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That was my thought too. $38 mil is nothing for california, and given the upside (lots of people not dying horribly), it seems worth funding.

To put in perspective, last year CA made $82m on cigarette taxes alone and plans to spend about 10.3 billion in public safety spending 2015. I think $36m for this cause could easily be raised and appropriated.

Hell, just fully legalize pot and let the taxes on that pay for it. Who's onboard?

Better yet, how about California stops growing alfalfa (see page 4) for their beef and dairy industry. A better idea would be to quit providing subsidies to the beef and dairy industry that makes it economical to raise them a what otherwise would have been a desert. Between alfalfa, other grass forages, and corn for cattle, the other uses of water for producing food are pretty small. Unfortunately California is a state with a lot of electoral votes and no one wants to put an end to cheap shitty beef in this country so don't expect logic to ever win out, these same policies also help out states like Washington and Oregon which also like to raise cattle out in the fucking desert.

YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it's gonna be 100 years from now? IT'S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!

If you want to fix CA then remove all of the beef and dairly subsidies that make it economical to raise cattle in a desert. Same thing for the ranchers up in the high desert of Oregon and Washington who bitch about water rights. Boo hoo beef is going to cost more, good then maybe we won't have so much cheap shitty beef around.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statist... estimated the produce total for CA was 14.7% in real terms to US consumption. Given the estimates that show the US wastes 40% of it's food production, http://www.washingtonpost.com/... California can dry up and blow away and it will have no real impact on the rest of the US.

For California:

"While it has changed over time and changes somewhat from year-to-year, about 52 to 55 percent of the State General Fund Budget is spent on K–12 and Higher Education."

http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgetin...

And you want to spend even more on education?!? All that money is mostly going into the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats -- it sure as hell is not making it to the schools. When I went to K-6, they *gave you pencils and paper*. 6-12 you were expected to provide your own pencils and paper.

Well ,there is also barber college. But barring that, he should look into legal representation because many government agencies will consider him an employee. If the description and complaints is an accurate description, he needs to complain to the right people.

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ...

California imports a shload of wind energy from the Pacific Northwest, via the Pacific DC Intertie. And as of 2013, they produced 12TWh with wind in-state.

Source: http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/el...

California practically doesn't use coal power at all. Less than 8% of their generation in 2013 was from coal, and only 4.3% of that less than 8% actually is generated in the State of California - the rest comes from the Boardman coal generating station in Oregon, or from other states in the southwest.

Take you're "man of the people" act and try somewhere else, preferably where Google (and facts) don't exist.

Not only that, but when you say 5%, it sounds rather small.

When taking a look at the actual numbers behind the percentages, it's a bit more dramatic. In 2013, California generated and used 296,628 GWh of energy on their grid, according to this. If energy usage was flat (not likely) than solar is now generating 14,831.4 GWh of energy in California alone.

That's hardly nothing, and definitely not "whoop de do da."

5% of the total energy use is still commendable though, especially in state that consumes as much energy as California

It is worth noting that California is the #2 electricity consuming state in the nation (behind Texas), but has the lowest per capita consumption in the country, roughly half the average per capita consumption of the entire U.S.

Again - no significant radiation release, it was a prototype reactor from 1962, no injuries amongst the workers, and cleaned up a few years later.

You guys are using accident characteristics for a Stanley Steamer to try to assess the accident danger of a Tesla Model S.
How about this:
Hans Petersen, or this unnamed gentleman. Then there's 3.

Hey, what do you know. Solar electrical power has had more fatalities in California alone than Nuclear electrical in the last decade...

Again - no significant radiation release, it was a prototype reactor from 1962, no injuries amongst the workers, and cleaned up a few years later.

You guys are using accident characteristics for a Stanley Steamer to try to assess the accident danger of a Tesla Model S.
How about this:
Hans Petersen, or this unnamed gentleman. Then there's 3.

Hey, what do you know. Solar electrical power has had more fatalities in California alone than Nuclear electrical in the last decade...

