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Use taxes have been around forever -- in fact they usually predate or come up along side of sales tax. Sales tax is just the state requiring businesses in the state to collect your use tax. For instance, in CA the first use tax was passed at the same time as the first sales tax -- 1954.

http://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/taxrateshist.htm

1) Is this a matter of taking a technology that was developed for personal entertainment and trying to make it conform to "serious education".

http://www.officehell.co.uk/uploads/items/images/The-best-memory-of-school-796.jpg
nuff said

2) If kids can't write/express succinctly on paper or read a book, what makes you think that some shiny $500 tablet will?

moot point:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_695637.html

3) Total cost of the device, not just initial.. you look at your average tablet plus e-books, plus apps and you have a very expensive alternative to plain ole notebooks, pencils, and textbooks

see if you can get a bulk discount for these:
http://www.zdnet.com/photos/10-best-tablets-for-kids/6330739?seq=3&tag=photo-frame;get-photo-roto

4) Management.. Schools quickly learn that just giving these things away to students quickly amounts to a management nightmare they didn't foresee.. Everything from warranty repair, broken glass, application deployment/updates and acceptable content are only possible with a well thought out plan, and school-wide participation at all levels..

you already deal with this:
http://cpr.ca.gov/cpr_report/Issues_and_Recommendations/Chapter_3_Education_Training_and_Volunteerism/ETV14.html

"Depending on the subject, a single elementary textbook can range in price from $30 to $100. Legislation should be enacted to reduce the cost of K-12 school textbooks." $30-$100 for a single textbook? the tablets i referenced costs about as much, and you could conceivably get one that puts all your textbooks on it.

"Many college books are going digital. One major educational company plans to release 300 online titles this fall at half the price of regular textbooks, and dozens of other online textbooks and supplemental materials are already available. Digital textbooks can cut costs and streamline note taking. They also allow professors to link classroom notes to online materials for more discussion and easily update items as needed. Digital textbooks can be updated frequently, for example, history books can include information on what happened in the Legislature two weeks ago. There is no longer any need for textbooks to be out of date. Digital textbooks can save school systems money. Textbooks are easily damaged, lost and quickly outdated. Digital textbooks can always stay up-to-date, and are inexpensive to replace." -- see the Digital Books subhead on that page

Losses is only a small part of cost. From what I see Electric transmission distribution costs to a home is at least $.13 /kwhr (based on electric production cost of $.03 to $10, and avg home cost $.20+ local line cost $.03.) While Fuel distribution cost to a gas station is $.25 per gallon (1 gallon = 33 kwhr.) so gasoline costs $.0075 /kwhr to distribute.
If used for charging a electric car vs hybrid, add in the weight savings of gasoline over electric, storage costs, charger costs. The reduced transportation cost of fuel could easily pay off, even if efficiency at the car is 35% (especially if it is cold out, and you have a need for some of that combustion waste heat for warmth.)

As soon as I get my own roof, I will definitely be buying.

Just be sure to calculate all the pros and cons. One issue is that you can't take the PV system with you when you move; and, unless you are old, this is very likely.

You of course may use this PV as a way to boost the sale price of the home... but in this market you will lose 10x more than you gain. I have PV in CA (SV) and I don't pay anything for electric power - but I am still unsure if it was a good idea. As other posters said, the most obvious use of PV is to drop your tier if you are already overpaying for energy. But if you are looking to buy your first home it probably won't come with a 24/7/365 heated spa and olympic size pool and five A/C zones. PV is not an obvious decision, especially when energy prices are set by politicians. Your investment into PV will be immediate large, whereas utility fees are distributed in time and small. On the other hand, inflation destroys your savings.

Yes, cable car operators are really in California law (and spelled out as such), but this is also true of bus and other public transit operators too.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=187-199

See at: 192.25 (a)

I stick by my belief, though. The idea that we actually consider motive is very much part of the homicide laws of nearly every state in the US. Usually motive is at the heart of the difference between first and second degree murder. Hate crime laws really aren't, in my opinion, that different. Were the laws actionable without there being another crime, I'd have my shovels and pitchforks out, too.

And most of these "special circumstances" are not ignored by the courts. While they are ignored as "issues" by the media, they are ignored by them because they are uncontroversial ... except for hate crimes.

