Where's my blood money?

[Quixote]

Devvy Kidd says:

Yes, the "income" tax is big business that involves employing a lot of people. About 94,000 who work for the IRS full time. All those tax preparation companies. Private operations like Quatloos and the Southern (Money Bags) Poverty Law Center who both have maligned me, Joe Banister, Larry Becraft and others for telling the truth. Their blood money is made from supporting the big lie. Your misery is their paycheck.

[Pottapaug1938]

Where's your blood money? Simply contact the Chancellor of the Exchequer of your local Illuminati lodge, and you can not only get the future income rolling in but can also collect all those arrearages.

Maintaining a staff of young, attractive acolytes does get expensive, y'know....

[Dr. Caligari]

Hey, Devvy, how's your friend Bonita Lynn Meredith doing lately?

[Demosthenes]

Sorry Quixote. GSA blew it all in Vegas.

[notorial dissent]

Poor Devy, apparently telling the truth about someone is now maligning them, and I guess from her standpoint it might be since it certainly isn't feeding their egos.

[LPC]

From the same article:

Tommy Cryer is my attorney in the fight out here in Texas to get 'smart' meters banned.

WTH?

Yes, that's right, meters that constantly monitor electricity usage are a violation of the 4th Amendment.

[Burnaby49]

From the same article:

Tommy Cryer is my attorney in the fight out here in Texas to get 'smart' meters banned.

WTH?

Yes, that's right, meters that constantly monitor electricity usage are a violation of the 4th Amendment.

Greater Vancouver, where I live, had smart meters installed last year at enormous expense, officially $930M. I believe it is at least in part a scam for getting much higher revenues without selling more power by juicing up the rates at peak periods and pretending we have a choice about when we use power so paying the higher rates are discretionary. They have already said (not in so many words) that we can avoid the high rates by cooking supper, doing the laundry etc, at, say, 3AM.

Rant over. Yes, they can be used as a surveilance device for such activities as marijuana grow-ops, a big issue here. Power usage is usually the giveaway because they grow-ops need huge amounts for the intense lighting. Typically someone will rent a house, turn it into a grow-op, and use fake documents for the electrical company. Since standard meters are only read every month or two they can grow a lot then get out before anyone even knows. Now with smart meters the power company knows almost immediately.

[notorial dissent]

Tommy Cryer is my attorney in the fight out here in Texas to get 'smart' meters banned.

Now there's a sure fire winner if I ever heard one, wonder if his track record with that sort of litigation is on par with his tax and criminal court prowess??

Devvy sure knows how to pick em.

[Kestrel]

From the same article:

Tommy Cryer is my attorney in the fight out here in Texas to get 'smart' meters banned.

WTH?

Yes, that's right, meters that constantly monitor electricity usage are a violation of the 4th Amendment.

In his "truth about the truth" little tome, Tommy eschewed the tin-foil hat brigade. These paranoid anti-smart-meter numnuts seem to be full fledged card-carrying tin-foil hat brigade members:

Fifteen studies report effects among people living 50-to-1500 feet from a cell tower — including cancers, immune system effects, fertility problems, heart arrhythmias, miscarriages, sleeplessness, dizziness, concentration difficulties, memory loss, headaches, skin rashes, lowered libido, fatigue, and malaise.

And many of these symptoms mirror what some people are reporting within days of Smart Meters installed at their homes.

... increases in the permeability of the blood-brain barrier, which protects brain tissue from bacteria, viruses, and toxins ... increases in stress markers in human saliva ... calcium ion changes in cells — with implications for the ability to metabolize ... exposures to Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig Disease, and Parkinson’s ... diabetes, malignant melanoma, and cancers of the breast, thyroid, uterus and lung ....

...people barraged by it can now measure RF radiation emanating from their light sockets...

Of special concern are people with implanted medical devices like deep-brain stimulators for Parkinson’s, some pacemakers, insulin pumps, and in-home hospital equipment. The radiofrequency interference (RFI) inherent to Smart Grids can cause such equipment to go haywire, or even to stop. And RFI from ambient exposures has caused wheelchairs to go off peers or into traffic; automatic ignition switches in cars refuse to start until cars are towed to RF-free blocks; and surgical beds have jumped during operations.

Well, golly gee, politics and money do make strange bedfellows, don't they? Oh hell, why stop at just tin-foil hats?

[Judge Roy Bean]

The smart-meter movement is a part of a larger industry-driven "smart-grid" deployment of MUCH NEEDED technology that can improve power generation and distribution reliability.

Yes, demand/usage can be collected in a much more granular fashion. Instead of measuring total demand at distribution points, the smart meters allow a look outward into the consumption network.

The consumer downside is the difference between measuring and charging for total monthly usage vs. the utility's ability to see usage on an hourly basis and perhaps charge for peak demand use. Predictably, the potential perceived abuse of the consumer is the real issue. The generally accepted thought is that with the smart meters, the utility will have the magical ability to manipulate usage data as well as report anomalies to law enforcement. Secondly, the fear that some kind of limiting could be imposed raises concerns when a utility could pinpoint high-consumption sources.

