The Evil Widescreen

The influential lobby group Consumer Electronics Assn. is fighting what appears to be a losing battle to dissuade California regulators from passing the nation's first ban on energy-hungry big-screen televisions.

California used to have a reputation for truly progressive policies. Policies that cast off the old way of East Coast thinking, and allowed the state to prosper for generations, serving as a magnet for migrants from every corner of the nation.
Sadly, it hasn't been that way for over a generation.

Now, what passes for 'new' thinking is just the same old nannyism, chasing dubious ideals with policies that have always failed in the past.

This latest in just another chapter in the screwing of California citizens, dressed in the same old lies:

"We would not propose TV efficiency standards if we thought there was any evidence in the record that they will hurt the economy," said Commissioner Julia Levin, who has been in charge of the two-year rule-making procedure. "This will actually save consumers money and help the California economy grow and create new clean, sustainable jobs."

(Exactly how banning certain televisions will increase jobs in California has not been explained, and needn't be, for the result will be the same, and the Starbucks/Wholefoods crowd just eats up mindless rhetoric like this.)

The claim is that we will be saving $30 per year in electricity savings for every television set. More bullshit. California already has the highest cost in the nation for consumer electricity rates. The state refuses to allow any more electricity generating plants to be built (it's been at least 30yrs since a new plant has come on-line), and keeps punishing the folks for using more electricity.

They look at past usage; before there were computers, Hi-Fi stereo, microwave ovens, and nice color televisions in every home, or in more than one room, and declare that we are wasteful and need reining in. Instead of allowing us to have the higher standard of living modern technology delivers, we lectured about not being 'green enough', while they raise the cost of electricity, and willfully contribute to it's scarcity.

And in the next breath claim to be on a mission to increase California living standards. The big surprise is that they haven't manage to drive us into Second World living conditions already, though they are working on it.

Oh, and that $30 we are supposed to be saving? It will likely just get taxed away through even higher costs per kilowatt, which never seems to stop increasing because... the more you cut back, the more they need to raise the rates to recoup
the profit they lost, or else we'll face blackouts when they shut down the power plants that can't make money.

It's the same thing with the water utility. When we have a drought, rates rise to spur conservation. When the drought eases, water rates rise again to build more increased reservoir capacity to hold all the extra water. It never ends...

Look at your own electric bill. Are you paying up to 30 cents per kWh? We are.