Which is precisely my point.

Also not fully correct. On 1-way to 1-way with turns allowed from multiple lanes you can have two+ cars turning right and drivers are allowed to land in whatever lane they please. It's totally stupid.

See example #6
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/turns.htm#turnexamples

Padilla's bill is SB 1298 at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sb_1298&sess=CUR. It has not yet had its first committee hearing.

I was a software test engineer for over 30 years. There is no such thing as a computer system that is completely error-free. While SOME drivers are impaired or simply have poor judgement, other drivers are alert, coordinated, and generally safe. On the other hand, all autonomous cars from the same manufacturer will have the same software errors.

The current leader in developing autonomous cars is Google. I would not drive one of Google's cars unless I knew that Google was not tracking where I went and what route I took to get there. I am concerned that, even if the car does not transmit its location and route in real-time, a mechanic might still be able to download the car's history while servicing the car. That information should be available only to law-enforcement agencies and even then only when a judge issues a warrant after being convinced there is probable cause that the history is relevant to an actual crime.

FWIW, it's been state law for quite some time that your lights have to be on if your wipers are on continuously. Where in CA were you? Most drivers I know are aware of this law.

Better than the space tether crap which requires manufacturing capabilities we don't have.

I like the idea of building it on the ground then mag lev'ing it up. Makes building it a lot easier....

20 years is in my lifetime and 60 billion is less than 4 years of NASA's current budget. So 20 years of NASA's budget should easily be able to pay for this AND still have money for other stuff.

That might be the case if the estimate had any basis in reality whatsoever.
Hell, a high-speed rail system of similar length to the launch track using conventional, proven technology is expected to cost around $100 billion; evolutionary development of a new airliner is running about $30 billion; somehow I think it is extremely unlikely they could come anywhere near their cost estimate given the scale and number of unknowns here. It would probably take 50% of the budget just to design and build the launch vehicle, never mind designing and building the enormous launch structure.

Falsification of a government record by an officer is a crime under California law pursuant to Government Code 6200-6203 and may also constitute unlawful forgery under Penal Code 470. If one officer showed another how to do it, that would constitute conspiracy to commit one or both of the above offenses, which would be a separate charge.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=gov&group=06001-07000&file=6200-6203

before spouting off about it.

There are other parts that apply but this is pretty specific:

(a) Notwithstanding the prima facie speed limits, any
vehicle proceeding upon a highway at a speed less than the normal
speed of traffic moving in the same direction at such time shall be
driven in the right-hand lane for traffic or as close as practicable
to the right-hand edge or curb, except when overtaking and passing
another vehicle proceeding in the same direction or when preparing
for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or
driveway.

I'm not entirely sure but you may have just demonstrated the Dunning-Kruger Effect nicely. :)

Move to California, then. Not that the process matters because it gets (ab)used to ram thru bad laws just the same, some worse than what even the Assembly would allow. If you can mislead and mis-educate enough people, even an Athenian process like this can be abused. Tyranny of the majority FTW.

You really expect us to believe

No, I don't expect you to believe that. Further, I don't believe there are evaluations that are 'unbiased enough' for you to accept, because I don't believe your objections have anything to do with bias, or integrity, or any other legitimate rationale.

Our edu-crats never hesitate to expound upon the importance of their role in our world. If we accept this argument as justification for sucking down 50% of our state budgets then we have more than reason enough to scrutinize their performance. Indulging union fear mongering instead is irresponsible.

If aliens scooped up all humans tomorrow, the rest of Nature would manage just fine, in its own sometimes grisly way.

You can say exactly the same about doctors...

Bigger point still remains: "game management" is used to justify hunters slaughtering animals to fulfill a human urge to kill

This statement only informs the world that you are not a hunter and you do not understand hunting. Why in the world hunters would feed animals if they hate them so much? But they do even though it costs some good money.

I would say that hunters love animals far more than a typical city dweller does. They respect them. Most animals that are seen in the fields and forests are left alone. You are probably loving your dog just as much (if you have a dog - I just posit this for the argument) but you would have it killed if its life comes to the natural and very painful end. Nothing that is alive lives forever, and animals don't have an easy time dying from old age. They are usually eaten by predators, alive, as they are dying.

