I have been away from my blog for a few days, debating people at this site over my commentary, found here. One of the Web site’s organizers was gracious enough to invite to compose a guest blog on their site, so I took him up on it. If you get a minute, hop on over and add your thoughts. Of course, as with most anywhere on the Web, I had to deal with (or more to the point, I didn’t deal with them at all) posters who simply blew up at what I said, dismissed my arguments and failed to contribute anything meaningful. But others took the time to generate thoughtful replies and that was appreciated. But I’ll probably write more on it a little later.

For now, I offer this bit of comic relief:

Yes, that would be a lighter, complete with hooves and udders. Sen. Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee of South Carolina, thinks novelty lighters of this type should be banned from being sold in stores or else, the offending store would face a $500 fine.

“This shocks me,” he said, noting that he didn’t know lighters such as these existed.

Ignoring the fact that these lighters seem to have no purposes other than to entertain, of course, and set things on fire, let’s say candles or cigars, the notion of passing legislation prohibiting these things seems a bit silly. The feds are on board with banning novelty lighters as well. (Again, I return to the contradiction that Republicans seem bent on increased government influence when it comes to certain areas, say, the war on drugs or novelty lighters, but not other areas, like, say, gun control laws. They want to keep us safe by keeping drugs off the street and flammable cows out of our childrens’ hands, but fight for our gun rights. Interesting indeed.)

Here are Congress’ findings on the matter:

(1) Lighters are inherently dangerous products containing flammable fuel.

(2) If lighters are used incorrectly or used by children, dangerous and damaging consequences may result.

(3) Novelty lighters are easily mistaken by children and adults (Adults? “Dude, what’s that cow?” “I don’t know. Why don’t you hold it to your eye and click that little do-hicky.”) as children’s toys or as common household items.

(4) Novelty lighters have been the cause of many personal injuries to children and adults and property damage throughout the United States.

And here are my findings on steak knives:

(1) Steak knives are inherently dangerous products composed of sharp edges.

(2) If steak knives are used incorrectly or used by children, dangerous and damaging consequences may result.

(3) Steak knives are easily mistaken by children as butter knives.

(4) Steak knives have been the cause of many personal injuries to children and adults and property damage throughout the United States.

The bill offers no proof of this, so neither do I, but I would venture to guess that more people have been hurt by steak knives accidentally or on purpose (in civil disputes) than by novelty lighters. Interestingly, when asked by The State,

Fighters didn’t know of any S.C. fires that had been started by children using novelty lighters.

Udderly ridi … ahhh nevermind.