One of the dirty immigration secrets is the billions that illegal immigrants pay into the SS and Medicare/Medicaide system that they will never utilize. Those clearly bogus payments are never investigated because it would mean shutting off that free cash.
We're not going to be able to build real AI until we actually understand HOW biological organisms think. What we have in a modern digital computing is nothing at all like a biological brain. I suspect that we may never achieve AI while using digital computers. The reason I suspect this is that the human (and every other animal) brain is analog and I believe analog computing is required for true AI. Because we've never really invested in analog computing I believe real AI will continue to be 30 years out until someone decides to build a real analog computer where there isn't on and off but unlimited levels of voltage fluctuation depending on the intensity of input.
Not only is it patently unfair to hold someone accountable for an action that wasn't listed as prohibited, there is a strong constitutional precedent for holding it "void for vagueness." See, e.g., Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926):
Would you care to explain how such vague statutes as Disturbing the Peace and Disorderly Conduct seem to not only be in upheld but routinely used to punish people for contempt of cop?
I found the story abhorent. Them showing up on his porch and confronting him as he was coming through the door with cameras like he's some criminal was equally disgusting.
He's not famous, he's not a public figure, he's just some random guy they wrote a big story about and then confronted him like he's a movie star and they were paparazzi scum. I think newsweek and the people involved should burn in hell for what they did. When I read the story and saw the photo's and video I almost gagged at the complete lack of any kind of morals the people involved have for doing this. I will not be offering them any kind of future business because of this. Just like I don't frequent TMZ because of their paparazzi BS, I won't be reading NewsWeek anymore.
Yea and 10 years ago they split the largest Urban area in my state into 4 pieces (put a piece of the city into each congressional district) to do exactly the same thing (weaken the urban vote). And if it was the other party in control they would have done exactly the same thing, just used different boundaries to accomplish the reverse, ie weaken the rural vote. Gerrymandering has been a fixture of politics in this country since the early 1800's. One party does it one way, the other party does it the other way but they ALWAYS do it.
Before your state was redistricted in favor of the current control the other guys did it too, just to weaken the other side. I'm in favor of a congressional amendment that requires that boundaries be along city or "natural" boundaries (rivers, interstates, etc). But your claim that it's the worst it's ever been is just hyperbole and just makes you out to be ill informed.
No they are not most recent, the man it's named after was the most egregious example. Just because it's "new" to you doesn't mean it's any worse now than it's been at any time in history because it isn't. Gerrymandering has been going on, and has been a staple of American politics since long before it was named after it's most famous egregious use. A little publicity and awareness by yourself doesn't mean it's any worse and you should bloody well know that.
Recent gerrymandering? Are you insane? Maybe you should understand the history of the word gerrymandering then you will understand how long it's been going on.
Tens of thousands of people die every single year from flu. My wife is an ICU nurse and watches people die every year from it. Yes you might be healthy and perfectly capable of handling the flu virus. But when you get it, for the three or four days after you are infected and before major symptoms set in you are spreading virii around like typhoid Mary. And when you go to the grocery store and stand in line next to the guy that just had a transplant and is on immune surpressors you might just kill them.
Sometimes getting the vaccine isn't about you. So next time you get the flu spend the time thinking about all the people you interacted with while you were a walking virus factor and wonder just how many of them your stupidity killed.
An embedded sensor wouldn't do you any good anyway. A dam failure that happened in my state about 20 years (the last) involved water seeping through unknown cracks in the bed rock under the dam that allowed the water to erode a hole in the face of the dam.
For earthen dams they monitor with visual inspections and survey of the top and sides of the dam. Long before the dam fails there will be erosion visible either directly or through sagging surface elevations. Concrete is far more straightforward, beyond cracks in the concrete or foundation seepage the only other major failure mechanism is erosion around the edges.
Most people don't realize that dams leak like a sieve under perfectly normal conditions, so the only effective way to monitor them is directly by trained professionals. Someone that can look at a dam, see a sag starting in the middle and realize something is really really wrong like the guy credited in the article. This trained professional then calls in other professional like divers and surveyors that can do a full analysis of what's wrong so that plans can be devised to repair the damage or in an emergency situation the reservoir can be drained in a controlled fashion. Dam engineering is one of the oldest branches of civil engineering (the oldest branch of engineering).
The limit varies a bit per state but the most common value is not a total weight measure. The size, shape and distribution of the wheels can vary the load that can be carried.
A typical weight restriction is a pounds per square inch weight which is typically administered by the states as a weight of 3200 lbs per axle with the assumption that each axle carries dual tires on each side. This weight is usually figured by weighing the total truck weight, and using mathematical equations (and the trailer geometry) to calculate the per axle weight.
I spent a summer weighing trucks and I can tell you that maximum 3200lbs per axle can vary anywhere from 62000lbs gross weight to over 84000lbs depending on the trailer and tractor combination used. Though the most common configuration for a 50-67' trailer is right around 80,000lbs its not the legal limit in any state I know of. Triple trailer combo's can carry almost 125,000 lbs split between 3 trailers. In fact there are specialty truck trailer combinations with about 16 axles that can carry almost half a million pounds without exceeding the legal limit. See the link below for images of a few examples.
