This will be in a town near you if they do
Today is Li Xiulan’s favorite day of the year — it’s even better than her birthday.
It’s the day they turn the heat on.
Winter weather has already arrived here, with temperatures dropping into the high 30s on some nights. But Li’s home in the 500-unit Flower Garden Apartments in a northern suburb of the capital has provided scant refuge from the growing chill.
Instead, Li and an estimated 200 million of China’s poor have been forced to shiver as they mark off the days until Nov. 15 arrives. That’s when municipal managers switch on boilers, radiators and immersion heaters, firing up central heating systems that are a throwback to the Communist-planned economy of the 1960s.
Just think of them getting control of the flow of CNG or the propane to your home, including truck deliveries, so that your home’s “Carbon Footprint” can be brought under “control”.
Got a fireplace, go ahead, try and use it. Every major city has a “burn ban” plan for when the winds don’t blow the smog out hard enough. The cops fly around with their thermals on and I know of two people who had to prove to their local officer friendly that the fireplace was their only source of heat during one of King County’s “Burn Ban” days.
Constant Vigilance. Just like with the 2nd.
And I still find myself dealing with people, everyday, who think Socialism is the only thing that will save us. Un-fricking-believable.