EU moves to ban plastic shopping bags. I took my Ma shopping today and we came back with 19 bags, most of which will be reused to line trash baskets, empty the cats’ pan, etc. But even if they weren’t, how, exactly do the greens suggest we bring our groceries home? It’s a fine thing if you live in Paris or San Francisco or New York, to contemplate doing your grocery shopping – these people rarely cook, so a trip to the rare cheese shop can be accomplished with just one or two hemp shopping bags and oh don’t they look chic! But to ask real people to tote along a wheelbarrow of cloth bags is insane.
The reason libertarians hate and despise liberals is that liberals aren’t content just to modify their own behavior. If they don’t want their children to eat Happy Meals, if they don’t want incandescent bulbs in their home, or plastic bags, or transfat or whatever is the rage of the day (alar apples come to mind, it is not enough to eschew such items personally – everyone must be forbidden to use them because … well because liberals know best, and the rest of us are too stupid to run our own lives.
Back in the 60s, most of us kids simply wanted the government to leave us alone. Now my generation and its own progeny have grown up and are the government, and they’re making the last generation’s establishment look positively laissez faire.
For What It's Worth 
off topic,
any recomendations for making eggplant lasagna….?
So they are banning the efficient clean plastic bag for the costly unsanitary reusable that uses more energy? Great!
People are going to so happy when they forget the damn bags at home and just want to haul home their bagels that evening.
Oh! you can guy a re-usable bag for 14.95, it’s pretty.
OT:
Looks like you were right CF; Malloy has used largely smoke and mirrors in the shared sacriface plan. Early retirement gives the budget short term relief but long term headaches as another body is added to the expensive govt pension system.
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/05/20/connecticut-budget-hinges-on-worker-retirements/
I’m a liberal and I completely agree with you.
Now why can’t Republicans learn to do the same for my personal rights? I’m talking about my Pro-Choice rights, embodied in the best bumper sticker I’ve ever seen for my case (btw, when it comes to personal freedom, yours too, CF): Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.
Agreed.
Chris, after tomorrow, May 21, at 6 pm it won’t matter, will it?
Delving – If you vote Democratic principally because of this issue, then you might want to measure the danger more realistically. Republican ability to overturn Roe is basically non-existant, as the last 38 years have shown.
This is really good:
http://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2010/03/eggplant-parmesan-lasagna-with-swiss-chard.html
I used to live in France where plastic bags were banned several years ago. We all simply got into the habit of bringing bags when we go shopping. The stores also sell reusable bags for about two dollars. At first it was a bit of a pain to remember but then you get used to it. Its worth changing our habits to reduce the amount of plastic waste that ends up in landfills. It ends us in the earth, our earth, our planet, the only one we have and the one our grandchildren, and our grandchildren’s grandchildren will have to live on. Be responsible, you’ll feel better about yourself.
Ellen, the article I linked to says that the average English shopper brings home 10 bags of groceries. And that’s England, with its tiny houses. Stop by a real supermarket here in the US and observe the overflowing carts of most customers, usually with four kids being towed behind. Is that shopper really supposed to tote 20 cloth bags (replete with cockroaches0 along on her shopping expeditions? How?
Re: Delving Eye:
“Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.”
I believe the issue is that some people believe (1) a fetus is a baby and (2) killing a baby is murder.
We could make this a law school hypothetical:
If you believe killing a 35 year old is murder, and killing a five year old is murder, and killing a five day old is murder, why is it not murder if a baby is killed 5 days before birth? Six days? Seven?
How many days before birth will you agree that it is a baby and that killing it is murder?
Me? I don’t actually care. But, I’d like some logical coherence from liberals.
I suggest the following bumper sticker: “Don’t like baby murders? Too bad.”
Dude Man –
Just in case this Rapture stuff is really happening tomorrow, I figured I would pop in to say goodbye. Only 3% of us are going, so I figure you are pretty much locked in to be left behind. Me? I got a first class ticket to paradise if it happens.
I figure when I get there, I skip the 72 Virgins line, right? It will be way to long, and I will have to stand behind nude, bearded smelly guys. I think I will get on line for the experienced crew, which should be must shorter. Plus they know what they are doing, no chit chat, and I will probably get lucky without having to buy them dinner. It’ Heaven, right? So that’s my plan.
You? Your instant reaction, when you realize what is happening, will be to grab all your guns, go all survivalist, and shoot the snot out of anything that moves. Right? Right!! Bad strategy.
