Fight Big Water
By Mitch Berg
Via Buzz, I see RT Rybak has kicked off the next Big Fight – against Big Water:
San Francisco’s mayor announced a ban on bottle water at the 75th annual U.S. Conference of Mayors and the nation’s mayors passed a resolution looking into potential negative impacts of bottled water on municipalities. The move follows a similar announcement last week, when the Ann Arbor City Council in Michigan announced that it would no longer have bottled water available at city events.
The resolution was introduced by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Salt Lake City Mayor Ross “Rocky” Anderson, and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak.
Saying bottled water costs too much, worsens pollution and is no better than tap water, Newsom also announced that he would sign an executive order banning city officials and contractors from purchasing bottled water with city funds when tap water was also available.
But for all of you who just need that jolt of Dasani to get through the day, allow me to announce my new venture; “Water Offsets!”
That’s right – if you’re a politically-correct water drinker with a conscience, I’ll be happy – for a buck – to offset your cool, delicious bottle of Evian via trading the cupped-palm drink of bacteria-ridden slime some Congolese villager scooped out of a creek downstream from the next village’s latrine!
It’s all a wash (as it were)!
July 6th, 2007 at 6:38 am
I guess you fancy Republicans don’t like anybody threatening your ability to sip Perrier at the country club. Of course if any of you wingnuts want to come to the big city, Angryclown would be happy to provide a refreshing faceful of seltzer.
July 6th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Being fiscally responsible, environmentally sensitive conservatives, our family recycles those bottles via a Brita pitcher. One can reuse that bottle several times, and then it goes in the big green recycling bin and a new one takes it’s place.
Once again the Left’s obsessive need to regulate and prohibit is trumped by common sense.
July 6th, 2007 at 7:35 am
Water is not for drinking. It is for diluting spirits, so that small children do not get drunk too quickly and throw up on your shoes.
July 6th, 2007 at 8:16 am
I reused my bottles with tap water when at home or work. Drink the fresh water while on the road (and recycle the bottles).
It’s kind of funny how liberals always need a new cause. Are the looney-tunes at Macalester College in St Paul still trying to put Coca Cola out of business? Or have they moved on to the horrors of Big Water?
July 6th, 2007 at 8:17 am
AC, better go light on the seltzer or the Manhatten elites will go after you for destroying the earth.
July 6th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Wasn’t it Rybak’s crowd — the bike riding, organic granola eating, chemophobic ex-hippies that started the whole bottled water craze in the first place?
Oh, and don’t be shocked if the shift from bottled water to tap water in some of these cities is shortly followed by an increase in the water bill rates/tax. There’s revenue in them thar resevoirs.
July 6th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Nordeaster, yes. It’s like wood burning fireplaces. I’ve heard that years ago, the left’s slogan was “split wood, not atoms”. Meaning burn wood for heat and power instead of nuclear power.
Then they decided fire was bad. So it’s wind power. Until the birds get mangled and Ted Kennedy looses his view.
One thing nice about being a right winger is I don’t have to be constantly changing my views to conform to the latest trends.
July 6th, 2007 at 9:23 am
One thing nice about being a right winger is I don’t have to be constantly changing my views to conform to the latest trends.
Agreed. I’ve been tempted to switch from ivory-button-spats to elastic-pullover-spats but I don’t want to be the first to do it.
July 6th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Yeah Chuck those loony Mac kids caring about labor and environmental protection…jeez, the nerve of those folks!
July 6th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Fulcrum, yes, it’s great that the rich kids of Mac can discuss how oppressed the workingman is as they sip from their $3.50 cups of fair trade coffee at the Dunn Brothers on Grand.
But I guess if they view Coke as the world’s most evil entity, it’s hard not to respect them.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Fulcrum, for the bargain basement price of $50,000 you can get John Edwards to come to your local BPOU and speak on poverty and the “two Americas”.
Bottled water optional.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Recycling Kerm??? What the hell kind of wingnut are you? Don’t you know how many bottling executives have stock options that just dropped in value?
July 6th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Chuck upchucked: “One thing nice about being a right winger is I don’t have to be constantly changing my views to conform to the latest trends.”
Like evolution, democracy, “fancy book larnin.'”
July 6th, 2007 at 10:54 am
“What the hell kind of wingnut are you?”
Responsible?
July 6th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Well its a good thing Chuck didn’t live in the mid to late 1800s with all those abolitionists concerned about the plight of the slaves…his panties would have been in a big bunch.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I hear that Haluburton controls all of the recycling centers, hence why we right wingers love to contribute.
