Ever Wonder Why California is so Broke?

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Gov jerry brown: Californians to be heavily fined for long showers

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) said Californians will face heavy fines for taking long showers.

Brown said, “This executive order is done under emergency power. It has the force of law. Very unusual. It’s requiring action and changes in behavior from the Oregon border all the way to the Mexican border. It affects lawns. It affects people’s — how long they stay in the shower. How businesses use water.”

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015...ornians-to-be-heavily-fined-for-long-showers/

:lolBIG:


 
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[h=1]Politics: Hello from California, where we're enjoying Gov. Moonbeam's drought[/h]
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Image Credit: Hello from California, where we're experiencing Gov. Moonbeam's drought [h=3]Published by: Dan Calabrese on Monday April 6th, 2015[/h]
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Liberal policies turn a small problem into a statewide crisis.
My family and I are in Los Angeles this week for some meetings concerning a super-secret venture, which, dude . . . it's super-secret! (But it won't be for long.)
But one of the first things that became clear when we got here is that the state is in the midst of a water crisis - one so serious that Gov. Jerry (Moonbeam) Brown has imposed an unprecedented set of restrictions on the use of water. Friends we visited for Easter tell us the state isn't messing around. They send inspectors around and if they catch you watering your lawn when you're not supposed to be, they'll slap fines on you. Would that we inspected Iran's nuke facilities with as much zeal!
As the Wall Street Journal's Allysia Finley explains, the lack of rain is obviously the source of the problem. But liberal state policies that bow at the altar of environmental groups are not helping at all:
During normal years, the state should replenish reservoirs. However, environmental regulations require that about 4.4 million acre-feet of water—enough to sustain 4.4 million families and irrigate one million acres of farmland—be diverted to ecological purposes. Even in dry years, hundreds of thousands of acre feet of runoff are flushed into San Francisco Bay to protect fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
During the last two winters amid the drought, regulators let more than 2.6 million acre-feet out into the bay. The reason: California lacked storage capacity north of the delta, and environmental rules restrict water pumping to reservoirs south. After heavy rains doused northern California this February, the State Water Resources Control Board dissipated tens of thousands of more acre-feet. Every smelt matters.
Increased surface storage would give regulators more latitude to conserve water during heavy storm-flows and would have allowed the state to stockpile larger reserves during the 15 years that preceded the last drought. Yet no major water infrastructure project has been completed in California since the 1960s.
Money is not the obstacle. Since 2000 voters have approved five bonds authorizing $22 billion in spending for water improvements. Environmental projects have been the biggest winners. In 2008 the legislature established a “Strategic Growth Council” to steer some bond proceeds to affordable housing and “sustainable land use” (e.g., reduced carbon emissions and suburban sprawl).
Meantime, green groups won’t allow new storage regardless—and perhaps because—of the benefits. California’s Department of Water Resources calculates that the proposed Sites Reservoir, which has been in the planning stages since the 1980s, could provide enough additional water during droughts to sustain seven million Californians for a year. Given the regulatory climate, Gov. Brown’s bullet train will probably be built first.
Once beloved by greens, desalination has likewise become unfashionable. After six years of permitting and litigation, the company Poseidon this year will finally complete a $1 billion desalination facility that will augment San Diego County’s water supply by 7%. Most other desalination projects have been abandoned.
This is a classic case of what happens when politicians bow to every whim of environmental groups without really thinking through or understanding the implications of what they're doing. Not enough storage. No new desalination plants. Money for water improvement projects diverted to suit the greenies' agenda. The Sites Reservoir perpetually delayed. California Democrats know where their campaign cash comes from, and they dutifully obey the priorities of their benefactors. When you end up with a severe drought and you're poorly prepared as a result, all you can do is impose restrictions on everyone and maybe ask for money from Washington.
Remember that these are the same people Obama listens to in stonewalling approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Reality be damned. The environmental lobby hates it, so Obama won't approve it. Period. He'd fit right in here.
So much about politics is insane in California, and the inability to deal rationally with the drought is just the most obvious example of the moment. It's beautiful here! The palm trees are tall, the sunshine is warm and the mountains are spectactular. If you have to go on a business trip, you could pick a much worse place. But California's politicians work against so much that could be great here. So if you come, enjoy your stay, but you might want to bring your own water. The politicians and the greenies have made sure it won't be easy to get any here.
 

