And the cure may be worse than the disease, as the article you link notes -- stuff like "Amber alerts" fosters an environment of paranoia in parents and needless fear in children. Locally, there's rampant fear that random strangers will steal babies through open windows at every opportunity, even tho far as I could learn, no such thing has ever happened. (And as a friend of mine points out -- who wants your damned kid anyway?? the notion that just because you love your kid, EVERYONE ELSE wants to steal him, is just nuts.)
As to running over kids... I guess when all the cars and all the kids have RFID chips, the kid's chip can record the ID of the car that ran over him...
And since when did Canada become the enemy?? it irks me no end that I, a birth-citizen of the United States, now need a passport (or equivalent, such as this ID) to go to and from a country that when I was a kid, you just walked or drove or flew across the border and the crossing guard (if any) would smile and wave and say have a nice day. Explain to me how ME and YOU waving around a trackable ID makes the U.S. any "safer"??
As to how it makes the U.S. boundaries more like the Iron Curtain, that needs no explaining. Komrade! Your papers please!!
The problem is that the university environment tends to be both ultra-specialized and insulated from the Real World, and relatively free from being impacted by whatever ideas it exports. And I've seen biologists and behavioralists come up with plenty of nutty ideas, and still get paid... I remember one of my chemistry professors (generally a great guy and very smart) was against using oil for fuel because he felt it was using up the only viable source for long-chain carbon molecules to be used in medicine. The concept is probably valid in theory, but as he would have applied it if he controlled the world, rather extreme!!
Well, consider that people who go into certain fields (journalism, economics, etc.) generally tend to be already over on the left end of the scale, and there's already some inherent skew.
Those university-employed economists don't depend on the market for their living; they'll get paid no matter what (barring major downsizing by their parent institution). They're free to back whatever crackpot theories or candidates they wish; it won't impact their income.
However, businessmen only make money when the economy *lets their business make money*. So their motivation, at least if they think long-term, is toward a healthy economy. (Of course short-term profiteering and golden-parachuting tend to have the opposite effect, but we'll assume for this argument that there are more sensible businessmen than profiteers. Business isn't just Fortune 500 companies.)
So then... tell me, which of these has a real stake in how well the economy actually does?? And which of these actually has to live with the consequences??
But that's the design inherent to the net, and necessary to this form of communication.
Conversely, it's totally *unnecesary for software on MY machine to pass data to a party who has *nothing do with the above necessary data transmission*.
How would you like it if every time you drive your car, it reports your destination to the car's manufacturer? The fact that you had to drive on public streets anyway is irrelevant to that needless reporting of your private activities.
This seems obvious to me, but... there are necessary 3rd parties (who own the various routes your data takes) and irrelevant 3rd parties (in this case, M$ and their desire to know where you went). They do not have equal merit here.
Oh, let's not be dense on purpose... I know there are lots of third parties involved, from the next router on down the line forward. But that's unavoidable unless you invest in your own private internet, and it's also normal everyday procedure, akin to driving on public streets to the store where you buy your beer. But when the beer can reports your tastes in porn back to the brewer, that's a bit much.
As to gov't snooping, that we have no control over one way or the other. But because one outfit snoops is no reason to accept snooping by another outfit. If you believe it is, you should be fine with ANYONE snooping on you at ANY time for ANY reason.
I can live with individual websites collecting this data. No one held a gun to my head and forced me to go to those sites. I know when I go to a website, THAT WEBSITE collects certain more-or-less standard data. (And if they share it with others, well, I can choose not to go to their sites anymore.)
However, I don't like the idea of my browser sending this info to a THIRD PARTY. I don't care if that third party is Google, Microsoft, IBM, the Chinese Ministry of Defense, or the moon, I still don't want to be wondering who's "following" me around the net, nor why. What sites I visit are none of that third party's business.
I don't like the fact that to choose not to participate in this, I am forced to limit my software choices. That is, I have to limit what *I* do with *MY* computer, because of *someone else's* activities which have nothing to do with me.