Do this. Assess the situation. Relax. Take a deep breath. Then gloat to everyone who is left that Greenwich real estate really is overvalued!! You have been right all along!! It won’t save your sorry ass from being smoted.. smitten… smoked… toasted? But it will make you feel better!!
Your Pal,
Walt
Question Authority bumper stickers have now turned into Submit! bumper stickers. Of course, it’s the Boomer ex-hippies who have them on their Volvos and Mercedes.
I’m sure you know my stance on Europe…and in Sweden, they charged $.50 for a disposable bag at the grocery store. I quickly gathered up my supply of tote bags from various things. I certainly don’t want to be forced into making this choice by a law, but I actually prefer to bring my own bags. You can pack much more into a tote bag, and you can get insulated ones (trader joes) summer. And, you can sling them over your shoulder while you’re trying to carry the children in as well…
Now, just point me to where I can buy an incandescent light bulb! I cannot find them anywhere–I don’t even need a 100w, 60w would be fine…scheese.
I’ve been stocking up on incandescents at Amazon, Martha, but I haven’t ordered any in almost a year so I don’t know if they still have them.
I do not like the plastic bags and I bring my own resizable bags with me (usually), but I have only a few so the larger shopping trip are augmented with plastic bags. It is my choice and should remain that way.
The “damage” done from using plastic bags is insignificant, the cost are measurable and precedent is disturbing.
You want to save the world? Fix the disastrous economy, or tax structure or bloated government or clean up the legal process. Plastic bags, really?
How many of those 20 grocery bags are truly filled to the brim? A cloth bag may carry the same amount of groceries as 5 of those 20 plastic bags, of course, depends on your cloth bag, but many will. And you will probably use those cloth bags for a year (they are washable)… a lot of plastic bags saved here…
I take 15 bags with me that I fold neatly into one simple short J. Crew shopping bag. So when I run in to the market, I grab the J. Crew bag in the back of the car and no matter if I need one, two, or all fifteen bags, I am ready. The trick is to always put them back in the car and that comes intuitively after a few weeks doing this. I’m not a fan of cloth bags as they absorb odors and stains and are hard to fold. My bags are made of Cordura nylon; they replace 1000s of throwaway bags over its lifetime; they stand up on its own for easy packing; fold up just like a paper bag; easy to clean; and even made with Fair Labor/Fair Wages. I believe someone you know even gave you one. 🙂
Don’t have 4 kids. Don’t buy so much crap.
You know, Anon, I was going to predict the standard liberal reply, “let them eat cake”, but I was positive some brie-dribbling idiot would do it for me.
p.s. What’s wrong with paper bags? That’s all we ever had, growing up.
They plan to ban those too.
On the light bulb front: try Home Depot.
That guy, Doesn’t require law school . . . a fetus is not an independent entity. My experience is that this issue is not exclusive to one political inclination. I have never found anybody who encourages that people have abortions. Many (I am among them) do not feel in a position to make this moral decision for others.
CF, You have cockroaches in Riverside/OG?
Plastic bags burn quite well in my woodstove, a plastic milk bottle crammed full makes pretty good kindling!!
I think paper bags were run out of town for killing too many trees by the same people that now want to see the same outcome to the plastic replacement.
Yes, dogwalker. Liberals.
“Back in the 60s, most of us kids simply wanted the government to leave us alone. Now my generation and its own progeny have grown up and are the government, and they’re making the last generation’s establishment look positively laissez faire.”
Agreed.
The difference? In the entire 60’s and before, the US govt’/society was led by middle aged /older white men. Since they opened the ranks the country has gone to shit.
Based in Los Angeles and the first to to do the “cap and trade” market! Check out some of the projects that will be gaming this “market”. The next bubble is coming and it will be the green market.
http://www.climateactionreserve.org/
@ dogwalker, May 21, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Thank you. I didn’t have the brevity — or the patience — to tell That Guy his argument was specious. You did it quite beautifully, and I’m grateful.
Nice job pro-abortion posters–turning a post on plastic bags into an opportunity to promote abortion! Just a quick follow up to the “beautifully” written post by dogwalker that has delving eye eternally grateful—-just how much of an independent entity are one-day-olds (or one-year-olds for that matter)? Those must be some gifted babies to be so independent and autonomous! Should people get a choice with preemies? (“Well, frankly, when you think about it, this baby is just a fetus that escaped–let’s get rid of it! We’re talking about my personal freedom here and I’m seeing it infringed on in a big way by this entity whose independence is debatable!”)
alas, the margin of women who get pregnant by ‘accident’ is slim.
keep the platic bags……in a pinch they can double as condoms.