According to one of the links, the company apparently has a number of chemicals to choose from, and will apply the one most compatible with the customers' product.
For reference, here's the CA Prop 65 list (PDF)

Except it's illegal...
California Vehicle Code 5201.1:

5201.1. (a) A person shall not sell a product or device that obscures, or is intended to obscure, the reading or recognition of a license plate by visual means, or by an electronic device as prohibited by subdivision (c) of Section 5201.
      (b) A person shall not operate a vehicle with a product or device
that violates subdivision (a).
      (c) A person shall not erase the reflective coating of, paint over the reflective coating of, or alter a license plate to avoid visual or electronic capture of the license plate or its characters by state or local law enforcement.
      (d) A conviction for a violation of this section is punishable by a fine of two hundred fifty dollars ($250) per item sold or per violation.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=05001-06000&file=5200-5206

"Nobody Is Sure What Should Count As a Cyber Incident"

The linked to San Bruno pipeline explosion PDF is a little short on actual details regarding the software responsible for the explosion.

They're sitting right next to the Pacific ocean.

The majority of them are running around like headless chickens, fulminating about "sea level rise" while shouting "Agua! Agua!" at the top of their metaphorical lungs.

What they should do (should have done long since) is put in a series of desalination plants and some pipes, pumps. Maybe not even that much plumbing. They do have a reasonable watershed that will do the distribution for them if they put the water in at the normal source locations.

But they're too hysterical about atomic power to do the right thing.

It's like a starving person complaining about hunger when they're sitting right next to a series of cornucopias of food stretching into the interminable distance. Take a gander at the state budget and keep in mind those figures are multiplied by 1,000 (see footnote, "* Dollars in thousands"), and don't include federal funds, and that's not even considering getting private enterprise involved so things could actually be done efficiently.

The people of California deserve to suffer for the abject stupidity and incompetence of the people they elected, and their own.

Fini.

http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/... .pdf

"In 1839, Swiss immigrant John Sutter settled in what is now Sacramento and began building a private empire defended by a fort. [...] Sutters fort became a symbol of oppression.

"Native Americans worked his fields [...] Sutter would control the Indian people through a system of forced labor.

[...]

"In 1848, the discovery of gold at Sutters sawmill set off a rush to California that would end the old world of the Sierra people and change their lives forever."

In other words, it started before the gold rush, but it could have been managed better without the blind greed of the forty-niners. It would have been slower, at least. Gold, the "barbarous metal".

From http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/...

"Miwok were great conservationists. Nothing was ever wasted. Game were killed and fish were caught not for sport, but to feed people. After they had inhabited this country for a number of centuries, the white man came and found the wild game plentiful, the streams fresh and clear, the air pure and clean, the timber uncut and the large deposits of gold still lay untouched in the foothills of the Sierras."

Compare to today: overpopulation, pollution, drought, clearcuts. There is much we could have learned from the native Americans; instead we greedily pursued the "barbarous metal" and ruined the land.

Because the main purpose of justice in the USA is revenge, which legal types call "retribution." If the main purpose of justice was to protect the public, drunk drivers would lose their licenses instead of being thrown in prison (prison should be reserved for those who drive without a license), and they wouldn't automatically get their licenses back (or become eligible to be re-licensed) after serving their time. Instead, they would be required to pass a medical-psychological assessment as in Germany.

CVC 21456(b).
Flashing or steady "DONT WALK" or "WAIT" or approved "Upraised
Hand" symbol. No pedestrian shall start to cross the roadway in the
direction of the signal, but any pedestrian who has partially
completed crossing shall proceed to a sidewalk or safety zone or
otherwise leave the roadway while the "WAIT" or "DONT WALK" or
approved "Upraised Hand" symbol is showing.

Here's the proposed law as voted on by California voters in 1994. You can go to page 64 to read it yourself.

From the law, "...if a defendant has been convicted of a felony and it has been pled and proved that the defendant has one or more prior felony convictions, as defined in subdivision(b), the court shall adhere to each of the following:..."