Angryclown finds a copy of the NYT left in the park. He opens it so he knows what views to have today.
“Let’s see, today bottled water is out” {his seltzer goes in the garbage…I mean recycling bin} “and hating Scooty Libby is in.”
July 6th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Actually Fulcrum, my people were always anti-Slavery. They were either living in nations with no slavery or were here and most of the males fought for the North in the Civil War.
Today’s liberals would be pro-slavery. I mean, if the entire Democrat party loves abortion, why wouldn’t they love slavery?
“Keep your laws off my property”
“Don’t like slaves, don’t own one”
“Seperation of church and state….fundamentalist Quakers and other Christos can’t make the laws”
“People will own slaves anyway, they will just do it in back woods”
“The Supreme Court affirms that owning slaves is a constitutional right”
“If white Norhterners owned slaves, then you’d see a sudden change in their views”
“We not so much about slavery, but about the overall economic well being of the plantations. We provide many economic services to them.”
“If developing countries had access to slavery-planning, they would be so much better off”
July 6th, 2007 at 11:58 am
So chuck, why is it you take so much pride in your family defending the disadvantaged, but then mock others trying to do the same thing, albeit to a lessor degree? Seems that your views are as rock solid as you indicate?
And I assume, that with your stated belief, “One thing nice about being a right winger is I don’t have to be constantly changing my views to conform to the latest trends,” that you are very dismayed at the commutation of Libby’s sentence?
July 6th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Angryclown asked: “What the hell kind of wingnut are you?”
Kermit responded: “Responsible?”
I reiterate my question.
July 6th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Angryclown reiterated his question. Let’s try another tack. “The kind that throttles your bigoted preconceptions with the light of reason?” “The kind that doesn’t accept stupid epithets like “wingnut” any more than “moonbat”?”
You got me dead to rights, clown. I’m a Conservative who doesn’t own a gun, recycles, thinks government has a role (limited) in the public sphere, sends his kids to public school and pays his taxes.
In other words, an average American.
July 6th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Fulcrum-
I don’t know why Chuck “mocks others trying to do the same thing, albeit to a lessor degree?” but I know why I do.
They want to do it with the fruits of other people’s labor. Ain’t it fun to spend other folks’ money on what you think is important?
July 7th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Kermit admitted: “You got me dead to rights, clown. I’m a Conservative who doesn’t own a gun, recycles, thinks government has a role (limited) in the public sphere, sends his kids to public school and pays his taxes.
In other words, an average American. ”
Gotcha Kerm. An old-school “conservative.” Sorry though, pal, you don’t get to call yourself a conservative anymore. These days not owning a gun is heresy, recycing is “personal virtue” – kinda French, actually – public schools are left-wing propaganda academies and paying taxes is for chumps. Outside the liberal Twin Cities, you might even be considered a centrist. Welcome to the Moonbat Majority.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:12 am
Terry queried: “Ain’t it fun to spend other folks’ money on what you think is important?”
Like a losing war in Iraq, you mean?
July 7th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Well its a good thing Chuck didn’t live in the mid to late 1800s with all those abolitionists concerned about the plight of the slaves…his panties would have been in a big bunch.
Uh, Fulcrum? The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863. There were no slaves in the late 1800s. Try to keep up.
Today’s liberals would be pro-slavery. I mean, if the entire Democrat party loves abortion, why wouldn’t they love slavery?
Of course, Chuck. That would create a permanent underclass ruled by elites…which is why they romanticize the likes of Che Guevara.
They want to do it with the fruits of other people’s labor. Ain’t it fun to spend other folks’ money on what you think is important?
Reminds me of a Peanuts comic strip, Terry:
Linus tells Charlie Brown that when he grows up, he wants to be a great philanthropist. Charlie Brown replies that it takes a lot of money to be a great philanthropist. Linus contemplates this for a moment, then says: “I’d like to be a great philanthropist with someone else’s money!”
July 7th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Like a losing war in Iraq, you mean?
How’s that 40-year LBJ war on poverty coming along?
July 7th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Guess you don’t read the paper much, Paulie No-Nuts. The wingnuts own the White House at the moment. The current wars are against Iraq, Afghanistan, terrah, drugs and civil liberties.
Your point on slavery is quite novel (read: “retarded”), Paul and Chuckwagon, considering that almost all the anti-black racists switched from Democrats to Republicans in the ’70s. And that blacks vote Democratic even more reliably than Evangelical gun nuts vote Republican.
