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Bureaucrats Controlling Your Thermostats: The Possibility Is Real
Patterico's Pontifications ^ | Jan. 08, 2008

Posted on 01/08/2008 6:33:45 AM PST by jdm

There is an imbalance between supply and demand in energy, and some California bureaucrats are standing around wondering what to do about it.

One says: “Run commercials asking people to conserve!” This is met with general approval.

Another says: “Make homeowners install thermostats that we bureaucrats can remotely control!” More general approval.

A third says: “Raise . . . prices?”

A roomful of angry people turns on him. “Raise prices — as a way of balancing supply and demand?!?!?! What an idiot!”

That’s California in a nutshell.

It appears that proposal number two — letting bureaucrats control homeowners’ thermostats — is indeed a potential reality. Earlier today I linked an article in the American Thinker written by Joseph Somsel warning of this possibility. Our friend Bradley J. Fikes saw my post, and spent the day checking out Somsel’s allegations and writing a Big Media piece on it. Bradley’s piece begins:

California utilities would control the temperature of new homes and commercial buildings in emergencies with a radio-controlled thermostat, under a proposed state update to building energy efficiency standards.

Customers could not override the thermostats during “emergency events,” according to the proposal, part of a 236-page revision to building standards. The document is scheduled to be considered by the California Energy Commission, a state agency, on Jan. 30.

The description does not provide any exception for health or safety concerns. It also does not define what are “emergency events.”

Sweet. Big Media is good for focusing attention on outrages like this. Once people get the idea that California bureaucrats really want to control our thermostats, it will very possibly be all over talk radio. If I’m right about that, the plan will die a quick death from there.

Congratulations to Joseph and Bradley on their excellent work. I hope it bears fruit.

I get in enough fights with my wife over the thermostat. I don’t need to fight with bureaucrats too.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: agw; bureaucrats; communism; energy; globalwarming; greens; nannystate; thermostats
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Shades of President Nixon and his 68 degreees and wear a sweater....


41 posted on 01/09/2008 8:36:20 PM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

California has been using up too much of the energy for years. Do it. This method will never come to me.


42 posted on 01/09/2008 8:38:26 PM PST by AGreatPer ("The Democrats don't give a rats ass about this country"....Rush Limbaugh, 11/15/07)
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To: alwaysconservative

If Hillary is elected President women will control the national thermostat. Venus here we come.


43 posted on 01/09/2008 8:41:39 PM PST by Reeses (Leftism is powered by the evil force of envy.)
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To: AGreatPer

If Kalifornis is using “too much” energy, charge them more for it. They will find ways to save energy if they’re paying through the nose for it. No need to control their thermostats from some building in Sacramento or a bunker in the Sierras.


44 posted on 01/09/2008 11:21:21 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (I resolve to remember to write "08" on my checks.)
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To: Tennessee Nana
President Nixon and his 68 degreees and wear a sweater....

Wasn't that Jimmy Carter? I vaguely remember a SNL skit with He & Rosalyn in sweaters and Miss Lilian on a bike that ran a charger hooked to the TV.

45 posted on 01/10/2008 12:10:12 AM PST by Stegall Tx (It was funny at the time, but it was the 70s.)
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To: Stegall Tx

No it was President Nixon who did it first

Carter is an Algore wannabe...I invented the wheel LOL

Nixon also put the speed limit down to 55 nation wide to save lives...


46 posted on 01/10/2008 12:28:16 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: HKMk23; CORedneck
Better yet, de-install the gov't thermostat once the work is finished...

That kind of thing happens all the time, already.

Oh, you can bet that if this sort of thing becomes mandatory, once the device stops communicating with the public utilities, a repair crew will be dispatched.

If it's found that the device was tampered with, you can bet that there will be a fine, and I wouldn't put it past them, criminal charges.

Mark

47 posted on 01/10/2008 12:49:52 AM PST by MarkL
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To: jdm

“Big Media is good for focusing attention on outrages like this. Once people get the idea that California bureaucrats really want to control our thermostats, it will very possibly be all over talk radio.”

Um, I hate to break it to the author, but talk radio is the antithesis of big media. Big media wouldn’t touch this story with a ten foot pole.


48 posted on 01/10/2008 4:43:34 AM PST by CSM ("Dogs and beer. Proof that God loves us.- Al Gator (8/24/2007))
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To: svcw

“...spread the cost of these idiot regs over the cost of many buildings.”

Can you explain to me how you spread variable costs via economies of scale?