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^^^

As we can clearly see, California wasn’t named “The land of fruits and nuts” by mistake.
 
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[ Plenty of fruitcakes in Oregon too. Cover shots at $7500.00 a pop in order to delay puberty for kiddies that might want a gender change. This country is so fucked up. ]



Oregon's Medicaid program now covers puberty-suppression drugs

7:51 a.m. ET






A handful of states cover medical costs for transgender Medicaid recipients, but Oregon is the only one that uses Medicaid funds to help pre-transgender kids delay puberty. Temporarily suppressing puberty requires a shot of a drug called Lupron every three months, at a cost of about $7,500 per injection, but "people with gender dysphoria that did not receive treatment had a much higher rate of hospitalizations or ER visits or doctors visits for depression and anxiety, and they had a pretty significantly high suicide rate," Dr. Ariel Smits tells NPR.
Lupron is also used to treat prostate cancer and help children who start puberty too early, and there are side effects. But for tweens who decide to transition from male to female or vice versa, it's much easier if they never develop the characteristics of their birth sex. You can learn more in the radio story below, from Oregon Public Broadcasting's Kristian Foden-Vencil. —Peter Weber
 

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The senile old geezer said the same things in 1978 when he was last governor.

With idiots like this pulling the country further and further left leaving the voices of sanity behind, it's no wonder libtards believe certain politicians are "too far right"
 

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[ Plenty of fruitcakes in Oregon too. Cover shots at $7500.00 a pop in order to delay puberty for kiddies that might want a gender change. This country is so fucked up. ]



Oregon's Medicaid program now covers puberty-suppression drugs

7:51 a.m. ET






A handful of states cover medical costs for transgender Medicaid recipients, but Oregon is the only one that uses Medicaid funds to help pre-transgender kids delay puberty. Temporarily suppressing puberty requires a shot of a drug called Lupron every three months, at a cost of about $7,500 per injection, but "people with gender dysphoria that did not receive treatment had a much higher rate of hospitalizations or ER visits or doctors visits for depression and anxiety, and they had a pretty significantly high suicide rate," Dr. Ariel Smits tells NPR.
Lupron is also used to treat prostate cancer and help children who start puberty too early, and there are side effects. But for tweens who decide to transition from male to female or vice versa, it's much easier if they never develop the characteristics of their birth sex. You can learn more in the radio story below, from Oregon Public Broadcasting's Kristian Foden-Vencil. —Peter Weber

I don’t know what to say other than fucking unbelievable!
 

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Hussein's America = The Onion. 6 years after the worst election in history I've become numb to outrage and disbelief.

I have to admit I must live in a cave because I’ve never heard of pre-transgender kids until right this minute.

Is it a Liberal thing?

I must be old school but is this legit or are these kids just fucked in the head?

I wonder if there is a correlation with being gay?

A guy who wants to be a girl so he can date guys?

And what kind a guy would want to date a girl who used to be a guy?

This sounds like a story line for Two and a Half Men.
 

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California is broke caz the liberals run that joint and as a result, they needs to give free stuff

away to the people so, they will vote them back in. The classic quid pro quo crap liberals roll with!

I find liberals quite repugnant!

:hammerit



 

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Soooo....

Jerry Brown wants to fine people who waste water. Los Angeles wants to install smart meters to detect "excess water usage." Do you think when the drought ends, CA will no longer track and fine? Yeah, I'm sure. The real question is...is government now just using its power to react to a problem it created itself?

Carly Florina said, "Despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for centuries, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades...during a period in which California’s population has doubled."

As a result, 70 percent of California’s rainfall “washes out to sea” every year.

After I leave this hellhole someday, all the dims in this state can dry up and croak for all I care.
 

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Soooo....