And while you’re right to correct Fulcrum on his inexact historical placement of abolition, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free the slaves. Federal guns and the 13th Amendment did. (Translation for Republicans: the slaves were freed “the other day.”)
July 7th, 2007 at 9:26 am
What burns my bacon is that for years — years!! — Rybeck and his hippy-dippy, alpaca-wearing, latte-drinking, volvo-driving buddies have been spending precious government money on bottled water while our troops in Iraq were dying for lack of body armor.
When Doug hears about this he’s going to be pissed.
July 7th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Guess you don’t read the paper much, Paulie No-Nuts.
No-Nuts? This from a guy who has spent years squashing his on a unicycle.
The wingnuts own the White House at the moment. The current wars are against Iraq, Afghanistan, terrah, drugs and civil liberties.
So the Great Society welfare hammock has been fully repealed? Who knew?
The fact is that moonbat failed ‘novel’ ideas far outlive their creators.
Your point on slavery is quite novel (read: “retarded”), Paul and Chuckwagon, considering that almost all the anti-black racists switched from Democrats to Republicans in the ’70s.
Care to back up your ‘novel’ speculation with some actual data, Mr. Greasepaint?
At least you admit that the Dems were the party of racists in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, something that most moonbats vehemently deny.
And that blacks vote Democratic even more reliably than Evangelical gun nuts vote Republican.
Those Great Society free giveaways buy up a lot of votes.
And while you’re right to correct Fulcrum on his inexact historical placement of abolition, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free the slaves. Federal guns and the 13th Amendment did.
That’s technically correct. Trouble is, too many history teachers fail to include such information in their lessons.
From Wikipedia:
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, which declared the freedom of all slaves in such territory of the Confederate States of America as did not return to Union control, by January 1, 1863. It was issued on September 22, 1862.
It was widely attacked at the time, as freeing only the slaves over which the Union had no power; but in practice it committed the Union to a war to end slavery, which was controversial in the North. It was not a law passed by Congress but a presidential order empowered, as Lincoln wrote, by his position as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy” under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution.
The proclamation did not free any slaves in the border states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia), nor any southern territories already under Union control. It first affected only those slaves that had already escaped to the Union side, but as the Union armies conquered the Confederacy, thousands of slaves were freed each day until nearly all (estimated at 4 million) were free by July of 1865.
After the war there was concern that the proclamation, as a war measure, had not made the elimination of slavery permanent. Several states had prohibited slavery, but some slavery continued to exist in Kentucky and Delaware, until the entire institution was finally wiped out by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 18, 1865.
July 7th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
What really rumples my stiltskin is that for years — YEARS — Rybak and his hippy-dippy, dope-smokin’, alpaca-wearing, volvo-driving, latte-and-veggie-smoothie-drinking pals were using scarce government resources to buy bottled water for themselves while our brave soldiers in Iraq were sent into battle without adequate body armor!!
Man Oh Man. I hope Doug doesn’t find out about this.
July 7th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Paulie Wingnuts said: “At least you admit that the Dems were the party of racists in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, something that most moonbats vehemently deny.”
Admit? Kinda like admitting the sun rises in the morning. I guess when you hang out with folks who believe there was one male and one female T-Rex on Noah’s Ark, it’s a surprise when people don’t try to deny readily verifiable facts.
Both parties were racist, by today’s standards, back as far as the founding of the Republican Party in the mid 19th century. But the Democrats were the party of Civil War defeatism, collaboration with slavery and, later, Jim Crow in the South. A Minnepolis mayor you may have heard of began the process of cutting the party’s ties to southern racists after World War II, which LBJ made irreversible in the mid-60s with the Voting Rights Act and other progressive legislation.
Angryclown “admits” that, historically, the Democratic Party was the home of Southern racism. They left in the ’70s and ’80s, to vote for Nixon, Reagan and Dubya.
July 8th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Admit? Kinda like admitting the sun rises in the morning.
There’s a lot of moonbats that deny the sun rises in the morning, since they deny the Dems involvement in racism.
I gave you credit for embracing the truth, angryclown…there’s too many that don’t.
They left in the ’70s and ’80s, to vote for Nixon, Reagan and Dubya.
They also voted for Carter in 1976, and for Clinton both times.
July 9th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Not so much, Paulie. The socially conservative people who are screwing up our country are using their dominance of the Republican Party to do so. The former confederacy, which is the most backward part of the U.S., is also the most heavily Republican. Democratic votes from those states come mainly from blacks.