(No, I don't use IE, cuz I don't like it, but it still annoys me that the option is effectively made untenable not by the software itself, but by Microsoft's aftermarket behaviour.)
This is the equivalent of buying a can of Budweiser, then having the beer can report to Anheuser-Busch everything you watch on TV while drinking that can of beer.
Not that it couldn't be done, but it makes poor economic sense for me to invest in a machine shop (both the cost of outfitting one and developing the skills to run it) just to make one or two each of a couple dozen hand and garden tools. That's why specialists developed in the first place. Trouble is, we've exported and outsourced all our specialist jobs, leaving behind only the few odd examples such as you cite, and a dearth of quality products with no reasonable way for the average person to replace them.
I'll be the first to agree that yes, we need a lot more people like your friend's grandfather!! (I'm in a specialty niche market myself, but not of hand tools or jacks!)
Used to have sprinklers when I had grass (which I miss, cuz between grass and sprinklers it kept the summer air temp rational around my house) but a couple years ago I learned that while grass survives 117F, it does not survive 118F. And then a bunch of the sprinklers croaked. Had a soaker hose handy so strung that along the needy trees instead of fixing the sprinkler, and turns out the soaker makes the trees happier anyway AND uses about half the water.
When I did have sprinklers, I found that since their main benefit was keeping the soil surface cool enough that the plants didn't literally get fried by it, it was best to run 'em morning, noon, and afternoon, for only a few minutes per cycle. Running at night did no good at all -- it would soak in and the surface would be bone-dry and stuff frying by the next afternoon. (Literally -- dry sand in full sun gets up to at least 160F.)
Of course, now I have no grass, and have to run the house cooler about 3x as much as before because it gets so much more reflected heat... always tradeoffs!
Rainwater is a distant fantasy around here -- we've had only an inch total in the past YEAR, and only about an inch for the previous 10 years *combined*. When we have a drought, we do it right!:( What little rain we do get soaks in and tends to stay in the sand above the calichi layer (about 10 feet down), so the trees get use of it -- haven't had to water the one tree row this year at all, thanks to that single inch of rain. (You don't think of pines as desert trees, but they do better here than anything else does!)
Any search at random will do. It's not as bad right now as it was a few months ago, but I expect it'll be just as bad again once the linkfarms catch up to google's latest specs.
Frex, two months ago I input "patterdale terriers" and got NOTHING but linkfarms on the first two pages (and in the ad and sponsored link boxes). Today the results are somewhat better, tho there are still a lot of "generic content, tons of links, tons of ads" sites included that aren't exactly "real sites".
Sounds like your area must have MUCH lower costs associated with business in general... I'd guess at least half of what any business charges in CA is thanks to costs imposed on them by the gov't, which naturaly gets passed on to the customer. (Workman's comp can be as high as 75% of your business costs!) Frex, of the $200-$300 charge to pump a septic tank, $100 of that goes as a dump fee to the waste treatment plant!
I don't know where you'll find a 7.5HP 70GPM 240V 3-phase pump for $1000 -- Franklin Electric's wholesale price was $3800 a year ago, and they're one of exactly two manufacturers of pumps at that level (I forget the name of the other mfgr) -- at least who will ship to California. There may be others who don't like the liabilities of doing business here.
Most household pumps are 1HP 120V and will do about 12GPM. The downside is that such a pump has to work WAY too hard for a deep well, which winds up making the electrical use per gallon rather high.
(Mine works out to about 1/3 cent per gallon, tho half of that is the "business fee" Edison charges for 3-phase pumps. I use about 300g on an average day, but up to 1500g/day in summer when I have more stuff to irrigate.)
We have to case wells all the way to the bottom here, or they fill up with sand in no time flat.
If you think those costs are ridiculous, build a house here in California. Just the L.A. county building permit ALONE is $38k (last I checked). You can build the whole damn house for that in some states!
I doubt the wastewater treatment plant has much to do with the underground river, which lies somewhat to the west of their facility and below a layer of rock. Yeah, it probably helps the shallow aquifers (there's water at about 100' but it's not particularly good for quality or quantity; lots of east-side household wells only go down to that). The big municipal well in Quartz Hill is ~1800' deep, and the local water companies' wells are usually in the 1500' range.
