Slashdot Mirror

The average CA budget increase since 1978 is 7.7 percent: http://www.sen.ca.gov/budget/budgethistory.pdf

The average rate of inflation since 1978 is 4.22 percent:
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx?dsInflation_currentPage=0

I calculated the numbers from their tables. Please feel free to check and correct.

The budget increases do come in fits and starts some years barely any, others, giant increases. I leave it to the reader to figure out why.

Also this:

California's state spending has ballooned in the last decade at a rate much higher than the rate of inflation and rate of population growth in the state. According to Tom Campbell, California's finance director in 2004-2005, if the 1999-2000 budget of former California governor Gray Davis had been increased over the next decade by a factor representing the inflation rate and California's population growth in that time, California would now be experiencing a budget surplus, rather than a deficit even with the recent revenue decline due to the state's economic recession.[6] Instead, California has had a 50% spending increase over the past five years.[7]

http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/California_state_budget

Footnotes are specific to the above link.

So...
*CA budget levels have not remained at 1978 levels.
*CA budgets have exceeded the rate of inflation and population growth.
*CA Spends too much

It might interest you that someone is pushing a ballot proposition in California that would impose a massive exit tax on anyone moving out of CA. I see this as all part of the same road -- to the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_j.htm#1351
Wealth Tax. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute.
Summary Date: 01/28/09 Circulation Deadline: 06/29/09 Signatures Required: 694,354
Proponent: Paul McCauley
In part: "Imposes one-time tax of at least 55% on property in California exceeding $15 million if single, $20 million if married. Imposes one-time tax (between 36.5% - 54.3%) on income exceeding $10 million when resident dies or leaves California. Imposes additional 17.5% tax on total incomes of taxpayers with income exceeding $150,000 if single, $250,000 if married; 35% if incomes exceed $350,000 if single, $500,000 if married. Creates tax credits. Requires State to acquire shares of specified corporations to influence environmental practices."

This amounts to a Soviet-style assets grab -- no one will be able to cough up that much cash for property taxes (even people who own $15M properties don't normally keep $8M in cash laying around), so these expensive properties will be either sold (and a chunk of the proceeds confiscated under this proposal) or ceded to the state for unpaid taxes.

I know this is going to sound like a self-serving political statement from a hardcore Democrat -- but well done, President Obama. You picked a scientist to run an agency.

Oh please. The EPA has been suggesting white roofs, etc, since at least 2007. Possibly earlier.

Also look at California Title 24, Part 6 which have been in place since 2005. http://www.energy.ca.gov/title24/2005standards/2006-09-11_ADOPTED_AMENDMENTS.PDF

Chu is repeating well known information.

I just feel there is enough money floating around that, if all you want to do is lie in a small apartment with goods necessary to survive, you can do it.

My wording was poor regarding "better than that." I simply meant that if no one had to do the undesirable jobs to survive (i.e. already had all their basic needs covered), I think there would be little incentive for many people to accept such positions because the payoff of holding out for a better job (with no personal risk) would seem like a more desirable option. Personally, as a college graduate, I would love to be able to live without working, at least for awhile. I don't care about material things or booze, and there are plenty of other things I would like to do with my time that are low or no cost that I simply do not have time for within the constraints of my work schedule. I'm not saying that I'd never want to work again -- I do enjoy my current job and get satisfaction from my work. However, I feel like, in general (or at least for certain stretches of time), assuming my basic survival needs were met, I would rather have my time to myself and live a minimalist lifestyle than work an undesirable job if those were my two options. I don't know how universal that feeling is, but I doubt I am a unique case.

While I see your points about how the system you describe could be beneficial, I think it is also prone to a lot of abuse that can have deleterious unintended consequences. Communal living, an integral part of civilized society as we know it, only works because the division of labor allows members of the group to work together to keep the community's needs met. The resources to support those who aren't working have to come from somewhere, and without enough contributing members, the entire system would collapse. "Qualifying people" to receive community support, as the government currently does, serves an important function because it requires people using community resources to at least make a good faith effort to contribute and replenish the system instead of simply feeding off it. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I don't know that those "takers" would be equally motivated to find work without the imposed conditions on their support, and I'm not sure that there are enough people willing to work for luxury goods to support those who are willing to live without (especially if our impending Social Security crisis is any indication).