Hunters pay fees, sometimes large fees, to Fish and Game, for the privilege to hunt in general and separately for privileges to hunt specific animals. You can't just walk into a forest and shoot deer left and right; you'd be dragged to prison for that. The monies that are collected are spent on improvements of wildlife habitats. But what has a common city man done to improve the life of a deer in a forest?

With regard to "killing," that same common man from the city is a killer too. How many innocent cows did he slaughter, however indirectly? How many innocent chickens and turkeys were killed on his orders? But as long as he buys the meat "in the store where it is made" he thinks his hands are clean. But they are not. Hunters are simply honest about that; humans are not ruminants, we can't live on grasses alone. Some animal food is necessary for health. Hence, we kill for food. (Vegetarians don't, but they are a minority.) A deer taken in the forest and eaten may spare one cow. Can we say that a cow's life is less important?

I understand that /. is not an ideal forum to discuss outdoor activities. However a geek would react with derision when someone clueless comes with a premade and unchangeable opinion on how to write software. What if I come and tell you that I heard on the radio that for (;;) is bad style and now you are required only to use goto? I wouldn't insist on the other party to be intimately familiar with actual cost of these statements in machine commands, but at least I'd ask for basic awareness of issues and then for willingness to accept arguments for and against the subject.

It'll depend in part on how willing your employer is to negotiate those terms, and in part on what the law in your state is. For instance in California you have California Labor Code sections 2870-2872 governing IP agreements. That law trumps anything in the agreement. Since I live and work in CA, I make it a point to mark up any IP agreements with a note about those sections before signing it. You'll want to check the law in your state, depending on what it says you may have more leverage with your employer.

There is quite a bit of variation to be found in the practices of companies with regard to this issue.

A good write up is found here: http://www.ieeeusa.org/members/IPandtheengineer.pdf

The article suggest there are two or three broad models of what is acceptable practice in this ares.

First

The Massachusetts Model is so called because it is prevalent in the northeastern United States. It was developed toward the end of the industrial revolution as a response to shop rights. Agreements written on this model tend to imply that the intellectual life of the employee is company property.

Never backed by law, this model is the most restrictive,

The cycle of innovation and renewal is fundamental to a healthy market economy. To foster this cycle, individuals require the same protections for non-work-related intellectual property that employers enjoy for work-related creations. In 1977, Minnesota formalized this concept with a law limiting the enforceable terms of pre-invention assignment agreements. The Minnesota Model adopts the philosophy that while the employer should enjoy protection, it should not come at the expense of today's employee to become tomorrow's new employer.

In California there are similar laws to the Minnesota system:

The State of California followed in 1980, by implementing protection for its famous entrepreneurial culture. As of this writing Utah, Washington, North Carolina, Kansas, Delaware, and Illinois have also promoted new business formation by means of
similar laws

The text of the California law is on the web here. Washington state Here.

Appendix B of the above linked article has a summary of legislation in various states and list of states where such agreements are already limited by state law.

Meanwhile California now has 5% of its power needs met by Wind Generation.

So I thought this was BS, but it is actually true! (source).

However it should be pointed out that California gets nearly the same amount of Total System Power from geothermal as it does from wind, and the power from solar is a measly 0.3% (less than biomass at 2.4%).

In a good system the resources are already there, and as far as I know that is pretty much the case in Japan. So the only logical conclusion is: "Philanthropy is a solution to a problem that shouldn't (and in this case doesn't) exist."

The problem with funding like this is that it empties public research into private ownership by making funding the goal of schools. The first and foremost goal of schools is and should be to teach.

In California, we have this terrible system which from the article seems to be on the brink of being exported to Japan.

To put things in perspective, almost 36% of all taxes in California go to education ($49 Billion FY2012-2013 : http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/agencies.html), and that's not including money from bond initiatives for stem cell research or other earmarks which end up at research universities, and it's not including the costs of education as part of rehabilitation for the mentally ill or incarcerated prisoners, which end up being another $18B (drill down on the numbers on that government site).

If you consider only K-12, there are 9,600 publicly funded schools serving 6.2M students (http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/pn/fb/index.asp); that's a cost of $63,000 per student, working out to ~$4M per school.

