RUSH: While I was out, over the Christmas break… Actually that happened… I can’t remember. The days go by so fast because I turn the clocks off. By the way, I didn’t actually turn the clocks off. What I mean when I say that is I just didn’t pay any attention to them. If I wanted to stay up ’til five o’clock in the morning watching movies or whatever, I did. If I wanted to go in there and pop some popcorn at 3:30 in the morning, I did — and whenever I woke up, I woke up. It’s bliss. It’s total bliss. So in the process, I don’t know when what happened, or when whatever happened when. I don’t know, but I remember reading a commentary on this energy bill that contains in it the banning of the Thomas Edison-invented incandescent lightbulb in 2012, and it just frosted me because the incandescent lightbulb is absolutely harmless! It hasn’t hurt anybody! It’s not causing global warming; it’s not causing a carbon footprint. All of this is a hoax. Yet, your government bans a lightbulb! And nobody said a peep! The American people did not utter one level syllable of outrage about it, and that kind of stuff scares the heck out of me. Just like that, the Congress and the president banned incandescent lightbulbs. Now, what this is, folks, is death by a thousand little cuts. This is how liberty dies: drip, drip, drip, until eventually we have the Grand Canyon that’s been created. ‘The federal law that bans the incandescent lightbulb in favor of the earth-friendly alternatives…’ The Wall Street Journal had a commentary by a guy named Brian Carney.
I’ll tell you what makes me mad about this. The government is taking away the need or drive for companies to produce products that are so good that people want to buy them — you know, capitalism? What instead now is going on, is the government telling us what products we have to use, what products we have to buy, and what products we can’t because they’re not going to be available. Not even a peep! Nobody said a word. (new castrati impression) ‘We’re saving the planet, Mr. Limbaugh! I’m sure you don’t care about it, but we’re saving the planet. These lightbulbs are destroying the planet with global warming.’ It’s ignorance, absolute ignorance and stupidity! How long have we been using the incandescent lightbulb? When did Edison invent the incandescent lightbulb, in the 1800s, right? We’ve been using the incandescent lightbulb over a hundred years. Will somebody tell me how much the temperature went up in the world because of incandescent lightbulbs? Zilch, zero, nada! In fact, I have from our official climatologist, Dr. Roy Spencer, the latest globally averaged satellite temperatures, and I hate to tell you that the globally average temperature of the planet has not warmed in six years, and it is still well below 1998.
Yes, 1998 was the most recent hot year, and that was an El Niño year. Right now, we are below even 2002, and the levels of global warming are actually decreasing at this point on this graph that I have. I’m going to send this graph up to Koko at the website so you can look at it, because the graph also contains a little red shaded arrow with an arrow pointing left to right showing Algore’s Armageddon, that if global temperatures reach this red shaded area, then we’re cooked, we’re doomed, we’re done; and you can see how far beneath it that we are; and you can see how, since 1998, six years ago, global temperatures have not warmed. What’s happening here is just an affront to intelligence. Now this from the UK Telegraph: ‘The energy-saving lightbulbs that will be made compulsory in homes in a few years can trigger migraines, campaigners have claimed. The Migraine Action Association (MAA) said some of its members alleged the fluorescent bulbs had led to attacks of the powerful headaches. By 2011, Britain will be the first European country to phase out traditional bulbs as part of a strategy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
‘The MAA is calling on the Government to avoid a complete ban on old-style bulbs, by providing an opt-out for people with health problems.’ In addition to that, the story also claims that the compact fluorescents caused epileptic fits and also harm people with lupus. This is on top of their mercury problems! Now, I can imagine what some of you are saying. ‘Oh, come on, Rush. You’re going to take the word of the Migraine Action Association that these bulbs cause migraines and they cause epileptic fits and they cause problems for people with lupus?’ Of course I’m going to accept it! Just as you accept all the other cockamamie BS that the Algore types put out about the polar bears being drowned because they don’t have any more icebergs to live on! Do you realize how much stupid stuff people believe? Why shouldn’t I accept this? ‘Well, these are people who are opposed to…’ Exactly right they are. Why should they not be given equal credit? They’re making claims here. Bulbs are responsible for migraines, lupus, difficulties with epileptic fits? I choose to believe this. Absolutely I choose to believe it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: On the cutting edge of societal evolution, Rush Limbaugh, your general all-around good guy, harmless, lovable little fuzzball. We’ll get to the phones in just a second. Now, this banning of the incandescent lightbulb. I actually am not worried that it’s really going to happen. It doesn’t go in effect ’til 2011 or 2012, it’s 2008, there’s four years here. What’s going to happen is two things. A, there’s going to be a black market of these things. You know it, I know it. There’s going to be a black market and everything until, you know, jackbooted thugs of the Gore regime start knocking down your front door to come in and inspect the kind of lightbulbs you’re using, you can probably get away with it. Unless of course they put taps on the power company to figure out how much electricity you’re using in your bulbs and so forth. But anyway, the second thing is, as a powerful, influential member of the media, I’ve done my share of television.
I’ve also done my share of acting and television shows and this sort of thing, and there’s this thing called makeup, everybody has to do, and it’s far more important to the women than it is to the men. I, frankly, could punt makeup. It’s a waste of time, don’t care about it, face itches, gotta take it all off, ruin the shirt every time. It’s a pain. But women spend hours in the makeup chair, getting hair done, and all just right, especially now in the advent of HD and I have noticed, because it’s my job to notice, I am an observant figure, sometimes I participate in life by watching others live it, and I have noticed that in every makeup room I have been in, there’s not one fluorescent light allowed. They are incandescents. You’ve seen pictures of this. The mirror in the makeup room lined with incandescent bulb after incandescent bulb — why? Because people appear much harsher under fluorescent light than they do with incandescent light. I’m just going to tell you, if Mrs. Clinton gets elected, I am damn well here to tell you, there will not be one fluorescent lightbulb anywhere in the White House where Mrs. Clinton gets her makeup done every day and there won’t be anywhere else where women get their makeup done for business. There will be incandescent lightbulbs. That’s when the fur will fly. Everything will work out in the end.