Save the Planet by Outlawing Lampshades
One way and another, the solutions to life’s little problems keep popping into my mind.
For example, I was recently caught speeding (not by very much; my racing car driver days are long past); and rather than have my license soiled, I elected to go to the one-day speeding reeducation course that was offered as an alternative.
The course was run by two ex-policemen, a man and a woman. The course started by a Maoist-type public confession of one’s sins to all the other people in the course who had been similarly caught. The two ex-cops then successfully demonstrated that the human and other damage caused by an accident is lineally related to the speed at which it happens.
It was then that I had a blinding flash of illumination, a real eureka moment. The best, indeed only, way to prevent road traffic accidents is to prohibit people from leaving their houses in the first place! By a process of association of ideas, I remembered the slogan that was used during the war to cut down the demand for public transport: “Is your journey really necessary?”
The answer, of course, is usually a resounding no, especially in these days of the internet. I bet that if you took a spot survey of all the people who are moving about at any given moment, not one in twenty would have a really good reason for doing so. Here, surely, is scope for proper regulation: traffic police who would not only regulate the speed at which you go, but your reasons for going. If you could provide a good reason, a heavy fine would be payable, with imprisonment for subsequent offenses.
This, naturally enough, brings me to the question of global warming. It must be admitted that, for three reasons, things have not been going very well for global warmists of late, at least in Britain. The first reason is that the scientists have been caught doing the scientific equivalent of fiddling the books; the second is that we are enjoying, if that is quite the word, the severest winter in thirty years; and the third is that the economic recession has conclusively demonstrated that people care more about a decline in GDP of five percent than a rise in temperature of two degrees — if it had taken place, that is.
“Here, surely, is scope for proper regulation: traffic police who would not only regulate the speed at which you go, but your reasons for going. If you could provide a good reason, a heavy fine would be payable, with imprisonment for subsequent offenses.”
Gee, I wonder how severe the penalties might be for not having a good reason?
Don’t you people proof read this crap? I can understand the commenters being sloppy, but not the people who write the articles.
KZ, “proofread” is one word, not two.
Dalrymple’s books are hugely interesting. Please let me know about yours so I can compare.
I don’t usually get involved in tit-for-tat comments-section arguments.
But I have to say (okay, type) that I agree with Dag: KZ seems to have his / her panties in a bunch over nothing. (KZ had no trouble discerning Dalrymple’s intended meaning, after all.)
For what it’s worth, I enjoyed the essay — which was hardly diminished by a trivial error.
Just FYI, CFLs (compact fluorescents) come in a range of color temperatures from 2700K (the “soft whites”) to 6500K (“daylights”). Find one suitable to taste and setting.
I know, CFLs get a bad rap. But I got tired of constantly replacing incandescents suddenly burning out on me. I also dumped my old table lamps with their yellowed lampshades, and replaced them with simple glass globes of white translucent glass. The only incandescents I have left are in my refrigerator and my chandelier (CFLs are $7 apiece) and replacement is not economically justifiable. Freedom (to choose) is a wonderful thing.
“Save the Planet by Outlawing Lampshades”
Sir, what you propose would have severe and deleterious consequences. As Michelda Obama’s party Czar, I can unequivocally state that no such regulation will transpire. If you like the lampshade you are wearing you may keep the lampshade. However, for those who cannot provide their own lampshade we will have a one size fits all public option.
Eat more spinach, KZ; you could be suffering from an irony deficiency.
Normally I enjoy ready Dalrymple’s columns, but not when he steps from the sublime to the ridiculous.
I like when he exposes the idiocy in other people’s thinking; when he removes all doubt (which he does only infrequently) about his own thinking I feel very let down.
Perhaps he should take a moment to read the fine print about the disposal of such bulbs and consider how the lower classes will respond.
Such as stealing such bulbs and then throwing them in riots, giving mercury exposure to everyone.
I really don’t think that shades are an issue.
And yes, yes, I know that he being ironic and tongue in cheek. But basic silliness is not a requirement for such polemics.
Thanks Theodore. Your lampshade analogy could be expanded ad infinitum.
Not to worry, the Gore-ies will do just that shortly.
KZ! You confuse me. As a good Obamite you surely also are a Marcuse/Alinsky deconstructionist. As such you should have read Dalrymple’s sentences after reconstructing their deconstruction, thereby clearly seeing what wasn’t there!
Well I, for one, HAVE studied the piffle you pseudo intellectual riffraff pretend to. Why don’t you?
