Somebody needs to make California stop.
For some reason, they have this urge to put warning labels on everything, whether they’re needed or not. It wouldn’t be so bad, but companies that want to sell their products nationally have to comply with these stupid regulations if they want to sell their products in the major market of California, and no doubt it’s driving prices up for the rest of us as well. The most recent story about this is the mayor of San Francisco (and you know if he’s mayor of San Francisco, he’s definitely not representative of most of the rest of the country) supporting a requirement that cell phones come with radiation warning labels. Nevermind that there are federal requirements for the amount of EM radiation cell phones are permitted to put out. Nevermind that scientists haven’t even been able to confirm that there ARE significant health effects from cell phone use (apart from the obvious ones of stupid people driving while talking). California feels the need to regulate it anyway.
I bought a plumb bob the other day (for those of you who don’t know what that is, check wikipedia), and right on the back of the package was a sticker with the label “WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects, or other reproductive harm.” No, it’s not lead — it’s brass with a steel point, with a bit of nylon string. How are the normal uses of a plumb bob going to cause any of those problems? I can see health issues if you tried to EAT the plumb bob, but none of the ones listed are ones that I would worry about. If you’re going around eating 8 ounce brass spikes, you have more things to worry about than cancer, birth defects, and reproductive harm. In fact, it might be better if you DIDN’T reproduce. So why does California feel the need to protect its citizens from things like this, while inflicting higher prices and stupid warning labels on the rest of us?