US GOVERNMENT SAY BAH HUMBUG! to Christmas lights
The Comment period ends December 30th on the new regulations that will outlaw affordable Christmas lights including indoor and outdoor lighted decorations of any type. See link below.
From the Washington Times via Gail Combs:
Christmas lights have become so affordable that even the humblest of homes often are lit like the Star of Bethlehem. Federal bureaucrats are working to end this. They claim it will make us safer, but the facts don’t back them up.
It’s not uncommon to find strings of mini-lights priced at $1 for a hundred lights, sometimes even less. To cure this excessive affordability, the feds are rushing to save Americans from mass holiday displays. They seem to believe we all are like Clark Griswold, the bumbling father figure in National Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation” (played by Chevy Chase), who nearly electrocutes himself, starts fires, falls off the roof and short-circuits power in his whole neighborhood as he tries to create a home display that would outdo Rockefeller Center.
The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has created an example of regulate first and explain why later. In October they proposed new regulations to outlaw strings of bulbs, lighted lawn figures and similar items that would be declared as hazardous. The red tape deals with certifying wire sizes, fuses, and tensile strength of all “seasonal decorative lighting products.”
This includes Christmas tree lights, lighted wreaths, menorahs, outdoor strands, lawn figures of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, or Santa or Rudolph or Frosty the Snowman. Yes, Kwanzaa, too. CPSC is an equal opportunity Scrooge. The agency estimates that their proposed regulations will impact 100 million items per year with a market value of $500 million.
Of course, those items already are covered by safety regulations and also by industry standards and oversight. CPSC admits that 3.6-million unsafe lights were recalled under existing safeguards in place since 1974.
So what is CPSC’s justification for adding red tape to the red, green, blue, yellow, white and other colored displays? They report 250 deaths from fires or electrocutions by Christmas lights. That’s not 250 deaths per year; it’s 250 deaths since 1980. They had to add together 33 years of statistics to misportray danger.
You can comment here:
Is there anything left to regulate?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
democrats are on a self destruct mission.
Gail, should have this pix:
http://www.clarkgriswoldcollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Christmas-Vacation-Griswold-House.jpg
If you have the older style C4 & C9 incandescent outdoor christmas lights, I would recommend going out and buying as many replacement bulbs as possible. This is probably a method of removing those other incandescent bulbs from “wasting Energy” and to enforce transfer to the HIGH cost but energy sipping LED lights
After all…Drunk Driving kills many times more people than Christmas Lights and decorations on an annual bais
“Since the September 11 terror attacks, over 140,000 men women and children have died in America as a result of drunk driving. Laws providing a deterrent are not enough. We need to address the behaviors in our culture that put drunk drivers on the road. It is time to stand up and admit that as a culture, we drink together and LET each other drive away”
There is a nice hover over map near the bottom of the site that will give you the “per 10,000” designation of DUI arrests by state
Perhaps those nasty polluting cars should be removed from society /sarc
Sorry they are on a mission to destroy us.
If they banned Klieg Lights for the entertainment industry or rationed electricity consumption for listening to music then their industry backers would stop them.
Is the CPSC an offshoot of the European (Soviet) Union?
Welcome to NANNYSTAN.
Sorry, but I have to say this even if it gets banned – HORSESHIT.
Our town is called the Christmas capital of the country. We have more lights per capita than any other city. I personally have 15k, and I am not even on the Tacky light tour!
Yes, the lights cost, as does the energy (my bill usually spikes about 250-300% for the 6 weeks they are up). But when I get a “wow” from my grand children, it makes all the cost and effort worthwhile.
And that is why I do it. It is not religious, it is for the children, literally. I do mine mostly with the natural features (I only have 3 deer and one fake tree). I light the trees, the house the driveway, the bushes etc.
I will be a lawbreaker if Obama has his way. This is sheer stupidity, but not unexpected.
