My friends in the Shenandoah Valley have had about all the global warming they can stand this weekend. Richard T., Mr. B’s godfather and my old Vietnam bud, spent his time driving his vineyard’s tractor equipped with snow plow trying to save his neighbor’s prize bull and cows from burial under three feet of drifting snow. Meanwhile, as our Little Barry Hussein prepares his executive orders supposedly involving climate change:
“I also anticipate lots of dumb laws and regulations that will greatly diminish the convenience of everyday living, even more so than that stupid plastic bag ban my municipality enacted a few years ago. Though a soothsayer I am not, I predict such legislation will have a ripple effect across the world’s economies, resulting in increased unemployment, higher prices, and a less enjoyable standard of living overall.”
Oh, yah. As usual, however, Austin’s plastic bag ban wasn’t about the environment, but graft for the ruling party. The Democrats, of course. I was reminded of that the other day when I asked for a plastic bag at HEB, meaning the 25 cent red job they sell now for folks (like me) who refuse to carry European-style shopping bags like good little drones of D.C.
Instead the young clerk handed one of the old-style free plastic bags which now cost, get this, $1 each. Had to specify the 25 center. Astounding? Only because you don’t understand our crooked politics that masquerades as environmentalism.
Via Skanlyn.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
Randalls gave me free paper bags without asking, twice. I’ve noticed around Austin several places giving bags, always without comment.
I wonder which grocery chain’s lobbying and graft swung the decision. Could have been HEB.
Graft, political corruption in Austin? Why I’m shocked, amazed, and all around dumbfounded!
In Italian supermarkets you can buy these sturdy shopping bags with serious plastic handles. Good for up to 15 kg or so. And you can strap them across your trolley while running around the isles.
That some loose particles of food collect in these bags and later cause all kinds of diseases is, probably, a lesser considerations.
With all due respect to a former one, I refuse to emulate Europeans.