If I'm offended by having to work as a pig farmer (some religions forbid it) do I have to take a job as a pig farmer?

Actually no, at least according to the CA EDD, you don't. There is already a clause in unemployment law allowing for conscientious objection based on religious, ethical, moral or philosophical beliefs. This is the same area that I would think that prostitution would fall under, and that there would be little difficulty making a case for exemption from those opportunities considering the divisive moral issues surrounding the practice. I am not well versed in unemployment law, so I'm not sure about all jurisdictions, but it seems like it wouldn't be particularly difficult to implement across the board.

I totally agree with you on the decriminalization issue. I think that whistleblowers or victims should be protected, regardless of the circumstances of how they were victimized. While this may appear to undermine deterrence in participating in illegal activities, I think that two wrongs do not make a right in this case, and the fear that many prostitutes (or illegals, etc.) is counterintuitive to our sense of civility and justice.

So the Do Not Call list became "Cheap list of verified numbers for people who can give you money but whose government can't arrest you."

I always figured it like this-- the Do Not Call list has certain exceptions-- political calls (of course), charities, and companies with whom you've done business (e.g., even though you cancel AT&T, they continue with the "please switch back" calls), non-profits, etc. There may be even more exceptions (like local businesses within 50 miles of your home, etc.) for your state's local DNC list.

In other words, the way I see it, the Do Not Call list is a Call List for the exceptions. I don't want ANY of them- politicians or nonprofits included- calling me. I'd just prefer to stay unlisted and not have my # show up anywhere. This works pretty well except for the random-number generated robocalls who coudn't give a shit what your # is.

Also, if it gets REALLY annoying, one might consider using a call router to intelligently route unknown callers through a phone tree or directly to voice mail.

W

It already is. California has a law (SB 1386) that has been in effect since 2003 concerning the responsibility of companies and government agencies to keep their databases secure and to publicly report any breach of confidential personal information within 30 days of the incident.

Full text of the bill is here: http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/01-02/bill/sen/sb_1351-1400/sb_1386_bill_20020926_chaptered.html

There are no fines imposed, but the public humiliation of having to admit that they lost data can cost a company plenty. And the company is held responsible for making sure that the people whose information was lost/stolen/compromised are fully compensated for any money they lost as a result of the breach. And they have to alert all the credit reporting agencies that everyone in the database whose information was compromised gets a Free Credit Report and can freeze their own credit report from all public access for any length of time until they choose to lift the freeze.

That by itself is a pretty serious penalty. If you want to impose a fine for every SSN compromised, every company that has any kind of a breach is going to go bankrupt. As if we don't have enough companies going bankrupt just as a consequence of the lousy economy, let alone due to a security breach.

Already approved $10 billion in funding. Routes selected. EIR done. This thing is shovel ready, just need the federal funding and private funding to add to it. Plus, it can run at night and on cloudy days. http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/

In addition there is the Desert Xpress, which is a route from Victorville to Vegas built by the private sector with $0 public tax dollars. When California's High Speed Rail is given the green light, this will be a huge boost to the Desert Xpress project. Extending the route to Palmdale/Lancaster and thus California's high speed rail will be a no brainer. http://www.desertxpress.com/

As a California high school physics teacher I agree that your text will never be adopted by a public California high school. You have a picture of a beer for one, obviously encouraging underaged drinking. Plus it's not aligned to the state standards (you're missing thermo). Also every physics teacher has to agree on a single textbook in case a physics student transfers mid-year. That hasn't happened in the 4 years I've been teaching here so why we're catering to the random data point is beyond me. But the standards are the main problem. You see, the school board has to ensure that the book meets the state standards. They're not going to actually read the standards and the book and see if they match up (and they're really not qualified to determine that). But the major publishers also publish helpful guides that link all the standards to specific pages in the text so all the board members have to do is look at the guide and say "Yup, it's standards complient" or more precisely verify the existence of such a guide and deem that necessary and sufficient. Since you don't have such a guide the board can not legally adopt your text. I'm pretty sure the picture of a beer would prevent me from even getting it approved as a supplementary text (were I to ask rather than just use it.)

