http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/us/11control.html?em&ex=1200200400&en=fdc66b5d 69c13c6e&ei=5087%0A

Any democrats want to defend this?

How ironic. The left handwrings about profile lists for terrorists, yet sees little problem with big brother controlling the temperature in your own home.

Herb

Why would Democrats need to defend it? I see nothing that mentions this is a Democrat idea, nor did I read anything about any Democrats supporting it.

Personally, I think it sucks.

As an American, I don't think it's a good solution to the problem.

So, let's say it's a Democratic idea. What then? Vote GOP, because [fill in the blank here].

Maybe we are supposed to think, "Oh yeah, they really are just as bad." Is that it?

Neither of these make any real sense to me. The real discussion here is the merits of the system, who it's supporters are, and if it really bothers you, what kinds of advocacy options we might have and how to exercise them.

--unless one is just slinging mud.

Let's ask Ahnold (R-CA) what he thinks. The Republicans have tapped your phone, your email, why not your thermostat?

Personally, I am in favor of an energy tax, with discounts given for family members and age, IE if there are very young or old people in the house, you can use more energy.

I would like to see teh fed gasoline tax raised at least $1.50 per gallon, and a fed tax on home heating oil, electricity and gas. based on actual use, with a deduction for family members.

Bill Gates family of 3, would pay a very large tax, in keeping his hugh home warm or cool. A family of 6 in a 3 bedrom house would get a large discount.

A family of 6, especially a single parent with 5 kids in a 3-bedroom house can afford heat?

Have you never read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? (Although that was 7 people in a 1-room shack)

I'd like to see TriMet charge a fee of $1.50 to Washington residents and a surcharge of $100 when they complain about bicyclists riding MAX.

I'd like to see TriMet charge a fee of $1.50 to Washington residents and a surcharge of $100 when they complain about bicyclists riding MAX.

I'd like to see ALL public transportation run like a real business and charge what it really costs to haul a person from point a to point b.

Tax dollars should not support it. Let the people who ride it support it.

What does it really cost to haul somebody from point a to point b?

One person on the bus? Full bus? Half full Bus?

Previous Bus full, empty, half?

Additionally, real business needs to make a profit, so that adds to the costs, and also provides an incentive to provide the least acceptable level of service and ongoing maintenance.

Not everything is well suited for a business, and this is one of them, IMHO.

So I pay some in taxes to keep TriMet up and running. My kids get a ton of use out of the thing, meaning I'm not dealing with cars and insurance, which is a huge savings!

(When they get jobs full time, or enter secondary school full time, we can talk about help with cars and insurance)

Remember that tax thread we had a while back? If we didn't help to fund public transportation, our tax burden would not change significantly.

In order to get it to change significantly, as in cut by half, we would have to eliminate nearly everything, but the military spending.

There is also all the people using public transportation to get to and from low paying jobs. If that option is gone, what happens to both the jobs and the people?

The CA problem is interesting. If they don't somehow regulate energy, they are gonna suffer blackouts more often and those come with pretty huge costs to everybody in the state.

Barring some investment is made, are the blackouts the better option? I'm not so sure they are.

Wonder if people would go for this on their own, given some incentive? Seems to me, that's a better choice than just mandating it.

Also, those things are controlled by some FM system. Circumventing it will be dead simple, so no worries there. However, whose FM, and how much are they gonna get paid each year? No bid, or what?

...and is that facility secure? What about the protocol itself? Significant worries all around, as far as I'm concerned.

"I'd like to see ALL public transportation run like a real business and charge what it really costs to haul a person from point a to point b.

Tax dollars should not support it. Let the people who ride it support it."

While I'm no fan of public transportation, especially MAX, I'd like to make the people that support the Iraq war pay for it, via a war tax. You would have to check a box that says you support the war, and as a result, you'd be taxed to pay for it. Then we'd see whether you chickenhawks would put your money where your mouth is.

*BAM*

gotta love that one.

A trip to Dallas, TX, will get Portland public transportation foes 'back on the bus' rather quickly. If you find Dallas to your taste, then you ought to stay there.

While I'm no fan of public transportation, especially MAX, I'd like to make the people that support the Iraq war pay for it, via a war tax. You would have to check a box that says you support the war, and as a result, you'd be taxed to pay for it. Then we'd see whether you chickenhawks would put your money where your mouth is.

No problem.

As long as we get check boxes for Socialist Insecurity, welfare, pork barrel spending, tobacco subsidies and all the other things that Washington wastes our tax dollars on.

Also, those things are controlled by some FM system. Circumventing it will be dead simple, so no worries there. However, whose FM, and how much are they gonna get paid each year? No bid, or what?

Missing, we actually do that now with our 2Way paging network.

PGE uses it for reading meters remotely, but I don't know if they have any control of the electric meter or not. I don’t know what we charge for it as I’m on the technical side of the house not the marketing side.

A large Heating/Cooling manufacturer uses our network to remotely control commercial and residential AC units in CA and CO (probably other places too, those are just the ones I am aware of).