Jerry Brown wants to fine people who waste water. Los Angeles wants to install smart meters to detect "excess water usage." Do you think when the drought ends, CA will no longer track and fine? Yeah, I'm sure. The real question is...is government now just using its power to react to a problem it created itself?

Carly Florina said, "Despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for centuries, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades...during a period in which California’s population has doubled."

As a result, 70 percent of California’s rainfall “washes out to sea” every year.

After I leave this hellhole someday, all the dims in this state can dry up and croak for all I care.

not one person would be sad to see you leave the state. If you started a fundme acct for money to leave.....your neighbors, coworkers and family would all contribute. You would give memories pizza total a run.

Or maybe you could actually win a bet and afford to move. Just stop laying that road chalk you piece of shit mush.
 

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It's funny watching you, vtard. Really.

You haven't a mind of your own. Much like Guesser's frantic copy and paste jobs, you parrot other peoples takes and simply yell out "YEAH, what they said!" Unfortunately for you, you have no idea what you're quoting.

When it comes down to actually articulating anything intelligent, I think I speak for every conservative on this board when I say that we all enjoy the occasional one-sided scrimmage against a mentally inferior retard such as yourself. Until it becomes boring. Then you'll leave here and come back after the black eyes any one of us gave you heal.

Go back to bed. Your sister is getting cold.
 

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It's funny watching you, vtard. Really.

You haven't a mind of your own. Much like Guesser's frantic copy and paste jobs, you parrot other peoples takes and simply yell out "YEAH, what they said!" Unfortunately for you, you have no idea what you're quoting.

When it comes down to actually articulating anything intelligent, I think I speak for every conservative on this board when I say that we all enjoy the occasional one-sided scrimmage against a mentally inferior retard such as yourself. Until it becomes boring. Then you'll leave here and come back after the black eyes any one of us gave you heal.

Go back to bed. Your sister is getting cold.
th
 

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The Next Crime Wave in Farm Country: Stealing Water

Officials in urban areas are grappling with similar worries: water robbers pilfering fire hydrants, water delivery trucks taking water to which they’re not entitled, or people tapping into water lines at construction sites.

The Contra Costa Water District has increased fines for stealing water from $25 to $250 for a first offense and $500 for subsequent offenses. An official at the East Bay Municipal Utility District says that agency will be “cracking down” on water theft and plans to enact new penalties as part of a drought emergency plan expected next week.

http://blogs.kqed.org/science/2015/04/09/the-next-crime-wave-in-farm-country-stealing-water/
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Those wacky California central planners sure know what they're doing.

axyaroX8rcJsZPIeTcQUGnh9fC2IjpxC-1LfE9Fuq0CyDn_xBdjfkt-dSsNTi020h1ZZXSZmOOl5WwXZiU2lKvlaPRmgdA=s0
 

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"When I Pee, I Don't Flush": How Hollywood Is Battling California's Drought

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by Chris Gardner, Gary Baum
4/30/2015 5:00am PDT

This story first appeared in the May 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Hollywood soon will cling to a commodity more valuable than ratings or box-office receipts — water. As California's historic drought enters its fourth year, local neighborhoods are on high alert following Gov. Jerry Brown's call April 1 to decrease water usage across the state by 25 percent. On April 21, the Beverly Hills City Council passed a strict plan that will seek to curb the city's water usage by 36 percent (a state directive by February 2016) with the help of $1,000 fines.

How is the industry responding? Slowly but surely. All six major studios tell THR they have instituted water-saving plans. "Fox Studios has committed to a number of vital water-conservation initiatives," says the studio in a statement, citing cloud-connected irrigation systems, new artificial turf and retrofitted cooling systems for offices and soundstages. Both Warner Bros. and Universal use reclaimed water and low-flow fixtures on the lots. "We've been vigilant on this issue," says WB rep Jessica Zacholl, adding that the studio has been under water restrictions in Burbank for the past six months.

