Illinios Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn urged citizens to send tea bags with their electric bills to protest the raise on electricity rates in their state.
The post office says that while its not illegal to mail tea bags, it could possibly gum up with postal service equipment and slow their jobs down, and also cause some security concerns. In light of that announcement, the Lt. Gov then said it would be ok to just send a picture of a tea bag in with the electrical bills.
Flash back to December 16, 1773. Three groups of fifty Boston residents known as the “Sons of Liberty” board the ships; Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver with the intention of throwing all of the tea into the Boston harbor to protest the tea act. A harbor master explains to the groups that throwing all of the tea into the harbor would be very messy, and affect the other boats in the harbor, which would need to be cleaned. The group aggrees and goes home, and instead write a letter to the editor complaining about taxation without representation, being forced to buy untaxed tea from the British East India Company, and generally being cranky. If that were the case, I’d be drinking tea instead of Starbucks and sitting here bitching about being taxed by the Royal Colonies.
There is such a thing has peaceful protest, and despite the concerns of the postal system, there has to be a way for citizens to protest something they don’t like in a peacefuly, yet inconvenient way to get the point across. Using “National Security” concerns has become the trademark of all excuses to stop citizens from peaceful discord. We can’t congregate anymore, we can’t mail tea bags, we can’t do a lot of things anymore because they throw the whole “oooh, National Security” concerns flag and we simper back to our holes and continue to stew over being ineffective and castrated. Thank you government can we have another.
This year in Maryland the de-regulation of power companies went into effect. In 1999 the Maryland General Assembly thought it would be a good idea to de-regulate power companies so that independent power companies could come in and do business and give the almight conglomerate Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) some competition.
Let’s see, BGE came in, paid for the entire infrastructure of power lines, owns all of the power companies that generate and route electricity... and the Maryland General Assembly thought that Bob’s Power Company would come in, do the same and give BGE a run for their money. The problem with that is that Bob would have to buy his power from BGE, so why would anyone buy Bob’s power, when Bob would have to pass the power cost on to us, and bump up the bill to cover his administrative fees. Hmmm, no thanks, I’ll just stay with BGE. Ok, another alternative would be that a company outside of Maryland could provide us with power. Except it would be the same situation, unless the outside of Maryland company strung extension cords to your house. Once again... stupid scenario. The only thing de-regulation did was increase our power bills by 72%, which is very convenient. There is talk of un-de-regulating power, which doesn’t help matters any.
This election year, plenty of fingers were pointing to those that made those decisions in 1999 that landed us in a 72% power increase (on top of gas being over $3.00 a gallon), and I have every confidence that the Maryland voters will go to those polls in November, forget who did what and vote those idiots back into power. “Hey, here’s a name I recognize... I’ll vote for them” Yes, you remember that name because they thought it would be neat to provide competition for a business that can’t be regulated. Next year I expect they’ll de-regulate air.
The post office says that while its not illegal to mail tea bags, it could possibly gum up with postal service equipment and slow their jobs down, and also cause some security concerns. In light of that announcement, the Lt. Gov then said it would be ok to just send a picture of a tea bag in with the electrical bills.
Flash back to December 16, 1773. Three groups of fifty Boston residents known as the “Sons of Liberty” board the ships; Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver with the intention of throwing all of the tea into the Boston harbor to protest the tea act. A harbor master explains to the groups that throwing all of the tea into the harbor would be very messy, and affect the other boats in the harbor, which would need to be cleaned. The group aggrees and goes home, and instead write a letter to the editor complaining about taxation without representation, being forced to buy untaxed tea from the British East India Company, and generally being cranky. If that were the case, I’d be drinking tea instead of Starbucks and sitting here bitching about being taxed by the Royal Colonies.
There is such a thing has peaceful protest, and despite the concerns of the postal system, there has to be a way for citizens to protest something they don’t like in a peacefuly, yet inconvenient way to get the point across. Using “National Security” concerns has become the trademark of all excuses to stop citizens from peaceful discord. We can’t congregate anymore, we can’t mail tea bags, we can’t do a lot of things anymore because they throw the whole “oooh, National Security” concerns flag and we simper back to our holes and continue to stew over being ineffective and castrated. Thank you government can we have another.
This year in Maryland the de-regulation of power companies went into effect. In 1999 the Maryland General Assembly thought it would be a good idea to de-regulate power companies so that independent power companies could come in and do business and give the almight conglomerate Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) some competition.
Let’s see, BGE came in, paid for the entire infrastructure of power lines, owns all of the power companies that generate and route electricity... and the Maryland General Assembly thought that Bob’s Power Company would come in, do the same and give BGE a run for their money. The problem with that is that Bob would have to buy his power from BGE, so why would anyone buy Bob’s power, when Bob would have to pass the power cost on to us, and bump up the bill to cover his administrative fees. Hmmm, no thanks, I’ll just stay with BGE. Ok, another alternative would be that a company outside of Maryland could provide us with power. Except it would be the same situation, unless the outside of Maryland company strung extension cords to your house. Once again... stupid scenario. The only thing de-regulation did was increase our power bills by 72%, which is very convenient. There is talk of un-de-regulating power, which doesn’t help matters any.
This election year, plenty of fingers were pointing to those that made those decisions in 1999 that landed us in a 72% power increase (on top of gas being over $3.00 a gallon), and I have every confidence that the Maryland voters will go to those polls in November, forget who did what and vote those idiots back into power. “Hey, here’s a name I recognize... I’ll vote for them” Yes, you remember that name because they thought it would be neat to provide competition for a business that can’t be regulated. Next year I expect they’ll de-regulate air.
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