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My Government, My Election System, and My Kitchen
Charles C.W. Cooke, writing in today’s National Review about the Biden Administration’s plan to ban gas stoves, quoted the apparatchik in charge of the relevant agency as making the following, remarkably stupid, statement:
Justifying the administration’s proposed move, CPSC commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. explained that “products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” What, I wonder, would be excluded from that definition?
Very good question, Charles. A few years ago one of my elderly patients was parking her car at a grocery store and bonked into something. She said she was barely moving, but her airbag deployed, breaking her arm. So airbags are dangerous, right? Well, yes they are, but they can also save your life. But since they “can’t be made safe” we should ban them, right, Comrade Trumka Jr?
Richard Trumka Jr. was appointed Commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission by President Biden. You might think that Mr. Trumka Jr. might be uncomfortable with tyrannical power structures, controlling people through the threat of force. You would be mistaken. His father, Richard Trumka Sr., was the president of The United Mine Workers, and later he was president of the AFL-CIO. So it runs in the family, I guess.
Which means that a Democrat president owed a favor to a union thug who helped him get elected, so now I have to change how I cook supper.
Our government is simply out of control.
Just imagine what our founders would think of this. Heck, imagine what FDR would think of this. This is bonkers.
Our government is so insane that it’s hard to envision what it was before, or how we got here.
This is absolutely bonkers.
Published in General
Or any AZ Lawyer it seems.
If this ban actually comes about, will we have to quit saying “Now we’re cooking with gas.” What can replace this phrase? “Now we’re heating with solar”?
In this debate over gas stoves the last few days, I was surprised to learn that only 40% of Americans have gas stoves. That strikes me as awfully low. Of all the people I know, there is only one that does not have a gas stove, my sister in Ohio and she does have electric. Does 40% seem low to others as well? How many people here do not use a gas stove in their homes?
“Now we’re running on farts?” Excuse my crudeness. ;)
Not just any farts! Unicorn farts!
I see what’ll happen here.
People can apply for a special license that allows them to continue to use gas stoves. This will of course require the payment of a large FEE to the Ministry of Major Kitchen Appliances. All applications will be reviewed by the Committee for Gas Stove Use. (This Committee also requires large FEES in order to have your application reviewed.)
In order to be able to apply for this License to Use Gas Stoves, one must first have a License to Cook. Which also requires a large FEE.
This is a well-worn route.
First of all, gas cooking is not new. If there was a statistically meaningful difference in asthma between homes with and without gas ranges, we’d have heard about it 40 years ago. Shorter lives and respiratory problems would point out the problem. But apparently we just missed this emergency for the last 100 years.
I am doubting that a study paid for by some group committed to outlawing fossil fuels is a proper basis for banning anything. Rocky Mountain Tree Huggers or some such.
And Doug, you’re right about these control freaks. We should take their recommendations seriously on a test basis. And we pay all the people making these rules, so they make perfect test subjects. All the new IRS agents can get their feet wet auditing their fellow federal employees starting with Congress and their staffs. Over and over again until they can pass the CPA exam.
And what better way to focus these jerks on the value of the cost side of the cost/ benefit the analysis than making them trash their gas appliances, buy electric cars and get their health insurance through Obamacare. After a couple of years we can ask them what the experience cost them, whether they’d recommend to a friend and so on. And if it looks like it was worth it, consider passing a law. Perhaps we can overcome the overreach with the right approach.
And if the government assumes this power, it is time to refresh the tree of liberty
I have a flat cooktop. Oldest daughter has gas and claims it is better.
Well, to be accurate, houses are a lot more “sealed” now than they were in previous decades.
But that mostly means that especially homes with gas appliances need proper ventilation.
I agree that a gas cooktop is better, but not a fan of gas ovens. Partly because they use a lot more – a bigger problem for people who have to deal with their own propane storage – but mostly because a big part of baking is removing moisture, however burning propane/natural gas RELEASES moisture.
