OBSERVATION: Finally an issue worthy of getting behind

When you mix voodoo science with political correctness, you get some really funny stuff. Well … it would be really funny if it did not cost us taxpayer so much money to underwrite the foolishness. I often refer to the extreme environmentalists as being a bit … you know … anal. Little did I know how apt a description that might be.

Case in point.

Seems like our bureaucrats over at the Environmental Protection Agency are prepared to protect us from yet another imagined assault on our air quality. They are attempting to declare the farting of farm animals to be air pollution. (<-- If you want to read that again to see if it said what you think it said, be my guest).

To control the problem, they propose that farmers pay a fee for each cow, for example. (There is always money behind these crazy ideas, isn’t there?) The average dairy farmer could get hit with a $30,000 to $40,000 annual cost – which you would pay as an increase to the price of milk and cheese.

Can you believe that our bureaucrats have actually devised a scheme to tax farts? Can a levee on poop be far behind (no pun intended)?

One wonders where this slippery slope will find its nadir. Sure … the government can impose a “passing gas tax” on farm animals, but what about pets and free-range animals. Will they be allowed to indiscriminately foul our air? Maybe a ten buck tax on every four-legged pet. Five bucks on parakeets if we can prove they fart. As far as free-range animals, I am not sure what can be done. They pay no taxes and have no owners to foot the bill for them. Planned extinction seems to be the only remedy. After all, if they can't be taxed, what good are they?

Then there is the whole human issue. Because of certain legumes and the unique consumption of beer, man is among the more prodigious of the earth’s farters. I suppose we can’t make it outright illegal to fart, but maybe we can allow farting only in designated areas where the noxious expellant can be captured and properly disposed of. In other words, no farting out of doors or in the public commons.

If this seems a bit extreme, keep in mind that we currently do not allow people to go pooping anywhere they please like a bunch of Neanderthals. We have a designated area where "the noxious expellant can be captured and properly disposed of" -- the euphamistically designated "bathroom."

If you are a smoker/farter in this brave new world, I am not sure where you can go. Since farts are technically flammable, one should not fart in the presence of people with lighted matches anyway. I am sure the good people at the EPA will promulgate some regulations on that danger.

To pay for all this, we will need to have a head – or, better said -- a butt tax on every person. Individual public farting could be addressed with civil citations like traffic tickets. Police would be equipped with sniffing machines to nab the sneaky silent farters.

Thinking of the laws that require dog owners to clean up after their pets, can the civic-minded folks take individual responsibility by inhaling their own farts? Hmmm. Bad idea. But … maybe some genius will come up with a personal collection devise – on the principle of the pet poop pick-up products.

There is always the opportunity to reduce the consumption of fart producing foods by aggressive taxation. This would put the price of pinto beans beyond Rusian caviar.

In all likelihood, some of our left-wing city councils will follow the tradition they established for cigarettes and atomic bombs by declaring their communities to be fart-free zones without the foggiest idea of how to implement such a restriction.

On the global level, we might see the creation of fart credits. Nations with high fart producing diets would have to purchase fart credits from starving nations. While this might be a hardship on the Hispanic world and parts of Asia – not to mention the American fast-food industry -- it would help the undeveloped and under nourished nations of central Africa get more money for their leaders to embezzle.

This could be the next major scientific panic-the-public project – “global browning,” if you will.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I am sure resting easier knowing there are people in Washington protecting my a__ … uh ... protecting me FROM my ass. And, I applaud these dedicated environmentalists who have made their personal contribution to finding a solution to the threat of anal asphyxiation by inserting their heads up theirs.