The timeline is really goofy. This press release from last week appears to be the request by the government for content, and they say they want it for fall 2009. Huh!?!? The press release refers to "free, open-source digital textbooks for high school students" and says the government will "develop a state approved list of standards-aligned, open-source digital textbooks for high school math and science." Textbook publishers with books already on the market obviously aren't going to make their books free and open source. Individuals clearly can't start writing new ones and get them done by fall 2009. So the only possibility left is apparently to look for free books that already exist. That's fine (see my sig for a catalog of free books), but I think it's extremely unlikely that there are any preexisting free books that meet the state standards, which, as the Ars article points out, are insanely difficult to comply with.

I teach physics at a community college in California, and I'm the author of some open-source physics textbooks. They're intended for the college level, but I do get quite a few of my adoptions from high schools (see the list on that page). So far, however, zero of my adoptions have been from California public high schools. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to understand why: California's textbook selection system makes it impossible. Actually most of my high school users are at private religious schools. I assume that's because private schools aren't regulated by their state governments in terms of textbook adoption, and they also usually operate on a shoestring, so free textbooks sound like a good deal to them.

Re the wiki approach, it's a dismal failure at producing useful textbooks. If you look at the catalog linked to from my sig, there are hundreds of textbooks in it, and very few of them were made via wikis. Wikibooks' original goal was to revolutionize education; in reality it seems like the killer app for Wikibooks is video game guides. Plenty of people are writing free books. They're just not doing it using wikis. A textbook is an entirely different kind of project than an encyclopedia.

It's a combination of California law (specifically California Business and Professions Code section 16600) and court decisions. The courts ruled that "restrains" doesn't mean "completely prevents", it means "limits in any way", which means if out of 100 possible lawful jobs available to you a non-compete agreement prevents you from taking even one of them it violates 16660.

Myself, I've always disagreed with the "inevitable disclosure" idea. After all, the company that's trying to apply it benefited from it itself. Unless they have a policy of only hiring new grads fresh out of school with no work history, they hired you in the first place because of the things you'd learned at previous jobs that you'd bring along with you. And now that they've benefited from that, they want to prevent anyone else from benefiting as well? Not kosher.

You're absolutely right...

Here's another good one... watch everyone of moderate to high income leave California (where $150k/year is only middle class) in droves. And a 55% tax on high-dollar property? Do they really think everyone with a $15M property has $8M lying around in cash? (Or is this really a land grab made easy by property tax defaults?)

=====
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_j.htm

1351. (08-0020)
Wealth Tax. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute.
Summary Date: 01/28/09
Circulation Deadline: 06/29/09
Signatures Required: 694,354
Proponent: Paul McCauley

Imposes one-time tax of at least 55% on property in California exceeding $15 million if single, $20 million if married. Imposes one-time tax (between 36.5% - 54.3%) on income exceeding $10 million when resident dies or leaves California. Imposes additional 17.5% tax on total incomes of taxpayers with income exceeding $150,000 if single, $250,000 if married; 35% if incomes exceed $350,000 if single, $500,000 if married. Creates tax credits. Requires State to acquire shares of specified corporations to influence environmental practices. May exempt new revenues from education funding requirements. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: One-time increase in state revenues potentially in the low hundreds of billions of dollars from imposition of a wealth tax, and ongoing increase in state revenues potentially in the billions of dollars from imposition of the tax on certain people dying or leaving the state. This revenue would be allocated to accomplish various goals related to environmental protection. Potential annual net increase in personal income tax revenues in the tens of billions of dollars annually. At least $8 billion annually would be allocated to the state General Fund with additional revenue allocated for environmental protection. Unknown state and local revenue reductions-potentially in the tens of billions of dollars annually-due to changes in taxpayer behavior. (08-0020.)
======

(No shit, sherlock...)

If by classrooms we're only talking about lecture halls where the information flows in one direction, then yeah, I could see this possibility. After all, students still need to attend things like labs, exams, and some other types of interaction, right? I could even see some back and forth communication working better online (async vs sync). I think the biggest hurdle isn't technology, but of the inability for many to express themselves (or understanding others) through the written word.

Doing recent research in online schools for graduates, I ran into another problem: professional acceptance. I couldn't find one online law school that is even state accredited, let alone ABA accredited. Without backing from theses types of institutions, technology is the least of their worries.

