Hat tip to Breitbart
California Governor Jerry Brown unveiled a $687.4-million drought relief plan in Sacramento on Wednesday that was hailed by Democrats and state water authorities, but which will do little to address the larger issues plaguing water management in the region. The package includes spending for water recycling, groundwater restoration, and emergency food and housing, but does nothing about the larger conflict over water use.
Farmers and Republicans correctly call the water crisis "man-made," because much of the water to which they previously had access was flushed out to sea in recent years to preserve so called endangered bait fish populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta. Gov. Brown and President Barack Obama have rejected efforts by Republicans in Congress to restore water to the farmers by federal law. The new package offers no solutions to the dilemma.
Instead, Gov. Brown's package sticks to what is politically feasible with Democrats in complete control of the state government. As in, redistribution of wealth...
According to Anthony York of the Los Angeles Times, some of Gov. Brown's proposals were included in the budget he presented to the state legislature last month, but would not have been enacted until July. By re-introducing them as emergency measures, the governor could see them take effect within weeks.
Much of California's water comes from the snowpack on the Sierra Nevada mountains, which has been at very low levels this year following two years of very limited precipitation. Just a few years before, the state had ample water and its reservoirs were full. However, California has not invested in new reservoirs, partly due to the insistence of environmentalists that water management should focus on conservation rather than storage. Plus they've been flushing a lot of the water into the Bay to keep the bait happy. Dunno if I'd call $687.4-million modest but, hey, what better way to respond to a drought than blowing millions of bucks? There is some mention of the little fishies about whom we are all so concerned.
#1
This floated plan of Brown's relieves
our drought with seas of bright green leaves
Big fish need drops to wet their beaks
(and save the darters in the creeks!)
and smaller fish must wet their backs
who work our jobs and pay our tax.
Who cares what price for hay in China?
It's not so dry in the whale's vagina.
#2
Uhmmm...stop watering the grass?
Condemn golf courses and swimming pools?
Stop draining the LA swamp into 'the river' and use the underground pumps to push the water back uphill to the groves and fill the empty drainage basins?
#5
California has not invested in new reservoirs, partly due to the insistence of environmentalists that water management should focus on conservation rather than storage.
Not to mention destroying a few of them.
Uhmmm...stop watering the grass? Condemn golf courses and swimming pools?
Why? The water is paid for by the customer. One can jack up the rates, of course. That just means more money in the coffers of LA's water and power department, which can spend it on worthwhile things like keeping the unions happy and paying out millions for unspecified projects.
#6
I told you, Skidmark, I am NOT letting my lawn go Brown. I might even wash my car. I am not into that xeriscape look either. If I wanted my yard to look like Arizona I'd move to frickin' Arizona. As long as our politicians and water agencies keep issuing water hook up permits for new housing tracts I'm thinking there really is no crisis. That'll never stop Brown from squandering hundreds of millions of dollars though. Maybe Obama will chip in some federal dollars for the plan. I know how much y'all like that idea.
#8
San Diego County has really taken to watering golf courses, parks, road medians with recycled grey water. When they complain about this watering, look for the signs or purple pipe "non potable", but it does recharge the aquifers/wells and is generally potable after the filtering and retreatment
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/21/2014 21:32 Comments ||
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#1
Nazi left in action. Just another dictator in power. Don't expect our media will protest anything about this. NSA, TSA, IRS, EPA, all of them pile on one insult after another. You know it is easy to point my finger at O. I believe that gives him too much credit. In my opinion he is way in over his head. He has no control over anything. These agencies are doing their own thing. No fear of supervision. Then this is seen by other countries as well. No fear of our ditherer.
Federal authorities have dropped an attempt to stop a Minnesota man from marketing merchandise poking fun at the National Security Agency for its surveillance of citizens.
Dan McCall, of Sauk Rapids, sued the NSA and Department of Homeland Security last fall after they issued cease-and-desist orders over the merchandise, which includes T-shirts bearing the NSA's official seal and the slogan, "The only part of the government that actually listens."
"It's a victory for First Amendment rights," said Dan McCall, of Sauk Rapids, who operates LibertyManiacs.com. He told the St. Cloud Times he was notified earlier this week that the NSA and DHS had dropped in their quest to block him from selling the material.
Listen and understand. The game changed in Venezuela last night. What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden.
What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood.
Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting.
People continue to be arrested merely for protesting, and a long established local Human Rights NGO makes an urgent plea for an investigation into widespread reports of torture of detainees. There are now dozens of serious human right abuses: National Guardsmen shooting tear gas canisters directly into residential buildings. We have videos of soldiers shooting civilians on the street.
