Last Words, Sunday’s Bizarro by Dan Piraro is a hilarious cartoon on how our culture is so obsessed with cell phones. He writes, “I have not one shred of doubt that this scene, or something quite like it, is playing out all over the world at this very moment.”
Category: Commentary
Smart Meter: heros and bullies in Oklahoma
Joe Esposito lives in Tulsa County on the fence line next to the City of Owasso, Oklahoma, which was a pilot for the State of Oklahomaʼs Smart Meter program. Joe called the Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) and told them he did not want a Smart Meter. He came home one day from work and discovered that PSO had installed a Smart Meter on his home without his consent.
Joe and his wife watched Dr. Dietrich Klinghardtʼs video “Smart Meter and EMR: The Health Crisis Of Our Time”. After watching the video Joe took Dr. Klinghardtʼs advice and nailed a sheet of lead (30”x30”) between the smart meter and his house and later that night he woke up to discover the two major health problems he had been having were gone. He then built a faraday cage to sleep in which helped him even more.
Joe says, “The important issue to understand is that I did not need any pharmaceuticals, I just needed to get the radiation stopped.”
Joe then worked with Jerry Day, who helped him obtain an analog meter and legal paperwork. Then he talked with a licensed electrician who suggested he apply to the City of Tulsa for a permit to replace his Smart Meter with an analog meter, due to health problems. Joe did just that and the inspector came out said all was fine and he would call PSO to have them put their security lock on the new analog meter.
Within days he received an over-night letter from PSOʼs attorney saying put back the Smart Meter or we will cut your power off. Joe refused and he and his wife were forced to live without power for over two months.
Joe’s attorney and PSO’s attorney finally worked out an agreement to place a ‘plug’ instead of a meter on his house and gave Joe two months to resolve this issue or PSO will cut his power off again.
While Joe was learning about radiation he purchased a GIGAHERTZ SOLUTIONS Meter HFE 35C, so he could read the amount of radiation from all these electrical devices. He found where his wife would lay her head on their bed his meter would peg.
Once the electrician put the analog meter on Joeʼs home, Joe believed all would be normal inside his home. But the reading at their bed stayed the same. So now they tried no meter on the home, no power to the home, and yet the reading was the same on their bed.
The next day he nailed aluminum window screen wire to the whole south side of his home, which helped lower the readings. What he learned was the hospital approximately 700 ft. to his south was pulsing radiation every 30 seconds, and a cell tower about a half mile to the south was transmitting constantly.
Joe says, “If a person breaks into my home to do harm, I can protect my family. What is the difference if microwave radiation is breaking into my home and doing harm to my family?”
Joe founded the website Stop Smart Meters in Oaklahoma. You can read more about his story in his own words here: Joe Esposito.
Recently Oklahoma TV news station ran a story on the health impacts of smart meters including Joe Esposito and Monique Smith who is suffering from headaches, dizziness and nosebleeds from the smart meter. She has a note from her doctor saying it’s “medically necessary that the smart meter be removed from the home.” Still their utility company refuses to remove it, forcing them out of their home. Here’s the first of three excellent videos. The second and third can be watched here: http://kfor.com/2013/07/23/customers-says-oge-smart-meters-making-them-sick/
Warren Woodward refutes utility lies and deceptions
Warren Woodward has written over a dozen letters to the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) over the last two years about the hazards of, and falsely presumed safety of so-called Smart Meters. As a specialist in Smart Meter microwave transmission power Warren spent several weeks measuring the peak power output of Smart Meters around Sedona and he found it is much higher that he was lead to believe.
Recently Warren joined forces with Nancy Baer and Monnie Ramsell of Sedona Smart Meter Awareness in a two hour presentation at Sedona City Council. This resulted in the Mayor of Sedona sending the ACC a request for a city wide option for residents to retain the analog utility meters without any opt-out extortion fees. See also Warren’s letter to the editor. (Open Letter to the Arizona Corporation Commission: APS = more deception, lies and misinformation).
The video is an interview with Steve Devol of Sedona.biz with Warren Woodward responding to a critical “Letter to the Editor” about his presentation before the Sedona City Council about Smart Meters.
Is Wi-Fi safe?
This is an excellent introduction to wi-fi radiation in schools, the science, government response, and how the radiation compares to ambient background and cell tower levels.
“Convenience is not an acceptable reason to risk the health and safety of children.” Learn more about wi-fi in schools: WiFi in Schools.com Learn more about the science: BioInitiative.org
Electrosmog- What Price Convenience? Radio Interview with Blake Levitt
Where the public gets burned and corporations get rate increases
Earlier this month California state legislators grilled the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on it’s lax safety oversight and financial problems. President Michael Peevey was caught by a TV investigative reporter at a winery conference, instead of answering questions at a senate hearing in Sacramento: Peeveys Priority: Senate Hearing or Napa Winery? Legislators voted to wipe out the CPUC’s $1.4 billion budget to “force the regulatory agency to justify how it spends its money.”
On Thursday May 23, PG&E customers continue to demand safe utility oversight from the CPUC. President Peevey started off the CPUC business meeting by saying since everyone had been there before he’d skip the safety instructions for the building.