It is that unquantifiable factor of unadulterated joy that the nanny-fussbuckets that have taken over our governments do not, and cannot, understand. This is why they wish to stop us doing anything that we might find enjoyable. I just wish they could apply the same principles to themselves – they find their constant interference with our lives so enjoyable, they should punish themselves by curtailing it.
I think it was Mencken who said that the definition of puritanism is the absolute fear that somewhere, someone, is having a good time.
Fill up your rooms with as many lights as you want, but do not use excessive lighting outdoors and make sure nothing is directed where nothing needs to be illuminated. Otherwise you make a statement visible miles away that here lives an idiot who cares nothing about light pollution, astronomy or natural science in general.
Light pollution? YOU do realize by far most of the planet is uninhabited, then another great portion only sparsely populated, and only a small bit densely populated. Since you feel free to tell people what they can do with their holiday lights, I feel perfectly free to tell you to get off our arse and go someplace more amicable to star gazing.
Gosh Steiner, you make the Consumer Products Safety Commission sound cheerful! When it comes to outdoor lighting and statements, I’ll prefer to make mine (again) by burning the ol’ Christmas lights (and every other incandescent bulb mounted on the outside of my house) brightly on Saturday, March 28, 2015 from 8:30 to 9:30 pm.
We have more trees than we can handle, so my lights are not visible from miles away. Nor would it matter since I am on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area, so the light pollution would exist with or without my contribution.
You are free to be the idiot. I prefer creating beauty for my grand kids.
Exactly, it is nice to have Christmas lights, but unfortunately the local town’s street lights are ugly yellow, burn all night through and give their light much horizontally to eyes, empty sky, and my yard which I didn’t ask for.
Light pollution is exactly the right word for this. Long winter nights make it even worse. I feel like living in CCCP under party rule.
“Otherwise you make a statement visible miles away that here lives an idiot who cares nothing about light pollution, astronomy or natural science in general.”
Can you name 14 people that care? I don’t like “light pollution” either but I’m not willing to go full Communist to have it “my way”.
North Korea is waiting for you with open arms, go for it Steiner.
LOL
Oops, you aren’t joking? Then I have to ask, are you always stumbling around in the dark?
Anyway, thanks for the laugh and I will promise you right now, I will keep my light pollution and carbon footprint below Al Gore, the UN kid spokesman Leo Whatshisname, and Barrack Obama’s.
I wish I could count high enough to enumerate the times Democrats have rationalized their petty tyrannies with the claim “I’ts for the children!” Ghandi had the right of it – protest unjust laws with civil disobedience. Complying only encourages them.
The cathedral in Bern is no longer lit at night in order to save the planet. (Bern city is ruled by a red-green government).
Kurt in Switzerland
Mind your position, peasant. Your betters are watching…
/
Your post could have done without the sarc tag, as it is far too close to the truth.
i am sure that by itself will save the planet. So now the rest of us can do what we want.
What, with all the hydro-electric power you have in Switzerland? Sounds a bit like hypocrisy.
What a crock. As explained in the notice, they are codifying a longstanding UL standard, UL 588.
“…three electrical safety characteristics for seasonal and decorative lighting products have been addressed in a voluntary standard, Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Standard for Safety for Seasonal and Holiday Decorative Products, UL 588, 18th Edition, approved on August 21, 2000 (UL 588).”
Don’t believe everything the right wing nuts tell you. Oh, wait…
Yes, they are codifying a VOLUNTARY UL standard, which works just fine as it is.
so you are pointing out that the right wing nuts are telling you exactly what is happening … seems like you are the nut here …
110 volts (in the U.S), only reminds you that you have become part of the circuit.
Oh wait! unfortunately more government regulation is always the case and rarely good. And that is not either wing. Just a simple truism.
It’s voluntary this year. There is no telling when the EPA will decide it needs to be not voluntary, like everything else they have poked their noses into. After all, they need to save the planet before it dies from over electrification.
If it works, why federalize it and add all that bureaucracy, cost, and inflexibility for no visible benefit.
