Barboni.org

I’m a big ‘what’s this mean to me’ kind a guy. While Obama steals more of my paycheck with each day that he’s in office, I’m hard at work figuring out how to best exploit his socialist policies with my capitalist mind. An example of my last big exploit – the purchase of a Prius w/CA carpool lane stickers… the day after Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill giving sticker-bearing-hybrid drivers in CA the right to drive as a solo occupant in carpool lanes. I’m all for the environment if I save money..but not at additional expense to me. But shave 30 minutes off of my round trip commute each day and now we’re talking.

The draft $825 Billion Economic Stimulus package now before the house (no – not the media’s interpretation of it — go read it for yourself) has all sorts of junk in it. That said, I’m in the market for residential solar so decided to read through it for potential reasons that indicate I should wait on a purchase (even though last year’s multi-billion-dollar bailout removed the $2000 residential cap on federal solar tax credits adding an additional $10k savings to the system I’m considering).

Anyway, here’s what I found in the draft bill before the house (I’m not a lawyer, I may not know what I’m doing, but I’m the average middle class person to stretch my dollar further… oh wait, I’m not middle class anymore..I responsible now for paying more money to bail out lazy, irresponsible people)

Bill Verbiage: “$3,500,000,000 shall be for Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants, for implementation of programs authorized under subtitle E 8 of title V of the Energy Independence and Security 9 Act of 2007 (42 U.S.C. 17151 et seq.).”

Translation: This section (look at it here) discusses Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants. It provides $3.5 Billion in grants to various entities (I care about eligible state and local governments)… more specifically, 68% goes to eligible units of local government and 28 percent to States for various conservation programs.

Result: If I wait around long enough, I might get some additional cash back from my state or local government. Unfortunately, they’ll probably spend most of it in admin costs before I see one red cent and my system will have paid itself off by then under existing incentives anyways.

Bill Verbiage: $3,400,000,000 shall be for the State Energy Program authorized under part D of title III
12 of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 13 U.S.C. 6321).

Translation: More state funding for renewables.

Result: Same thing..more chance of better state rebates for solar. This one seems a little more specific to me…maybe a bit more likely as a result?

Bill Verbiage: “For an additional amount for ‘‘Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability,’’ $4,500,000,000… under title XIII of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (42
6 U.S.C. 17381 et seq.)”

Translation: More money to make sure that prices don’t get manipulated and things stay online (mostly)

Result: Of no use to me. Stuff about wave-energy, energy up in Alaska, and commercial solar stuff… squat for the residential solar homeowner in this section. This section also gets amended by stuff later in the stimulus bill to include more ’smart grid’ stuff as well. Again, no personal use to me except that SDG&E may get some stimulus and that should cause those rates they just raised to rollback, right? (WRONG!!!)

There’s another bit with respect to 42 USC 16511 but it just further limits this legislation to commercial applications and mandates commencement of construction bu Sept 30, 2011 (to get them to move along)

Bottom line – looks like my best chance if I wait is for some more state grants. Still, I figure it takes a year to implement them and their current incentive program has dropped a tier by then..maybe enough to offset the increase they might add? At the end of the day, I’m moving forward… doesn’t appear to be anything in this bill with any material benefit to me, the residential homeowner, looking to install a solar system. Last year’s bailout, and removal of the 30% tax credit cap from the feds, makes it the right time to buy… for me.

Whatever you do, don’t take my word for it… do your own homework. I’m not the expert…

Oops – looks like MobiTV doesn’t protect URLs to their content?? I’m guessing the fix isn’t easy either given that they’re trying to get HowardForums to remove the information regarding the publicly available URL and threatening takedown orders, DMCA violations, etc.

HowardForums is a great place. Howard has managed to amass a wide array of wireless knowledge that is often the source for how to do things your devices weren’t intended to do. Being in the wireless business myself, I even have to say that it’s caused me several security fire drills over the years… but in the end, you’re left with a more secure product/service and the benefit of knowledge. (I’m one for publishing security holes, if you can’t tell.)

http://www.howardforums.com/announcement.php?f=57 (While it’s online)
http://digg.com/security/MobiTV_to_Hofo_Take_down/ (DIGG)

Hang in their, Howard – we’ve got your back.

UPDATE (3/7 2pm pdt): The Associated Press just picked up the story. What’s more interesting here likely isn’t the fact that the content is unprotected (they’ll find a way to do that, trust me) – it’s the fact that MobiTV is trying to get Hofo to take down a link to publicly available content. They’re stating that the method in which the link was retrieved is what’s not authorized at that the ‘fruits’ of those labors are illegal. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m not sure I’ve seen something tested in court along these lines – have you?

2nd UPDATE (3/7 5pm pdt): Well, it looks like everything’s ok in HOFO land for now. MobiTV’s president stepped in and apologized (jees, do you think the fiery heat turned up by everyone this afternoon had anything to do with it?) Aside from that, I feel like the guy’s still a blithering idiot (he spells web ’site’ as ’sight’) – but hey, that’s what spell checkers are for, right? Still, based on Howard’s “I guess everything’s ok now” comment, I can’t help but think that something’s still lingering under the surface here… I wonder if we’ll ever know. Kudos to Howard for standing up to ‘the man.’