- More information about the Florida legal action regarding $$meters and damages. There seems to be a consistent policy of hiring people off the street, give little training, and pay them to rush a job that, when done poorly, endangers lives and property. And then the utility companies deny all responsibility. Many people in BC have paid for repairs to homes and electronics/appliances caused by this negligent practice. I suggest it’s time for all who have done this to consider joining together. I offer to connect you if you will write me at director@stopsmartmetersbc.ca with “Damages Paid” on the subject line. If your insurance company paid, you should join in because your rates will increase, you will have a record of having claimed.
http://microwavechasm.org/2014/09/27/fpl-customers-sue-honeywell-over-smart-meter-related-repairs/
- Federal Minister of Health Rona Ambrose warns Canadians not to use e-cigarettes because there is no “scientific evidence demonstrating safety.” Why is she not warning Canadians about the dangers of wireless transmitters and devices? There is absolutely no scientific evidence of safety and a lot of evidence that it isn’t safe!! Below is a letter I wrote to her, and would encourage everyone to call her on this obvious double standard that is putting our children at risk.
- See below some great recommendations from a member about tweeting. This is a great tool if used right. Also, a group in the UK would like to be added to the twitter list I circulated in the 2014-09-29 update. Its “handle” is @spymeters and they often use the hashtag #stopsmartmeters
- Mercola has been warning people about the harmful effects of exposure to RF from wireless devices. Now he includes it in one of the causes of cancer. Many independent researchers believe environmental/manmade toxins cause the vast majority of cancers. Dr.Mercola discusses the desire for industry and the agencies who benefit from funding to “find a cure” and who are not providing honest info. to the public about environmental factors.
- From a California group, re. an interview with Ralph Nader which included $$meters.
I made a blog article out of this. Although people can disagree with Nader on some issues, I think a great majority of people have at least heard of him and respect him, so maybe his words can help our cause.
http://smartgridawareness.org/2014/09/30/ralph-nader-views-on-smart-meters/
A wonderful interview on Ralph Nader Radio prompted by a call from someone named Ken Herrmann from San Luis Obispo, California.
The full audio on smart meters is about 15 minutes which I have edited to one file for download from my website:
https://skyvisionsolutions.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/ralph-nader-radio-29-sep-14.mp3 Ralph Nader:
“[Smart meters are] one of many examples of how the constitutional right to privacy which often is associated also with health, safety, security manifestations is being eroded, step by step, coercively. It’s like they’re driving us into the credit economy instead of using a cash economy by actually penalizing people who use cash instead of a credit card or a debit card. And when you add all this up, you’re basically stripping individual citizens of what remains as consumers of control over their own lives. … and putting it in the hands of Big Corporations backed by Big Government, what the conservatives call crony capitalism.”
- An interview with Dr. Martin Blank, available until Oct. 2:
- A short youtube showing how great technology is: 😉
https://www.youtube.com/embed/V_gOZDWQj3Q?rel=0
Letters:
From: Dennis and Sharon Noble [mailto:dsnoble@shaw.ca]
Sent: September 29, 2014 9:53 PM
To: ‘rona.ambrose.c1a@parl.gc.ca‘; ‘rona.ambrose@parl.gc.ca‘
Cc: Hon. Terry Lake (hlth.minister@gov.bc.ca)
Subject: Warning to protect children from dangerous products
Dear Hon. Minister Ambrose,
I congratulate you on your statement about protecting children from e-cigarettes. This is very important. http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?mthd=index&crtr.page=1&nid=888759
I applaud your statement:
“Currently, without scientific evidence demonstrating safety or effectiveness, we continue to urge Canadians against the use of these e-cigarettes. We have heard that e-cigarettes may be a gateway for teens to begin smoking, while also having the potential to serve as a smoking cessation tool. Today, I am asking the Standing Committee on Health to undertake a thorough study on e-cigarettes and provide a report.”
Rona Ambrose
Minister of Health”
You are encouraging warning people about the dangers because there is no proof these cigarettes are safe.
Why are wireless devices like cell phones and wifi treated differently? Why is the standard higher, with proof being required before warnings are required? There is ample evidence of potential harmful effects to warrant caution, at the minimum, yet the public is being told there is no evidence of harm. Where is the evidence of safety?
The effects of prolonged exposure to radiofrequency radiation are potentially as dangerous as being exposed to smoking, yet products emitting RF radiation are being sold without warnings, devices are being put on homes and in schoolrooms where children are being exposed all day everyday.
If nothing more, the public deserves to know of the potential harm in order to better protect themselves and their families.
Please, Minister Ambrose, consider the consequences of doing nothing.
Sincerely,
Sharon Noble
From: Dennis and Sharon Noble [mailto:dsnoble@shaw.ca]
Sent: September 30, 2014 12:46 PM
To: Bill Bennett (mem.minister@gov.bc.ca); ‘bill.bennett.mla@leg.bc.ca‘
Cc: ‘Adrian Dix’; John Horgan. Leader NDP; ‘commission.secretary@bcuc.com‘; Patrick Wruck; CKNW Mike Smyth (msmyth@theprovince.com)
Subject: A charge of discrimination against BC Hydro
Dear Mr. Bennett,
I am writing to you with a charge that the legacy fees as being applied by BC Hydro are discriminatory and in violation of your intent as stated to the public as well as in Directive 4, Meter Choice.