Speeding tickets are the epitome of Socialism. Nobody ever drives faster then they are comfortable with. The problem is some bureaucrat uses thugs with guns and a badge to enforce their comfort levels on everybody else. Remember the carnage predicted when the speed limit was raided from 55? Didn’t happen, did it. That is because bureaucrats stayed behind their desks and off the roads.
My last speeding ticket was for 140 in a 35. I got my license suspended for a year and 30 days in jail. I think mostly because when the nasty black female judge asked me what I was thinking, I answered that is was about time to shift to 5th gear. So naturally, she took advantage of her opportunity to stick it to a white man.
That 35 was a dead straight run about 4 miles long between 2 wide spots in the road. It was posted 35 so the locals could create revenue from speed traps.
The lesson I learned was when Barney Fife gets on your tail, twist your right wrist.
Life begins at 150 MPH.
Really enjoyed your article. About the, “No lamp shades”idea. They will probably make it a law in the near future. Perhaps their next great idea for conserving energy will be “lights out” at 8:00 PM for everyone.
In my own commitment to environmental lunacy, I have begun leaving behind poops in the toilets at all the best restaurants here in San Francisco with a little preprinted note encouraging my fellow San Franciscans to simply go on top of it so that we can conserve water. Just trying to contribute to being part of the solution.
I think the author has also overlooked the negative consequences of watching television without a good reason. But my favorite global warming cause has to be merely existing. We have seen the enemy and it is us, as Pogo used to say.
> The two ex-cops then successfully demonstrated that the human
> and other damage caused by an accident is lineally related
> to the speed at which it happens.
I would have guessed related to the square of the velocity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy
So you hit a brick wall at 20 you do four times the damage as you do at 10.
Dalrymple is a brilliant writer and social commentator yet, by his standards, this piece reads like a first draft.
Great idea uburoisc. Will try that in Ohio as well!
“I bet that if you took a spot survey of all the people who are moving about at any given moment, not one in twenty would have a really good reason for doing so.”
Theodore Dalrymple in a somewhat tongue in cheek manner has actually touched on a valid point. Countless people have not outgrown their long held inclination to drive their auto vehicles even though it often may be senseless. A tipping point will eventually be reached and our world will significantly change forevermore. How many individuals, for instance, travel long distances for a business meeting? What difference will it make when we can casually turn on our computer and effortlessly speak to our clients? That may be our everyday reality in the very near future. What will that do to our large cities? Will they be rendered irrelevant?
I will note that despite my assessment that england is about 20 years ahead of us dystopia-wise, their media is discussing climategate while our old media is pretending it didnt’ happen.
Its kind of amusing how their articles review all of the evidence of academic/scientific global warming fraud, explore the implications thereof, and always have a disclaimer that of course global warming is still ‘true’. Maybe they are so far down the road of socialism, that such revelations are not a threat.
May I suggest that fines be doubled if one is found to be travelling without a good reason whilst in possession of a lampshade?
“I bet that if you took a spot survey of all the people who are moving about at any given moment, not one in twenty would have a really good reason for doing so.”
Unless they are traveling to Copenhagen, in which case I think the percentage not having a “really good reason” would be rather higher. Unless, of course, you think looting as many public treasuries of taxpayer funds as humanly possible to Save The Planet, is a “really good reason”.
As a point of interest, the cops were correct: the damage increases lineally with the speed (even though someone accurately pointed out that the total energy involved increases with the square of the velocity).
But what the cops didn’t say is that the likelihood af an accident in the first place doesn’t have any correlation with absolute speed. Instead, it correlates with speed differentials. Specifically, the odds of an accident occurring increase at about 15 mph above AND below the average speed of traffic: it’s a U-shaped curve, with the bottom of the “U” being relatively flat.
The best way to avoid a speeding ticket is simply not to be the fastest car on the road. That applies mostly to Interstates. For rural driving, especially the South, you can go as fast as you want (safely) on an unposted road, but slow down to the exact limit when you hit a posted speed.
Raymond in DC:
“Freedom (to choose) is a wonderful thing.”
Just how is banning incandescent bulbs promoting the freedom to choose?
Marco:
Under the new scientific method, that would simply be your opinion and no more valid than anyone elses. In fact your opinion is suspect since it depends on mathematical wizardry.
“Raymond in DC” sez:
“I know, CFLs get a bad rap…Freedom (to choose) is a wonderful thing.” Haven’t you heard that most incandecsent bulbs will be banned from sale in the USA in a few years? That is NOT freedom to choose, unless you means freedom to choose between a fragile heated mercury laden glass bulb in my childrens’ room that gives off sputtery dim light or a fragile heated mercury laden glass bulb in my childrens’ room that gives off a flickering slow to start weird blue colored light.