Oh yea, to the fascist set, nothing works right until it is run by govt.
Not being able to read the original document and seeing your post (Rattus Norvegicus) I have to wonder if this is just an enforcement of UL standards relating to unsafe electrical products. A lot of products sold in the US (and Canada) do NOT meet UL (CSA or ULc in Canada) standards and as such can indeed be potentially unsafe for the average consumer or their children. If it is reasonable electrical safety they are trying to enforce I see no real problem with that. Do you want to be electrocuted by shoddily built lighting? I don’t, nor do I want my children or grandchildren at risk.
Some government regulation is essential otherwise you get similar situations as what happened in China where unscrupulous manufacturers contaminated children’s milk products with a toxic substance and sold it as safe – poisoned 50,000+ kids (and killed a few) before they got caught. WHO: A spokesman said the scale of the problem proved it was “clearly not an isolated accident, [but] a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for simple, basic, short-term profits.”
The question is how much government regulation do people want – that is where the people can decide by voting or polls, etc. If you want to be at the risk of any sociopath manufacturer then vote for no regulations. If you want a nanny state then vote for the greens, if you want something in between then vote accordingly.
While I accept what you are saying – who is to know if one day shoddy Chinese lights come in that suddenly become far less reliable than the ones they currently sell for peanuts (although it is far more likely they will simply up the prices and replacements won’t happen frequently enough) – it is dangerous to understand all bureaucratic action by logic and reasonableness, to, in short, give it a purpose it may not have. This cuts both ways – where we project onto bureaucrats fears which are based on false assumptions about evil motives. The point is, for each move, we have to understand why they are proposing it. That can only reasonably be done by creating transparency about their deliberations.
And now they will have to hire x number of burrowcraps to enforce. And Y number of new IRS schmucks to steal the money to pay them.
From Counting All U.S. Government’s Regulations
Methinks we have too many gov’ment regulators.
I was watching a TV programme made by D’Souza. It featured an interview with an attorney called Harvey Silverglate. He says that the average engaged American commits “Three Felonies a Day” whether they know it or not. This maybe the effect of over-regulation and the constant need to pass laws to make Americans ‘safer’ but less free?
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/10/you-break-the-law-every-day-without-even-knowing-it.html
http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
In “Atlas Shrugged” the rationale was so that the Government knew you’re always guilty of something. Saves a lot of time when you want to round up someone special.
Exactly!
Harvey Silverglate…name of lawyer? Great example of “Onomatopoetikon” IMO 🙂
Way back in 1968, at the University of Arizona, we had the ‘Break a law a day’ club. The point was to find innocuous, out of date or ridiculous laws and then break these in public. This took a bit of creativity on our part.
THe wonders of the Internet have made that kind of easy. But I admire the spirit!
Emsnews: it doesn’t take much creativity today. Just put your prescription pills in a daily-reminder pill case, for example. When little old ladies become a problem, the government already has a legal way to arrest them.
Here is an eye opener on US Federal laws. It’s not surprising that an actively engaged US adult can commit 3 felonies a day. Even if it were only 1 a week that’s just over 50 felonies a year!
Ooops! I forgot the link.
http://www.wired.com/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/
Here is an example of how easy it is to break the US law.
Jimbo,
When I was in engineering back in the early ’60’s my roommate for one summer school was in law school. One afternoon after class and at least one pitcher of beer we started a bar discussion on out-dated laws and who could come up with the most ridiculous. He won. It was, and still as far as I know, against state law to jump over the oak trees on the state house lawn. These trees were at least 60 feet tall even back then.
The job of legislators is to legislate. They interpret this as making new laws, not eliminating old, out of date or no longer applicable ones. The job of regulators is to issue regulations. No one gets judged or paid for eliminating old, out of date or no longer applicable ones.