Of course this is all voluntary, not mandated.

Anything like this that is mandated is bad.

"As long as we get check boxes for Socialist Insecurity, welfare, pork barrel spending, tobacco subsidies and all the other things that Washington wastes our tax dollars on."

Me thinks the "war" checkbox would be the one mostly unchecked. And that there will be millions of poor, hungry, and rapidly-dying-off Republicans at age 67 who greedily left the SS box unchecked earlier in their lives.

I think it is a really expensive and rather technocratic approach to conservation. So, not to be a killjoy, but how much fuel will be burned by these fleets of "heatpump police" anyway? Have they allocated an "energy control frequency" or are they just gonna wing it? Remember the fallout from this recent revelation? I trust these folks will have real good plan based on their solid record.

Climate control is all a bit too Ray Bradbury (et al) for me to be really comfortable with the concept. It leaves one with more questions than answers. To me, that is the sure sign of a somewhat sinister, well-padded and needless government program. It seems to only extend to the newest gadget happy crackerboxes, but it is still unnecessary and invasive. Yet another solid reason to get off the grid.

Skybill, are you referring to narrowband PCS?

Vitalogy, Yes it is narrowband PCS.

We operate a 1Way nationwide paging network in the 931 MHz band and a nationwide 2Way network in the 941 MHz (TX)/901 MHz (RX) bands.

The 1Way network is pretty much all numeric/alphanumeric pagers using the Flex protocol.

On the 2Way network, we have several types of fixed wireless devices. Thermostat control, electric meter reading and alarms are just a few of them. There is also several hundred thousand 2Way pagers (or as the sales folks refer to them "Messaging devices) on this network. It is the only ReFlex 50 (50 KHz channel) network in the country.

....And that there will be millions of poor, hungry, and rapidly-dying-off Republicans at age 67 who greedily left the SS box unchecked earlier in their lives.

Why would we be poor and hungry when we can get a MUCH better return on investment by investing OUR money ourselves rather than having it go into some slush fund that may or may not be there when I retire?

931.2125?

Cool. Just an exciter away from being a non issue. Expect this on the geek sites within a few months of this happening.

931.2125? Nope!

That was a Metrocall frequency. Metrocall was purchased/merged with Arch (which was made up of mergers of Mobilecomm, PageNet, Metromedia, Weblink and a bunch of other paging carriers) and became USA Mobility!

TSR Wireless also had that frequency in some areas. TSR went bankrupt.


Our nationwide frequency is 931.9375 MHz We also have 931.4375 MHz for the most part nationwide too although .4375 is not a true "nationwide" frequency.

When the FCC set up the 931 band way back when, they designated 3 of the frequencies to be nationwide and would only be licensed to 1 carrier on each frequency. We (SkyTel) got 1 of them, 931.9375 MHz, Mobilecomm got one, 931.8875 MHz, and Contact Communications got the third on 931.9125 MHz Contact never built any of their system and sold it to Embarc (Motorola).

All the other frequencies in the 931 band were available on a location by location basis and anyone could apply for a license.

Our 2Way network operates on 940.225 MHz for the forward path (to the pager/device) and 901.20625 MHz for the return path (from the pager/device).

"Why would we be poor and hungry when we can get a MUCH better return on investment by investing OUR money ourselves rather than having it go into some slush fund that may or may not be there when I retire?"

Unfortunately too many Americans, INCLUDING REPUBLICANS, can't see too far into the future, let alone invest enough money to get a return even SS can match. They're constantly bombarded with ways to spend every last dollar (advertising). Grandma and grandpa on every street corner? Nope. Americans won't have it. Social Security is a hands-off issue. Even the great George W Bush couldn't muster a change.

"that may or may not be there when I retire?""

If we keep electing people like George "the wmds are there somewhere" Bush, then you'll have valid concern.

I wonder how great our economy would be right now if we sunk the iraq 1 trillion dollars into "kicker checks" for SS recepicants instead.

"Even the great George W Bush couldn't muster a change"

And that with Repuglicans in control of both the House and Senate.

No. Better resign yourself to the notion that SS will not go away during our lifetime.

Skybill, I'm surprised Skytel is still in business. I worked for Telepage Northwest in the early 90's as an account manager, so I'm familiar with the business and all the old players. I rarely see anyone carrying pagers these days other than hospital workers.

Vitalogy, Yep, we're still here!!

The business has changed a lot (as I'm sure you know) but we're still surviving. At one point we had over 4000 SkyTel employees. We now have about 250.

Almost all of the other paging carriers from way back are now under the USA Mobility umbrella.

There are really only 3 nationwide players now. SkyTel, USA Mobility and American Messaging.

Hospitals and Doctors are becoming a big part of the business again. Kind of went full circle!

Looks like that one fell flat!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/us/16brfs-THERMOSTATPL_BRF.html?ex=1201150800& en=8f052d585617b205&ei=5070&emc=eta1