Even if the schools were accepted, look at the success rate of Concord Law School:

http://www.calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/Statistics/JULY2008STATS.pdf

Concord Law School has a 44% pass rate. This is a little bit better than half as good as the /worst/ ABA accredited school. Note that before potential students can even take the real bar, they had to have passed the baby bar too. That success rate is currently clocked in at 14.3%:

http://www.calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/FYX/FYX0810-Stats.pdf

I'm not certain 11 years of technology advancements is enough for some of the degrees out there.

If by classrooms we're only talking about lecture halls where the information flows in one direction, then yeah, I could see this possibility. After all, students still need to attend things like labs, exams, and some other types of interaction, right? I could even see some back and forth communication working better online (async vs sync). I think the biggest hurdle isn't technology, but of the inability for many to express themselves (or understanding others) through the written word.

Doing recent research in online schools for graduates, I ran into another problem: professional acceptance. I couldn't find one online law school that is even state accredited, let alone ABA accredited. Without backing from theses types of institutions, technology is the least of their worries.

Even if the schools were accepted, look at the success rate of Concord Law School:

http://www.calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/Statistics/JULY2008STATS.pdf

Concord Law School has a 44% pass rate. This is a little bit better than half as good as the /worst/ ABA accredited school. Note that before potential students can even take the real bar, they had to have passed the baby bar too. That success rate is currently clocked in at 14.3%:

http://www.calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/FYX/FYX0810-Stats.pdf

I'm not certain 11 years of technology advancements is enough for some of the degrees out there.

You really think I'm a paranoiac? Hmm. Ok, after way too much research I can offer for comparison: California's 2008 revenue was ~$130 billion while Disney's 2008 revenue was ~$38 billion. So, Cali has roughly 3.4 times the revenue of Disney. If we say money = power... does that mean disney has ~1/3 as much power as California? I dunno exactly. Food for thought anyway. Thanks for catching me though. I was thinking big corps. were making way more than that :-)

Well, on the other hand we have Wal*Mart's 2008 revenue of ~$379 billion. Roughly 3 times the revenue of California. Compare that to, say, Missouri's 2008 revenue of ~$35 billion and take what you want from the order of magnitude difference. Hmm... well maybe I'll keep this shiny hat around just in case!

Especially the SF-LA link could do with only a few stops (LA, Bakersfield, Fresno, (Stockton), San Jose, SF, say), so one could push for >80 mph average. This would bring down travel time from _downtown_ LA to _downtown_ SF to 5 hours.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority suggests a travel time of two hours and 38 minutes between SF and LA.

we're already doing that, we passed a prop that allowed for high-speed train to be built on our sales tax.

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/

No offense, but you are an idiot. No one is going from NY to LA on a train. They are going from LA to Sacramento, San Francisco, or San Jose. If you've driven any of these routes you know the highways are already congested (this goes for other proposed routes like Seattle to Portland too). Right now businesses fly people on these routes at great expense and little time savings vs rail when you factor in airport time.

Yes, we need better transit in our metropolitan areas, but that's no reason not to build high speed rail.

That is true. On the California State tax form (line 16) they ask you for: "Use Tax". http://www.ftb.ca.gov/current/usetax.shtml

I always wondered how many people fill this out.

I didn't know for sure, but my guess was that you are in Europe. But at least I don't need to tell you about introduced species, since your country is full of rabbits by now :-) And indeed you have lots of land.

Good that your government is reasonable at least in this respect. As I mentioned, I personally could live with laws like that, where you can get a permit as long as you can show a good reason. This implies that you trust your government to hold its end of the bargain; that's a tough sell in the USA.

I thought you still have some alligators there, but shooting those is a very risky proposition in itself (unless you have a BFG-9000 :-) Here you can have bears of several kinds, mountain lions, wild pigs, wolves (very few, they are protected) and coyotes - these can attack you personally, and such attacks are not uncommon. If you worry about plants then you have to deal with birds and squirrels of many types. If you need to protect livestock then you have squirrels again (cows step into their burrows and break legs) then coyotes and panthers; black vultures are known to attack newborn cattle but not much can be done about that because they are protected species. North America has several kinds of poisonous snakes, and if it becomes necessary to kill a snake (near or inside a house) it practically requires a firearm because you don't want to come close (unless you are a trained snake handler.) Rattlesnakes in CA are plentiful and require no protection. For a quick summary, bears and snakes are the most dangerous animals in the USA. Other animals, encountered in the wild, will prefer to run away from you if they can (and will attack you otherwise.) Unfortunately if those animals wander into a city their habits change, and then even a cowardly coyote can attack a child (that happens regularly in CA, one fatality so far, see the coyote link above.)