Our main problem is too many legislators with too much time on their hands, and too many regulators. A second, almost as important problem is that way too many of us bitch and complain way too much. Both legislators and regulators, tired of getting bitched at by their citizens, continually write laws and regulations in an attempt to silence the cacophony. So, both directly and indirectly, we the voters are responsible for this mess.
Don’t forget about the Lacey Act, which makes it a federal crime to be in possession of goods which are illegal anywhere! That’s the law which was used to raid Gibson Guitars a few years ago — because they might have been in possession of wood which the Indian government regulates the thickness of.
Uh it is hard to imagine why you would have to murder a poor undersize lobster in self defense.
Here’s another. If you read someones email without their permission (they leave their screen unlocked), you have committed a felony,
@Joe Kirklin Crawford,
Yeah, and where were the regulators that really counted after the FBI testified in open testimony before the House or Senate in September 2004 that there was an “epidemic of mortgage fraud?” And they said it amounted to 90% of all mortgages. it wasn’t the mortgagee that was the crook. It was the mortgager, the banker, who was committing “control fraud,” a white collar crime regulator’s term for ‘fraud by those in control’, the CEO. Since mortgage banks are NOT regulated under the federal bank charter, the only group that does regulate them is the NY Fed…by law. Except Timmy Geithner, as Prez of the NY Fed at the time, denied it was his responsibility to regulate the mortgage bank crooks even after a public warning by the FBI.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/17/mortgage.fraud/
There is just no end to the world’s problems. Almost 2000 years ago, the Roman Emperor issued a law limiting the number of slaves to be freed at Christmas, sorry, Saturnalia, to max. 100 per household. The rich and mighty had started to compete about who was the most benevolent, resulting in a lack of slave-power.
Undersized lobsters are real bastards, they have complexes and try to compensate by aggresive behaviour. Fruit freaks are not nice either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch_Ban
It’s not just old outdated laws but modern, fresh laws that can be a problem. You are right that people are also to blame as they moan and bitch about a lot.
Know your lobster laws and regulations in Maine
http://www.maine.gov/dmr/rm/lobster/guide/#laws
To paraphrase Jefferson, the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of regulators.
Oh, that’s a good one to remember!
It is much more on point and targeted than Shakespeare’s:
It seems paramount to lay down rules to get that regulation bug fixed.
/.
Around 1995 I asked my accountant about a superannuation problem I was having, he informed me to see a specialist because that he didn’t get involved in superannuation any more as the Australian Government was making 2,000 changes per year.
I’m honestly tired of bureaucrats making me safer. I don’t want to be safer all the time. I have my wife for that.
XD
I’m reposting this from a few days ago about NASA seeing holiday lighting;
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/satellite-sees-holiday-lights-brighten-cities/
Don’t you love the way they fill the page with US land? Makes it look like a big deal. However, in terms of energy use, which derives from a model, holiday lighting spikes would not show up at all in the overall energy use data. That NASA spent any money at all on this joke highlights the decided lack of statistical training these idiots have.
Oh Yay! Soon, I’ll be able to trapeze around the neighborhood on some of them thar high-tensile-strength “Holiday lights”, hollering the praises of Nanny on High. Deck the halls with Bows of Folly, WT fa, la la, la la, la (cough) la.
What kind of Government is so anti-joy?
https://www.google.co.uk/#q=alan+rickman+cancel+christmas
First time trying to put in a YouTube link so fingers crossed
Is there anything left to regulate?
Sure. Anthony Watts, for one.
I’d say it is time to regulate the Regulators, but is just drinking the Kool-Aid that regulators have any constitutional authority at all.
Regulators must be reduced to Executive Branch advisors to Congress, the only Constitutional law making body. The CPSC can write all the regulations they want, but they should have no effect until approved by the elected members of both Houses of Congress.
I’ll go one further. Any “Public Comment Period” ought to begin and end with separate Congressional Hearings.
The current practice of faux kangaroo-court vested interest “public hearings” whose content can be ignored at will devoid of any required oversight by elected representatives is a Constitutional abomination.