Sure congratulate him for doing his job. But don't think for a minute that this issue wouldn't be seen on major dams because they are, all the time. Dam's are monitored for these issues. Routine and annual inspections are made. This is done precisely to prevent accidents like we've had in the past. Dams must be monitored because water is relentless at finding ways to breach the containment.
To be fair Orrin Hatch neutered the FDA on supplements because a LOT of people in Utah got very very rich on them. Chance are if you are buying supplements of ay sort someone from Utah is making money on it. He played to his constituency in this regard. Keep in mind the Mormons have no problem with Evolution or any other aspect of science, they tend to take the point of view that science reveals how God did it. (Disclaimer, I was raised Mormon and have had that exact explanation of evolution taught to me in Seminary class in high school by a church paid instructor teaching from church approved materials).
I believe the Mormon church's position on evolution is along the lines of, Why would you take at face value the "explanation" in the Bible when so much of the rest of the Bible is parable. After all, exactly how is god going to explain quantum physics, general relativity, the big bang and evolution to a group of uneducated former slaves? Wouldn't it just be easier to give them a parable of the creation until they have the knowledge to understand the reality?
So don't blame uneducated science on Orrin, supplements deregulation was a major item of interest for a lot of local Utah businessmen who make a lot of money selling that stuff to people. And honestly, most Americans (IIRC 90%+) approve of supplements being sold without regulations and would get seriously pissed if they couldn't buy their bottle of unregulated plant matter.
As soon as you legalize and exception to discrimination laws based on something specious like religious views you've opened the door to discrimination for anything.
IMO a business has the right to refuse service to anyone they choose for whatever they choose as long as that business is a private membership. The second that business offers services to the open public they relinquish the right to refuse service to people on the basis of their age, gender, race, disability, and sexual identification. If you don't like that the close your business to the public and serve only private members.
Business owners what to have their cake and eat it too and I say they can go fuck themselves. Do you know why people get so angry at the gay lobby? It's because they have real power. Between themselves and people that care about them or support them they have real economic power and they can damage any business that discriminates against them. And I'm a willing supporter of that cause even though I'm straight. Arizona enacts laws protecting discrimination of this sort and I will not be doing business with Arizona (or any resident thereof) and I will encourage everyone I know to do the same.
Those fucking snowbird racists and homophobes living in AZ want to turn Arizona into some anti-gay, anti-Hispanic haven. Maybe this will wake the rest of the population up and they will throw the lot of them out of office.
What I don't understand is why a company like Google or Apple wants to buy and build these huge buildings. Why they don't purchase a dozen buildings spread around that employees can go to or even focused to teams. I get why they feel the need to put everyone in the same building but honestly with email, text and phone, at least at my business most people don't even get up from their desk to talk to people so why do you even need to be in the same building? And spreading the workspace out allows the diverse employment to live and work where they want.
I doubt they did any math. Zuckerberg has total control of the company, he can literally do whatever he wants because he has total controlling interest.
I think they overpaid and did so deliberately. Google forced Zuckerberg to pay that much by making a 10billion offer and he's also been reading in the news that Whatsapp is going to eventually destroy Facebook because all the young kids are using it to avoid Facebook (and sharing personal details with their parents). So he grossly overpaid for three reasons, one to take out a potential future competitor before they can grow to critical mass, two to avoid Google getting the company and using it as leverage for Google+ and three to arrest rumors that Whatapps would eventually lead to the fall of Facebook. Three is not the same as one.
He's not stupid, he knows that the only thing Facebook offers that "new social network" doesn't is network effects. So this acquisition points to one important item, he's not going to rest on his laurels like his former competitors did, he's going to aggressively move against future competitors before they grow large enough to threaten Facebook. That third reason was the most important message he could send to Wall Street and only time will tell if it was worth the 19billion in mostly stock it cost him. Whatapp was barely a million dollar revenue company, and certainly alone wasn't worth even what they paid for Instagram, nor was Instagram of course. The point here is the message he's sending to Wall Street, that he won't go quietly into the night like MySpace or all the others that preceded him.
The towers must be installed to a certain height or the water will never have the head necessary to supply the residents further out. The only way to reduce height would be to build 4 times as many towers. What he's really saying is don't build that tower near the rich, go build it in the poor neighborhood. The time honored request of the rich, which is why there's a federal law against singling out the poor for major infrastructure installations.
They did the same with netbooks. Discounted to $15, then used the $15 price to force the OEM to reduce the specs. Once they got the specs to the point of garbage and sales started to drop off they raised the price a bit, rinse and repeat until the entire market is gone. That's what happened to netbooks, incredibly popular until MS deliberately destroyed the hardware requirements so that no on wanted them anymore. Everyone that bought a netbook and hated it? That was Microsoft ensuring they were underpowered pieces of garbage.
Actually, they have to receive permission from the TSA to do so. As soon as it appeared that there was going to be a trend of many airports requesting permission the TSA suspended the ability to ask for permission to "study" the issue. Since that point it's been impossible for any airport to request permission for private screening. Until Congress removes the requirement that the TSA must approve an airport switching to private screening I can guarantee they won't approve anyone switching regardless of the reason.
