Compact Fluorescent Bulbs Pretty Dim Idea

Michael Heberling at The Freeman wrote an article about the truth behind compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). And questions why the incandescent bulbs have been outlawed. In Europe they are illegal now and in the U.S. it will be 2012.

Here are some myths and facts about the CFLs:

Myth: CFLs last ten times longer than the old bulbs and are as bright at the end as they are at the beginning.
Fact: A Department of Energy study found that after 40 percent of the advertised service life, a quarter of the CFLs started to become dim bulbs. If you don’t mind having dim bulbs for 60 percent of the service life, then CFLs should make you happy.

Myth: Even though CFLs cost much more than incandescent bulbs (up to 25 times as much), they last so much longer so the cost over the life of the bulb is less.
Fact: It turns out that the lifespan of a CFL depends on how many times you turn it on and off. Failure to keep the light on causes the bulbs to burn out just as fast as the Edison bulbs.

Myth: Incandescent bulbs lose most of their energy as heat, and that's bad.
Fact: The old bulbs do double duty when they are on: they provide light and heat. When it is light outside, most people don't use the bulbs. They also don't use the bulbs that are on in rooms that aren't being used.

Myth: CFLs aren't harmful to people.
Fact: In some people they trigger headaches or even migraines because of the nearly imperceptible flickering. The BBC reported that the bulbs can also increase the risk of seizures in people with epilepsy. According to the Winnipeg Free Press, the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency recommends that people be no closer than about a foot from these lights for more than an hour a day. The ultraviolet radiation emitted by CFLs is like direct sunlight on bare skin.

Myth: CFLs are good for the environment.
Fact: It turns out that the each CFL contains five to ten milligrams of mercury. Mercury is one of the most toxic substances on earth; it can cause serious health problems, including nerve and kidney damage. The mandate will result in millions or billions of CFLs ending up in landfills where the mercury will leach out to contaminate the soil and groundwater.

A note about the environmental aspects of CFLs. If one breaks in your home, here are the Environmental Protection Agency's recommended guidelines for cleanup:

1) open the windows and evacuate the room for 15 minutes;
2) shut off the heating or air-conditioning system;
3) carefully scoop up the glass using stiff paper and place it in a glass jar or sealable plastic bag;
4) after vacuuming, wipe the canister and put the bag or debris in a sealed plastic bag; and
5) throw away clothing or bedding that comes in contact with the broken glass or the mercury-containing powder. I must not wash contaminated clothing or bedding because mercury fragments may also contaminate the washing machine or pollute the sewage.

Heberling questions why, if the CFLs are so much better than incandescent bulbs, why ban the old bulbs? Won't the market take care of the old bulbs?

You can find the original article here.

You can find the EPA's cleanup guidelines here.

New Republic Editor Says Obama May Be a Clinical Narcissist

The New Republic is pretty liberal so hearing any doubt from them is kind of shocking. Asks the editor Marty Peretz:

"If Obama could not get Chicago over the finish line in Copenhagen, which was a test only of his charms, how will he persuade Tehran to give up its nuclear weapons capacity or the Arabs, to whom he has tilted (we are told) only tactically, to sit down without their 60 year-old map as guide to what they demand from Israel."

Many conservatives have pointed out that Obama does not truly believe America is a great country. Now, from a liberal comes the same observation:

"I know that the president believes himself a good man. My nervy query to him is: 'Does he believe America to be a good country?'"

You can find the original article here.

Embattled ACORN Losing Private Funding

I have reported before how the government agencies like the Census Bureau are dropping ACORN like a hot potato. Congress voted to deny them any kind of funding, with seven holdouts. That hurts their funding some but not greatly because they get the majority -- 90% -- of their funding from private sources like foundations, membership dues and private donations.

The Ford Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation and Bank of America have stopped funding the group and its affiliates over the past year and a half.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation gave an average of $270,000 a year to ACORN but stopped making grants to ACORN in early 2009, according to spokeswoman Sue Lin Chong. The foundation saw good results from the grants and believes the funding was used appropriately, according to Cho.

Yet the Ford Foundation, which has given nearly $2 million, suspended funding for ACORN and its affiliate organizations about a year ago because of concerns about inadequate financial controls and procedures, according to spokeswoman Fiona R. Guthrie.

And some organizations are increasing their support. They include the Needmor Fund, a family foundation based in Toledo that gave about $150,000 a year to local organizations affiliated with ACORN. The fund suspended grantmaking in June 2008 because of an alleged embezzlement. It resumed its funding in September after ACORN took corrective action, said Dave Beckwith, Needmor's executive director.

You can find the original article here.

It's Time to Put a Corrupt Politician Away

If a Republican oversteps his bounds, he is pressured by other Republicans to step down and, in most cases, does. They understand that, like the cops, public officials have a duty to police themselves hard in order to retain trust with the public.

Not so with Democrats. It's usually a badge of honor in the Democratic party. I'm talking about you, Bill Clinton.

Take Charlie Rangel as another example. How, you ask? Over 39 years, he has compiled a record like this:

• Living in rent-stabilized apartments while making a hefty salary.


• Failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings and assets.


• Applying for tax breaks and claiming a house in Washignton, D.C., as his personal residence when it was really a row house in Harlem.


• In 1989, he took out a $60,000 loan on his childhood home in New York, declaring that home to be his primary residence in order to obtain a low interest rate.


• Rangel was listing three addresses as his primary residence, and, at least between 1995 and 2000, getting tax breaks because of it.


