Adapted from a posting at StopSmartMeters.org

Last week, the Canadian province of Saskatchewan recalled 105,000 smart meters after several homes caught fire, adding another major fire safety scandal to previous ones (including those in Portland, OR and Philadelphia, PA.)  Yet we are expected to believe that smart meters are safe and do not put you and your family at risk.

The heat is on the utility industry and the (not so) smart grid, but that doesn’t stop Chicago’s Commonwealth Edison from wooing people with free ice cream so they will presumably allow that friendly temp worker to swap out their analog meter.

As reported in a local newspaper, through August 31, “ComEd customers can get the scoop on smart meters as they are installed in deployment communities this summer.  ComEd is using an ice cream truck as a way to start a two-way conversation with customers about smart meters and the benefits they offer.  In addition to providing customers with important information, the ice cream truck also is providing tasty sweet treats to patrons.”

We wonder what the ComEd’s marketing team has come up with in terms of ice cream flavors.  Below are listed some possibilities.  These flavors don’t really sound too appetizing to us – in fact they make us want to be sick, but they probably sound delicious to the utility’s shareholders.

ComEd’s “Smart Meets Sweet” Ice Cream Flavors

• Vanilla Grid
• Chocolate Implanted Chip
• No-Privacy Pistachio
• Smart Metered Mint
• Surveillance Sherbert
• Radiating Raspberry
• Possibly Carcinogenic Peppermint Stick
• Burning House Brownie Fudge
• Big Brother’s Blueberry
• Cyber Criminal’s Creamy Caramel
• An assortment of Intelligence Gathering Ice Cream bars

Take Back Your Power reported last week that a family stumbled upon the ComEd ice cream truck when out at the swimming pool in the Chicago area, went home to make awareness signs to counter the shameless corporate propaganda effort, came back and were harassed by an armed security guard (see photo to left).

There’s just something about the combination of ice cream trucks and armed guards that should make the people of Chicago very wary about what is coming their way. “Take our meter or else … .”

————————–

The original reporting for the ComEd armed guard is believed to be from the “DuPage Watchdog:”  Why does ComEd need an Armed Guard to handout “FREE” “Smart” Ice-Cream?