Is Nothing Sacred?

The state of California has just announced its intention to take over individual thermostats, according to this International Herald Tribune article:

"Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages."

These are the same geniuses who allowed themselves to get ripped off by Enron and other energy dealers during the manufactured energy crisis that took place under Gov. Gray Davis' not-so-benevolent reign. This article goes on to defend the proposed action by saying, "The fact that similar radio-controlled technologies have been used on a voluntary basis in irrigation systems on farm fields and golf courses and in limited programs for buildings on Long Island is seldom mentioned in Internet postings that make liberal use of references to George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" and Big Brother, the omnipresent voice of Orwell's police state. " Typical of what the critics are writing is this article by Joseph Somsel on American Thinker.