GorT has previously written about his belief that liberals, largely, seek the short-term, knee-jerk solution without considering the longer term ramifications.  Well, courtesy of the Twitter Machine and one of my fellow Gormos retweeting it, I noticed this juicy tidbit:  Cities with bans, taxes or fees on plastic bag usage have some serious health problems stemming from the liberal policy.

A few excerpts from the article:

1. According to the plastic bag industry, a ban or reduction affects an industry employing 30,000 Americans.  And the San Francisco Environmental Department reported that plastic bag litter from retail establishments accounts for only 0.6% of waste found.  
2. From the LA Times last May, “A reusable grocery bag left in a hotel bathroom caused an outbreak of norovirus-induced diarrhea and nausea that struck nine of 13 members of a girls’ soccer team in October, Oregon researchers reported Wednesday.”
3. According to a study conducted by Jonathan Klick and Joshua Wright, who are law professors at the University of Pennsylvania and George Mason University, respectively found that emergency-room admissions related to E. coli infections increased in San Francisco after the ban. (Nearby counties did not show this increase.) And this effect showed up as soon as the ban was implemented. (“There is a clear discontinuity at the time of adoption.”) The San Francisco ban was also associated with increases in salmonella and other bacterial infections. Similar effects were found in other California towns that adopted such laws.
4. Washing the reusable bags will eliminate 99.9% of the germs and bacteria but 97% of people report not washing their bags.  Plus, washing the bags will incur an environmental cost as well.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.