LL Cool J and Rachel Zoe tell THR they're taking shorter showers, with the actor adding that he used to run water for five minutes beforehand. "I don't run the shower now until I am ready," he says. Same for longtime Beverly Hills resi*dent Nancy Davis, "We're trying to take very fast showers and we're not watering our lawns too much." Sharon Osbourne is much more specific. "When I pee, I don't flush. Only when I do number two, I flush," says The Talk host, who has stopped taking baths.

Water_crisis_report_2_embed.jpg

Residences such as the former Spelling estate (above) must reduce water by 30 percent.

READ MORE
California Governor Orders Mandatory Water Restrictions


Most water can be spared outside of the home, especially on lush estates from Beverly Hills to Malibu where lawns can suck up a tremendous amount of water. Actress Kate Walsh suggests switching to desert landscaping. "I'm in the process now," she says. Billy Ray Cyrus is a step ahead. "I changed my landscaping last year and made it gravel and succulents and desert plants," he says. "It looks cool and saves water."

Top landscape architect Mark Rios of Rios Clementi Hale Studios says that conversations about drought-friendly solutions with his clients — studio chiefs and celebrities — have spread like wildfire. "Everyone is calling and asking questions about it and re-evaluating their gardens, their outdoor space and their outdoor consumption," says Rios.

Even the new measures won't be enough to solve what Beverly Hills Mayor Julian Gold calls a "crisis situation." Explains Trish Rhay, assistant director of Public Works Services: "Landscape watering accounts for 60 percent to 70 percent of our total use, with the majority of irrigation use coming from single and multifamily properties, 75 percent of our customers. Going from three to two days a week with 100 percent compliance would only produce a 30 percent reduction and will not get us to 36 percent, which is the state requirement. We'll need to see additional reductions in home and business use to meet that goal."

The new fines will begin May 6 with the help of inspectors who will patrol Beverly Hills. (Good Samaritans can snitch on neighbors.) But don't expect local golf courses to turn brown. Six of the industry's top seven favored private golf clubs — from Hillcrest to Sherwood to Riviera to Bel-Air — decline comment on water usage. The exception is Lakeside, whose superintendent, RobertHertzing, observes, "We were proactive about this situation and 23 years ago switched our irrigation system to work with reclaimed water. So fortunately the mandate won't affect our course."

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Rupert Murdoch’s Moraga Vineyards, picture here, is not impacted.

New B.H. Rules
► Landscape irrigation is restricted to two days a week.
► Existing swimming pools cannot be drained and refilled.
► Exterior wash-down of buildings and vehicles is prohibited (except at car washes and with reclaimed water).
► With exceptions, users shall reduce water usage to 70 percent of normal.
► Restaurants will serve water only upon request.
► A tiered water penalty surcharge based on the cost of providing the higher volume of water will be established.
► Violations are a misdemeanor punished by a fine of $1,000.

 
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[ Chalk another cluster fuck up to the fruity libtards running this state ]
[h=1]OSHA to Let Transgendered Sue Employers — Without Proving They Are Transgender[/h] 4773
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AP Photo/Craig Fritz

by William Bigelow3 Jun 2015412
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On Monday, the Obama administration paved the way for transgendered individuals to sue their employers if they are unhappy with the restroom arrangements where they work.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a four-page memo stating, “All employees, including transgender employees, should have access to restrooms that correspond to their gender identity… a person who identifies as a man should be permitted to use men’s restrooms, and a person who identifies as a woman should be permitted to use women’s restrooms.”
OSHA continued, “Restricting employees to using only restrooms that are not consistent with their gender identity, or segregating them from other workers by requiring them to use gender-neutral or other specific restrooms, singles those employees out and may make them fear for their physical safety. Bathroom restrictions can result in employees avoiding using restrooms entirely while at work, which can lead to potentially serious physical injury or illness.”
The agency also stated that transgendered individuals need not show any documentation, legal or medical, to prove they needed a certain restroom, and threatened employers that they must not have a “segregated facility apart from other employees” or designate a restroom “an unreasonable distance” from where workers plied their trade.
Harper Jean Tobin, director of policy for the National Center for Transgender Equality, delightedly said to BuzzFeed News, “We certainly think it’s a big deal. Even though most employers are getting it right, this is still one of the most common workplace problems for transgender people.”
“A lot of employers know that if OSHA puts out anything, they need to pay attention,” she warned. “There are clearly legal issues and legal peril for employers here if they aren’t doing the right thing.
“If we continue to see unaddressed problems, we are going to push OSHA and other state and federal agencies to take further action,” she threatened.
The Labor Department added fuel to the fire, stating, “if OSHA receives a complaint that an employer is denying a worker access to restrooms, the agency will conduct a full investigation.”
OSHA quoted the Williams Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles, which claimed there are an estimated transgender 700,000 adults in the United States. A 2011 survey of transgender Americans asserted that 21 percent of respondents were “not able to work out a suitable bathroom situation” at their job.
 
