Big Brother is watching your microwave!
Massachusetts State Senate Bill 203 is so absurd I just had to write to my State Senator. Here's my 2¢ worth.
Dear Mr. Rosenberg,
I assume I can count on you to vote against the poorly written and intrusive Senate Bill 203, regarding microwave ovens.
While I can appreciate the sentiment behind its very first provision, "(i) a microwave oven must not be large enough to be able to fit an infant child or small animal into," I must question such vague, imprecise wording. Just exactly how small an animal are the authors of this bill talking about? A cat? A squirrel? A mouse? A cricket? Every insect is an animal, so the capacity of a legal microwave oven would become microscopic!
Premature infants can also be quite small. While it is true that an infant small enough to fit in the palm of my hand would be in the hospital, a carefully written law would state the minimum legal dimensions of a microwave, rather than tossing around sentiment. (It is also rather inconsistent to allow a conventional oven to be large enough for stupid evil people to do stupid evil things.)
Provision (viii) would cause me, and millions of others, to become scofflaws by continuing to allow our teenagers to use microwave ovens. The only way to enforce this provision would be to also require a security camera to be pointed at every microwave oven in the state, with an army of enforcers watching to make sure of who operates them.
Provision (viii), preventing a residence from having more than one microwave oven, is unnecessarily intrusive. It has nothing to do with safety, and could prohibit houses containing a "mother-in-law apartment" from having a microwave oven in each of the kitchens. I see no other reason why a residence would need more than one microwave, but I also object to having Big Brother prevent it.
Provision (ix) ("any residence equipped with an oven is prohibited from possessing a microwave oven") is similarly Big Brother-ish, and would essentially prevent anyone with a permanent residence from owning a microwave. Why should I not be allowed to both bake bread in my oven and reheat leftovers in my microwave? Preposterous!
Many of the other provisions are also written without regard to practicality or enforceability, but those, in my opinion, are the worst.
Please vote against this ridiculous, impractical, unenforceable law.
Thank you
The text of this stupid thing is as http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/185/st00/st00203.htm
Hmm. How ironic that they want to prevent killing babies in the oven when it's legal to kill babies "in the oven." Well, that's another issue entirely.
Dear Mr. Rosenberg,
I assume I can count on you to vote against the poorly written and intrusive Senate Bill 203, regarding microwave ovens.
While I can appreciate the sentiment behind its very first provision, "(i) a microwave oven must not be large enough to be able to fit an infant child or small animal into," I must question such vague, imprecise wording. Just exactly how small an animal are the authors of this bill talking about? A cat? A squirrel? A mouse? A cricket? Every insect is an animal, so the capacity of a legal microwave oven would become microscopic!
Premature infants can also be quite small. While it is true that an infant small enough to fit in the palm of my hand would be in the hospital, a carefully written law would state the minimum legal dimensions of a microwave, rather than tossing around sentiment. (It is also rather inconsistent to allow a conventional oven to be large enough for stupid evil people to do stupid evil things.)
Provision (viii) would cause me, and millions of others, to become scofflaws by continuing to allow our teenagers to use microwave ovens. The only way to enforce this provision would be to also require a security camera to be pointed at every microwave oven in the state, with an army of enforcers watching to make sure of who operates them.
Provision (viii), preventing a residence from having more than one microwave oven, is unnecessarily intrusive. It has nothing to do with safety, and could prohibit houses containing a "mother-in-law apartment" from having a microwave oven in each of the kitchens. I see no other reason why a residence would need more than one microwave, but I also object to having Big Brother prevent it.
Provision (ix) ("any residence equipped with an oven is prohibited from possessing a microwave oven") is similarly Big Brother-ish, and would essentially prevent anyone with a permanent residence from owning a microwave. Why should I not be allowed to both bake bread in my oven and reheat leftovers in my microwave? Preposterous!
Many of the other provisions are also written without regard to practicality or enforceability, but those, in my opinion, are the worst.
Please vote against this ridiculous, impractical, unenforceable law.
Thank you
The text of this stupid thing is as http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/185/st00/st00203.htm
Hmm. How ironic that they want to prevent killing babies in the oven when it's legal to kill babies "in the oven." Well, that's another issue entirely.