What? There are too many regulations for Congress to possibly keep up? That is precisely the point. If Congress can’t keep up with the thousands of regulations per month, then how can any of us?
“If Congress can’t keep up with the thousands of regulations per month, then how can any of us??
=====================================
Congress only has time to listen to the lobbyists, they do not have time to actually read the laws they pass, let alone the laws all the federal agencies create.
@David A.
At least every two years we have the opportunity to fire our Representatives.
Not so with Civil Service or Political Appointees.
And if you want to quibble about the six year term in the Senate, I’m for repeal of the 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators), return the U.S. Senators to being elected by their state legislatures, removal of any term, and make U.S. Senators subject removal at will by my a majority of the State Legislatures.
Accountability in Washington is sadly lacking. 6 year Senator terms don’t help.
Exactly!
Yes, exactly!
The 17th Amendment effectively cut the ties between States and Senators. Now Senators are party functionaries. If the Democrat party, for example, instructs a Democrat Senator to support a proposed law, it does not matter if the law is bad for that State. The Senator is beholden to their party [if the Senator refuses, the party can exert enormous presure through withholding financial support, and through the use of seniority rules, while all the voters can do is wait up to six years for the next election].
The 17th A was passed with the usual rabble-rousing cry for ‘democracy’, which as usual resulted in less democracy: instead of representing their State, now Senators represent only their political party.
This is the United STATES, not the ‘united feds’. At least it was, until the 17th Amendment was ratified.
Dbstealey and Stephen Rasey: The selection of Senators by state legislatures was an important part of the check-and-balances in the Constitution. Too many people don’t even realize that the federal government was created by an agreement between the several states. Now the state is simply a lackey for the feds to use to collect ‘state’ taxes to pay for federally mandated programs.
Aha, Watts? The name itself sounds like reckless spending of energy. Watch out for a Regulator cutting the out the s.
What you didn’t post was that the rate decreased significantly over that time before 1993 about 13 people per year died, since 2007 the average is one per year.
Seems like private industry has already solved the problem, without the need of government interference.
This looks to me like one of a number of piecemeal steps to ban Christmas without imposing an outright ban.
Like one of the posters above said, if this goes through, I’m going to break the effing law just because.
Screw these control freaks (leftists).
You can bet money that if the gov’t tries to go too far with this notion, that Griswold- type displays will pop up all over the place.
The problem is they will not allow the manufacture of these products and hence you will be unable to buy them. They take your choice to buy away and your freedom is thus diminished.
Normally I would say it was time for a road trip to Mexico were something like this to happen, but that is rather dangerous right now.
Big Lots has ’em at half price right now. I’ll stock up on the same trip to town when I get ammo from the Farm&Home Center
Yup, it ain’t about the lights, it’s about Christmas.
Ho ho ho.
No no no
Back in the USSA.
I wonder how many people have died over the year trying to put their clothes on! Maybe we should outlaw all forms of clothing that have been directly or indirectly the cause of deaths!!
Maybe the legislatures should make it mandatory to have side bars on all beds to prevent death and injury and make sleeping safer. Apparently 600 Americans die each year from simply falling out of bed.
Time Magazine 2006
http://socrates.bmcc.cuny.edu/jsamuels/math150/article-judging_risk.pdf
“Approximately 1.8 million emergency room visits and over 400 thousand hospital admissions occur to those over the age of 65 from falling out of bed according to the Center for Disease Control.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20100722100941/http://www.cwimedical.com/content/death-from-bed-falls
“Apparently 600 Americans die each year from simply falling out of bed.”
That’s 60 times the kill rate of 2 centuries of the Spanish inquisition.
Ban socks.
In the UK 10,773 people are injured each year in accidents involving socks and tights.
I thought the nanny state, er, government already had programs to teach about the many dangers of unprotected socks…
Crash helmets for pedestrians. You know it’s coming. Get prepared.
Do shoes count as clothing and waistbelts? So shoelaces ought to be on the list as well. There are so many people who kill themselves with these ugly articles of vanity no one really needs.