The question is "do you have a right to anonymity when making political editorials?" That's a different question than "do you have the right to make anonymous political editorials?" The answer to the latter question is "of course". The answer to the former question is "of course not".

Horseshit. The Bill of Rights exists because of anonymous free speech. Also, the Supreme Court has a long history of protecting anonymous free speech. You are entirely wrong in every point you make.

The right to anonymous speech is enshrined in the highest law of the land. Whether or not the statements are hurtful is irrelevant. Your political example is particularly clueless.

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

The parent poster is correct in framing this as a possible abuse of power. It is probably not illegal to reveal someone's identity. It can be illegal to use political power to discover someone's identity.

Your homework assignment (i.e. if you want to debate this without looking like a total idiot) is to prepare an argument against internet anonymity with reference to libel and slander. The links I provided should give you plenty of ammunition. Also, if you dig back through slashdot, there was a recent case in the maryland supreme court (IIRC) involving a fast food franchise trying to subpoena the identities of some critics on the internet, which may or may not have been covered in one of my links. Do note that such an argument is not relevant to the facts of TFA.

Why not allow this sort of behaivor? Many (most?) states already suspend alleged DUI offenders driver's license without a trial-by-jury on as little as the officer's suspision. Seems logical DAs would feel he is allowed to order the alleged to jump through hoops (submit to illegal questioning, attend required education programs, involuntary registrations, monitoring and forced denial of other rights like firearm ownership; were the accused has the burden of proof) without due process, because the <sarcasm>allegation is just the red-headed step child of a conviction</sarcasm>

While we're at it, lets make all men over 18 who watch cheerleading contests on ESPN register as sex offenders because they probably will at some point and finding evidence and going to trial is too hard, and this saves money.

In case you missed it, the voters in the "more than broke" CA approved Proposition 1A, which will "partially fund a $40 billion, 800-mile high speed train"[2] between SF and LA.

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_1A_(2008)

Did you flunk your drivers test?

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/dl600.pdf

Do not enter the intersection if you cannot get completely across before the light turns red. If you block the intersection, you can be cited.

What people end up doing is that they don't want to wait. They want to get going as quickly as possible and hence run the red taking a risk...

The driving exam is a joke here. If you correctly answer 6 out of 10 multiple choice questions (mostly "guess the taffic sign" ones) you get a learners licence.

Questions about traffic signs? whats wrong with that? what else do you want them to ask? Algebra? Management theory? Remember, its only for the "learners" license.

There's a bunch of other things drivers should know. Compare these to the Indian one, and then tell me if it's a joke or not. 1 wrong answer out 15 in the first half of my exam (Europe) could be enough to fail.

1 month later you get the full licence, provided that you can drive 100m without incident.

The License issuing officials will ask you to drive a "8" shaped or "S" shaped track without making mistakes. Thats not easy for most beginners, and i think there are similar tests in other countries as well.

I neglected to mention that the 100m are inside a figure-8 track, for dramatic reasons. In Europe/US you must drive around in traffic for a full hour with the examiner, which is considerably harder.

On the other hand the Tata Nano seems to be a scaled-up rickshaw rather than a scaled-down car.

Scaled up rickshaw? what was that supposed to mean? A rickshaw doesn't even have an engine!

Autorickshaw, not a bicycle one. Take a 6 Seater Autorickshaw, add the fourth weel, doors and car seats and you have a clunky Tata Nano. Same engine/luggage configuration, same tiny wheels, same-same.

The law is to stop on yellow unless not safe to.

And, if it's not safe to stop then, you are perfectly OK to continue driving through the intersection while you have a yellow light. Or, at least, it is in California ( http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/traff_lgts_sgns.htm ), your mileage may vary.

Peoples' perception of "safe" depends on an expectation of how long they have until it will be red -- if it turns from green to yellow to red in less time than it physically takes me to stop, then either the speed limit needs to be lowered, or the yellow time increased, or both.