And the teachers at the schools in my area are constantly trying to raise funds for books, paper, pencils, and white board markers. At $63,000 per student per year, you'd think they'd buy them a damn box of pencils.

Before you try to claim "that's not a lot per student", realize that the median household income in California is less than that, it's just under $61,000 for the whole family, including all wage earners (U.S. Census : http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html).

I don't know where the hell all this money is going (I'd like an independent audit, please!) but it sure as hell isn't getting to the classrooms, so it has to be disappearing somewhere between the Franchise Tax Board and the classrooms.

As far as higher education is concerned, the colleges around here are canceling classes all over the place. You'd think that the more students they had, the more tuition they'd get, the more classes they'd have, but no, tuition collected is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the almost $10B in taxes paid to them by the state, and they optimize on the basis of revenue instead (hey, why have a student spend 4 years * tuition, when you can cancel a class and have them spend 5 years * tuition instead?). They also optimize it by preferentially admitting out of state students (who have to pay higher tuitions), but that's OK, those students can go to other states themselves, and pay out of state tuition there, instead.

And this is the model school system you are going to hold up for other countries to follow?

Japan: Save yourself before it's too late!

-- Terry

California would like to have a word with you. A bill to outlaw police from doing this was vetoed.
I find it unlikely that California would be the only state to allow this, but do not have any more information about other states.

From my understanding, those suffering from CF in California generally have their bills picked up by the state since no insurance plan could ever afford to treat CF patients. I believe this is under the state's Genetically Handicapped Persons Program.

But not having CF myself, I'm certainly no expert on the cost of care for it...

Then there's yellow and red lights. There are intersections where you cannot avoid running a red light. For starters, you don't know how long the green light and yellow light will last before the red. The guidelines for most states for the length of the lights don't even seem to take the speed limit and the width of the intersection into account and the guidelines often aren't followed anyway. Which means that there are many intersections where, even if the light changes to yellow _after_ you've crossed the stop line, you can't make it all the way across before the red light unless you're speeding.

I guess this depends on what is written for the state, but for California (ref: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21453.htm), it isn't a red light violation if you've entered the intersection on yellow (and changes red while still in the intersection). On the other hand, the length of yellow is important if it is short and the speed limit is high as the car won't have enough time to break before reaching the intersection. The width of the intersection shouldn't be important in this case.

Yes, driving safely and obeying the law is complicated. I think Google et al should first invest a lot into the safety part (other drivers don't always obey the law, so more defensive driving would be necessary). After that is problem free, following the endless list of state/country laws should be invested in.

Well, some ISPs are. Just depends on how they structure things legally. Should it be easier for ISPs to stand up and refuse to censor and snoop on their customers? IMO, yes. However, AFAIK, AT&T still retains common carrier status despite their well documented spying efforts, so...

While having slick creation tools is a cool thing, this won't end up working for public K-12 schools, at least in California. There's this thing called the Williams Case which requires all schools to have one copy of a textbook for each student in a class. Sure, the case was decided before digital textbooks were a possibility, but this has caused significant problems already with digital textbooks. Schwarzenegger tried with the digital textbook initiative to get things started, and there are even free, CC licensed, editable books out there already (disclaimer: I am an author for CK12). Nobody is using them because of the problems surrounding Williams compliance.

So while tools are nice, the problem is infrastructure and law. Which are, unfortunately, most of the problems those of us in education face when trying to make things better.

It's best when one chooses to support one's claims with quantitative facts rather than emotion and ideology. If the numbers agreed with you, I would too. But they don't.

Tax burden report, 2006
Tax burden report, 2009
Tax burdens by state, 1981-2005
California 2011-12 Budeget Outlook

California sees less return on federal dollars than is taken in taxes. (Who's the parasite, again?)
You sure about that? Hint: look at all the Federal expenditures in California, including welfare.

Yes, we are sure. Our federal tax imbalance is similar in size to our budget deficit.
You could at least base your claims on logic and numbers instead of emotion and expectations.

[1] 2009 Tax Burden Report
[2] 2006 Tax Burden Report
[3] Tax burden by state, 1981-2005
[4] California 2011-12 Budget Outlook

yeah, some governments allow this stuff to slip by.

