Privacy: Is your's doomed?

This morning I noticed this article. Privacy is something that doesn't seem to matter anymore.Giving up our privacy deserves some serious thought.  Giving it up without even knowing we are doing so, is unforgivable.

Utility companies across the U.S. are installing smart meters in customers’ homes, touting the technology’s energy-saving ways, but opponents argue that the meters are opening a Pandora’s box of privacy concerns.

The smart energy meters read electric or gas usage, and enable a power company to collect detailed usage data on a particular home or building. But the readings also gather personal information that some critics argue is too intrusive.

The information gathered from smart meters includes unencrypted data that can, among other details, reveal when a homeowner is away from their residence for long periods of time. The electric wattage readings can even decipher what type of activities a customer is engaged in, such as watching TV, using a computer or even how long someone spends cooking.

I had never thought that smart meters were invading the privacy of anyone. After reading about what these smart meters are capable of doing, I've changed my mind. Now I realize why the government has no objection to the installation of these so called smart meters. By having these smart hydro meters, the government can know approximately what you do in your own home and also when you’re not at home. By asking the Hydro company for the information about certain families the government may be interested in knowing about, the government can get a lot of private information pretty easily.

Now I don’t want to sound as if I have a bad case of paranoia, but what if the government decides to actually spy on you? What would stop them from having a litle webcam and microphone installed in a brand new television? I’m not saying it is happening or might happen, but the way things are going now, we never know who is liable to spy on us and why they are doing it? And it wouldn’t necessarily have to be our own government but any government. A foreign government would have even less business doing so. Of course if they were asked by our own government to do so they could claim it to be for security reasons. It might absolve our own government of any wrongdoing because no one would know who was really behind the invasion of privacy.

Isn’t that something to think about?

Are Electronic cigarettes dangerous?

I guess the people asking that question don’t read too many reports about what is added or taken out of the food that we buy in good faith. Otherwise they'd be more worried about our food.  I've been keeping up with the e-cigarettes issue and if you have then you would not be asking a question about their safety. I will say that electric cigarettes are 100% safer than some of the food that we buy in good faith. 

Of course electronic cigarettes are safe except for e-diots (e-cigarette idiots) who would buy refills of nicotine in those little bottles and don’t have enough sense to take safety precautions.  All you need to do is make sure to handle it safely and not leave it within reach of children and/or pets. The level of nicotine will kill a child or pet (or even an adult) if it’s ingested orally.  Even if you spill some on your skin it could be poison.  The solution is to be safe about how you use and store it.  The answer is not to ban it.

There are some people that do not like cigarette smoke, so if they see someone smoking one of these e-cigarettes then the first thing you know, they will start whining and saying that the smoke stinks and makes them sick. It’s safe to say that their imaginations are running wild, because it’s not smoke that comes out of an e-cigarette but water vapor. But to be honest, if you are vapourizing Canadian tobacco, there is a smell of tobacco.  But it doesn't stay around too long - it dissipates within a few seconds. Yet some of the other flavors like watermelon, orange or pomegranate or any other flavour it’s only the smell of whatever flavor the  "smoker" chooses because there is no nicotine in it.  The smell dissipates in a couple seconds because it’s not smoke but vapour.

                                                               

If a person were to be brought to court because he/she was using this in a "no smoking" area, they should have the case thron out of court unless it was also stated that e- cigarettes are not allowed in that area. The charge of smoking would not be legal as you were not smoking you were vapourizing. There is a big difference. Smoking involves tobacco which causes smoke but vapor is not smoke, it is evaporating water. So the charge against you would say smoking but the charge would be dropped because you were not smoking. Even if your using that cigarette where it states you can’t use electronic cigarettes, just the fact that they marked smoking would be a false charge. They would have to charge you with vapourizing and there are no criminal charges for causing vapour.  If there were anyone charges for that, then boiling water while cooking could be breaking the law.

Procrastinators, just plain lazy or just don’t care?

A couple of days ago I read about the dangers of mishandling pure nicotine. I would suggest that before buying anything that includes something like pure nicotine you can buy in a bottle, you go to Google and read up on it first. On Google there is all kinds of information on that subject.

First of all, nicotine comes from the tobacco plant, and it is a sort of pesticide. It’s the only protection that this plant has to protect itself against the bugs that would try to eat it. According to information available on Google, farmers uses nicotine to spread on their fields. In other words if this nicotine was prescribed by a doctor, on the label it would state, keep away from children. It would have to be treated just like the medical prescription that you get from a drugstore.

I read on Facebook that a pet dog licked up nicotine from a bottle that was on the floor and sadly, the pet died. This nicotine is dangerous if not handled properly. It is used in e-cigarettes but mixed with something else and comes in different strength staring from 24 mg. down to zero.  The problem is not e-cigarettes.  So those in the United States and Canada who are arguing for the banning and/or regulation of e-cigarettes are procrastinators for not investigating the truth behind their ill-informed opinions or they are just too lazy to investigate properly, or maybe they just don't care about whether their opinions are based on facts.

Of course children shouldn't be exposed to a nicotine product cigarettes, or e-cigarettes.  But to go overboard and ban the product is the result of a weakly understood product that deserves a second look before the panic starts.

That is my rant for the day. 

Me, grouchy?

Men over 70 get grouchy? No, normally men over 70 are not necessarily more grouchy than anyone else, but I believe that men over 70 might get grouchy because of people making stupid statements like this one:

Psychologists interviewed more than 1,000 men repeatedly between 1989 and 2004 and found they had fewer 'hassles' as they got older and daily life became simpler.

Yet their overall happiness then reduced around the age of 70 for a huge range of reasons, the scientists found.