49 posted on 01/10/2008 4:46:45 AM PST by CSM ("Dogs and beer. Proof that God loves us.- Al Gator (8/24/2007))
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To: jdm

Definitely going to happen. All this hype over GW isn’t for nothing. It’s designed to prepare us for ridiculous laws like that and the one about light bulbs. Only a matter of time.
First, buildings owned by the gov. Then private businesses that contract with the gov. Then all businesses, then homes where an occupant receives gov money. Then all homes.


50 posted on 01/10/2008 4:47:12 AM PST by Leftism is Mentally Deranged
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To: polymuser

“Can we isolate CA, let them have their own socialist economy, and let them trade with us as if a foreign entity?”

Wasn’t that the point of federalism? Of course the USSC has bastardized the commerce clause to eliminate that principle.


51 posted on 01/10/2008 4:48:16 AM PST by CSM ("Dogs and beer. Proof that God loves us.- Al Gator (8/24/2007))
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
PONG!!!

free dixie,sw

52 posted on 01/10/2008 7:13:40 AM PST by stand watie (Resistance to tyrants is OBEDIENCE to God. Thomas Jefferson, 1804)
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To: CSM
The best example would be a home owner building their home verses a developer building 100 homes.
The 100 homes are essentially the same, energy calcs, would only have to be done once for the 100 so each home would have that cost at 1/100, where as the signle home bears the total cost. Hopefully, I explained it a little better
53 posted on 01/10/2008 7:46:09 AM PST by svcw (There is no plan B.)
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To: MarkL

If I paid for it; it’s mine, and I can do what I like with it after the Inspector leaves.

Most likely, I’d beat it to S#$%! with a sledgehammer, and send the pieces to the Governor’s office along with handwritten instructions for it’s successful reinstallation as an integral part of his anatomy.

And, yes, I’d be willing to pay for that priviledge.


54 posted on 01/10/2008 11:19:32 AM PST by HKMk23 (AUT VINCERI AUT MORI)
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To: SheLion

I call him Health Nut Huckabee.


55 posted on 01/10/2008 12:52:13 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (I resolve to remember to write "08" on my checks.)
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To: gidget7

Is there actual evidence that the libs are deliberately moving out into other states to drag them leftward, or is it that they’re just idiots who cannot leave their morally bankrupt ideologies with the states from which they flee?


56 posted on 01/10/2008 12:54:01 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (I resolve to remember to write "08" on my checks.)
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To: Tennessee Nana
Nixon also put the speed limit down to 55 nation wide to save lives...

I thought the double nickel was imposed to save oil. The "saves lives" argument, of course, is quite convenient for perpetrating tyranny.

57 posted on 01/10/2008 12:56:12 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (I resolve to remember to write "08" on my checks.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
It is both. Homosexual activists do it purposely, in an effort to bring homosexual marriage to other states via attempts to divorce once they are married in states that allow it. And to bring activism to parts of the country that are strongly pro traditional moral values. Others move to conservative areas, preferring the atmosphere more but proceed to move those areas left and in effect change the dynamic to more reflect the areas they left. In some cases, it is done unknowingly, but in others it is not. Together, they are becoming more and more successful with time.
58 posted on 01/10/2008 1:11:29 PM PST by gidget7 ( Vote for the Arsenal of Democracy, because America RUNS on Duncan!)
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To: gidget7

So, what can we do? People have freedom of movement in this country. And whatever happened to that (yes) deliberate plan to move 20,000 libertarian conservatives into a small state and drag it rightward.

That stunt, by the way, proves your point. If we can think of such things, so can they.

Our way is superior, because we mostly leave them alone, while they, on the other hand, try to impose their will on us.


59 posted on 01/10/2008 1:22:30 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (I resolve to remember to write "08" on my checks.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
I agree with you, and don’t know exactly what we can do. I don’t think the idea that a lot propose, which is to write off states that are socialist, is the answer, for sure! Giving up land to socialists by writing off or simply moving out of those states will only in the long run, leave us eventually, with nowhere to go. We do need to get children out of the public schools thus raising conservatives instead of indoctrinated, mind numbed little robots. And we do need to educate people about the implications of electing socialists and activists to office, and WHY conservatism works. The errors in the socialist mind set etc. How to do the latter? If I knew the answer I would tell you. A start may be to get folks listening to Rush and referring people to excellent Conservative books. They sure aren’t going to learn it in public school or college.

Also with young people, in an informed manner, point out the hypocrisy of socialist mind sets.

60 posted on 01/10/2008 2:07:05 PM PST by gidget7 ( Vote for the Arsenal of Democracy, because America RUNS on Duncan!)
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