Not to mention the number of people dying trying to take their clothes off. The haste and excitement in such situations can be quite lethal.
And what do they propose to do about horses, bees, lightning, food and drink?
On average, 90 people are killed every year in the U.S. by lightning.
And from Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/afraid-ebola-here-are-10-things-more-likely-kill-you-263093)
The most recent statistics show that 54 Americans died from bee stings in 2000.
But 3,000 people die every year from food poisoning.
Over 100 people die every year from “equestrian related activities”
Around 88,000 American deaths every year are attributable to excessive alcohol use, according to the CDC. Between 2006 and 2010, more than 1,000 Americans partied so hard that they got drunk and set themselves on fire.
If they can outlaw climate change, surely they can outlaw lightning.
Here’s a tip for the regulators: candles.
Burning candles actually contributes to increased carbon dioxide emissions. Most are paraffin wax – pure hydrocarbon – It’s a heavy alkane fraction distilled from crude oil.
So when you can’t afford the heating or lighting, they’ll make sure you can’t even find granny’s frozen corpse in the dark.
Good points, all, Duncan. But 3000 fatalities per year from food poisoning?! That is absolutely unacceptable! There should be a law making it a felony to consume contaminated food!
That’s called Natural Selection via Stupidity. Darwin Award winners.
A premature April Fools’ joke?
Or actually restoring the April Fools day to its original date. Decembar 28th.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Childermas
simple…..
Call them Islam lights..and they will be mandatory
…and subsidized
By NASA
Good!
“Call them Islam lights..and they will be mandatory”
No lights! No lights! Must be changed to Islam Lightsoff.
“No soup for you!” (Seinfeld)
Because of the global warming scare, within a few years Christmas lights will become a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t going to know what Christmas lights are.
http://media5.trover.com/T/50c4c88a0845d273f700049e/fixedw_large_2x.jpg
Sad, but they actually can make that come true. Snow? I guess they are hurting from that boondoggle.
One hopes Congress and the White House will be buried in 20 feet of snow each year so that their folly is on full display. Starting this year will be soon enough. There are a few days left. I can dream. Oh well.
Even better 😀
?efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&oh=093aa1e9c5f73441ea3a0e935bc6350a&oe=552F13B5&__gda__=1430633788_6d1b6c17f3330d2f4bc2fd61da905763
Louis, please help so many WUWT regulars here (like me) by explaining how you embed a relevant photo image or diagram into your comment? Gail Combs also manages to do the same (see below). Thank you.
GeeJam – a simple Google search for “embed image ” pulled up some references, here is one on how to do that – Instruction 3: Insert the HTML code in the text where you want the image to appear as follows: “.” Here is an example for an image with the address “http://www.mydomain.com/images/img.jpg”: . Note that this is just an example—this is not a real image.
Here is a real image:
Swiped that from the WUWT Solar page, but that is actually from NASA…
For more tricks read up on HTML coding, there are simple things you can do like BOLD, ITALICS,
STRIKE THROUGHand so on.OK, WordPress not allowing one to preview posts lets one make easy mistakes. To add an image you need to use the following format (which can be enhanced for extra features such as size of image, etc.)
So the image I was trying to demo was this one from WUWT Solar Page showing the sun:
Hope it worked this time!
Well, obviously I don’t know how to add an image to WordPress(yet), what works on my web sites doesn’t work here. I guess we have to read up on posting images in WordPress. Sorry to waste time…
Played around on the “Test” page (where I should have first!) and posted :
OK, I think I have figured out the preliminary rules for adding an image to your WordPress posting on WUWT:
1) the link must be the raw html link in the format -(delete the spaces)- http : // link . jpg (gif/etc.)
2) the link must be on a fresh line with no hidden characters – edit in raw text is best
3) there must not be anything else on the line that the link is on.
4) the image is in the size it was originally – there doesn’t appear to be a way to change that at this time.