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[h=1]Los Angeles raises minimum wage to $15 per hour[/h]
Los%20Angeles%20Minimum%20Wage
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, center, joins members of the City Council and community leaders as he signs into law an ordinance that will gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, in at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Los Angeles, Saturday, June 13, 2015. The ordinance makes Los Angeles the largest city in the U.S. to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. | Ringo H.W. Chiu Associated Press






Associated Press



LOS ANGELES Mayor Eric Garcetti signed into law on Saturday an ordinance that makes Los Angeles the biggest city in the nation to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
He called the law “a major victory for our city” at a signing ceremony in south Los Angeles, and said the wage increases will enable working families to lift themselves out of poverty.
“L.A. as a whole will benefit from this boost: We have always prospered the most when everyone is able to spend money into our economy,” Garcetti said.
The law will boost the minimum wage to $10.50 in July 2016, followed by annual increases to $12, $13.25, $14.25 and $15. Small businesses and certain nonprofits get an extra year to phase in the increases.
Calls for raising the minimum wage have grown as the nation struggles with fallout from the recession, worsening income inequality, persistent poverty and the challenges of immigration and the global economy.
Seattle and San Francisco also have phased-in minimum wage laws that eventually require hourly pay of $15 an hour, or annual pay of about $31,200 for a full-time job. Last year, Chicago passed a phased-in minimum wage increase to $13 an hour.
Last week, the California Senate approved a plan to raise the statewide minimum wage again, lifting it to $13 an hour in 2017 and tying it to the rate of inflation after that.






 

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Goodnight, California

CA’s leftwing politicians, facing self-created disaster, take psychological refuge in postmodern fantasies.
by Victor Davis Hanson
June 16, 2015 - 10:59 pm

california_manhole_6-14-15-1.jpg

I offer another chronicle, a 14-hour tour of the skeleton I once knew as California.

8:00 AM
I finally got around to retrieving the car seat that someone threw out in front of the vineyard near my mailbox. (Don’t try waiting dumpers out — as if it is not your responsibility to clean up California roadsides.)

An acquaintance had also emailed and reminded me that not far away there was a mound of used drip hose on the roadside. That mess proved to be quite large, maybe 1,000 feet of corroded and ripped up plastic hose. I suppose no scavenger thinks it can be recycled. I promise to haul it away this week. One must be prompt: even a small pile attracts dumpers like honey to bees. They are an ingenious and industrious lot (sort of like the cunning and work ethic of those who planted IEDs during the Iraq War). My cousin’s pile across the road has grown to Mt. Rushmore proportions. Do freelance dumpers make good money promising to take away their neighborhood’s mattresses and trash without paying the $20 or so county dumping fee? And does their success depend on fools like me, who are expected to keep roadsides tidy by cleaning up past trash to make room for future refuse?

9:00 AM
My relative has sold her 20 acres to a successful almond grower; that was the last parcel other than my own left of my great great grandmother’s farm. All that remains is the original house I live in and 40 acres. Almost all the small farming neighbors I grew up with — of Armenian, Punjabi, German, or Japanese descent — are long gone. Goodbye, diversity. And their children either sold the parcels and moved away (the poorer seem to head to the foothills, the middle class go out of state, the better off flee to the coast) or rent them out. Most of the surrounding countryside, piece-by-piece, is being reconstituted into vast almond groves. I plan to rent out mine next year for such conversion.