Couple that with the kind of tin-foil-hat gibberish about RF signals and you have fertile ground for fear based on ignorance.

It's not the meters, it's the information collected from them.

The proper approach is to ensure the consumer usage data being collected cannot be provided (or sold) to anyone.

[notorial dissent]

The proper approach is to ensure the consumer usage data being collected cannot be provided (or sold) to anyone.

Like that is going to happen!!!! If you, or anyone with an IQ about room temperature thinks that won't happen I truly worry about you. That is an asset they won't hesitate to sell to the highest bidder.

[Burnaby49]

The smart-meter movement is a part of a larger industry-driven "smart-grid" deployment of MUCH NEEDED technology that can improve power generation and distribution reliability.

The consumer downside is the difference between measuring and charging for total monthly usage vs. the utility's ability to see usage on an hourly basis and perhaps charge for peak demand use. Predictably, the potential perceived abuse of the consumer is the real issue. The generally accepted thought is that with the smart meters, the utility will have the magical ability to manipulate usage data as well as report anomalies to law enforcement. Secondly, the fear that some kind of limiting could be imposed raises concerns when a utility could pinpoint high-consumption sources.

Couple that with the kind of tin-foil-hat gibberish about RF signals and you have fertile ground for fear based on ignorance.

It's not the meters, it's the information collected from them.

The proper approach is to ensure the consumer usage data being collected cannot be provided (or sold) to anyone.

My sole concern re these meters is the money-grab aspect. Our meters are in and we are being lulled by a "see, that didn't hurt a bit" attitude from Hydro. However I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop when they act like we are morons by broadcasting rate changes that can Save!! Us!! Money!! by conserving in peak periods and doing all our electical heavy lifting in the early AM while, at the same time, jacking up the rates from 5PM to 9PM and 6AM to 9AM through the roof.

As far as usage data goes they can broadcast mine to the world at large if they give me a 10% rate cut for doing so.

[grixit]

What i'm hoping is that the smart meters will make it easier to provide internet services through the power. Typically, consumers only have 2 choices for high speed connections: their local phone or cable company. A third competitor might bring down the price.

[Kestrel]

I do like the idea of getting accurate bills for actual monthly usage, because it enables me to take timely corrective action. Did the kids leave a window or the chimney flue open? Is there a broken faucet somewhere? Do the setback thermostats need to be adjusted? A timely, accurate utility bill clues me in.

I'm a little tired of receiving "estimated" utility bills that have no basis in reality, when the estimator just pulls a number out of his or her a**. Honestly, I got a water bill recently which sent me running around the house and yard looking for a major leak which didn't exist, then had me getting all over the family for being careless with the faucets. Then the next month my meter was read by a real person and I actually got a credit for underusage/overpayment.

What I don't like about SmartMeters is potential abusive surcharges for over-utilizing in peak hours and under-utilizing in hours when most sane people are asleep. The people who pay me money have this thing about me showing up to work alert and rested, and they're the one providing the money which ultimately goes to pay those utility bills.

Yes, my dishwasher has a "delay start" button. But the vacuum, the washing machine, and the hot water heater don't; I tend to use those during "peak" hours like everyone else does. The TV is a lot more fun when I'm awake; catching up on the news while I'm sleeping only gives me weird dreams. And I do kinda prefer that the AC and heater be operating during "peak" hours when I'm home and awake; that was the reason I had them installed.

[Pottapaug1938]

Where's your blood money? Simply contact the Chancellor of the Exchequer of your local Illuminati lodge, and you can not only get the future income rolling in but can also collect all those arrearages.

Maintaining a staff of young, attractive acolytes does get expensive, y'know....

Chancellor of the Exchequer? That would be me. It's my title and everything.

Well, I was actually talking about your subordinates, who oversee the local lodge exchequers and report to you....

[morrand]

What i'm hoping is that the smart meters will make it easier to provide internet services through the power. Typically, consumers only have 2 choices for high speed connections: their local phone or cable company. A third competitor might bring down the price.

Not likely. That sounds more like broadband over power lines (BPL), which is a hugely controversial subject in certain circles. Lots of RF interference problems have been reported in areas that have tried it out: nothing as impressive as exploding birds or wheelchairs taking their occupants out for a ride on I-95, but certainly enough to annoy the local ham radio operators. While smart meters can use BPL, a lot more of them are using normal, everyday, boring technology like 2-way pagers.

Hourly pricing is already a fact of life on the wholesale level, unfortunately, so it is probably just a matter of time before it hits the retail level. The one bright spot is that the flat rates have to pull so much weight to cover the peak rates that they're often way overpriced compared to the off-peak rates (to give an idea, the overnight wholesale rate hits negative digits--the generators will pay you to take the power--in a couple of areas from time to time). Ideally, just going from a flat to an hourly rate won't change the bill by much, since they both need to average out to the same revenue at the end of the month.