The prohibition of lampshades would therefore have a socially equalizing effect…
Don’t worry, we are getting there in Obamaland, socially equalized, with or without lampshades.
To all the english majors commenting on the quality of the sentence structure/spelling of this article …
How much did you pay to read this ?
“Raymond in DC” sez:
“I know, CFLs get a bad rap…Freedom (to choose) is a wonderful thing.”
Do you realize that in a few years incandescent bulbs will be banned from sale in the USA. This means I have the choice of a fragile heated mercury laden glass bulb that gives off a dim flickery light, or a fragile heated mercury laden glass bulb that gives off a slow-to-start weird blue colored light for my childrens’ bedrooms. That is NOT “Freedom to choose”.
For a moment I read eyeshades and thought what do they against
accountants.
Sir, I have a business plan for your consideration:
1. Patent the shadeless lamp.
2. Per your post, suborn Congress and other national legislatures to make shadeless lamps mandatory.
Al Gore will be sooo jealous as you become a quicker and bigger carbon billionaire than he ever dreamed of being.
I propose these measures out of selfless concern for the welfare of Gaia and her children of all species, so keep my name out of the publicity. However, I expect a modest honorarium: the proceeds of your inevitable Nobel Peace Prize and five percent of the company’s stock.
No lampshades? What will I wear on my head at a party I wonder?
But then maybe if we outlawed booze I wouldn’t want to… maybe that would work!
It is much more satisfying and it denotes a better person, too boot, too worry about that over which you personally have no control rather than worry about that which you actually do control.
Hey, don’t forget curfews. Suppose everyone had to go home and stay there after 9:00Pm every night. You could keep your interior (and shadeless) lamps on, but now, since no one is legitimately outside, we could turn off all the streetlights! The police could use infrared sensors to track any carbon criminals who dared to roam the night…
Hey don’t forget curfews! With everybody inside, you could now turn off all the streetlights…
The damage can not linearly depend on the speed. The kinetic energy is proportional to a square of velocity. And the damage while non-linear is likelier to be linear w.r.t. energy between objects’ points of breakage and utter obliteration.
Theodore Dalrymple,
Change your mind about drug addiction yet? Most of the rest of the medical profession has. They are going with genetic predisposition and self medication for traumatic experiences How about you?
Fantom:
“As Michelda Obama’s party Czar, I can unequivocally state that no such regulation will transpire.”
Fantastic. Made my afternoon !!
Dr. Dalrymple: Please don’t encourage them.
I will not only keep my lampshade but will now start a store on EBAY selling them in all different styles and colors.
I know this is satire (at least I hope) but I never would have thought that the incandescent would be banned by a federal mandate. The new bulbs that looks like a pigtail or curly french fry give of low and horrid light. The Reveal© incandescent lamp is great with an overall pleasant color and brightness.
The federal regulations on one gallon of water per flush sound great but at times it is simply not enough to do the job requiring more than one flush which in the end defeats the purpose of the legislation in the first place, maybe they should have talked to a plumber or engineer before passing such stupid legislation, it make sense only for a urinal but not a toilet! I am not a plumber but have seen the results of this stupid legislation first hand as I am sure your or some one you know does.
Bottom line is leave me alone to my own devices, heat and air control, light sources, and plumbing devices!
Update they should now require a toilet for taking a krap in and a urinal made for men and women to be installed in all households, I don’t really know how to make a new one just a smaller toilet I suppose or a flexible waterproof tube with a small basin that then goes into the flushing system whatever that might be as determined by our congress at a later date but we must do this to save water.
Why not, save the planet, ban toilet paper?
In place of this universal necessity, everyone could be issued their personal lye-treated corncob. I have been assured by someone who grew up using treated-corncobs on trips to the outhouse on a North Dakota farm. He assured me that they’re as soft as duck-down and completely bio-degradable. His mother was loath to sacrifice a Sears Catalog for outhouse use and the corncobs were superior for comfort anyway.
This could be a perfect “green” technology. I nominate Nancy Pelosi to sponsor the legislation!
Slightly off the topic, but I wholeheartedly agree about the CFL bulbs. Most look more like candle light than actual illumination. And you can’t get enough wattage to make them seem “bright”.
The solution, I found, it to search out “daylight” CFL, those with a color temperature of 6000 – 6500 deg K. I could not find any locally, so purchased from Amazon.