Almonds can net far more per acre than raisins and do not require much more water and require almost no labor. Tree fruit, given its expenses and risks, can lose your farm. The last vestiges of small, agrarian farming in these parts died sometime in the 1990s. Oddly, or perhaps predictably, the land to the naked eye looks better in the sense that the power of corporate capital and savvy scientific expertise has resulted in picture-perfect orchards. The old agrarian idea that 40 acres also grows a unique family, not just food, is — how do we say it? No longer operative?

10:00 AM
I drive on the 99 freeway past Kingsburg on the way to Visalia. It is a road-warrior maze of construction and detours. The construction hazards are of the sort that would earn any private contractor a lawsuit. (How do you sue Caltrans — and why is it that four or five men always seem to be standing around one who is working?) Only recently has the state decided to upgrade the fossilized two-lane 99 into an interstate freeway of three lanes. But the construction is slow and seemingly endless. Could we not have a simple state rule: “no high-speed rail corridors until the 101, 99, and I-5 are three-lane freeways, and the neglected Amtrak line achieves profitable ridership?” It is almost as if California answers back: “I am too bewildered by your premodern challenges, so I will take psychological refuge in my postmodern fantasies.”

12:00 Noon
I try to drive by the Reedley DMV on the way home to switch a car registration. Appointments take a long waiting period, but the line of the show-ups is still far out the door and well into the parking lot. I pass. The state announced that it was surprised that “unexpectedly” (the catch adverb of the Obama era) nearly 500,000 illegal aliens have already been processed with new driver’s licenses. The lines at the office suggest that many DMVs simply have transmogrified into illegal alien license-processing centers.

The last time I had visited the office, I noticed the customers were also dealing with fines, tickets, or fix-it citations as part of the process. I thought, how will they pay for all that, given that “living in the shadows” and ignoring summonses and threats is far easier than paying what the state wants? And then, presto, the governor just announced a wish that the poor should be given “ticket amnesty.” So much for Sacramento’s idea of fining California drivers into becoming a reliable revenue source for a broke state, given that it has affected far more drivers than the shrinking and hated middle class that could supposedly afford the new sky-high tickets.

It reminds me of Obamacare: after my accident last May, I had lots of procedures and hours in waiting rooms. I discovered something listening to the desk people deal with Obamacare signups: a vast number apparently have notregularly paid the monthly or quarterly premiums. An even larger group has no idea what a deductible is, or that it actually applies to themselves. And some had no notion of a copayment. The reality of all three sends many into a near frenzy, reminiscent of the idea that a driver’s license means keeping up with registration, smog rules, and paying outstanding warrants — until the state provides the expected amnesties.

2:00 PM
I’m at the local supermarket two miles away. Three observations: many of the shoppers seem to be here for the air conditioning (the forecast is for 105 degrees by 5 PM). No one in the Bay Area, whose green agenda has led to the highest power rates in the country, seems to have thought that all of California does not enjoy 65-75 degree coastal corridor weather. My latest PG&E bill reminds me to apply for income-adjusted reduced rates — if I qualify. I don’t, so keep the air conditioner off all day.

Obesity among the shoppers seems epidemic and no one is talking about it. It is striking how young the overweight are! Almost all our small towns now have new state/federal dialysis clinics. Is this not a state emergency? Cannot the state at least offer public health warnings to the immigrant community that while diabetes is alarming among the population at large, it is becoming epidemic among new arrivals from Latin America and Mexico?

Stories that 25 percent of all state hospital admittances suffer from high blood sugar levels circulate. I argue in a friendly way with a customer in line about the new “green” Coke. He claims it is diet, but tastes like regular Coke. I remind him that it is so only because the artificial sweetener has been energized by some cane sugar and it is not so diet after all. (He is buying eight six-packs in fear of shortages.)

I don’t understand the EBT system. How is it that customers ahead of me pull out not one, but often go through three or four cards before they cobble together enough plastic credit for the full tab? Where does one acquire multiple cards?