This link was sent to me by a friend yesterday. It made me feel grumpy. Now, I could be only 20 or 30 or any age older, and if someone stepped on a lawn that I had just slaved over to make look good I'd be yes, grumpy about it. If some dummy comes and walks all over it for no reason, just to use it as a short cut to wherever they are going sure, I’ll yell, but it doesn't mean that I’m grouchy all the time. That’s just like if your painting and someone comes and puts their hand on it without thinking, are you going to hug that person and say "you did good"? No.

And just because a senior (of 70 or older) yells at a person that would do something like that he would be considered as grouchy?

Hey I would say that I grouchy right now, because someone is being paid to make stupid statements like that. Well I guess what they’re doing is about what their intelligence can handle, so they'd better watch they don’t lose that job or else it could be welfare time for them.

By the way I’m 79. Do you think I’m grouchy for writing something like this? If you have any comments on what I just wrote, I’ll be glad to read them. And if they aren't too foolish, I'll even answer back. But watch yourself. There could be grouchy people around and they might yell -- better get earmuffs.

Have a good and grouch-free day.

Freedom of religion.

I believe in freedom of religion providing there are no mutilations of the human body or any violence whatsoever. Anyone who would immigrate to this country that believes in this kind of violence should stay in whatever country they originated from. I am a Canadian. I was born here and I follow the laws of my country. I can’t understand why the government of this country allows immigrants to do what we Canadians are not allowed to do. By this I mean under the guise of religious freedom.

I was listening to my favorite radio station (C.F.R.A. - the Lowell Green talk show). The talk show was about the mutilation of a woman's vagina. This is kind of sickening to hear and anyone here in Canada who would do this kind of barbaric thing should be sentenced to at least 10 years in the penitentiary.

This kind of barbaric act is the result of  multiculturism that was brought in by a certain Prime Minister who left this world a long time ago. I guess at that time, he did not realize that he was giving our country away along with some of our laws.

Yes, we Canadians are good people and even the government will ignore when some of these immigrants do what is not allowed in this country under normal circumstances. And they get away with it. I have no problems with anyone that wants to immigrate here but so long as they leave their barbaric practices wherever they are from. Obviously not all immigrants do these sorts of things. Most probably don't. But the kind of culture that some immigrants practice is not needed here.  So if they insist on following that kind of culture then they should be exempt from becoming legal immigrants here and sent back to whichever country they want to leave. This is Canada and we don’t cater to any kind of torture or any sadistic behavior in any religion or cult.

I would gladly vote for any party that would do away with this multiculturalism garbage and take our country back and restore it to its rightful owners - us Canadians.

That’s my beef for today.

The 5th amendment.

IRS department head Learner recently plead the 5th amendment so as not to incriminate herself while testifying before a Congressional hearing on the IRS targeting Tea Party groups for special negative treatment. 

Why would anyone plead the 5th amendment in a court setting, especially when working with a bunch of people where e-mails are going back and forth? Knowing that others in the department are aware of what is going on? I was thinking of Ms. L. Learner when writing about this legal maneuver . She gets brought into the hearing for questioning regarding the IRS targeting scandal and she pleads the 5th.  Doesn’t that prove that she has something to hide or is at least guilty to some degree in whatever happened? Yes, legally she may not have to testify against herself but it sure makes her look guilty.  

To me if a person pleads the 5th that would be either to protect someone (including themselves) or in her case perhaps having been offered a promotion to another department in exchange for her silence. Perhaps she could end up with more take home pay and with more power over other people and an opportunity to advance to a higher post in the government. By taking the 5th she is showing that she knows more than what she is willing to divulge to protect herself and whoever else that was involved in what she did. She did make a bad mistake by saying “I am not guilty of anything” and only then taking the 5th since she has already made a statement.  According to the laws of the USA she can’t take the 5th in that situation.

Myself, I would of offered her immunity just to get at the truth and then investigate if what she said was in fact the truth. While investigating her statements, I would have let her go to work and at the first opportunity find an excuse to fire her. If what she said when making her statements was found to be lies then she could have been sent to jail for a long time because her lies would have been perjury, because her statements would have been made by swearing to tell the truth.

Open letter to Governor Chris Christie.

Governor Christie,

I thought that you were a smart man and straight-shooting person. But after what I have read in the news about you lately, regarding a tax on e-cigarettes I have changed my mind. Anyone that would put a tax on something that would be a benefit to the health of people just to get a few million dollars in additional taxes is being inconsiderate of people's health.

I would say, a smart person would sit back and think of how a tax could be put on something that would bring in the few millions that would be needed to replace the loss of taxes on tobacco sales.

Well Sir, I would not consider myself to be smarter than the ordinary Joe, but I am smart enough to figure out a way to put a tax on something that would benefit people's health, and at the same time, reduce the amount of criminality in a state. All you need to do is find a certain product that affects health negatively and also affects some people's thinking and causes some of them to act out of character. For example, alcohol. This product is the cause of a lot of people being in jail for crimes that they would otherwise not have committed without using it.

Here are a few examples of what alcohol can cause people to do. Domestic violence (a wife being beaten by a drunken husband), rape (either those consuming it acting more aggressively and violently or else being intoxicated to the point of not being sober enough to give proper consent themselves), kids going hungry because the person responsible for their well being cannot control their consumption of alcohol (and spending), armed robberies, drunk driving and whatever else you can think of what abusing of alcohol does. In fact alcohol is worse for health and the conduct of some people than even smoking regular cigarette tobacco. So why not add a tax to that to try to discourage consumption rather than taxing something that may help people from developing cancerÉ

Oh yes, it just dawned on me. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to put a tax on something that would result in not giving you enough votes in the next election now would you? Or is it a case of "to hell with peoples health and actions, I just want to balance the state budget and get re-elected?"

Regards,

Bob in Canada