The bulbs I purchase were Feit “daylight” “Ecobulb”. Huge difference, I am now able to use only one bulb in a two bulb fixture, and perceptually, it still seems considerably brighter.
Strangely, here in the US, GE sells incandescent bulbs with a blue filter to improve the look, but all their CFLs look like whale oil lamps. Go figure.
FWIS…
KZ:
A perfect judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ:
Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find
…
Given your extensive knowledge of the English language, I am sure you know where this is from.
uburoisc: “In my own commitment to environmental lunacy, I have begun leaving behind poops in the toilets at all the best restaurants here in San Francisco with a little preprinted note encouraging my fellow San Franciscans to simply go on top of it so that we can conserve water. Just trying to contribute to being part of the solution.”
Years ago, I was attending UC/Berkeley during a period of a particularly irksome drought in the Bay Area. In the spirit of Uburoisc’s suggestion, I remember the wisdom of an apt reminder to local residents about a recommended course of action to conserve water – “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.”
Dr. Dalrymple:
“Here, surely, is scope for proper regulation: traffic police who would not only regulate the speed at which you go, but your reasons for going. If you could provide a good reason, a heavy fine would be payable, with imprisonment for subsequent offenses.
This, naturally enough, brings me to the question of global warming. ”
Not so! Not so!
The empowerment of the State in order to protect our precious environment does not “naturally” lead to the question of global warming, but rather leads to nationalized health care.
The problem of anthropogenic global warming, (aside from the obvious, and gauche, quibbles that it might not ACTUALLY exist), is not the warming per se, or the bloody light bulbs you are using that contribute to it, but rather is a “People” problem.
I’m sure that you will agree that a healthy concern for the environment “naturally” leads you to a concern about the unhealthy number of people IN the environment.
It therefore follows that empowering the State to protect the environment would then best be accomplished by turning over to it’s enlightened policies and procedures a monopolistic authority over people’s health care.
On a personal note, I’m a hopeless and unashamed “fan-boi” of your written works.
If you would be so kind as to publish a list of which public loos you might frequent, I would be honored to send you a Magic Marker, and then follow you around, (after a decent interval), to read whatever you might care to write on the walls or stalls of the facilities.
I suspect it would be time well-spent.
Gary S: Funny thing – I purchased some CFL bulbs, and the light is fine. If I remember, I’ll look at the package and find out what type they are.
The old CFL’s in the basement (one left) were blue-violet in the light they emitted, and while they serve to prevent you from tripping over things, they weren’t very good at actually permitting you to see details (such as the size engraved on a socket-wrench socket). The new ones are fine for that, I can read comfortably under their light.
Now disposal – I would say “look out workplace dumpsters and garbage cans – you are going to get a lot of CFL’s very soon”.
Once could improve the quality of a flush toilet with less water by increasing the height of the water tank above the toilet. Think the old fashioned British monster with a long chain to actuate the flush. Of course in earthquake prone areas that weight higher above the ground causes its own problems.
My first letter to a politician was to Alan Cranston on the subject of the silliness of the “Plumbing Fixtures Efficiency Act”.
And lampshades, of course, have a deplorable history. For starters, they encourage intoxication, in that many drunks have been known to place them on their heads at festive gatherings.
And who can overlook the use of human skin by the Third Reich’s deisengruppen decor teams? Those who would continue lampshades’ use today are quite obviously and clearly the lineal descendants of Hitler’s henchmen. No mounded quantities of throw pillows can ever obscure that gruesome fact.
Drunkenness and fascism — these are the antecedents and consequences of the lampshade scourge.
Vigorous government enforcement of lampshade restrictions must be introduced without delay. Many television advertisements featuring small, sincere, scared children need to be commissioned without delay.
And to minimise that transition to a lampshade-free future, the regulators’ friends on Wall Street and in the City can be expected to commence trading in lampshade credits.
It’s for the children, after all.
40. Bloomergal:
“corncobs were superior”
“I nominate Nancy Pelosi to sponsor the legislation”
Please change “sponsor” above to “demonstrate”. Just makes sense to me.
“The two ex-cops then successfully demonstrated that the human and other damage caused by an accident is lineally related to the speed at which it happens.”
Proving that ex-cops should not be teaching on a subject about which they know just enough to be dangerously misinformed.
Yes, the energy involved in a collision increases as the square of the speed, but that point is irrelevant. The issue at hand is the PROBABILITY OF THE COLLISION OCCURRING.
