies crawling around The Teenager's car today (notice: the car is parked on the street because he can't see to get out of the driveway safely).  The babies made me nervous crawling up into the undercarriage of his car, but they came out, got pretty close to me, then scurried across the street.

It's five o'clock somewhere.  I think I need to go have a beer and chill out.

Big Government Bullies vs the Little Light Bulb

How many incandescent light bulbs can I stockpile before 2014 and where should I store them all?  Boy, you can bet I will be!

Via Memeorandum, this Washington Post story about the closure of the last GE plant in America to make incandescent light bulbs.  Two hundred workers will lose their jobs.  The jobs will go to China:

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs.  The resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be immense. But the move also had unintended consequences. 

That was a Democratic Congress, by the way, pinning their hopes and dreams on AlGore's global warming fantasy.  

By 2014 all incandescent bulbs will be history and you'll be forced to use those squirrelly CFL bulbs filled with mercury and made in China that don't light worth a darn and cost three times as much.

Professor Jacobson is taking predictions on a Mexican light bulb cartel while Althouse is also planning to stock up on the good stuff.

Mark Krikorian at NRO has the best summation:

We can complain about this among ourselves all we want, but Republican candidates need to actually run on this sort of thing — acknowledge that it’s just a light bulb (or shower head or whatever), but that a government big enough to tell you what light bulb to use is a government big enough to take everything you have.

It's not JUST a light bulb, of course.  It's the ruling class telling you how to live your life.  Krikorian is absolutely correct that before you know it, the government will be so big and so powerful they'll tell you what kind of car to drive (oh..wait....) or how much water you can use, how much gasoline you can consume, where you must buy that gasoline and the exact chemical makeup of that gasoline.  Heck, before long they'll even be telling you what doctor you can see and what you can see him for and whether or not you can have that prescription regardless of your own ability to pay for it.  They'll even be telling you we can't be innovative and search our own oil reserves.  Worse than that, they'll try to tell us we can't tap those reserves even though we know where they are because, you know, we might kill a caribou in Alaska or offshore drilling could possibly be *gasp* dangerous.

Oh wait.  Well.  Of course they can tell us what kind of light bulbs to use.  They're in control of everything else already, aren't they.

Damn.