I suspect (besides guaranteed profits) another thing they're after is making sure there will be no lawsuits because of their deep wells drying up shallower wells, which HAS happened in some areas (Quartz Hill for one). Well goes dry? Too bad, now you'll have to hook up to us, that's the law. But we're the GOOD guys, we'll provide water when you can't do it yourself anymore. Never mind that our heavy pumping made your well go dry and that you had to effectively pay twice.
Considering that most searches now cough up acres and acres of linkfarms, some of which even come up as sponsored links, I find Google's behaviour more than a little suspicious.
It doesn't cost $40k to drill a well on the east coast, no. Nor in Montana. (My sister just paid $9k to drill about 250 feet in the mountains near Bozeman, where costs are relatively high. Tho that was just the hole and cap -- no pump yet.)
California outside of the low valleys is a different animal entirely. An average well here is at least 450 feet to get to good water (first water can be had at 100' but is not very good), and often requires rock-drilling equipment. Standard drilling is about $20/foot; rock-drilling is $40/foot or more. You can easily put $20k just into drilling the hole. Most drilling companies now charge you for dry holes, too!! (Which abound in the mountains above L.A.)
Then there's the cost of a submersible pump that can push water that far up. I just had to have mine replaced, and for a 3/4HP pump rated 70GPM, labour to pull the dead pump, and replacing about 150 feet of 3" pipe (was able to reuse most of what I had), plus all the labour, I coughed up $11,000. The pump alone was over $4k, and the pipe goes for $5/foot. The new electrical box and surge unit were another $2k, and we didn't replace the entire system. New wire for down to the pump was another $1200 ($3/foot, and I got a bargain).
So... $18k for drilling, $4k for pump, $4k or so for pipe and fittings, $5k for the full electrical, $5k for labour, about $3k for wiring, valves, and misc. parts, and I think the county permit is now around $1200... you're already up to $32k right there. And that's before you add a storage tank and a pressure tank and a booster pump for if you want decent water pressure in the system (another $10k or so total -- my booster pump alone cost me $800 to replace last year).
[My setup is heavier-duty than most, but the cost differential worked out to only about 10% over doing it as cheap/low-end as possible. I opted to retain the max system ability, for the relatively small price difference.]
Plus the county-mandated shack over the pressure tank and booster pump, because gods forbid we should have to look at or hear it (tho you can usually throw that up for under $1k).
Far cry from the 50 foot hole, small pipe, and single light-duty pump you can get by with back east. No need for storage tanks (mandated here by the fire dept, and a good idea regardless when you've got no other nearby water source) or booster pressure systems, the single pump and a small pressure tank can handle it. Hell, one place I lived in Montana, we just banged a pipe 25 feet into the ground, and out came all the water you could want, no pump required. That cost about $2k for the pile-driver truck to drive the pipe, and the 6' frost-free hydrant. (Which still froze in January -- frost line was about 7').
Okay... so I need to start firms for just about every sort of handtool, garden tool, houseware, furniture, some types of food (can't get good margarine anymore), and speaking of cars, you can no longer buy a pickup truck with a full-capacity bed... the list goes on and on. Not exactly practical, unless I first abduct Warren Buffet or Bill Gates.
The ground water supplying private wells is 400 feet down. The water company wells go about 1500 feet. Both are fed by a very large underground river that originates outside this county, and which there are zero efforts to "replenish" by anyone. However, the water company (and ag wells, which are exempt from this forced monopoly) draw vastly more water than all the private wells combined. So your argument doesn't, uh, hold water:) nor to my knowledge has that argument ever come up. AFAIK, the only argument ever used was "we'll make more money (and contribute more to certain county commissioners' warchests)".
And being $60k out of pocket is a good deal more than irritating, I'd say. For most people out in this area, that's at least two years' wages.
"...require the government to spend money to replenish the supply (...of rain)."
While I generally agree with you... what about Walmart syndrome?