Garril Page, of Marin County was one of a group of PG&E customers who spoke at their business meeting during public comments. She said this:
“Lax oversight and failure to regulate too-cozy utilities… How often does this require restatement before there is corrective action?
It is not Jack Hagan’s military mind we need, but a surgical strike at the head of the CPUC, to stop unsafe, unreliable conditions, abuse of funds and fiscal improprieties.
The public is threatened by deferred maintenance of utility infrastructure, improperly regulated, radiation-spewing devices, overburdened power poles loaded with snooping, profit-producing, data collectors that topple and burn.
The CPUC used bureaucratic box-checking to conceal the number of exploding underground vaults. How will the truth about power pole fires be hidden?
The truth about Smart Meters is being revealed despite the CPUC’s apparent indifference to scientific research and aversion to public testimony.
No amount of a carcinogen is safe, radiation effects are cumulative, the damage is irreversible, and for the privilege of toxic exposure we are charged opt-out fees.
The California Public Utilities Commission: where the public gets burned and corporations get rate increases.”
Bravo Garril! There were many other terrific speakers too.
Cindy Sage Challenges the “Smart” in LADWP’s “Smart” Grid
LADWP project manager guarantees “smart” meters are optional!
Last week at a Woodland Hills City Council meeting, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) presented information about their Smart Meter deployment plans, while environmental consultant Cindy Sage, co-editor of the BioInitiative Report, presented information warning of the deployment risks.
Marcelo Di Paolo, manager of the LADWP Smart Grid project said they received a $60 million dollar federal grant and that the research institutes of USC, UCLA and Cal Tech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) doubled the project funding for a total of $120 million dollars. Hmmm… what does a Jet Propulsion Lab have to do with smart meters?
Di Paolo stated this is a demonstration project and would be in three areas around UCLA, USC, and Chatsworth. LADWP is planning to deploy 52,000 Itron smart meters. Hmmm, 52,000 meters is a demonstration project?
He also said the meters only transmit 3 times a day! Hmmm….Haven’t we heard that before? PG&E used to say their meters only transmitted 6 times a day. Then they admitted up to 190,000 times a day, per meter.
Di Paolo also said that the project is “purely a volunteer optional program” and that the community can “pick and actually choose whether or not to participate.”
In stark contrast to Di Paolo’s optimism was Cindy Sage who warned about the evidence for health problems from the pulsed radiation Smart Meters emit. She stated, “Those wireless impacts are biologically very similar to the impacts you would have from a cell tower.” She wisely urged them to learn from the mistakes the Investor Owned Utilities have made. She asks, “Is this a smart business model, to provide a device for energy conservation…if there are going to be unintended consequences in terms of health impacts for people?”
Di Paolo said the deployment would start in a couple weeks, but two LADWP customers said they already had Smart Meters on their home, that they were sick from the exposure and that when they complained, LADWP refused to remove it!
Meanwhile, although the manager claims LADWP sent out letters stating at the bottom of the letter that participation was voluntary, nowhere in the Smart Grid L.A. Letter does it say the meters are optional. At the end of the meeting Di Paolo guaranteed the meters were optional and provided his direct line for people to call: 213-367-1388.
Deploying Smart Meters at a time when multitudes of people worldwide are complaining about the health and safety impacts is beyond super dumb, and reckless endangerment of innocent lives. Our children are the most vulnerable. Chronic exposure to pulsed radiation is harming everyone’s health.
Thanks to Ecological Options Network for providing the videos of the event. Here’s Part 2 of the meeting:
CALL TO ACTION: Reject Obama’s Wheeler to head the FCC
Last week, President Obama nominated Tom Wheeler, the founder of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), the wireless lobbyist group to head the FCC. Wheeler is also a venture capitalist and a fund-raiser in Obama’s presidential campaign.
Authors of the BioInitiative Report signed a letter to US Senators urging them to reject Wheeler stating,
“Mr. Wheeler should not be in charge of the nation’s safety standards and deployment for a technology he promotes without regard to public health and safety, the integrity of the national electric grid or homeland security.
The FCC has recently announced a review of radiofrequency health and safety limits. This process must not be carried out under a new chairman who has shown antipathy toward public safety, and who puts industry economic considerations ahead of the protection of children and pregnant women.”
Blake Levitt, award-winning medical/science journalist writes in Counterpunch.org, “Why the Senate Should Reject Tom Wheeler- Another Industry Crony at the FCC?
“President Obama’s nomination of Tom Wheeler to head the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the height of cynical cronyism and industry-pandering. He should not be confirmed. Obama, in fact, could not have found a worse nominee than Tom Wheeler to head this most significant regulatory agency – one with long tentacles into all our lives whether we know it or not. Wheeler is the last person who should have his hands on the levers of the FCC, though he’s been aching to do just that for decades.”
“Wheeler has far too many conflicts of interest and industry biases to head the FCC. The FCC, regulates the nation’s airwaves and all communications plus its accompanying infrastructure, including all broadcasters, cable companies, telephone-service providers both wired and wireless, satellite communications and the Internet. FCC is at a crucial juncture regarding decisions on new airwave auctions, further media consolidation, net neutrality, and most importantly the updating of the nation’s obsolete exposure standards for radiofrequency radiation. The stakes are high. These decisions will affect all U.S. citizens for decades to come in ways great and small….”
Read the full article at Counterpunch.org