[via Technabob]
A needlessly complicated and expensive way to accomplish a task that the free market long ago devised a simple way of doing.
However, since there’s (currently) no tax for not buying them, I suppose a fairer description would be “a curious novelty item.“
Indeed, this thing looks to be just about useless enough for the federal government to force every citizen of the US to buy one or be subject to a special tax for not buying one. Naw, what am I thinking of, the Supreme Court would never allow a thing like that to happen in this country.
The Obama Administration’s Czar of Useless Products and Devices has announced today that effective immediately every citizen of the USA must purchase one of these ‘green’ light switch activators or face a stiff fine and penalties for not doing so. Obama Administration spokesman Jay Carney said President Obama considers this device…”To be an important tool in our arsenal as we try to move this country forward from the dark days of the Bush Administration and will add or save millions of green jobs as well.” Republicans vowed to fight this latest move by the administration as an… “infringement on the rights and freedom of the American people.” The Republicans also claim these devices are actually made in China. When asked about these allegations spokesman Carney would only state that the Holder Justice Department… “Has the matter under investigation, and it probably will be under investigation at least until November.”
And of course from my favorite movie…Joe Biden: If you will just sign this, Mr. President. Right here.
President Obama: Yes, yes. What the hell is it?
Joe Biden: Well, under the provisions of this Green Jobs Bill, we would snatch one trillion dollars from tax payers…which we have deemed unsuitable for their use at this time. They’re such children.
President Obama: One trillion dollars? One trillion dollars? What’ll they get in return, man, what’ll they get in return?
Joe Biden: [brings out a carton of novelty light switch activators] A box of these.
President Obama: Are you crazy? They’ll never go for it. And then again they might. Those little taxpaying devils… they love toys!
This thing is really like Obamacare….it won’t move the light switch. The center gear is fixed. The ring gear and planetary gears will move but the center gear that is supposed to move the lever is a fixed gear, the lever will never move, the switch will never go up or down. (Sorry, I are an engineer after all.) An expensive, complicated solution that won’t work at all.
LTC F — I aren’t an engineer, and I also thought that it didn’t look like it would work at first, but it appears that the center gear has curved slots and is suspended at the top and bottom.
In any case, if it were designed like Obamacare, all of its 2700 gears would be fixed (see, they fixed everything!), so the switch could never be turned off. It would be sold in a tamper-proof case, so you would have to buy it before you could find out what’s in it, only to discover that it doesn’t work, anyway. Oh, and it would only cost $670 billion. Don’t worry, you’d have 10 years to pay for it.
By the way, you’ll have to buy it. You don’t want to use it? Sorry, that’ll cost you extra. Would you be interested in our extended warranty today?
Obomination Care Is Class Warfare That Will Ignite A Mass TAX REVOLT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrcOnGqx_xg
…and, it’s most likely only made by a company in China.
This SO reminds me of the “Department of Innovations” stupid-logo-fiasco not too long ago… you know, the one with the three frozen interlocking gears?
http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/index.php/snippets-logo-design-a-go-go/
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2011/07/welcome-to-the-department-of-innovation/
It didn’t take long for them to react to the outcry (i.e. people calling them idiots) and “fix” the gears by backing them out so two of their teeth didn’t mesh any longer. However, it looks to me like that didn’t quell the critics (probably because it is a stupid logo regardless), so about a month later or so they ended up not only entirely changing the logo again, but also renaming the “Department”.
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2011/08/change-is-good/
This November, please remember what that last URL says: “Change is good”.