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/Pages/NR12-003.aspx

You are correct about the mental disorders, but bipolar people are famous for unusually high IQs as are people with HFA and LFA, and all of these have mental disorders that cause considerable problems with social interactions of any kind (including keeping a roof over their heads).

Mental disorder rates by State

90% of homeless in UK excluded from education

IQ study in US shows "WAIS-R scores were comparable to population means".

http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/laomenus/sections/crim_justice/6_cj_inmatecost.aspx?catid=3

A significant portion of that cost is the medical average, which includes all the prisoners who are, in fact, dieing in jail. It clearly doesn't take long to make up the costs of a dead prisoner.

Now if you want to have a discussion about whether it might just be cheaper, net, for society to set them free, I think that's a different topic. But comparing ongoing incarceration vs dead prisoner, I think dead prisoner will clearly come out much cheaper.

California law treats vacation as accrued wages. If you don't take your vacation days, the employer must pay you for them at the end of employment.

Still, many employers prefer to pay than let their employees take time off.

The Bullshit episode is itself Bullshit. Lets go through a few points.
1. Can we legislate compassion? No. Legislation can codify individual right as seen by those with compassion. For those without compassion it changes the decision from "is it the right thing to do" to "will I be penalized if I don't". The ADA is there for the people without compassion and/or understanding of the issues that disabled people deal with every day. Laws are not there for the average person; they are there to codify what is unacceptable.

2. The show focused on parking spaces and chastised the ADA for "inflating the number of people with disabilities". The ADA covers many more issues than physical access. We all know about the issues with web sites and accessibility.

3. When showing empty disabled parking spaces the camera never pans around to the rest of the parking lot to see how empty the rest of the lot is. Too many disabled spots is only an issue if the rest of the lot is full.

4. The farce with the iron lung just stupid. People in iron lungs do not go out and parading one around the street is ludicrous. They keep asking "Where do we draw the line?". We draw the line at wheelchairs and scooters as they are commonly used by people to interact with society. They seem to imply that since we can not accommodate all disabilities we do not need to accommodate any disabilities. That is completely false logic. We accommodate what is reasonable in a compassionate mind.

5. They talk about making everyone equal; excellent distortion. No two people are absolutely equal as they point out. It is not about being equal but about equal access. If we can create equal access with ramps and special parking spots I say we do it.

6. The say that if one company does not provide equal access then someone else down the street will. They are correct that accessibility changes cost money. When a company installs these attributes their prices will go up. Therefore because one company has enough compassion to accommodate disabilities they are now less economically viable. By legislating those accommodations all companies have a level playing field.

7. The fact that one disabled lawyer threatened an entire town with lawsuits has nothing to do with the usefulness of the ADA. It is simply misuse of the law and we have no idea whether or not any of the threatened suits would ever get to court or be ruled in favour of. By that logic we should strike down rape laws because there are several well documented cases of rape charges being filed by jilted lovers. Every law can be misused but that does not mean that the law is bad.

8. Finally and most importantly they use the definition of disability and imply that anyone with any disability would qualify for a disabled parking permit. That is completely false. this is the application form in California for a disabled parking permit. Notice that all the qualifications concern physical limitations that interfere with mobility. So no, someone with dyslexia would not get a disabled parking permit.

Based on what I've found about California laws, it's the same thing - committing a crime which directly leads to accident doesn't change accidental responsibility. Being drunk while driving is just a crime, and if you hit something it's just an accident.

Fault-finding for insurance purposes is not bound in this way, of course.

And since this is Slashdot and a lot of us presumably live in California it's worth mentioning that barring a warrant only one party to a phone call needs to be aware that it's being taped in this state.

Nope, that's wrong. California is a two-party consent state:

"without the consent of all parties to the communication..."

Unless he lives in California, where such things are unenforceable, and prohibited from being used as a term of employment or continued employment. The down side to triggering these provisions is that you're responsible for showing that you didn't use the company's resources, including connections to their servers, I'd imagine.

What studies, please reference? Please do not label someone Anti-science when you have no clue who they are. Also, asking questions is NOT anti-science but is SCIENCE, and suppressing questions by attacking the questioner is Anti-Science as that is how studies are suppressed.

