...or maybe not.
Posted by Eric Earling at January 15, 2008 10:27 PM | Email ThisPlease? :D
Posted by: pudge on January 15, 2008 10:32 PMIt was funny and somewhat expected to see this in San Francisco. But to allow such mindless legislation at the state level is over the top.
Posted by: Jeff B. on January 15, 2008 11:00 PMPlastic polyethylene supermarket bags cost about one penny each. Paper bags cost a nickel each. Biodegradable corn starch bags, about 10 cents each. Allowing WA to ban poly bags will increase the price of consumer goods, because retailers sure as heck aren't going to pay for this folly.
But what's worse is that sanctimonious environmental types like Maralyn Chase, D-Shoreline don't really care much about the environment. If they did, then they would be willing to acknowledge that recycling paper bags actually consumes far more energy than the production of plastic bags. That's more pollution too, to create that extra energy. And because of the oxygen deprived area of a landfill, the easily compressible plastic bags take up far less space, and paper bags don't decompose much faster.
What's more is that studies show that people are far more likely to find household uses for poly bags they bring home from shopping trips. In effect, a personal recycling program. Around our house we use poly bags for far more uses than we ever did paper bags. And they take up less space, encouraging us to keep more bags for other uses.
And consumers prefer plastic bags. Ever try to carry several bags of groceries at once? With plastic bags, you can carry more groceries at one time. It's more dependent on how much you can lift and not what you can fit in your arms as with paper.
This is not about recycling, reducing oil dependence or saving baby turtles. This is about control. If the legislature was serious about modifying behavior with regard to grocery bags, they would have a far greater compliance by offering voluntary recycling programs or incentives. Instead, there is the knee jerk to trivial legislation that controls ever more ridiculous minutia of our daily lives.
Someone ought to check the PDC records too, and see whether alternative grocery bag manufacturers or suppliers might be helping Rep. Chase with her environmental epiphany.
Or perhaps it's just a desire to join the ranks of the extreme left legislators club and prove that San Francisco has nothing on Seattle when it comes to Progressive control freaks.
Posted by: Jeff B. on January 16, 2008 12:19 AMI guess they're not going to....
Posted by: Michele on January 16, 2008 12:25 AMI think it would be a lot more helpful if a vocal group specifically educated consumers about the myths of plastic bags. And the cost increases consumers would see with a bag ban.
This business that the government has to control all our lives has got to stop! First they didn't want us to use paper bags because it took to many trees from our forest (Think spotted owl) and now they don't want us to use plastic bags anymore because of the fisheys. What's next!
I know one ex-County Councilman of a large county who regluarly eschewed toilet paper for newspapers and magazines like in the old days.
Posted by: swatter on January 16, 2008 06:58 AMLike others here, we reuse plastic bags for alot of things - cleaning the cat box, taking lunch to work, storing wet swimsuits, etc.
Posted by: Palouse on January 16, 2008 07:45 AMSB 6304 is, paraphrased, a bill created because the legislature finds that due to recent events on college campuses (clearly referring to UW, VT, etc), they feel that they should give the universities of washington the right to ban firearms on campuses.
Even if you're against guns, I challenge you to consider this: Did the legislature bother to find that murder, illegal discharge of a firearm within city limits and harm to others were already illegal?
Imagine, for a moment, that you are Cho Seung Hui and you're headed to UW for whatever deluded reason. You have murder on your mind, but you see a no firearms sign.
Do you:
a) Say "Gee, no firearms are allowed. I was gonna murder some bitches, but I guess I won't now since I'm not allowed to carry a gun on campus"
b) Ignore it and break that law along with the other 2, 4, or 10 laws you're breaking anyway?
It's time to stop treating every problem like it's a nail to be hammered in with the proverbial hammer of legislation.
Posted by: Andrew Brown on January 16, 2008 08:56 AMIf every citizen carried pepper spray or a taser, etc. or whatever weapon that they could legally and effectivvely use, then crime would drop drastically. If criminals read over and over about average Joes that rose up to stop violent crime, rather than being the good little passive victims that the gun banners want, then crime would subside.
There's no way that we could ever have enough police to be at the right place and the right time when tragedies like those of UW and VT happen. But there will always be other people around, and those individuals that take personal responsibility seriously and defend themselves are a lot less likely to die in a massacre than the cowards that listen to gun ban rhetoric.
