I was thinking about the mercury in fluorescent bulbs. If a kid breaks a thermometer in a chemistry lab the whole school shuts down. We used to break them on purpose to play with the mercury, but these days that is considered a chemical crisis. Yet that left me wondering about the disposal issue. I can safely toss an incandescent bulb, but not one of the new bulbs. I found this from Popular Mechanics that indicates you have dispose of this properly; check at Earth 911 for a recycling center near you.

Some Ron Paul fan, please tell me, has he come out against this, yet? If elected president, will he work to save the incandescent bulb?

Another question: do we HAVE to become libertarians to stop this kind of thing? Once upon a time, being a Republican was enough.

You just wait -- the next turn of this crank will be a "safe disposal fee" assessed at the time of initial purchase. Of course, that won't insure a darn thing relative to safe disposal, but it'll be a nice revenue generation tool. And it'll make people feel good.

I'm cynical enough to think these folks are scouring every aspect of ordinary life looking for small ways to introduce government control. Death by a thousand cuts and all that. It's coming.

When I was in 7th grade (1971/72) I recall the science teacher passing around a jar of mercury. It had only a glass stopper. One mischievous youth poured a good 1/4 cup of the stuff out onto the floor. The teacher scolded the student and used a piece of paper to clean up the spill. I missed out on the excitement of the guys in the hazmat suits and the psychologists to help me past the trauma of it all.

Yes, I believe Paul is the only candidate to come out against the federal government stickings its nose in this business. I don't have a link to his exact comments, but one blogger mentions it here in a post about why he is supporting Ron Paul. "Other than Paul, I have YET to hear a word of protest about this dim bulb bill Congress passed just a couple of weeks ago. Right now, I'm stocking up on incandescent light bulbs. Let the Feds come after me...Government loves to run our lives so we can fit the images the elite wants us to be. We must not smoke (What about booze? Why isn't there a war on booze?), eat fatty foods, not have guns, not drive big cars (I drive a Beetle. But that's MY business--not the government's.), not use incandescent light bulbs, not be uninsured for health insurance, be socially tolerant of every perversion that hits and let the government dictate to us their diktats. And yet there is not ONE candidate other than Ron Paul who is complaining about omnipotent government snuffing out our liberties."

The Republican Party has been taken over by Big Government/Big Business politicians. Hopefully the Paul Insurgency can, if not beat them, at least force them to begin returning to the old principles of the GOP.

The problem with Paul is the other things ... you know, connections with 9-11 Truthers and skinheads.

Just because some wackos are supporting Ron Paul doesn't mean that his campaign at all supports what those people believe. Ron Paul has consistently said that he thinks it is ludicrous to believe that the United States Government was behind 9/11 or is covering up some big conspiracy, and he has said that those people--the "skinheads" and Neo-Nazis--are unfortunate and misguided souls. As for accepting their money, his campaign stated that if any of these "skinheads" surrender their money to the Paul Campaign, the campaign will keep it so that it could be put to good use instead of returned to these racists so that they could continue their attempts to corrupt our society-- better be used in a campaign for liberty than returned to those that seek to take away liberty.