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11:49 AM | 
Posted by
kender
So now the Capital of Liberal Insanity wants to charge a fee for each grocery bag used in the city. Seventeen cents to be exact.
This is insane. I once lived there. It is a beautiful city. Wonderful views and amazing architecture. But it's cold there. Lots of fog too. I think there is something in that fog, something that slowly turns ones brain to mush. How else do you explain the completely asinine ideas flowing from there?
If I still lived there and they imposed a seventeen cent tax on my grocery bag I do believe that I would be forced to use those bags for other things. Maybe I would weave them together and make curtains for my house, or clothes perhaps. I bet plastic grocery bags would be wonderful rain gear, a clothing item that is standard issue in that city.
Whatever I would do with them you can bet that I would do it with the aim of pissing off as many people as possible. That way when someone complained, as they are certain to do there, (they can't help it, they're liberals), I could say "Hey, I paid for these and I will do what I damn well please with them, so bugger off!"
What do you think?
This is insane. I once lived there. It is a beautiful city. Wonderful views and amazing architecture. But it's cold there. Lots of fog too. I think there is something in that fog, something that slowly turns ones brain to mush. How else do you explain the completely asinine ideas flowing from there?
If I still lived there and they imposed a seventeen cent tax on my grocery bag I do believe that I would be forced to use those bags for other things. Maybe I would weave them together and make curtains for my house, or clothes perhaps. I bet plastic grocery bags would be wonderful rain gear, a clothing item that is standard issue in that city.
Whatever I would do with them you can bet that I would do it with the aim of pissing off as many people as possible. That way when someone complained, as they are certain to do there, (they can't help it, they're liberals), I could say "Hey, I paid for these and I will do what I damn well please with them, so bugger off!"
What do you think?
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7 comments:
Just when we agree on things (I need to reply to your ADD thing because I pretty much totally agree) you go and write something like this... :-)
Anyway, I think this is one of the better ideas I have heard come out of California. Why do we need plastic bags? I'm as lazy as anyone else and use the plastic bags all the time. But thats all it is really...laziness. If they weren't free, I would have motivation not to be so lazy. Is it really so tough to own a couple of cloth bags to take with you to the market? I did this is Germany for 5 months (where they charge 1 Euro per bag, although they are much nicer bags than ours) and never really had an issue. Unless I was stupid enough to forget my bags (which happened a couple times) and then I paid the penalty for my stupidity.
Really, Kender, you didn't seem like a lazy guy to me up to this point. You're not that lazy are you?
I don't know if you're familiar with such grocery stores as Aldi's or Save-A-Lot, but the very premise of these stores is to have you "package" your own groceries after you've checked out. You can either buy their bags (plastic for a nickle, paper for a dime... or is it the other way?), or you can take empty boxes from the floor (everything is displayed like a wharehouse) to use. Of course there is the other option of keeping bags in your car to have with you in case you end up stopping at the spur of the moment.
Anyway, my point is only that free-market capitalism has had it's effect in this area because of these stores. Now the traditional chain-grocery stores (some of them) offer a five or ten cent discount per bag if you bring your own bags... but they still package for you.
God how I love capitalism!
Kender, I'm with you. I lived in SF for several years and, even as "NY Lib" as I may be, I found politics there to be stupendously ridiculous. Frankly, one of the reasons I cannot live there is how painfully stupid are the politics.
But, really, the shopping bag thing is nothing. You know, I'm sure, what the Civic Center was and is like. When I was last in SF, about 3-4 years ago, there was an initiative to build some homeless shelters in the area. This idea was *opposed* by some segment of "progressives" because it would take away the option of living an "alternative," "street" lifestyle.
If it's "liberal" to make sure that people have the "right" to be homeless, I'm a reactionary.
Now, there is plenty of insane politics on the right in California, too. But SF and Berkeley leftists are in a league of their own. I have a super-left-wing friend in Berkeley who freely admits that her city has a better foreign policy than it has a trash-collection policy.
K1....this applies to paper bags also. The figure of .17 was arrived at by dividing the "estimated" 8.5 million a year in clean up costs the city incurs due to these bags by the 50 million they claim are used by san fransiscans every year. Sound wonky to me. Half the money collected goes to the stores so they can fund programs to discourage using the disposable bags. The other half goes to the general fund. Sounds like a sneaky tax to me.
M+...we have a store like that out here called "food4less". It is owned by Ralphs, another giant, and we don't shop there. The quality is substandard in the produce dept. and the stores are dirty and full of a rather unsavory type of customer. Frankly, since we have the money, we shop where the milk is a buck more expensive but the clientele isn't waddling down the aisle in too tight lycra shorts and flip flops with 6 kids in tow and a fist full of food stamps. I know that sounds mean but personally one of the major reasons to make a better life is so I can avoid dealing with the folks out here that drive pintos and live in a travel trailer in the sticks.
Trey....nicely put. You hit SF dead on. Maybe you shoudl write a travel brochure for them. I am sure you could sell it to them under the "Not buying from me is discrimination" idea. They would probably go for it and make you some money.
i was going to say something but you covered it all...later
My point was simply that, if we can avoid some trash, should we not do it? Perhaps the method and cost might not be perfect, but if you want to wait for perfect solutions before trying to fix things, you will be waiting a long, long time. The idea is a good one: reduce the amount of trash we needlessly create through our own laziness.
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