To be pled and proved means the district attorney has to present evidence to the jury that the defendant has committed the prior felonies that would impose the harsher sentences and the jury would have to agree; the jury would have to convict the defendant of violation of the three strikes law.

My "opinion" is based on the text of the law and having first-hand knowledge of the jury instructions that go with a three-strikes trial.

If those references aren't good enough for you then you can look at the following link to California Penal Code 1025(b) which reads:

...the question of whether or not the defendant has suffered the prior conviction shall be tried by the jury that tries the issue upon the plea of not guilty...

I'll take the actual text of the law over your vaunted article in Rolling Stone. Didn't you notice a slightly biased position in the article you read?

I think you are mistaken. Unauthorized transferring of a trade secrets (or conspiring to do so) is criminal both federally and in CA and the damages are likely to accrue to civil proceedings as well if there is any tort claims.

As I understand it, it is an extension of the laws that restrict unfair competition.

That is only a challenge if your internet is broken and you don't have a physical copy of a decent MSDS sheet near by. You can find links discussing toxicity of elemental mercury (it uses mercury nitrate for the LD50 of injected mercury, but otherwise discusses LD50 air concentrations of elemental mercury: 29.7 mg/m^3 for 2 hr). Printouts of MSDS sheets I have on hand give similar values for inhaled elemental mercury, since inhalation is extremely effective at absorbing it into the blood stream, although warning the limit is complicated due absorption through skin contributing. Once in the blood stream, elemental mercury will form salts on its own, so it will cross the blood-brain barrier. About the only "safe" aspect is that mercury is not well absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract, although if mixed with food, a significant portion of it won't stay elemental.

and lets take San Francisco Bay as our example (since I live here and have first hand knowledge and experience). VTA handles "some" of the South Bay, but limited to North San Jose and Mountain View.

VTA Buses go from Palo Alto to Fremont to South SJ to Gilroy. The light rail, from Mt. View down to Los Gatos and east San Jose to the Alameden valley area of SJ....in fact...just...here's the map: http://www.vta.org/getting-aro... (VTA focuses on SJ because it--SJ--has grown like a cancer or ambeoba, absorbing smaller communites, until it's most of the urban South Bay).

Caltrain handles a single strip running North to south from North San Jose to South (not the city) San Francisco.

Wrong. It goes from from SF (right next to AT&T Park) down to downtown SJ regularly, extending to Gilroy (30 miles south of the downtown SJ station) during "traditional" commute times (ie, not the 10a-8pm Valley standard time). Here's their map: http://www.caltrain.com/statio...

Bart handles SF -> Oakland, and a straight line down to Fremont.

Wrong. BART goes to SFO and Millbrae (and where it shares a station with CalTrain) up through SF and into the East Bay, extending from Richmond down to Fremont and out to Dublin/Pleasanton and Pittsburg/Baypoint. Here's BART's map: http://www.bart.gov/stations

These systems don't connect, use different payment systems, have different rates, and are _MORE_ expensive than driving.

The one bit that's true, but due to the compound sentence ends up being wrong. Connections are a pain in the ass, but the Clipper card is accepted by BART, CalTrain, VTA, SamTrans (San Mateo's bus service), Almeda Transit, MUNI (SF's transit system), plus more. Oh, and both VTA and SamTrans have stops at or near (ie, a block or two) almost all CalTrain stations on the Peninsula (the Atherton station is at least one exception) and VTA has service up to Fremont's southernmost BART station (and VTA is in the process of extending BART into east San Jose--it's not their fault that in the 1950s & 60s San Mateo and Santa Clara residents opted out of the BART system). And add into that that we're talking about five counties (SF, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, and Contra Costa) with all the territorialism and desire for control that brings with it (leading to different fare schedules, subsidies, etc.).

Taking our "cheap" (said with a hearty chuckle) mass transit is extremely expensive and time consuming.