4:00 PM
I am talking ag pumps at home with some farmers. The water table here has gone from 40 feet in 2011 to 82 feet now — the result of four years of constant pumping combined with below-average rain and snow runoff, and the complete cut-off of contracted surface water from the Kings River watershed (don’t ask why). I lowered one 15-hp submersible to 100 feet (the well is only 160, which used to be called “deep” when the water table was 40 feet). “Lowering” means less water pumped, more energy costs, a waiting list for the pump people, and sky-high service charges. The renter promises to lower the other one, whose pump is pumping air, now well above the sinking water table. My house well is only 140 feet deep. I just lowered the pump to a 110-foot draw, and decided to get on the “waiting list” for a new domestic well. (Prices for drilling by the foot have increased fivefold, and are said to go up monthly).

If the drought continues, one will see two unimaginable things by next spring: thousands of abandoned older homes out in the countryside from Merced to Bakersfield, and tens of thousands of acres on the West Side (water table ca. 1,000 feet and dropping) will go fallow if they are row-crops. And if orchards and vineyards, a mass die-off will follow of trees and vines. (Note that Silicon Valley’s Crystal Springs reservoir on freeway 280 is “full.” No Bay Area green activist is arguing either that the deliveries through massive conduits should be stopped at the San Joaquin River to be diverted for fish restoration, or that the entire project is unnatural and a scar on Yosemite Park, warranting shutting down the huge transfer system in favor of recycling waste water for showers and gardens.)

5:00 PM
I’m on a PG&E off-peak rate schedule, so I’m waiting until evening to turn on the air conditioner. It is 104 degrees outside and 96 degrees inside the house. As a youth, we used a tiny window, inefficient air conditioner far more in the 1960s and 1970s than I ever do now with central air. Given power rates, the idea of a cool home in the valley is so 1970s.

6:00 PM
I take another walk around the farm. Good — no one has yet shot the majestic pair of red tail hawks yet, who greet me on their accustomed pole. But I do notice someone has forced open the cyclone fence around the neighbor’s vacant house. It was put up to stop the serial vandalizing. (What do you do after stealing copper wire? Go for the sheet rock? Pipes? Windows? Shingles?)

7:00 PM
A friend calls and mentions that local JCs had a spate of car vandalizations. This time targets are catalytic converters (for precious metal salvage?). I get the impression that today’s Gothic looter and Vandal is more ingenious than the state’s work force. Note the new California: the citizen is responsible for picking up trash or keeping a car running clean with a converter. The idea that a bankrupt state would create a task force to go after such thievery is absurd. I appreciate California logic: don’t dare suggest that massive new commitments to ensure social parity for millions of new arrivals through increased state legal, medical, criminal justice, and educational programs ever come at the expense of investments in roads, bridges, reservoirs, airports, or public facilities — or even the accustomed state services that one took for granted in 1970. To do so is nativist, racist, and xenophobic. What an illiberal state we’ve become.

8:00 PM
I’m on the upstairs balcony looking out over miles of lush countryside. It’s quite scenic, something in between verdant Tuscany and the aridness of Sicily. I can hear the ag pumps of the surrounding farms everywhere churning 24/7. In a normal year they would never be turned on, as river water irrigated the fields and recharged the water table.

Then come two sirens. Will the power go off? Quite often, someone after too much to drink goes airborne and hits a power pole on these rural roads. I got back inside in case things go dark to review the mail. The local irrigation district has not delivered water in four years (what do ditch tenders do when canals and ditches are empty?) and now wants a tax hike to keep up with increased expenses. In fact, half the mail seems to be drought information from various agencies. What was so awful about building just two or three one million acre-foot reservoirs, or raising Shasta Dam? We could begin today. When the taps at Facebook or the Google toilets go dry, will the state again invest in water storage?

10:00 PM
I turn on the local news and channel surf for 10 minutes. How well we take refuge in the absurd. This litany blares out: Bruce Jenner’s new sexual identity, the latest racial controversy, this time over the crashing of a private pool party and the police reaction, the Obama’s new stretch Air Force One jumbo jet, Marco Rubio’s one ticket every four years, Miley Cyrus’s bisexuality. I suppose if one cannot grasp, much less deal with, $19 trillion in debt, a foreign policy in shambles, the largest state in the union on the cusp of a disastrous drought, a Potemkin health care system, zero interest on passbook savings, and the end of all federal immigration law, then the trivial must become existential.