I can no longer buy a good many things I wish to, including at the level of quality I wish to, because price-competition pressure has driven production overseas, and quality into the toilet.
It works rather differently here in outlying parts of Los Angeles County, and I'm sure this isn't unique:
The local water companies charge $15k to hook up to the water network, plus a monthly usage bill.
However, they've lately taken it a step further: If you live within one of these private water districts, drilling your own well is now prohibited (even in very rural areas). In fact, if you have an existing well and it is shut down for ANY reason (even something that would normally be temporary) -- you are prohibited from restarting your well, and you MUST hook up to the water company's system.
Needless to say, this gov't-enforced enhancement of their busines model makes the little local water companies delerious with joy.
Now, if you're starting from no water at all, they're not a bad deal compared to a well -- their water usage rate costs about half what pumping it yourself does, and the hookup cost is about 1/3rd of the price of a new well. But if you have an existing well, and are forced to switch over, you just got robbed of the $40k+ it cost you to drill it, plus the $15k charge for new hookups.
(And no, this isn't hearsay; it's straight from a conversation I had with the president of a local water company.)
Went looking for a date as it would be interesting to see what Reagan said in his Diaries about said fortune-teller (he tends to be brutally honest with himself) but couldn't find anything. I did find this, tho, from an article about the L.A. Filipino Expo: ========== If there's one thing that is delightful about fortune telling, is that it's the one business that can't be conducted en masse. Indeed, personality is the mark of Filipino life. Laura Ronzo expounded on the who's who of her clientele. "I do a lot of Filipino celebrities," she said. "I've done Sean Connery, President Reagan, Bill Clinton and his wife." ===========
Slashdot Mirror
And the cure may be worse than the disease, as the article you link notes -- stuff like "Amber alerts" fosters an environment of paranoia in parents and needless fear in children. Locally, there's rampant fear that random strangers will steal babies through open windows at every opportunity, even tho far as I could learn, no such thing has ever happened. (And as a friend of mine points out -- who wants your damned kid anyway?? the notion that just because you love your kid, EVERYONE ELSE wants to steal him, is just nuts.)
As to running over kids... I guess when all the cars and all the kids have RFID chips, the kid's chip can record the ID of the car that ran over him...
And since when did Canada become the enemy?? it irks me no end that I, a birth-citizen of the United States, now need a passport (or equivalent, such as this ID) to go to and from a country that when I was a kid, you just walked or drove or flew across the border and the crossing guard (if any) would smile and wave and say have a nice day. Explain to me how ME and YOU waving around a trackable ID makes the U.S. any "safer"??
As to how it makes the U.S. boundaries more like the Iron Curtain, that needs no explaining. Komrade! Your papers please!!
The problem is that the university environment tends to be both ultra-specialized and insulated from the Real World, and relatively free from being impacted by whatever ideas it exports. And I've seen biologists and behavioralists come up with plenty of nutty ideas, and still get paid... I remember one of my chemistry professors (generally a great guy and very smart) was against using oil for fuel because he felt it was using up the only viable source for long-chain carbon molecules to be used in medicine. The concept is probably valid in theory, but as he would have applied it if he controlled the world, rather extreme!!
Well, consider that people who go into certain fields (journalism, economics, etc.) generally tend to be already over on the left end of the scale, and there's already some inherent skew.
Yes, but some people don't seem to realise that!
[cynical voice] Frex, congresscritters [/cynical voice]
"there's the catch: the majority of economists are Democrats right now."
Well, that explains the economy, all right.
And when I read that, I had this thought:
Those university-employed economists don't depend on the market for their living; they'll get paid no matter what (barring major downsizing by their parent institution). They're free to back whatever crackpot theories or candidates they wish; it won't impact their income.
However, businessmen only make money when the economy *lets their business make money*. So their motivation, at least if they think long-term, is toward a healthy economy. (Of course short-term profiteering and golden-parachuting tend to have the opposite effect, but we'll assume for this argument that there are more sensible businessmen than profiteers. Business isn't just Fortune 500 companies.)
So then... tell me, which of these has a real stake in how well the economy actually does?? And which of these actually has to live with the consequences??