Trip from Mt. View to Twitter's HQ (in SF): Leave around 8am. Car: 40-45 mines, $17.64 (31.5 mi at $.56 per mile); starting from Shoreline & 101 (hell, saving you driving from the CalTrain station to 101). (via Trulia's map...it looks like Google maps will no longer let you specify the time for traffic projections and 1am is actually one of the times the freeways are relatively empty). Pub: 1:03, $9.50: Mt. View CalTrain station to end of line in SF, then 38X followed by 2 minutes of walking (per 551.org). Oh, and you can read, sleep, etc. on the train. Plus, monthly passes and commute FSA will reduce that cost.

Yet instead of addressing the problems with mass transit, California is dumping many billions into a train from Fresno to Sacramento. Go figure..

True, but the train is also supose to go to SF, SJ, LA, and SD (PDF of rail proj

Or a tax on vehicle value each year. Something like...

(Blue Book Value - deductions) x Rate

Deductions would include, but not be limited to, a senior citizen deduction, low-income deduction, etc. I'm thinking something modest like $5k or something for low-income individuals. $7.5k for seniors. And only if the car has been driven at least 500 miles in a given year. But, this would have been done in conjunction with the local DMV.

California already does this -- they charge a Vehicle License Fee that is 1.15% of the market value of the car.

AB 32 requires California to reduce its GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 â" a reduction of approximately 15 percent below emissions expected under a âoebusiness as usualâ scenario.

Pursuant to AB 32, ARB must adopt regulations to achieve the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective GHG emission reductions. The full implementation of AB 32 will help mitigate risks associated with climate change, while improving energy efficiency, expanding the use of renewable energy resources, cleaner transportation, and reducing waste.

It's not hippies smoking weed which makes California gasoline a third more expensive than Texas gasoline. Similarly, there are plenty of gotchas and liabilities for employers in California that just don't happen to employers in Texas.

l approve that Texas doesn't do the brutal economy-killing approach of California. I just don't think that marijuana consumption has anything to do with California's economic problems or growing inability to compete with Texas.

There's no "think" about it, the fact is that the economy in Colorado, California, and other liberal states has been getting worse and worse compared to Texas

Colorado's economy did a touch better than Texas's economy did in 2013 (though both states did much better than California did). That just doesn't seem to fit your narrative

>. which is actually way down somewhere below 5,500 lb.

As you can see on the DMV page, it's 10,000 pounds - twice the weight of 2014 F-250.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/...

An F-750 heavy hauler with Caterpillar engine does qualify as a commercial vehicle.

You other assertions of fact are approximately as accurate.

Even if 100% of people in the world got measles vaccinations it wouldn't prevent outbreaks completely. Not only is the vaccine not 100% effective (e.g. at least 20%, and some reports say 50%, of the people that got full-blown measles from Disney were vaccinated) the measles vaccine is also an attenuated vaccine, which means it is living and actually spreads the virus via those it immunizes. The vaccine itself can cause what is know as "breakout" cases.

No, the claim that 20% to 50% of the victims had been vaccinated is wrong.
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/Pages/N...
"Patients range in age from seven months to 70 years. Vaccination status is documented for 34 of the 59 cases. Of these 34, 28 were unvaccinated, one had received one dose and five had received two or more doses of MMR vaccine. "

That would be 17.6%/14.7% of those infected had been one/two dose vaccinated.

In California, the minimum liability requirement is:

• $15,000 for injury/death to one person.
• $30,000 for injury/death to more than one person.
• $5,000 for damage to property.

So all you need is $35,000 in a separate account to fulfill the worst case.

I could take out a $35,000 surety bond, but that money would do more work for me if it were invested in a nice index fund.

Here's the California Energy Commission STILL saying it. SInce 2010 has passed, as of 2012 they pushed the "underwater by" date to 2050:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2012p...

Perhaps you could point out where they say anything similar to "San Francisco will be underwater by 2050". What I've found are comments that, essentially, extreme tide-related flooding events would become more frequent and last longer.

Here's an "underwater San Francisco" map that GW alarmists were circulating in 1997:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/art...

Asked about the effect on California, professor of climatology at the University of California at Berkeley Orman Granger said in 1997:

There's no date associated with the image. I skimmed the article, though, so I may have missed a non-explicit prediction.