5) happy trails to you!
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Destination-moon-luna_8877.jpg
Very grateful for your efforts John. Yes, your solution may work when grabbing an existing photo from a web source. I was thinking more along the lines of importing relevant JPEG photos, images and graphics from my own directories filed on my hard drive. I guess WordPress discourages this due to server memory limitations. I’ll keep persevering. WUWT tips and notes have always related to submitting a complete article with images – but not adding images to comments in threads.
PS I know how to resample images to size and dpi resolution.
GeeJam, if you want to put a picture in your posting you have to host it online somewhere. If you have your own website then that is trivial, otherwise you need to use some picture hosting site.
The problem I found with WordPress (WUWT’s version) is there is no way to change the size of the image – so, make the image you host the size you want in your posting. I suspect if the picture is oversize it will scale it down, but if you want to test that I suggest you use the “Test” area as I finally did to play with image handling. I hope someone figures out how to resize the images when added to the post, it would also be nice to be able to put some side by side, etc. – this may happen already if the images are small, but again I haven’t tried that.
Most WordPress sites give you an Edit window to work in (I suspect cleverer folks use off-line editors to create their posts), then you can do all the HTML magic you want – near as I can tell WUWT hasn’t had the time (or resources) to implement that – it is a volunteer organization after all, not funded by anyone but some nice small donors and Mr. Watts’ own pocket.
Actually there is no”electrocution”. The word,refers to,the state sanctioned use of electricity to put to death someone so sentenced. I am unaware of any jurisdiction that uses Christmas lights to electrocute someone.
I’m sorry Gustav, but if we’re going to derail the conversation with this kind of pedantry (and that isn’t intended as a slap in the face to you), then I’m forced to jump in and point out that three online dictionaries offer definitions that disagree with you. The Oxford Dictionaries even offer as an example of the use of the word “electrocute”, ‘a man was electrocuted when he switched on the Christmas tree lights’. Execution *is* included as a possible definition, but not an exclusive definition. The only consistency in all definitions is the use of the word to connote fatality — and even *that* seems to be expanding to informal usages such as “I electrocuted myself on those damned Christmas lights!”
Language doth evolve.
You can have my Christmas lights when you pry them out of my cold dead fingers.
Enough said ?
You can have my Christmas lights when pry them out of my cold, dead fingers and then untangle them.
Yep, an untangled, (and lighted), string of Christmas lights are off-limits for your normal thug, or else they inherit the mess themselves 🙂
The cited URL for leaving comments with the CPSC doesn’t work. There are supposed to be two dashes after “Laws” – think the posting software converted that to one long dash (don’t remember if that’s and em dash or an en dash).
Wait until they find out that 40 times as many deaths are the result of using bathtubs.
Well folks, this is just another example of the fact that the state is pure aggression. It seeks in all manner to control you. Power is the greatest addiction and the state’s power is like pure crack cocaine. We radical libertarians have been trying to tell people for a long time that all government will become tyranny sooner or later. Some classes of people feel the heel of the boot before others; but all will feel it sooner or later.
As I pointed out in a post once, George Orwell explained the state very well as he had an ‘inner party member’ tell Winston Smith “why”.
——————-
Winston Smith was a party member but he was not one of the Inner Party. Rather he was a member of the Outer Party just as most of our federal bureaucrats today are not part of the ruling elite of our own Empire. At one point he says to an Inner Party member, “I understand how, but I don’t understand why.” He wanted to know why the Party did all those immoral and rotted things.
One of its leaders explains:
Orwell captured the essential nature of the State perfectly in this speech by the party member to Winston Smith. Far too many people in the modern age have watched the American Empire start endless wars and grow ever more tyrannical without allowing themselves to ask the question: “why“?
———————-
from: http://markstoval.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/the-state-answers-winston-smith/
Just substitute The Party with Islam
And then there’s this:
Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken! You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… We’re after power and we mean it… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.
~Atlas Shrugged