(Which is also another reason for ventilation: it’s bad enough if you get the kitchen all steamy from boiling pasta for example, if you’re doing it with gas the gas itself is releasing additional moisture. But even with an electric stove, I always insist on having a vent hood that vents OUTSIDE. The “recirculating” type are just cheap-ass nothings. The place I bought two years ago never had a stove hood, so I installed one, under a new cabinet. That vents OUTSIDE, of course. It took some doing to route the vent pipe through the water heater closet and behind the water heater flu, and through the outside wall with 2 layers of 1″-plus stucco and #10 steel wire… And I did it nice with “ring” flanges at the walls, that will basically disappear once painted…)
It’s much easier to regulate the heat more finely.
Flat cooktop being electric?
Watts Up With That says the study is bogus.
And WSJ is on the case.
Also from WSJ, NY governor wants to ban new natural gas hookups.
My hunch is that in our area about 50% cook on a gas stove. 25% on an electric range. 10% only use a microwave. 15% never cook at home.
I agree with your daughter.
I wonder if wood stoves, fireplaces, barbecues, and patio fire rings are next.
New Yorkers are stupid. They re-elect the governor who brought them so much more crime, and then started pleading with HER to do something about crime!
Wood stoves are already regulated by the EPA. In Multnomah County, Oregon (home to Portland), the authorities tell residents when they are and are not allowed to use them, based on air quality.
1. The progressives who support the ban (and can be expected to add to their twitter name an emoji that has a red X over a gas stove flame) already have a gas stove, because they regard it as the mark of a cultured person who cooks good food. This is irrelevant to their new-found conviction, of course; they’re just one person. They are concerned about privileging gas over sustainably-generated electric, so they will support denying gas stoves to people in the future, who probably won’t even know what they’re missing. The fact that AOC tweeted out SCIENCE! about gas leading to lower cognitive abilities just reinforces their certainty that they are backing a good idea that will improve humanity.
2. Old gas stoves will be grandfathered in, so the urban progressive 5% can be guaranteed that the next house they buy will have a good gas range, as they like it. But there may be a fee to permit them to keep it, branded as a climate-change mitigation surcharge. The cost of this particular indulgence will be nominal and subsumed in the general blob of mortgage costs.
3. Opposition to the bans will be rebranded as Denialism, which means you can set your timers for nine months to await the inevitable WaPo guest editorial, “Home, home on the Gas Range: the tangled history of the open fire and White Supremacy.”
It’s also been said, give or take, “an evil capitalist nature-spoiling developer is someone who wants to build a house in the woods; a fine progressive naturist is someone who already has a house in the woods.”
Trumpa Sr always reminded me of a soviet apparatchik. Looks like the apple does not fall far from the tree.
I wonder what kind of stoves and ovens The French Kitchen has.
The good news is there will be at least 2 Arizona lawyers who will help you with your application, for a small and reasonable fee, along with commerce clause lessons, tossed in for free.
AOC responded: “Did you know that ongoing exposure to NO2 from gas stoves is linked to reduced cognitive performance?“
Rep. Jackson said he would not give up his gas stove, and she will have to come and take it from him.
AOC responded: “The way we are handling it in NYC isn’t to force people to switch what they already have. Folks can keep their appliances, and new buildings in NYC will have gas-free stoves. As for federally, any proposal from the CPSC would go through a quite lengthy review and input process.”
Good Lord.
So AOC declares, with certainty, that gas stoves cause brain damage. So your betters are going to take them away from you. Someone complains. So she says, in effect, “If you like your gas stove, you can keep your gas stove.”
What the heck? If gas stoves are causing brain damage, shouldn’t we be ripping them out of kitchens around the world? If they’re so dangerous, why would she not simply stand her ground, and say that we must destroy them all?
Because she doesn’t believe this crap, either. It’s about control. Not safety.
As AOC just proved.
Again.
If You like Yer asbestos You can keep Yer asbestos.
Safety is over-rated. It is not the governments job to keep me “safe”.