Here's the California Energy Commission STILL saying it. SInce 2010 has passed, as of 2012 they pushed the "underwater by" date to 2050:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2012p...

Here's an "underwater San Francisco" map that GW alarmists were circulating in 1997:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/art...

Asked about the effect on California, professor of climatology at the University of California at Berkeley Orman Granger said in 1997:

      "Climatologic records over the last 10,000 years show that species move north (in the Northern hemisphere) roughly 500km for every degree C temperature increase ... in order to survive they have 100 years to move to Canada".

Indeed. Divided by California's population of 38M people, that's about $550 per person.
Or if you divide the cost only among the 15M employed, it's $1400 per person. Costly, but not impossible.

For the unaware, the USA has no official language.

But English is the official language of California by ballot proposition and constitutional amendment (Article 3 Section 6).

Actually, the seismic activity might be a good thing.

It isn't, and I already provided this link to a logged-in user earlier, you don't really deserve it: http://www.consrv.ca.gov/index/earthquakes/Pages/qh_earthquakes_myths.aspx And you seriously could have found it with google, in a hot second.

Faults build up stress until they break. The longer the stress builds, the bigger the earthquake.

False.

You want fracking to be OK, but it isn't. Stop making excuses for shitty behavior.

Senators can't be gerrymandered because they represent the entire state. A pre-set geographic boundary which (usually) can't be changed. Gerrymandering happens after each Census (2010, 2000, 1990, 1980, etc) when the House seats are reapportioned and redrawn to be relatively equal in population.

If you want a recent Democrat example, just look at California. In the 2014 House elections, Democrat candidates got 57.7% of the votes relative to Republicans (4.06m vs 2.98m). Yet they won 73.6% of the races (39 of 53). Of the 9 races where the winner got fewer than 57.7% of the votes, Democrats won 8, Republicans just 1.

Anyway, this is nothing new. The term Gerrymandering dates back to 1812. Letting the State legislatures draw the election districts is literally letting the foxes guard the henhouse (gerrymandering isn't just about helping your own party, it's also about making "safe" districts so incumbents have an easier time getting re-elected). In the 1990 election, California ended up with a Democrat-controlled legislature and a Republican governor. The Democrats gerrymandered the districts, and the governor vetoed it. The boundaries ended up being drawn by the State Supreme Court, and for the next 8 years California had probably the fairest elections in its history.

There were two California ballot initiatives in 1990 for taking control of redrawing the districts away from the legislature. They were both winning until about a month before the election. Basically every special interest out there realized fairer districts would add unpredictability by increasing the chances of incumbents losing. So they all ran ads against them (including several groups I had previously thought were "honest" like the Sierra Club and NOW). And both initiatives were defeated.

Well, and after how many days as unemployed do you get deported. Don't know about H1B in detail, but e.g. the preferential work visas for Aussies mean that you have to leave the country after being 7 days unemployed.

And your comment about "2 weeks and 2 months" is not a very correct observation, California is like most US states a at-will state. That means, if your employer does not like you, http://www.business.ca.gov/Sta... you are gone today. And the legal thing to do at this moment is not look for new work, it's looking for a ticket and moving your home back to a country where you are allowed to stay.

It isn't always clear at a distance where a state court stands in the larger scheme of things and how much weight should be given its decisions.

In California, a Superior Court is simply one of 58 consolidated county and municipal trial courts.

Before June 1998, California's trial courts consisted of superior and municipal courts, each with its own jurisdiction and number of judges fixed by the Legislature. In June 1998, California voters approved Proposition 220, a constitutional amendment that permitted the judges in each county to merge their superior and municipal courts into a ''unified,'' or single, superior court. As of February 2001, all of California's 58 counties have voted to unify their trial courts.

Superior Courts

The interstate commerce clause specifically forbids a state from charging sales tax on interstate commerce. States that want to tax interstate commerce charge a "use tax". Whether such a tax is legal, I don't know.