And according to research performed by the US Federal Highway Administration, the probability of being involved in an accident DECREASES as your speed increases, up to approximately 12 mph over the average speed for the road. So for a typical interstate highway posted at 55 mph, you have an equal probability of being in an accident while traveling at 55 and 90 mph…and your are safest at around 73mph. Which just happens to be the most likely speed to be ticketed for.
Speed enforcement has always been about the money. The push for automated enforcement merely makes it more obvious.
Two of the many reports that describe these statistical facts are “Accidents on Main Rural Highways Related to Speed, Driver, and Vehicle, by David Solomon, USGPO July 1964, and “Interstate System Accident Research Study II, Interim Report II, by Julie Anna Cirillo, as published in Public Roads, Vol 35 No 3.
Mr. Dalrymple, to make his point, simplified the nanny-state reaction to the prohibition of lampshades. Brief reconsideration would surely brought him to the realization that that Progressive government would. rather, grasp the bureaucratic and tax-generation opportunities implicit in lampshade control.
Lampshades would not be abolished: they would be encouraged. A lampshade Czar from the Social Sciences field would be appointed. The design and fabrication of shades would be determined by the degree of translucency, the nature of the materials and methodology of light diffusion, the ameliorating factors of the environment and relevant social values. Mandating the introduction of these regulations would, of course, be touted as “economic development” and the “creation of jobs” for engineers, designers, and factory workers on the pprivate side, and the factory inspection, and enforcement in the users’ premises, residential, manufacturing,, retail and services. To say nothing of the generation of additional funds for the public coffers through taxation and penalties forviolation. which would be ensured through the wording of the rules.
The opportunity for improving the public weal is enormous.. This might become known as the Dalrymple Principle for government stimulus of entrepreneurial effort.
I wonder if Mr. D. is old enough to remember the days in Britain when the taxation department patrolled the streets in electronically equipped unmarked vans, listening on ear-phones to locate unregistered, tax-cheating telly owners? Of course, it could never happen here.
The Marxist’ s dream was for the government to control production. Ayers and Axelrod’s vision is for the government to control consumption.
In a recent editorial in our local paper, an economist recommended a means to “restructure” highway financing: equipping each auto with a GPS system — which would allow the government to tax by number of miles driven, the time of day those miles were driven (i.e., congestion), and type of vehicle/road. The government could then send you a bill each month based on this information. As well, so said the professor, the system would allow the government to disable the auto if the bill wasn’t paid. As in the case of lamp shades, every “system” can be improved: Just implant a GPS chip in every citizen — then all activities and movements can be monitored and taxed.
I’ll bet your pontificating police would never mention that in an inelastic collision (which an auto wreck approximates) the slower object of the two suffers greater acceleration forces. Consult a book on classic physics if you don’t believe me. If you see you are going to be smashed by some drunk or careless car weaving down the road the worst thing you can do is to brake as quickly as possible increasing the velocity differential. Better really to speed up and aim at making the contact as glancing as possible.
Most road injuries and deaths are caused at low speeds within a radius of two miles of the driver’s start point and mostly from road-user inattention or stupidity for which no RADAR is yet available and so cannot be ticketed. Least deaths and injuries (in the UK) are on roads with high speed traffic.
Once life’s necessities are met, Mankind concentrates on what is desirable, including journeys and other things that are not necessary.
Most older light fittings will not accommodate low-energy light bulbs, so lamps without shades may become the involuntary default condition.
I’ve found the solution to the removal of 100 watt bulbs. Use 2 (legal) 60 watt bulbs…you’ll even get 20% more light!
CFL are a nice idea but in reality they are full of mercury. The EPA has a dedicated webpage instructing us how to clean one up if it breaks. Sounds like a toxic nightmare. As a father of a young child, I can say for certain, there will be no CFL in my house.
I am going to start buying incandescent by the pallet.
I will then make a fortune on the black market (created by prohibition) selling said light bulbs.
I will have all the most popular wattages and sell them singly.
Unfortunately, that sounds like a really good idea.
If you outlaw lampshades what would I wear at office parties?
It’s not “lineally” — which most often refers to a genetic line of descent. It’s “linearly related.” The Latin root is the same for both words, however.
An exposed bulb in a socket hanging by a pair or wires along with making the beating of one another with rubber hoses the only approved fitness program would go a long way towards bringing on the democrat vision of paradise.
Our postings are a microcosm of our country’s socio-political climate. We’re too busy bickering to accomplish anything. Let’s help the environment by getting off-line to tend our own gardens. Maybe a bit of earth through our fingers will help us all relax and make us less hostile toward each other.