Conversations in cars have caused crashes, just like radios, and other distractions. When new functions (GPS, Radios, Mirrors) are placed into cars there is an initial round of studies and then there it becomes a Social issuehttp://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2572516&cid=38382626#. Take for example, fiddling with the radio. This has been linked to crashes too, do we ban radios in cars?

Here is a fact sheet: http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/fast_facts/ffdl28.htm

All distractions are shown to have some affect on driving, so should ALL things be banned? This is NOT a scientific discussion but a SOCIAL discussion.

Technically, California already has this sort of licensing, at least for computer techs (and a broad interpretation could include just about any sort of computer-related job).

http://www.bearhfti.ca.gov/
It is illegal in CA for an unlicensed person to perform repairs on a computer.

And the state runs sting operations:
http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/press_releases/2007/0928_sting.shtml

Technically, California already has this sort of licensing, at least for computer techs (and a broad interpretation could include just about any sort of computer-related job).

http://www.bearhfti.ca.gov/
It is illegal in CA for an unlicensed person to perform repairs on a computer.

And the state runs sting operations:
http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/press_releases/2007/0928_sting.shtml

I would argue that if Andrew Brietbart is a "profession journalist," then the journalistic standards don't mean anything.

What outrages me isn't that a blogger got hit with defamation, it's that journalists don't. What Crystal Cox did was clearly unethical, but it sounds to me that her actions would be perfectly legal if she was part of a news organization. So Andrew Breitbart can fabricate photos of OWS protesters defecating on cars, edit a clip of a USDA official to make her look racist against white people, and send out videos of ACORN officials edited to make it look like they are giving criminal advice on conducting a child prostitution rings (when two DA's found otherwise), and that's all perfectly okay because all of this disinformation and defamation is being executed by "professional journalists"???

The idea that journalists are somehow licensed to defame others is what offends me about this ruling.

And IT workers are not considered professionals unless they are paid at least $41.00 per hour.

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Glossary.asp?Button1=E#employee%20in%20the%20computer%20software%20field

employee in the computer software field

Except as provided below in paragraph 5, an employee in the computer software field who is paid on an hourly basis shall be exempt under the professional exemption, if all of the following apply:

[...]

4. The employee's hourly rate of pay is not less than $41.00 [the rate in effect on September 19, 2000]. The Division of Labor Statistics and Research shall adjust this pay rate on October 1 of each year to be effective on January 1 of the following year by an amount equal to the percentage increase in the California Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. Click here for adjusted rate information.

That's the law. Seriously, it is the law. Passed in 2003 amazingly enough.

The Califronia gov't description is the most clear. There is a Federal one too that is more difficult to read through but spells it out: IT workers get Overtime. Period.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_overtime.htm

To add:

http://consumerwiki.dca.ca.gov/wiki/index.php/Credit_Cards_(Secured)

The projected fare they have in mind which is supposed to be 80% of what a price of a ticket on Southwest should cost -- was based on overly optimistic plainly wrong rider-ship forecasts.

Absolutely false! An independent peer review found that the forecasts were sound:

"We are satisfied with the documentation presented in Cambridge Systematics, and conclude that it demonstrates that the model produces results that are reasonable and within expected ranges for the current environmental planning and Business Plan applications of the model. We were very pleased with the content, quality and quantity of the information."

The original $33 billion estimate was in 2008$. The current estimate of $98.5 billion is in year of expenditure dollars, which is the same as $65.4 billion in 2010$. So the price has only doubled, not tripled. The original submitter made the same mistake.

Meanwhile, the alternative to spending this $98.5 billion (YOE$) is spending $171 billion (YOE$) to build an additional 2,300 lane-miles of highways, 4 runways, and 115 airline gates just to move the same number of people! So the only thing more expensive than building high speed rail is not building it.

>>Yes, because of course the government hasn't subsidized the airline industry and airport infrastructure for 75 years...

And we pay 50c/gallon for gas and $20 per airline ticket, too, in usage fees, which cover a great deal of the costs of these types of infrastructure. Don't try to pretend otherwise.