California's overtime laws are pretty simple in my opinion. http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_overtime.htm

If you work 7 days a week for 10 hour days, you will get 2 hours of overtime for the first 4 days. The fifth and sixth day are all overtime. Seventh day, first 8 hours are overtime and last 2 hours are double time.
Total of 36 hours overtime and 2 hours doubletime.

Sometimes the system works against you if you work the last 6 days of the work week and the first 6 days of the following work week (therefore 12 days straight, but not seven consecutive days in a work week).

Don't let Joel Anderson find out about street view, he'll want that blurred out as well.

I'm afraid he's already got that covered: (Directly from the bill text.)

The bill would also prohibit that operator from providing street view photographs or imagery of those buildings and facilities.

Once again the California State Legislature shows that stupidity has no bounds.

He represents the wing-nut, right half of San Diego county including Borrego Springs, El Cajon, La Mesa, Santee and other hot spots. His web site has a nice picture of the San Diego skyline, but I guess no one told him it is not in his district. OTOH there isn't anything in El Cajon that I would take a picture of. He doesn't list an email address on his website but he does have an email form. You need to be thinking like B1 Bob Dornan to get elected from this turf.

DISTRICT OFFICE
500 Fesler Street, Suite 201
El Cajon, CA 92020
(619) 441-2322, (619) 441-2327 fax

CAPITOL OFFICE
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 319-2077, (916) 319-2177 fax

email him At His Feedback Page

He's dork from the exurbs of San Diego. So be firm but polite.

The court's ruling is available on the web [1]. The court did not care that the contract was written in blood.

The contract was invalid because there was no consideration. The issue came about because the plantiff invested in Mr. Son's company. The company failed so Mr. Kim was out $170,000. The two went to a sushi bar where they "consumed a great deal of alcohol". Feeling sorry for Mr. Kim, Son pricked his finger and wrote the "promissory note".

Mr. Kim claims the consideration was that he graciously held off on suing for a year. The court ruled that was not consideration because Mr. Kim did not have valid grounds to sue in the first place. He invested in a business. The business failed. That's his tough luck.

[1] for the time being anyway. It says "NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS".

Exactly. The State of California had their own stem cell research going on during the federal funding ban.

It would be nice if I had a line item veto on my IRS 1040. That way I could go in and veto items that I found morally objectionable. It would nice if I didn't have to fund elements of a government that go against my beliefs. Oh well... they've got the guns.

JOhn

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/asm/ab_0251-0300/ab_255_bill_20090211_introduced.html

Joel Anderson wants your opinion: http://arc.asm.ca.gov/member/77/default.aspx?p=opinion

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/asm/ab_0251-0300/ab_255_bill_20090211_introduced.html

Joel Anderson wants your opinion: http://arc.asm.ca.gov/member/77/default.aspx?p=opinion

To be fair, the actual text of the bill only requires the images to be blurred if the Operator already identifies the building. Specifically:

This bill would prohibit an operator, as defined, of a commercial
Internet Web site or online service that makes a virtual globe
browser available to members of the public from providing aerial or
satellite photographs or imagery of places in this state that have
been identified on the Internet Web site by the operator as a school,
place of worship, or government or medical building or facility
unless those photographs or images have been blurred.

Still pretty dumb, though.

This isn't the first Ahnold irony I've found. While watching MSNBC's "lockup", an inmate said that Ahnold took away weights from prisons. Think about it.

Ok - here's the scoop on donating hardware to education in a cost effective fashion :

Companies (not individuals) may benefit from the 21st Century Classrooms Act for Private Technology Investment. Under this legislation, corporations that donate computers can deduct the full purchase price if the equipment is no more than two years old. (Citation : http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/CalMAX/EUpdate/2002/Winter.htm)

More insight : "The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 states that companies that donate personal computers to schools qualify for an enhanced charitable deduction benefit. The law, introduced by Representative Randy Cunningham (R-California), expands tax incentives for private companies that donate computer technology, equipment, or software to K-12 classrooms. The act took effect January 1, 1998, and applies to computers less than two years old."

That tax benefit (being able to write off the entire purchase price of the hardware as a tax deduction, even if the hardware has already been depreciated for tax purposes) is big. Real big. If you can write off the entire purchase price of hardware TWICE, in the 25% tax bracket - well you can effectively double-dip on writing off the full purchase price of the hardware on your taxes, making the net cost about half. The trick is timing the hardware purchase cycle so you can depreciate the entire amount and then donating the hardware before it hits two years old.