But that's the design inherent to the net, and necessary to this form of communication.
Conversely, it's totally *unnecesary for software on MY machine to pass data to a party who has *nothing do with the above necessary data transmission*.
How would you like it if every time you drive your car, it reports your destination to the car's manufacturer? The fact that you had to drive on public streets anyway is irrelevant to that needless reporting of your private activities.
This seems obvious to me, but ... there are necessary 3rd parties (who own the various routes your data takes) and irrelevant 3rd parties (in this case, M$ and their desire to know where you went). They do not have equal merit here.
That was essentially my point up above, too. The first (only :) reply so far chose to misinterpret it.
I swear, if the average slashdot mind is the future of der interveb and der technoreich, we're all in a shitload of trouble!!
Oh, let's not be dense on purpose... I know there are lots of third parties involved, from the next router on down the line forward. But that's unavoidable unless you invest in your own private internet, and it's also normal everyday procedure, akin to driving on public streets to the store where you buy your beer. But when the beer can reports your tastes in porn back to the brewer, that's a bit much.
As to gov't snooping, that we have no control over one way or the other. But because one outfit snoops is no reason to accept snooping by another outfit. If you believe it is, you should be fine with ANYONE snooping on you at ANY time for ANY reason.
I can live with individual websites collecting this data. No one held a gun to my head and forced me to go to those sites. I know when I go to a website, THAT WEBSITE collects certain more-or-less standard data. (And if they share it with others, well, I can choose not to go to their sites anymore.)
However, I don't like the idea of my browser sending this info to a THIRD PARTY. I don't care if that third party is Google, Microsoft, IBM, the Chinese Ministry of Defense, or the moon, I still don't want to be wondering who's "following" me around the net, nor why. What sites I visit are none of that third party's business.
I don't like the fact that to choose not to participate in this, I am forced to limit my software choices. That is, I have to limit what *I* do with *MY* computer, because of *someone else's* activities which have nothing to do with me.
(No, I don't use IE, cuz I don't like it, but it still annoys me that the option is effectively made untenable not by the software itself, but by Microsoft's aftermarket behaviour.)
This is the equivalent of buying a can of Budweiser, then having the beer can report to Anheuser-Busch everything you watch on TV while drinking that can of beer.
Not that it couldn't be done, but it makes poor economic sense for me to invest in a machine shop (both the cost of outfitting one and developing the skills to run it) just to make one or two each of a couple dozen hand and garden tools. That's why specialists developed in the first place. Trouble is, we've exported and outsourced all our specialist jobs, leaving behind only the few odd examples such as you cite, and a dearth of quality products with no reasonable way for the average person to replace them.
I'll be the first to agree that yes, we need a lot more people like your friend's grandfather!! (I'm in a specialty niche market myself, but not of hand tools or jacks!)
Used to have sprinklers when I had grass (which I miss, cuz between grass and sprinklers it kept the summer air temp rational around my house) but a couple years ago I learned that while grass survives 117F, it does not survive 118F. And then a bunch of the sprinklers croaked. Had a soaker hose handy so strung that along the needy trees instead of fixing the sprinkler, and turns out the soaker makes the trees happier anyway AND uses about half the water.
When I did have sprinklers, I found that since their main benefit was keeping the soil surface cool enough that the plants didn't literally get fried by it, it was best to run 'em morning, noon, and afternoon, for only a few minutes per cycle. Running at night did no good at all -- it would soak in and the surface would be bone-dry and stuff frying by the next afternoon. (Literally -- dry sand in full sun gets up to at least 160F.)
Of course, now I have no grass, and have to run the house cooler about 3x as much as before because it gets so much more reflected heat... always tradeoffs!
Rainwater is a distant fantasy around here -- we've had only an inch total in the past YEAR, and only about an inch for the previous 10 years *combined*. When we have a drought, we do it right! :( What little rain we do get soaks in and tends to stay in the sand above the calichi layer (about 10 feet down), so the trees get use of it -- haven't had to water the one tree row this year at all, thanks to that single inch of rain. (You don't think of pines as desert trees, but they do better here than anything else does!)
