Anyone wondering why your glasses are coming out the dishwasher cloudy-looking? And why your dishes are dingy?

Well, before you spend money on a service call, understand that your dishwasher isn't likely the culprit. The culprit is changes in dishwashing detergent formulas that have been made by manufacturers in advance of federal action and in compliance with new regulations in many states.

Phosphates, which help suspend and remove soil, and remove mineral residues, have been plucked from dishwashing detergents. In many instances, detergent manufacturers have also removed enzymes from ingredients. Enzymes play a helpful role making glasses and dishes sparkling clean too.

The reason for the phosphate ban? Seems that the greenies believe that phosphates flushed into lakes and rivers are making algae populations explode. Too much algae chokes up water habitats, killing fish, reptiles, and plant life. Those mysterious "experts" always cited by greenies are behind the phosphate ban.

Here's what Stephen Ashkin, who's recognized as the "father of Green Cleaning," says about the phosphate ban:

No one denies that phosphates are a helpful ingredient in dishwasher detergent. The problem is that they stimulate algae growth when they enter lakes and reservoirs and that can deprive other plants and aquatic life sufficient oxygen to live.

Consumers have every right to be dubious about expert claims that America's waterways are being suffocated by phosphates that used to make Cascade so effective, for instance. After all, "experts" gave Americans the global warming fraud replete with dire predictions of an environmental Apocalypse of biblical proportions.

Phosphates killing off the world's minnows and frogs may not be quite as sexy as global warming's tsunamis, hurricanes, and coastal destruction, but environmental propagandist Al Gore hasn't made a film yet. Propagandists - and charlatans - can make anything seem sexy.

Meanwhile, consumers will run their glasses and dishes through dishwashers only to wind up hand washing and rinsing the same items - that is, if they care to remove the film and dinginess that the dishwasher detergents failed to remove. That means consumers across our glorious phosphate-free nation will use a zillion gallons of hot water making clean what their dishwashers and detergents used to do so efficiently.

But what the heck? Water and energy conservation matters little to greenies who claim to be on a mission to save crawfish and salamanders. And we all thought that knocking down the global warming scam was end of the greenies' ploys? Think again.