12 days of Christmas remain for incandescent light bulbs

On January 1, 2014, it will be illegal to manufacture and import incandescent light bulbs in the USA. Some of you don’t care, but now it will cost $13 and up to replace a standard light bulb with a CFL one.

CFL light bulbs, while more energy-efficient than incandescent, suffer from a few deficiencies:

• They do not last as long if they are used in standard household applications (ie being turned on and off repeatedly).
• They require a much higher initial surge of energy to come on.
• They do not deal well with cold temperatures.
• They contain toxic levels of mercury vapor, and, if they break, they literally turn the area into a HAZMAT zone.
• The cost per unit of light produced is some 15x greater.

Make sure your xmas shopping includes some incandescent bulbs!

Argentine implosion begins

What started as a police strike in Cordoba has spread to other cities in Argentina. Looting, rioting, and property destruction, oh my!

The police in Cordoba were basically broke and waiting to get paid. So they told the government that they refused to go on duty until the issue was resolved. Scumbags, seeking their window of opportunity, began to steal whatever was not nailed down or on fire. Store owners banded up in armed watches in what appeared to be scenes from a zombie apocalypse movie. Several losers were shot and killed.

Then other areas decided that they were missing out on the fun.

At last count, 17 out of the 23 provinces in Argentina have been experiencing similar looting shenanigans, as they people have learned that the government is broke, inept, and cannot maintain its monopoly of force over its subjects. It’s amazing it took this long.

The clueless Kirchner government blames the looting as being a planned product of the political opposition. No, it can’t have anything to do with the fact that they have inflated their currency beyond worthlessness so now the police whom they pay to protect them can no longer earn a living wage. This is how you buy yourself an army of organized, trained, militarized, armed enemies. This is why inflation is in the Official List of Bad Ideas (TM).

Obama wackiness

The opportunity gap in America is now as much about class as it is about race, and that gap is growing.
~Barack Obama, Dec 4, 2013, Remarks by the President on Economic Mobility

So says the first black president of the United States, during a speech about minimum wage. They’ve been playing sound clips of this part on the radio again and again and again, but nobody has commented, so far as I know, about what I pulled from it.

Here is a black man who was elected to the most powerful office on the planet, telling people that they cannot get ahead because of their race. I find that to be more than stupid. Exponentially.

One might think that the majority has moved beyond racial discrimination, and his presence in the White House is living proof. But then he says this.

I brought this up among folks and was instantly called a “jealous hater” by one black female present. Then I asked her, “If you were the first woman to be elected President of the United States, would you go on TV and complain that there is a lack of opportunity for women in this country?”

To which she had no answer, put on her angry face, and left.