And that's just what came out in real time, over Twitter and YouTube, before any real investigation is carried out. Online media is next, a city of 645,000 inhabitants has been taken off the internet amid mounting repression, and this blog itself has been the object of a Facebook "block" campaign.
What we saw were not "street clashes", what we saw is a state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.
Here at Caracas Chronicles we're doing what it can to document the crisis, but there's only so much one tiny, zero-budget blog can do.
After the major crackdown on the streets of large (and small) Venezuelan cities last night, I expected some kind of response in the major international news outlets this morning. I understand that with an even bigger and more photogenic freakout ongoing in an even more strategically important country, we weren't going to be front-page-above-the-fold, but I'm staggered this morning to wake up, scan the press and find...
Nothing.
As of 11 a.m. this morning, the New York Times World Section has...nothing.
They're not going to have anything either if they can help it. If Maduro is toppled they'll have to mention it but in the same breath they'll explain how 'fascist' or 'reactionary' forces or the 'rich' did the dirty work. Perhaps they'll blame the Koch brothers.
This is exactly the line the NYT and other news outlets are taking about the Ukraine -- it's those neo-fascist western Ukrainians who are causing all the trouble for the peace-loving eastern, Russified citizens. That the demonstrators in Kiev are far too numerous to be explained by allegiance to some splinter group is never mentioned and never, ever shown on video.
It's part of the playbook for the Left: always attempt to atomize your opposition. Convince the opposition that they are alone, marginalized, without friends, without support, and can't possibly succeed. Then perhaps the opposition will put down the stones, pick up their tools and get back to doing their work as part of the 'toiling masses'.
And that's why you won't see the NYT talk about what's happening Venezuela. They can't afford to give the people there hope.
#1
No the media is too busy cheering for Obumble and his Obumblecare to notice anything else.
Besides, a left wing government being toppled by popular protest doesn't exactly fit the narrative that they are using to cheer on teh 0ne now does it?
#4
Champ reads? I thought ValJar gave hi the news.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/21/2014 19:26 Comments ||
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#5
Hmmmm...thinking back I believe he did say saw in the news, not read. Ah, here it is, learned from same news reports you did....quite a few of those quotes. I'm sure he'll get to it after the ice dancing.
[DAWN] Arizona politicians gave final approval on Thursday to a bill that would allow businesses to refuse service to customers when such work would violate the irreligious beliefs, in a move critics describe as a license to discriminate against gays and others.
Under the bill, a business owner would have a defense against a discrimination lawsuit, provided a decision to deny service was motivated by a "sincerely held" religious belief and that giving such service would have substantially burdened the exercise of their religious beliefs.
"The Arizona legislature sent a clear message today: In our state everyone is free to live and work according to their faith," said Cathi Herrod, president of the conservative Center for Arizona Policy, which helped write the bill.
The bill passed the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives 33-27 on Thursday, a day after it won similar approval in the state Senate. It will go to Republican Governor Jan Brewer, who has not indicated whether she will sign it.
The American Civil Liberties Union branded the legislation as "unnecessary and discriminatory," saying it had nothing to do with God or faith.
"What today's bill does is allow private individuals and businesses to use religion to discriminate, sending a message that Arizona is intolerant and unwelcoming," said Alessandra Soler, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona.
The Arizona law is seen by critics as an attack on the rights of gays and lesbians to equality under the law at a time when same-sex marriage activists have notched several court victories in recent months.
Some 17 US states and the District of Columbia now recognise gay marriage in a trend that has gained momentum since the US Supreme Court ruled in June that legally married same-sex couples nationwide are eligible for federal benefits.
Since mid-December, federal judges have ruled curbs on same-sex marriage unconstitutional in Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia, although the decisions have been stayed pending appeal. The New Mexico Supreme Court has also legalised gay marriage.
But Arizona is among more than 30 states that still ban gay or lesbian couples from marrying, by constitutional amendment,statute or both.
House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, a Democrat who opposed the measure, called it "state-sanctioned discrimination" that clearly targets members of the gay community.
"We're telling them, 'We don't like you,'" Campbell said,during a heated floor debate. "'We don't want you here. We're not going to protect you, we don't want your business, we don't want your money and we don't want your kind around here.'"
State Representative Eddie Farnsworth said the bill was wrongly being portrayed as discriminatory and that it only made"minor tweaks" to current state law.
"This is simply protecting religious freedom that is recognised and defended and supported in the First Amendment that the founders wanted - nothing else," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/21/2014 10:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Dear International Editor:
