Friday, December 11, 2009

Is this still legal?

My brother posted on Facebook about getting gifts for his kids - and a lump of coal for his soon-to-be 15-year-old son.
Can you still give coal for Christmas? Is that allowed in this cap-and-trade age? How'd he sneak that past Al Gore and President Obama? Will a judge overrule my brother on this gift idea?
Besides, my brother didn't need to go out to pick up a lump of coal. There's a mountain of coal in my parents' backyard, remnants from his childhood.

1 comment:

Jason Bibeau said...

Well you see, here is the problem. He would need an EPA permit to mine the coal, a seperate one to transport the coal, a special vehicle to transport the coal, the tax to operate the special vehicle, the license and tax on license to operate the vehicle, the applicable union dues and union rep to ensure that all afformentioned work was done entirely by the union members, and a geologist to do a Mohs Scale test to determine whether the lump of black substance is in fact a lump of coal or something else entirely.

I'm sure I've missed several items here and to answer your question; "Is is still legal". I have no idea, these are after all the same people who want to spend nearly a billion dollars on determining the probability of doing surgery in outer space.