Any search at random will do. It's not as bad right now as it was a few months ago, but I expect it'll be just as bad again once the linkfarms catch up to google's latest specs.
Frex, two months ago I input "patterdale terriers" and got NOTHING but linkfarms on the first two pages (and in the ad and sponsored link boxes). Today the results are somewhat better, tho there are still a lot of "generic content, tons of links, tons of ads" sites included that aren't exactly "real sites".
Sounds like your area must have MUCH lower costs associated with business in general... I'd guess at least half of what any business charges in CA is thanks to costs imposed on them by the gov't, which naturaly gets passed on to the customer. (Workman's comp can be as high as 75% of your business costs!) Frex, of the $200-$300 charge to pump a septic tank, $100 of that goes as a dump fee to the waste treatment plant!
I don't know where you'll find a 7.5HP 70GPM 240V 3-phase pump for $1000 -- Franklin Electric's wholesale price was $3800 a year ago, and they're one of exactly two manufacturers of pumps at that level (I forget the name of the other mfgr) -- at least who will ship to California. There may be others who don't like the liabilities of doing business here.
Most household pumps are 1HP 120V and will do about 12GPM. The downside is that such a pump has to work WAY too hard for a deep well, which winds up making the electrical use per gallon rather high.
(Mine works out to about 1/3 cent per gallon, tho half of that is the "business fee" Edison charges for 3-phase pumps. I use about 300g on an average day, but up to 1500g/day in summer when I have more stuff to irrigate.)
We have to case wells all the way to the bottom here, or they fill up with sand in no time flat.
If you think those costs are ridiculous, build a house here in California. Just the L.A. county building permit ALONE is $38k (last I checked). You can build the whole damn house for that in some states!
I doubt the wastewater treatment plant has much to do with the underground river, which lies somewhat to the west of their facility and below a layer of rock. Yeah, it probably helps the shallow aquifers (there's water at about 100' but it's not particularly good for quality or quantity; lots of east-side household wells only go down to that). The big municipal well in Quartz Hill is ~1800' deep, and the local water companies' wells are usually in the 1500' range.
I suspect (besides guaranteed profits) another thing they're after is making sure there will be no lawsuits because of their deep wells drying up shallower wells, which HAS happened in some areas (Quartz Hill for one). Well goes dry? Too bad, now you'll have to hook up to us, that's the law. But we're the GOOD guys, we'll provide water when you can't do it yourself anymore. Never mind that our heavy pumping made your well go dry and that you had to effectively pay twice.
Considering that most searches now cough up acres and acres of linkfarms, some of which even come up as sponsored links, I find Google's behaviour more than a little suspicious.
It doesn't cost $40k to drill a well on the east coast, no. Nor in Montana. (My sister just paid $9k to drill about 250 feet in the mountains near Bozeman, where costs are relatively high. Tho that was just the hole and cap -- no pump yet.)
California outside of the low valleys is a different animal entirely. An average well here is at least 450 feet to get to good water (first water can be had at 100' but is not very good), and often requires rock-drilling equipment. Standard drilling is about $20/foot; rock-drilling is $40/foot or more. You can easily put $20k just into drilling the hole. Most drilling companies now charge you for dry holes, too!! (Which abound in the mountains above L.A.)
Then there's the cost of a submersible pump that can push water that far up. I just had to have mine replaced, and for a 3/4HP pump rated 70GPM, labour to pull the dead pump, and replacing about 150 feet of 3" pipe (was able to reuse most of what I had), plus all the labour, I coughed up $11,000. The pump alone was over $4k, and the pipe goes for $5/foot. The new electrical box and surge unit were another $2k, and we didn't replace the entire system. New wire for down to the pump was another $1200 ($3/foot, and I got a bargain).
So... $18k for drilling, $4k for pump, $4k or so for pipe and fittings, $5k for the full electrical, $5k for labour, about $3k for wiring, valves, and misc. parts, and I think the county permit is now around $1200... you're already up to $32k right there. And that's before you add a storage tank and a pressure tank and a booster pump for if you want decent water pressure in the system (another $10k or so total -- my booster pump alone cost me $800 to replace last year).