Remember the one guy at VT who barricaded the door to his classroom after initially cowering behind a podium. He saved his life and the lives of others because he was not passive. Every classroom at VT had the element of surprise. If I know Cho is methodically shooting up classrooms and I've got one good shot to get off with pepper spray to his face as he opens the door, that might be enough to confuse him to the point of confiscating his gun and shooting him in the head ending the spree.
Wut we won't get there with Progressive Democrats screaming for gun bans and turning us all into cowards. Cowards who have the naivety to believe that banning guns will make criminals reconsider.
If every citizen carried pepper spray or a taser, etc. or whatever weapon that they could legally and effectivvely use, then crime would drop drastically. If criminals read over and over about average Joes that rose up to stop violent crime, rather than being the good little passive victims that the gun banners want, then crime would subside.
There's no way that we could ever have enough police to be at the right place and the right time when tragedies like those of UW and VT happen. But there will always be other people around, and those individuals that take personal responsibility seriously and defend themselves are a lot less likely to die in a massacre than the cowards that listen to gun ban rhetoric.
Remember the one guy at VT who barricaded the door to his classroom after initially cowering behind a podium. He saved his life and the lives of others because he was not passive. Every classroom at VT had the element of surprise. If I know Cho is methodically shooting up classrooms and I've got one good shot to get off with pepper spray to his face as he opens the door, that might be enough to confuse him to the point of confiscating his gun and shooting him in the head ending the spree.
But we won't get there with Progressive Democrats screaming for gun bans and turning us all into cowards. Cowards who have the naivety to believe that banning guns will make criminals reconsider.
Washington is a shall-issue state. You do not need to prove proficiency in handgun operation to get a concealed carry permit. Thankfully. See RCW 9.41.070. If you can legally possess a firearm (e.g., are not insane), are 21, and have no legal action taken against you that suspends or revokes your rights, and you supply the required information and fees, then you must be granted a concealed carry permit.
Posted by: pudge on January 16, 2008 11:25 AMI agree, I was writing in generalities for the US as a whole. My point is that people can and should carry weapons, but that everyone should do so legally, and within the bounds of their ability to operate those weapons. Personally, I would consider my own ability to safely operate any weapon a qualification for use of that weapon. Mostly because I don't want to inadvertently maim myself or others. WA is a much better place than other states that don't have shall-issue laws.
But everyone needs to take more personal responsibility to both acquire the weapon of their capabilities and then learn to use that weapon and practice under a certain amount of duress so that if / when the need arises they are prepared.
We've already seen just such an instance at the MegaChurch in CO. And the more we see of that, the better it will be for all. In fact it really would not take too many highly publicized cases in each region to make criminals start to think twice.
And there is really nothing quite as gratifying as the immediate justice of a perp that gets foiled in his plan to produce mayhem, especially when the intent is to produce violence and the perp ends up severely injured or dead. Actions have consequences. And there's nothing like a timely result.
Just AXING
Posted by: GS on January 16, 2008 03:43 PMIf you are not recieving emails of each and every daily attempt by this legislature to extract more of your dwindling supply of money, go to the State web site that they had to put up as a result of us overwhelmingly supporting I960.
It will send you emails as you wish
The site is
http://www.ofm.wa.gov/tax/default.asp
Sixty days of this kind of legislative crap will bring us a new day in this state come November.
Posted by: GS on January 16, 2008 04:42 PM
On top of that the producers and importers of these fuels will be taxed roughly an additional 2/3 of the above rate.
So this SB alone will raise your gas per gallon in 2008 aproximately 17 cents a gallon and will double every year for ten years to aproximately $1.70 cents per gallon.
On top of that all products, services, travel, costs will be increased to cover the massive costs to their businesses of this tax, and those costs will be passed on to the consumer in higher energy, travel, food, service, commodity, and other costs.
This SB2420 must be defeated!
Read it and weep for your pocket book
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=2420&year=2007
Then contact your legislative representative.
Posted by: gs on January 16, 2008 07:00 PMTime to vote the idiots out of office.
Posted by: Snuffy on January 16, 2008 07:11 PMI think we should send all of our plastic bags to Olympia, there are a few old hags down there who would be better to look at with one over their head!
Posted by: GS on January 16, 2008 08:42 PMThey should focus on real problem like the spread of diseases by their beloved homosexuals.
Posted by: Independent Voter on January 17, 2008 05:03 AM