If you’ve bought a new home since 1993, you know all about the modern toilets mandated by the last Democratic Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. They don’t work very well, do they? You’re only allowed to have a 1.6- gallon tank, down from the old 3.5-gallon standard. Most of the new ones don’t always get everything down on a single flush. The really fancy kind, with super high pressure, make a noise like a jet plane and have an annoying tendency to spray refuse up as much as wash it out. So valiant House Republican Joe Knollenberg of Michigan has introduced legislation to nullify this idiotic requirement and return America to its golden plumbing age: 3.5 gallons or fight!
It turns out the war must be waged internationally. Not wanting to miss a single opportunity to copy his Democratic-party gurus in the States, Britain’s new prime minister, Tony Blair, has sworn allegiance to toilet reform. In a campaign document issued last November, “Ending the Waste,” the Labour party blasted John Major’s Tories for failing to promote the latest technology in flush toilets. England must be “leading the world” in water use. Failure to adopt European Union standards for water use is simply “not good enough.”
And what are those EU standards? Well, you gotta have a 1.6-gallon maximum tank capacity. And sawdust dropped in a damp bowl must not stick to more than 5,000 square millimeters. And a ball of 12 sheets of toilet paper has to go down four times out of five. And a clump of resin with the same approximate density as, well, you know, also has to go down four times out of five.
We’re not making this up, alas.