[My setup is heavier-duty than most, but the cost differential worked out to only about 10% over doing it as cheap/low-end as possible. I opted to retain the max system ability, for the relatively small price difference.]
Plus the county-mandated shack over the pressure tank and booster pump, because gods forbid we should have to look at or hear it (tho you can usually throw that up for under $1k).
Far cry from the 50 foot hole, small pipe, and single light-duty pump you can get by with back east. No need for storage tanks (mandated here by the fire dept, and a good idea regardless when you've got no other nearby water source) or booster pressure systems, the single pump and a small pressure tank can handle it. Hell, one place I lived in Montana, we just banged a pipe 25 feet into the ground, and out came all the water you could want, no pump required. That cost about $2k for the pile-driver truck to drive the pipe, and the 6' frost-free hydrant. (Which still froze in January -- frost line was about 7').
"Do you really want to give the RIAA an on/off switch for your ability to listen to your media collection?"
Precisely why I don't buy anything I can't rip, or can't shift wherever I want to, or sell if I get tired of it.
I'm not interested in "sharing" it with the world. But I want to do whatever the hell *I* want to with it on *my* devices.
This is north county, the high desert. Not the basin, which has utterly different water policies.
Okay... so I need to start firms for just about every sort of handtool, garden tool, houseware, furniture, some types of food (can't get good margarine anymore), and speaking of cars, you can no longer buy a pickup truck with a full-capacity bed... the list goes on and on. Not exactly practical, unless I first abduct Warren Buffet or Bill Gates.
The ground water supplying private wells is 400 feet down. The water company wells go about 1500 feet. Both are fed by a very large underground river that originates outside this county, and which there are zero efforts to "replenish" by anyone. However, the water company (and ag wells, which are exempt from this forced monopoly) draw vastly more water than all the private wells combined. So your argument doesn't, uh, hold water :) nor to my knowledge has that argument ever come up. AFAIK, the only argument ever used was "we'll make more money (and contribute more to certain county commissioners' warchests)".
And being $60k out of pocket is a good deal more than irritating, I'd say. For most people out in this area, that's at least two years' wages.
"...require the government to spend money to replenish the supply (...of rain)."
Haha, that's a good one :)
While I generally agree with you... what about Walmart syndrome?
I can no longer buy a good many things I wish to, including at the level of quality I wish to, because price-competition pressure has driven production overseas, and quality into the toilet.
How would you address that?
It works rather differently here in outlying parts of Los Angeles County, and I'm sure this isn't unique:
The local water companies charge $15k to hook up to the water network, plus a monthly usage bill.
However, they've lately taken it a step further: If you live within one of these private water districts, drilling your own well is now prohibited (even in very rural areas). In fact, if you have an existing well and it is shut down for ANY reason (even something that would normally be temporary) -- you are prohibited from restarting your well, and you MUST hook up to the water company's system.
Needless to say, this gov't-enforced enhancement of their busines model makes the little local water companies delerious with joy.
Now, if you're starting from no water at all, they're not a bad deal compared to a well -- their water usage rate costs about half what pumping it yourself does, and the hookup cost is about 1/3rd of the price of a new well. But if you have an existing well, and are forced to switch over, you just got robbed of the $40k+ it cost you to drill it, plus the $15k charge for new hookups.
(And no, this isn't hearsay; it's straight from a conversation I had with the president of a local water company.)
Went looking for a date as it would be interesting to see what Reagan said in his Diaries about said fortune-teller (he tends to be brutally honest with himself) but couldn't find anything. I did find this, tho, from an article about the L.A. Filipino Expo:
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If there's one thing that is delightful about fortune telling, is that it's the one business that can't be conducted en masse. Indeed, personality is the mark of Filipino life.
Laura Ronzo expounded on the who's who of her clientele. "I do a lot of Filipino celebrities," she said. "I've done Sean Connery, President Reagan, Bill Clinton and his wife."
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