Goodnight, once great state…


 

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We are all Californians now

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By Victor Davis Hanson

Published July 2, 2015

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California keeps reminding us what has gone astray with America in recent years.
The state is in the midst of a crippling four-year-old drought. Yet California has built almost no major northern or central mountain reservoirs since the New Melones Dam of 1979. That added nearly 3 million acre-feet to the state's storage reserves -- a critical project that was almost canceled by endless environmental lawsuits and protests.

Although California has almost doubled in population since the dam's construction, its politicians apparently decided that completing more northern and Sierra Nevada water projects was passé. So the parched state now prays for rain and snow rather than building reservoirs to ensure that the next drought won't shut down the state.

Curiously, once infrastructure projects such as the New Melones Dam are finished, few seem to complain about the life-saving water they provide the public in times of existential drought. California has taught the nation its unique hypocrisy. We have stopped the Keystone pipeline for now, but if it gets built eventually, few consumers will complain that it transfers oil at a cheap cost and with greater safety.

California has also schooled the nation on mutually exclusively goals. Its lax immigration policies have made for a rapidly expanding population, and yet it expects a sophisticated infrastructure that ensures plentiful, clean water -- and dreams of a pristine, green, 19th century paradise in a depopulated state.

California's major north-south highway laterals -- the 99, 101 and I-5 "freeways" -- often descend into deadly traffic quagmires. They were designed for a state of less than 20 million people, not one of more than 40 million. Recent national surveys have rated the state's road system as nearly last in the nation.

Most forget that California once all but invented the modern idea of a freeway. But instead of first ensuring motorists safe three-lane freeways, the state is embarking on a $68 billion high-speed rail project.

Californians excel at these postmodern solutions even as they ignore premodern problems. What advantage is providing free iPads for California students if their basic reading and analytical skills are declining to below pre-Internet levels? California is busy mandating transgendered restrooms but is lax in guaranteeing that there will be water in their sinks and toilets.

In good California style, Houston-based NASA talks grandly about its new 21st century space agendas, forgetting that it cannot even send its present astronauts into space on an American rocket. Just because a prior generation built the powerful and sophisticated Saturn rockets does not mean that its more sophisticated children can send Americans into space without Russian help.

Government agencies such as the IRS, VA, GSA and NSA are bigger, richer and more self-promoting than ever before. But their huge budgets hardly ensure that they can fairly collect taxes, humanely tend to the needs of veterans, professionally monitor government property, or properly collect and distill intelligence.

The once-vaunted California State University system now struggles with incoming students who are ill-prepared for college courses. More than a third do not meet English or math test entry requirements for college work and need remedial courses, which in turn reduces the availability of advanced classes and resources from the traditional university curricula.

Much of the crisis originates from poor preparation in grade schools and high schools, combined with huge influxes of non-English-speaking immigrants. In the past, the melting pot of English emersion, assimilation, integration and intermarriage had best helped immigrants quickly reach parity with the native population, but that old model has since been rejected.

The United States likewise has all but ended enforcement of its immigration laws -- as if the idea of open borders and cultural diversity are proper objectives without preplanning for the ensuing education, housing, transportation, health and legal challenges. Praising "diversity" in the abstract proves to be of little value unless in the concrete people are willing to open their neighborhoods and schools to mentor the millions of impoverished newcomers in their midst.

California taught the nation that taxes can skyrocket -- the state has the highest basket of income, sales and gasoline taxes in the nation -- even as infrastructure, government services and schools erode. It established the national precedent of opposing new infrastructure projects and then enjoying them once the planners and builders who were criticized finished them. California equated a Silicon Valley smartphone in the hand with knowledge in the head -- and the nation at large soon produced the most electronically wired and least knowledgeable generation in memory.
We are all Californians now.
 

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