The latest one from the control freaks: ban plastic straws. Because Environment. Everybody knows that they only get used once and are then thrown away, so they should be banned...except that I've re-used them for years; they're easy enough to clean, pipe-cleaners and soap and water work really well. They also stand up well in things like milk-shakes. But the control freaks know best. They always do; it's a hallmark of liberalism. It's a big reason why Portland City Council banned plastic bags - a few years after mandating them because using them would save trees, and harvesting trees is Very Bad.
Then they decided that plastic bags were Very Bad - because Big Oil. Never mind that the bags aren't produced from oil at all, but rather from a by-product of natural gas drilling that had previously simply been burned; "flared off", in the industry vernacular. They're produced from waste, in other words. But now stores in Portland are prohibited from offering them, which is a great reason to shop in Beaverton or Tigard. In Portland today, you either have to purchase cloth bags, or hope your paper bags don't disintegrate in the rain. But the politicians sure feel good about themselves and their commitment to the environment.
A bill introduced in the California Assembly prohibiting restaurants from providing plastic straws to customers who don’t ask for them is intended to raise awareness about the harmful effects of plastic on the environment, not put waiters and bartenders in jail, its author says - although the bill introduced by Democratic Ian Calderon, as written, would do just that:
AB-1884 inserts new language into the Retail Food section of the California Health and Safety Code, violations of which are misdemeanors “punishable by a fine of not less than $25 or more than $1,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a term not exceeding 6 months, or by both.”
Calderon's been Twittering and press-releasing away, claiming that such punishments won't happen. He's also making other wild claims:
An estimated 500 million straws are used in the United States every day. This number is enough to fill over 127 school buses each day and is calculated to be about 1.6 straws per person in the U.S. In a summary of all trash collected as part of California’s Coastal Cleanup Day between 1989 and 2014, straws and stirrers rank as the 6th most common item collected.
The statistic is often attributed to the U.S. National Park Service (which did reference it in a 2013 environmental call for action), but the 500 million figure ultimately rests on the word of 16-year-old Milo Cress, who launched a campaign in 2011 (at the age of nine) called Be Straw Free.
Could be right; could be wrong, nobody's ever fact-checked the kid's claim. Or Calderon's claims, for that matter. But Calderon wants to essentially ban plastic straws in California. Next up: banning plastic knives and forks, most likely.
As is so often the case, these things metastasize into other places, which is occurring in parts of Portland, Oregon: Widmer Brothers Brewing, purveyors of fine craft-produced mule pee, have announced that they will ban plastic straws at their bar. Although why anybody would drink mule-pee with a straw remains unclear.
But Widmer's a Portland operation; I'd never visit there, and don't buy their products elsewhere.
Well, you can see how this would be a problem in England. In the future, he should just toss stuff out the window as he drives.
Makes you want to run right out and order an Alexa, doesn't it? There's a reason why DHS built that huge server farm in Utah a couple of years ago.