Did you take a shower today? The water probably came from the government, through government pipes.

(Probably?!) ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, Bureau of Reclamation, And Others to Private entities. Through LEAD and IRON PIPES. (Some add fluorine (where did that come from), some add chlorine)
All in all it's water. I kind of wish the fuckin fluoride wasn't in there. but hey, bottom line, YOu can drink from a garden hose, and not die today.

HOWEVER.... If you REALLY want to fucking get it on and get down to it, USACE now contracts EVERYTHING OUT. they don't even fucking HAVE equipment anymore, and while there are some bright people there, it's moving towards these stupid fucking yuppies that have to do computer simulations as opposed to good old fashioned engineering.

Did you drive to work? You probably drove on a government road.
(cough, cough) Turnpike? http://video.dot.ca.gov/ freeway. Oh what's that road by SPAIN?

Was your country occupied by a foreign army? That's probably because of your government funded Army.
USAF, NAVY, MARINES, COAST GUARD. And yeah apparently we've had our country occupied by a foreign host. And attacked (if we believe the bullshit) What was that white streak on that shitty camera at the pentagon? What happened to the third tower?

And again want to really ask questions? How about the OATH OF OFFICE. seems we have some Domestic Terrorists.
By the way I am a veteran, so actually I helped, and even though nobody listens, keep trying to help.

Do you have electricity? It probably came to your house through a wire that was installed on a government mandated easement.
Like when the Army Corps Of Engineers takes it from someone (usually an idiot) with legal bullshit. Eminent Domain. Or were we talking about Enron, pete wilson grey davis ArNoLd?

I could give you more examples... a lot more examples, but I think I'd be wasting my time.
"Ditto!" You should check yourself. Your not watching too much NCIS, and CSI are ya? Get help. Go dig up some truth.

"An assault is an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another. An assault is punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by both the fine and imprisonment." Cal. Pen. Code. 240-241 available at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=240-248

Tell me exactly how you figure you have to spend "hours per line" figuring out what that says?

First of all, it's self-referential. That word "unlawful" in there means you have to figure out when such attempts are lawful in order to figure out that that means. Then the term "present ability" has loads of case law defining it. And then "commit a violent injury"... exactly what does that mean? Is shoving someone an "assault"? No injury is meant, but I'm pretty sure there have been cases of assault convictions for a shove.

You're right. Ignorance of the law is no defense. But the laws are accessible to the average person. And your point about amendment is irrelevant. I don't know where you got your information from, but it's very, very wrong. You never need to turn to unofficial sources for the current law.

"An assault is an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another. An assault is punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by both the fine and imprisonment." Cal. Pen. Code. 240-241 available at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=240-248

Tell me exactly how you figure you have to spend "hours per line" figuring out what that says?

Encryption and a whole host of other requirements are now the law in California for any non-profit, local gov or other agency using state funds and that has any personal data anywhere on their systems. This could be something as innocent as the address block in a letter you typed to one person, does not have to mean the "database."

http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/osp/sam/mmemos/MM08_11.pdf

As a matter of law, the health care provider typically owns the record, although as with many things it is governed by state law and so may vary.

http://www.med.yale.edu/caim/risk/handbook/rmh_medical_record2.html
http://www.medbd.ca.gov/consumer/complaint_info_questions_records.html

Personally, I think this is a point of law that needs to be changed at the federal level. But then, I also think that there should be a privacy amendment to the US constitution.

I'm looking at http://www.coastal.ca.gov/desalrpt/dchap1.html, which seems a very reasonable report on desalination efforts. It shows the energy cost, for the best plants, as a minimum of 3500 kWh/Af, or 3500 kilowatt-hour/Acre-foot, or 1.26 * 10^12 Joules/1.232590 * 10^9 cc, or roughly 1000 Joules/cc of water. That's pretty expensive. Saudi Arabia's desalination is quite limited, and yes, they're in a place with plenty of energy (irreplaceably used for this process) and where water is expensive. The maintenance costs for the equipment are also quite high: salt water is very corrosive and tends to destroy the best planned facilities long before their expected replacement dates.