>>High speed trains are electric, and electricity can come from renewable resources or nuclear.

Here in California? We already have an overburdened electrical grid, and a moratorium on new nuclear plants. (With plans to shut down our existing plants, because our legislature is fucking nuts.)

About half our production is from Natural Gas (53% http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html) a couple points are from coal, the rest from green sources (16% nuclear, 16% hydro being the main two).

>>Turns out we affected the weather pattern when all air traffic was halted:

Sure, but it's possible linear contrails actually add a net cooling effect (it's disputed).

Sorry but I doubt your claims, based on this:

http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/system_power/2006_gross_system_power.html

from 2006 to 2010 solar has gone 0.2%->0.3%, wind has faired markedly better [1.8%->4.7%] as expected. Coal over that same time has dropped drastically which shows very clearly that they *are* bringing new power online; it just isn't primarily solar.

Wind is much cheaper than solar but runs up against the same problem of evening storage. Solar thermal is aiming to help that and maybe that'll be the tipping point I mentioned earlier.

These are reports directly from california. I didn't take the time to look into the others and I don't doubt that there are places that are moving completely to renewables... I do doubt that they're doing it because it's cheaper.

Hawaii, based completely on out-of-my-ass figuring, quite likely can and does get away with large scale wind and tidal generation (being an island). Niagara Falls, Ontario produces vast amounts of hydro electric power too, but that doesn't mean everything everywhere can just up and use HE generation.

I'd like to also restate at this point that I still think we *should* be going with renewables for all new capacity. The additional costs most definitely are outweighed by the benefits both long and short term. I'm only saying that I really don't think they're cheaper, and it's not like I've never looked into it.

Sorry but I doubt your claims, based on this:

http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/system_power/2006_gross_system_power.html

from 2006 to 2010 solar has gone 0.2%->0.3%, wind has faired markedly better [1.8%->4.7%] as expected. Coal over that same time has dropped drastically which shows very clearly that they *are* bringing new power online; it just isn't primarily solar.

Wind is much cheaper than solar but runs up against the same problem of evening storage. Solar thermal is aiming to help that and maybe that'll be the tipping point I mentioned earlier.

These are reports directly from california. I didn't take the time to look into the others and I don't doubt that there are places that are moving completely to renewables... I do doubt that they're doing it because it's cheaper.

Hawaii, based completely on out-of-my-ass figuring, quite likely can and does get away with large scale wind and tidal generation (being an island). Niagara Falls, Ontario produces vast amounts of hydro electric power too, but that doesn't mean everything everywhere can just up and use HE generation.

I'd like to also restate at this point that I still think we *should* be going with renewables for all new capacity. The additional costs most definitely are outweighed by the benefits both long and short term. I'm only saying that I really don't think they're cheaper, and it's not like I've never looked into it.

California is most definitely an at-will employment state.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab&group=02001-03000&file=2920-2929

In CA, you can get unemployment even if you quit, get fired for stealing, etc.

False. You can get it if you quit, but you have to have a very good reason for quitting and you have to take steps to rectify the issue first.
http://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_5.htm

You cannot collect at all if you are terminated for willful theft.
http://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Misconduct_MC_140.htm

Two employees at my porn store (former employees, that is,) are collecting. On our dime.

You either do not know the whole story, or are withholding relevant information.

In CA, you can get unemployment even if you quit, get fired for stealing, etc.

False. You can get it if you quit, but you have to have a very good reason for quitting and you have to take steps to rectify the issue first.
http://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_5.htm

You cannot collect at all if you are terminated for willful theft.
http://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Misconduct_MC_140.htm

Two employees at my porn store (former employees, that is,) are collecting. On our dime.

You either do not know the whole story, or are withholding relevant information.

"It's actually illegal to drive above the speed limit or below the speed limit in the US"

This is incorrect for two reasons.
1. The US doesn't have uniform driving laws
2. I don't know of any state with such a law.

An example from california law:
http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc22400.htm

It is illegal to impede the normal flow of traffic, but it is not illegal to drive below the speed limit.

Some of those people that look "just fine" that have handcapped plates might be fine- they might have borrowed the car or been a caretaker

In CA, it is illegal to use someone else's DP placard/plates to park in a DP spot.