The commerce clause (Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution) restricts interstate tariffs to those that do not create an "undue burden." Court decisions (e.g., Quill v. North Dakota) have established that placing a collection burden on an out-of-state business that has no physical in-state presence creates such an undue burden; hence the arguments around whether or not Amazon (and others) can be compelled to collect and remit tax for states in which it claims to have no nexus. Requiring customers to remit their own use tax for interstate purchases has not been found to create such an undue burden, and has been in practice since long before the interweb was invented.

Technically, you still have to pay state sales tax on purchases made over the Internet. You just exploit the fact that the states can't force Internet retailers to collect those taxes and send them to the state as a way to skip out on paying your taxes.

You are completely incorrect. The interstate commerce clause specifically forbids a state from charging sales tax on interstate commerce. States that want to tax interstate commerce charge a "use tax". Whether such a tax is legal, I don't know. The argument in favor of a use tax is that it puts the tax burden on the buyer instead of the seller, and therefore does not impede interstate commerce. But you are definitely not charged sales tax on interstate purchases entirely because the federal government has not authorized one.

Ok, from this pdf from the city of Sunnyvale the land cost per acre for development is $3-5 million, still high enough that getting access to even a fraction of the 1,000 acres easily pays for the lease cost.

There you go. It's not an iPhone, but then again it is "free"

According to the state of California, pregnancy is in fact a disability.

http://www.edd.ca.gov/disabili...

Going by http://www.nacsonline.com/Your..., an average gas station pumps 3000 gallons of gas. Or 4400 in CA http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/ga...

3000 Gallons of gas = about 110 MW*H. Averaged over 24 hours = 4.6 Megawatts.
4400 Gallons of gas = about 161 MW*H. Averaged over 24 hours = 6.7 Megawatts.

Buffering would have to be pretty big, considering surges of customers.

This was a California state supreme court case this past year (and mentioned on radio this morning)
People v. Tom - California Courts

This is a standard fallacy, that there's a direct correspondence between energy use and standard of living. Take a look at the actual numbers for what a "circa-2010 American standard of living" actually means for energy:

http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/el...

The average person in Wyoming used more than four times as much energy as the average person in California. Do you think that means their standard of living was four times as high? And no, it's not just that Wyoming is a large rural state. California has huge rural areas too. And Washington DC consists entirely of one city, but its per-capita energy use was nearly three times higher than California's.

What this actually means is that California has taken energy conservation seriously for decades, and has had government policies designed to promote energy efficiency. And those policies have worked, really really well. An "American standard of living" does not require ridiculously high energy use.

Too bad there isn't some grant money to pay for 'green' school buses.

The SF-to LA run alone is projected to cost $300 Billion

No, it's projected to cost $53.4 billion in 2011 dollars. Meanwhile, it would cost $123 to 138 billion in 2011 dollars to move the same number of people by air and highways (4,295 to 4,652 new lane-miles of highway plus 115 new airport gates and 4 new runways). Also, like every HSR system in the world that has been open for at least a few years, California's won't require any operating subsidies, unlike airports and freeways. So high-speed rail is a really good deal.

The SF-to LA run alone is projected to cost $300 Billion

No, it's projected to cost $53.4 billion in 2011 dollars. Meanwhile, it would cost $123 to 138 billion in 2011 dollars to move the same number of people by air and highways (4,295 to 4,652 new lane-miles of highway plus 115 new airport gates and 4 new runways). Also, like every HSR system in the world that has been open for at least a few years, California's won't require any operating subsidies, unlike airports and freeways. So high-speed rail is a really good deal.

A public agency that uses an unmanned aircraft system, or contracts for the use of an unmanned aircraft system, pursuant to this title shall first provide reasonable notice to the public. Reasonable notice shall, at a minimum, consist of a one-time announcement regarding the agency’s intent to deploy unmanned aircraft system technology and a description of the technology’s capabilities.

There's also some reasonable limitations on data captured by drones (can't be kept long) and a requirement to log who requests drone missions. If only there was some federal body that could come up with some reasonable standard for all states...