In numerous articles, you explained that the special opt out fees charged to those with non-smart meters were required to cover “extra costs and manual meter readings.”
“After considerable public pressure, Hydro agreed to the opt-out program in July. It has argued the fees, which amount to as much as $420 a year per customer, are necessary to cover extra costs and manual meter readings. – See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/energy-minister-says-utilities-commission-can-t-reject-smart-meter-opt-out-fees-1.644370#sthash.e9rToPUg.dpuf
The public and the BC Utilities Commission was led to believe that all smart meters were being read remotely, and that only “legacy meters” required manual reading which results in additional costs.
This was not true, and continues to not be the case. Many smart meters are not fully functional, requiring manual reading, and many will require this additional service for some time to come. These customers are not being charged any additional fee for this additional service.
According to Section 25 of the Utilities Commission Act, BC Hydro cannot act in a manner that is unfair, unreasonable or discriminatory.
I charge that BC Hydro, by providing a service to some customers without an additional fee while charging other customers $32.40 per month for the very same service is unfair, unreasonable and discriminatory.
The BC Utilities Commission believes it has no authority to respond to this charge because it has no authority with regard to any aspect of the smart meter program except setting rates. I argue that the BCUC is abrogating its limited responsibility since this complaint pertains to rates, but the BCUC is responding to pressure from your office.
Therefore I ask you, Mr. Bennett, to order BC Hydro to stop this discriminatory practise until all smart meters are fully functional and are being read remotely. All monies collected illegally to date should be refunded.
If you refuse to do so, I ask you please to justify and explain your decision to the citizens of British Columbia to allow a crown corporation to treat its customers in a manner which is illegal under the Utilities Commission Act and runs counter to your own directive.
Sincerely,
Sharon Noble
Recommendations from a member for productive tweeting:
I highly recommend that you set a strict time limit for each of your Twitter sessions, and stick to it.
A long Twitter session isn’t necessarily a better Twitter session. Sometimes I spend less than 5 minutes on it, with great results. Sometimes those great results are due to pre-planning, but just as often random luck.
If you ever notice the industry trolls chiming in re your Tweets, remember that strangers can be watching your interplay … and the more you interplay with the trolls that is ALSO giving the troll air time to strangers who often don’t want to hear our message and would be happy to leave believing the many troll tweets in the twitter-battle instead of your tweets. To each his/her own, but when a troll, such as Mr. Quickert, grabs onto one of my tweets, mostly I’ve learned to smile and know it means I’m doing a good job and I ignore him/her and block their account. Remember, these people want to lure you into conversation … they don’t do it for your benefit and they don’t do it to benefit our message.
“Parenting” magazine may notice your tweet if you include anywhere in it @parenting
And in that style, remember you can do that inclusion of any twitter account (obviously, don’t abuse it otherwise the recipients will learn to ignore you or will block you).
If you want to use a hashtag — whether it’s an existing one or a new one — first search it. Then you’ll see how other people use it, plus you’ll avoid using one that you’re thinking is really clever but oops other people use it for something ickky that you don’t want to be associated with. Some hashtags are used enough that they even show up in a Google search (for example #practicesafetech). [I know we’re not talking about facebook but you can use hashtags there too, and facebook makes them automatically clickable to display all facebook posts that use that hashtag.]
When you hear on radio, TV, billboards about companies or agencies having fun (or serious) campaigns about anything, note the website or name of the campaign and find its related existence in the twitter-verse (could be a separate account, could be a hashtag within their normal account, etc.), and hop onto that coat-tail for a second — you never know who will see it. For example, when Bell Mobility has their annual Mental Health thingy (in February?), it’s easy to slide something pertinent in there! Keep it civil.
And you can tweet questions to anyone too (or to the world!).
Try not to talk in double-negatives — unless you’re more or less guaranteed it’s for memorable humour.
Big and small journalists have accounts.
Royal Society of Canada has an account.
Health Canada has an account.
Retailers have accounts.
Environmentalists have accounts.
Celebrity do-gooders have accounts.
Various levels of government and their agencies have accounts.
Router and phone and other manufacturers have accounts.
Telecom companies have accounts.
Oprah, Ellen, Dr. Oz, Sanjay Gupta, Anderson Cooper, … the list goes on forever.
Local parent groups have accounts.
Sports teams have accounts.
Etc. etc.
I encourage everyone to keep it civil, for best effect.
Friendly reminder: most important is that, for the most part, our messages have to appeal to a stranger. If it’s an unread message, it doesn’t matter how well you said something that you wanted to say.
Certainly not necessary all the time … you could occasionally take a minute to think up a word to include that might be common in OTHER topics — you’d be surprised how many new people might have a peek at your tweet resulting from that. I don’t mean as a hashtag, I mean within your text. For example, once I said something like, “Take back your oxygen” and a bunch of athletic-fitness-training type people started following me. Think of current events, or think of what everyday people talk/think about every day. I think it used in a sentence something like “… divorce ourselves from the idea ….” At first I was doing these by accident, then realized.
And if you know how to see what’s trending, try to include a key word from that (probably NOT as a hashtag, only coincidentally). Don’t abuse using a hashtag that’s trending and is unrelated … at the birth of Twitter that wasn’t frowned upon but now it annoys people and you don’t want to annoy them because their annoyance will be with our topic (because they don’t know you).