You Can Have My Dasani Bottle When You Pry It From My Cold, Dead Fingers

Over at Buzz.mn a few days ago, James Lileks noted that some green-minded people are coming out in opposition to bottled water:

Bottled water used to be a sign you led a healthy life, drinking only Alpine water gleaned from glacier shavings hand-melted by nuns, but since issues of waste and “climate change” have been introduced, the use of bottled water will start to have a different moral component. You may see some people wince or tut-tut when you pull out the Aquafina. Just wait: In a few years, bottled-water users will get the same gentle lecture smokers got in the early 60s; five years from now, the sale of bottled water will sag, and city after city will ban the use of bottled water for official functions. Only rebels will drink bottled water! Movies will be automatically rated R if anyone smokes or swigs from the Evian! Ridiculous? Yes. Then again, the mayor of San Francisco has banned city employees from buying bottled water, and has an online pledge to convince residents to give up bottled water.

There's more on bottled water here, where taste tests are cited and many people said that they still buy bottled water even if the tap water came out on top in the test.

My opinion on the matter is easy to discern from the title of this post. As I said in the comments to Lileks' piece,

Not only do I like bottled water better than what comes out of my tap (which has always had a "muddy" quality to me), but I like one particular brand of bottled water (Dasani) better than any other one.

As a music instructor who spends the bulk of the day in cramped practice rooms, I pretty much have a bottle of water with me all the time; it's a lot easier than having to fight the crowds in the school hallways and then find a water fountain that 1) actually works and 2) doesn't have massive wads of someone's spent gum in there.

But not a one of my bottles ends up in the trash; they all go either into one of those giant bottle-shaped recycling bins at school or into my own bin at home.

And re the San Francisco thing: Boo to nanny-statism. The only purpose of government should be to protect our shores, help the proverbial trains run on time, and otherwise leave us alone.

(Sorry--I can't resist taking a dig at nanny-staters whenever possible.)

Can you tell the difference between tap water and bottled water? If so, what's your preference?

A holiday leftover: We always tell kids to be careful when playing with fireworks; evidently, we should also tell the dog.

Land of a thousand stalls: A public restroom in China has over a thousand toilets spread out over 32,000 feet of space.

Get your Potsicles here: An ice-cream truck driver in Michigan has been arrested for selling marijuana alongside his frozen treats.