The basic booby problem is where you said "where energy is cheap". That cheap energy simply does not scale: it's a locally effective tradeoff between energy and water, but not every country has Arabia's high energy density and low population. And no, this is not the basis of Saudi Arabia's current agricultural growth. They're still draining the underwater reserves, and expending them: it's still not a sustainable agricultural model.

Your construction project is also going to have to hardware to link up 240 generators to the grid. Also they probably arn't going to be able to generate their rated power at all times.

That's no problem, that's already being done. " U.S. Wind Energy Installations Top 20 Gigawatts". Here's a chart of how much each state generates: "10 Gigawatts of wind power (AWEA)".

I doubt it actually takes 23 years to construct a nuclear power plant.

Did you also read about the 5 megawatt wind turbines and how fast power capacity can be added?

Also you arn't restricted to windy places to build them

That's alright, some places are good for wind, others are good for geothermal, solar, or tidal. Geothermal energy produced produced 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in California in 2007. On the Big Island of Hawaii geothermal energy produced 25% of the electricity. Houses in New York City are heated by geothermal energy. From British Columbia to Southern California along the Pacific Coast solar is widely available. Here's a list of states with good solar potential: "Solar takes no shine to Nevada". The title refers to the solar industry not wanting to go to Nevada because right across the state line in California the state has a number of incentives to encourage solar. Simply use whatever type of energy an area has.

Falcon

you have problem of transmitting power from where you can produce it, to the place where it needs to be employed

HVDC, High Voltage DC powerlines can transmit electricity log distances.

Also, you still need some way to ensure a stable baseline of power - power that you can count on producing a minimum amount, all hours of the day or night, every day of the year. Coal, oil, nuclear, and geothermal offer that

As you say geothermal can provide at least some baseload as can natural gas. Geothermal provides power in California. Geothermal provides 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity. One geothermal power plant on the Big Island in Hawaii provides 25% of it's electricity. And in New York City geothermal energy is used to heat homes.

Finally, have environmentalists considered the impact of the land use necessary to produce electricity on the scale our nation needs using solar and wind?

Actually now many environmentalists now support nuclear power.

How many birds will be hacked to death by wind turbines

Cats are now a bigger threat to birds than wind turbines. Actually it was some of the older wind turbines that killed a lot of birds. Today they're made with bigger blades that spin slower, it was the fast spinning blades that killed birds.

Maybe bird migrations will be confused by all the glare from PV panels?

Birds are already confused by the windows on buildings.

Where are the UK, France, Germany, etc going to build their solar and wind farms?

Much of Germany has good potential wind energy. A German town is going 100% Renewable Power.

Falcon

I still want to see it reported and publicized.

You can add Purdy (part of Sherwin-Williams) to your list of offenders.
http://www.ownrecognizance.com/purdy.html

These guys are all doing business in California. I wish they would be nailed based on this:
California's Business & Professions Code 17200 prohibits "unfair or fraudulent business act[s] or practice[s] and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising".
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=17001-18000&file=17200-17210

Right, and in most states it has been defined similar to this. Here is California's definition, measured "50 feet from the centerline of travel".

Right, and in most states it has been defined similar to this. Here is California's definition, measured "50 feet from the centerline of travel".

I'm curious as to whether annoying the crap out of everyone around you is a constitutionally protected right. I'm thinking no. Which is why I'm surprised there's not more of a police crack-down on such behavior.

Something is not illegal simply because it is not defined in the Constitution as a right.

That said, there are laws that define the acceptable noise level that an exhaust system may produce, but they vary from state to state. In California, the limit on motorcycles varies between 80 and 88 dbA depending on the date of manufacture. California law also states that the exhaust can't be modified to exceed that level.

I'm curious as to whether annoying the crap out of everyone around you is a constitutionally protected right. I'm thinking no. Which is why I'm surprised there's not more of a police crack-down on such behavior.

Something is not illegal simply because it is not defined in the Constitution as a right.

That said, there are laws that define the acceptable noise level that an exhaust system may produce, but they vary from state to state. In California, the limit on motorcycles varies between 80 and 88 dbA depending on the date of manufacture. California law also states that the exhaust can't be modified to exceed that level.

A quick check of the California Code for the word 'nuclear' finds that no law along those lines exists on the books, though that doesn't mean that something like it didn't exist before. I suspect the fine would have been far higher, though.