Wednesday Mashup (7/13/11)

(Not sure about posting tomorrow, by the way…)

To this I have only to say – uh, yep…

The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to keep energy efficiency standards for light bulbs, which passed in 2007 and are set to phase in beginning next year.

So, do you have to stockpile those old-school, soft white incandescent bulbs now?

No. Congress hasn't banned them. All it has said is that, starting in 2012, light bulbs must use less power to create the same amount of light, saving the country electricity and Americans cash. Light bulb makers already have familiar-looking soft white incandescent bulbs for sale that meet the federal regulations, so you don't have to use extremely efficient compact fluorescent or LED bulbs if you don't want to. Continuing innovation, meanwhile, promises to make tougher rules easier to meet in later years.

The Natural Resources Defense Council calculates that these light bulb efficiency standards will eventually save Americans $12.5 billion a year in lower energy bills, reducing consumption by the equivalent of the output of 33 large power plants and slashing greenhouse and other pollution along the way. Newer bulbs are more expensive than the old clunkers, but often not by much, and they more than pay for themselves in decreased energy use.

And who exactly was trying to defeat the new light bulb energy standard, you may ask? None other than Repug U.S. House Rep “Smoky Joe” Barton of Texas, and (as noted here)…

…the proposal…reflects the catcalls of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann (that) is likely to land in the same dustbin now home to many other GOP energy proposals.

Also, when it comes to light bulbs, here is a quote from David Edison Sloane, grandson of you-know-who…

My great-grandfather would be calling us to put politics aside and get back to doing what Americans do best — create better mousetraps… and better light-bulbs.

To say nothing of job creation also (remember jobs, House Repugs?).

Update 7/15/11: Typically cowardly and stoo-pid (here)...

And I suppose it’s a logical progression to move from “dim bulbs” to Stu Bykofsky of the Philadelphia Daily News; he concocted the following today in a profile of actor Richard Dreyfuss, who apparently is now a conservative or something (though Dreyfuss is trying to promote civics education, which is commendable)…

There's no denying Dreyfuss' devotion to civics, a small word with a big meaning that he defined as understanding "how to run the country." He passionately proclaims his unabashed love of country - this country. The Far Left usually brays that even wearing a flag lapel pin is goose-stepping jingoism.

Really?

And when it comes to Democrats vs. Republicans in the matter of civics, I recently posted about this topic here (last bullet), but in addition, here is a story of federal funding cuts endangering civics instruction in Indiana, here is a similar story about Wyoming, and here is a similar story about cuts to AmeriCorps funding in California (and gee, last I checked, Orange Man and his pals were in charge of the House, not the Dems).

Oh, and for laughs, here once more is “Byko” and his comparison to a certain falafel-abusing Fix Noise pundit and K.O. (and by the way, “Byko,” I’m still waiting for an apology for this).

Continuing, James Taranto of the Murdoch Street Journal waxes indignant as follows (here)…

President Obama is pulling out the big guns and pointing them straight at your grandmother. "Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3" absent an agreement with Congress to raise the debt ceiling, CBS News reports:

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.

At a press conference yesterday, Obama demanded that Republicans not only authorize trillions of dollars in new borrowing, which at this point seems unavoidable, but agree to what he called "massive, job-killing tax increases" effective in 2013--i.e., after what he expects will be his re-election.

For this he drew plaudits from what used to be called the mainstream media. "Obama Grasping Centrist Banner in Debt Impasse" read the New York Times headline. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza dubbed him "Dad-in-Chief," explaining: "Boil Obama's message down and you get this: Adults sometimes have to do things that they don't want to do. This is one of those times. So, let's get it done."

The kids are acting up, so he threatens to starve Granny to death. That's just how a strong father behaves.

Taranto imagines an Obama threat against an elderly family member – here is an actual one from “the loyal opposition”…

Finally, someone named Michael Goodwin kept up the Obama bashing here…

…Obama's default statist position remains unmolested by facts or last year's landslide that was a rebuke to his first two years. He continues to push bigger and bigger government, higher and higher taxes and more and more welfare programs.

I’ve already mentioned many, many times that, with the “stim,” Obama gave us the biggest middle class tax cut in history, but as for the “welfare” part, this tells us that welfare costs (as part of 2010 mandatory spending including unemployment) were $571 billion, with government spending in 2011 at not quite $500 billion here, including unemployment…so welfare actually went down under Obama.

As noted here, though, Goodwin has never been one to let the truth get in the way of propagating his talking points (and speaking of Media Matters, they have been under relentless fire from Rupert The Pirate and his minions, no doubt for helping to expose News Corp’s dark deeds when it comes to hacking phone conversations…a sample is shown in the clip from here).