• Last year, The Post revealed Rangel’s failure to fully disclose rental income on a beachfront villa in a resort in the Dominican Republic. In a press conference, Rangel admitted that he had failed to declare $75,000 in rental income, and later paid the IRS and New York State $10,800 in back taxes.


• In August, Rangel amended his required financial disclosure forms for 2002 through 2006, acknowledging that he omitted as much as $780,000 in assets in previous filings.


• He also apparently forgot on earlier filings to disclose two small vacant lots in Glassboro, N.J., land on which he owed back taxes. He paid the $164 bill the next month, after The Post revealed the debt.

When he's caught he just blames a vast right-wing conspiracy. It works for the Clintons.

You can find the original article here.

Military Aid to Pakistan Helped Musharraf, Not the Military

We are starting to find out how well the money we have given Pakistan has been used. And the news isn't pretty.

Between 2002 and 2008, while Al Qaeda regrouped, only $500 million of the $6.6 billion in American aid actually made it to the Pakistani military, two army generals tell The Associated Press. That's 0.0000075%, folks.

The account of the generals, who asked to remain anonymous because military rules forbid them from speaking publicly, was backed up by other retired and active generals, former bureaucrats and government ministers.

At the time of the siphoning, Pervez Musharraf, a Washington ally, served as both chief of staff and president, making it easier to divert money intended for the military to bolster his sagging image at home through economic subsidies.

Generals and ministers say the diversion of the money hurt the military in very real ways:

• Helicopters critical to the battle in rugged border regions were not available. At one point in 2007, more than 200 soldiers were trapped by insurgents in the tribal regions without a helicopter lift to rescue them.


• The limited night vision equipment given to the army was taken away every three months for inventory and returned three weeks later.


• Equipment was broken, and training was lacking. It was not until 2007 that money was given to the Frontier Corps, the front-line force, for training.

For more than a year, the Pentagon paid Pakistan's navy $19,000 a month per vehicle just for repair costs on a fleet of fewer than 20 vehicles. Monthly food bills doubled for no apparent reason, and for a year the Pentagon paid the bills without checking, according to the report.

And we're considering giving them more money but we can't tell what they do with it. "We don't have a mechanism for tracking the money after we have given it to them," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Wright said in a telephone interview.

You can find the original article here.

New Taxes in Baucus Health Bill

Wondering where the money is going to come from to pay for government health care? Some of it is going to come from taxing medical devices like these:

* Pacemakers
* Hip joint replacements
* Gastrointestinal tubes
* Artificial hearts
* Hearing aids
* Porcelain teeth
* Heart defibrillators
* Prosthetic heart valve rotators
* Powered wheelchairs
* Ventilators

And that's because they scaled back some of the taxes. Under pressure, the Senate recently exempted medical items that cost under $100 -- such as tampons and condoms.

And where do taxes come to roost? To the manufacturers or retailers? No, they're passed directly on to consumers.

"Looking at the numbers, the bill calls for around to $350 billion in new taxes, so this $4 billion a year is just a small fraction of taxes raised," said Dr. Jennifer Mellor, the director of the Schroeder Center for Healthcare Policy at the College of William and Mary.

Still, it's once again an example of government mandated expenditures on the part of private citizens to pay for this monstrosity. I say demonstrate to me the true savings and then talk about spending the saved money.

You can find the original article here.

No Hosting the Olympics for Chicago -- And They Don't Know How Lucky They Are

Chicago was up recently as one of the cities to host the Olympics. Obama took time from his failing foreign policy and health care issues to try to get the Olympic committee to decide in favor of Chicago.

Yet, it did not happen. Too bad, so sad.

The people of Chicago don't realize how narrowly they dodged the bullet. When the Olympics come to town, politicians dream up all kinds of ways to grab money from it. Eminent domain abuses and higher taxes happen so that space for the Olympics can be made (1). Click here for an example of how this works in practice.

Or consider when the games were hosted in Greece. The Greek government shelled out approximately $12 billion for the 2002 Olympics in Athens -- more than twice the initial estimate -- and the spectators' Euros weren't nearly enough to make up the difference. Some Greeks did pretty well, especially in the construction industry, but the rest of the country was stuck with a steep bill (2).

Another reason they are lucky they didn't get the Olympics is because of extremely tight security and because anyone not desirable enough to be around will be quietly relocated (3).

But apparently these aren't good reasons. Liberals have to take the time to bash the conservatives, even when it wasn't the conservatives trying to latch onto the Olympics. It's Obama's failure and yet it's really the conservatives' fault.

The headline at Talking Points Memo today is, "Conservatives Revel In America's Olympic Defeat". You can find all kinds of examples of conservatives being happy Obama failed here.

But if it's their fault, that implies they had to work at making him fail. Yet, no proof of that. People that have particular reasons for not wanting the Olympics in Chicago -- like eminent domain abuses, higher taxes, cronyism to Obama's supporters, higher security measures and human rights abuses to name a few -- are somehow the villains.

You can find the original article here.

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1. Malkin, Michelle (2009, October 1). "How do you spell wealth redistribution? Tax-increment financing". Michelle Malkin.
Retrieved October 5, 2009, from Michelle Malkin

2. Walker, Jesse (2009, July 11). "Lucky Paris". Reason Online.
Retrieved October 5, 2009, from Reason Online

3. Walker, Jesse (2009, July 11). "Lucky Paris". Reason Online.
Retrieved October 5, 2009, from Reason Online