Yes it would be a diabolical communistic liberal plot to give every god fearing red blooded American diabetes to make them dependent on the government and make government larger.
That's all Obama ever does, that is make government bigger. Obama is responsible for the massive increase in Federal spending, even under the Bush years. He's especially responsible for the financial meltdown started during the second Bush term that was triggered by financial deregulation passed by a veto proof margin of a completely republican controlled congress during the Clinton years.And he's liberal, and we all know Liberal is bad bad bad. And he's so liberal he's just one step from being Karl Marx himself. And the lead singer of Korn told me he single handily wrote legislation that gives him the power to kill any american he wants and no republican was involved in the passage of that bill. And before I forget, he created (and only he created) the TSA to make sure he can personally fondle grannies and little kids and he plans to use the TSA to seize permanent control of the US!
The pioneers came to Utah around IIRC 1840. From 1840 to about 1950 the salt lake valley discharged all human raw sewage into the Jordan river that discharges directly into the great salt lake. When you discharge sewage into a high salinity lake like the great salt lake (9 times saltier than the ocean) rather than float like it does in fresh water the waste sinks to the bottom. Also, because of the high salt content bacterial decomposition of the waste essentially halts.
This is the reason you don't ever see native Utah residents swimming or recreating in the great salt lake. The waterfowl and migratory stopping point is valid, but other than pink floyd http://www.utahbirds.org/feata... those migratory birds aren't hanging out in the great salt lake (GSL), they hang out in the slightly freshwater swamps that exist where freshwater streams connect to the GSL. That doesn't make the GSL any less of a huge toxic waste pit that is devoid of all life except for brine shrimp and brine flys.
Utah. We had a nearly 7 year drought with sub 50% snowfall every year. Near the end of that drought all the reservoirs in the mountains that provide the summer water were damn near empty. The progressive pricing was instituted county wide and has continued since along with some of the extra money being spent on water use reduction public campaigns such as http://www.slowtheflow.org/.
They also setup several community demonstration gardens with various native and non-native plant life to show people how to plant attractive yards that consume significantly less water which are the water conservation gardens link on the page I linked above.
Phoenix is actually one of the places I believe within the next decade is going to have an eye opening event with water. Las Vegas is currently in the throws of theirs, Utah did it in the late 90's early 00's. Rainfall patterns are changing and the new Colorado river pact is going to dramatically change water allocation for Phoenix at some point in the future (probably the very near future) and you don't have the advantage Utah does (if we don't use our water in ends up in the evaporating toxic waste pit called the great salt lake which means there is no reason not to use every drop). If I was you I would be actively campaigning for increased water rates and water use reduction plans because if you don't put them place in before the catastrophe when it is forced on you it's going to be very costly.
Most Phoenix dwellers aren't aware of this but the vast majority of the water Phoenix uses comes from the Colorado River and it's pumped 6000 feet over the mountains using the power from Glen Canyon dam which is nearing it's life expectancy (it's about silted up). At some point in the future the Colorado River allocation is going to change drastically and at some point in the future the Glen Canyon dam is likely to go away. So not only will the water allocation go down you will have to start paying money to pump it over the mountains (the government currently pumps it for free).
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One of the dirty immigration secrets is the billions that illegal immigrants pay into the SS and Medicare/Medicaide system that they will never utilize. Those clearly bogus payments are never investigated because it would mean shutting off that free cash.
We're not going to be able to build real AI until we actually understand HOW biological organisms think. What we have in a modern digital computing is nothing at all like a biological brain. I suspect that we may never achieve AI while using digital computers. The reason I suspect this is that the human (and every other animal) brain is analog and I believe analog computing is required for true AI. Because we've never really invested in analog computing I believe real AI will continue to be 30 years out until someone decides to build a real analog computer where there isn't on and off but unlimited levels of voltage fluctuation depending on the intensity of input.
Would you care to explain how such vague statutes as Disturbing the Peace and Disorderly Conduct seem to not only be in upheld but routinely used to punish people for contempt of cop?
I found the story abhorent. Them showing up on his porch and confronting him as he was coming through the door with cameras like he's some criminal was equally disgusting.
He's not famous, he's not a public figure, he's just some random guy they wrote a big story about and then confronted him like he's a movie star and they were paparazzi scum. I think newsweek and the people involved should burn in hell for what they did. When I read the story and saw the photo's and video I almost gagged at the complete lack of any kind of morals the people involved have for doing this. I will not be offering them any kind of future business because of this. Just like I don't frequent TMZ because of their paparazzi BS, I won't be reading NewsWeek anymore.
Yea and 10 years ago they split the largest Urban area in my state into 4 pieces (put a piece of the city into each congressional district) to do exactly the same thing (weaken the urban vote). And if it was the other party in control they would have done exactly the same thing, just used different boundaries to accomplish the reverse, ie weaken the rural vote. Gerrymandering has been a fixture of politics in this country since the early 1800's. One party does it one way, the other party does it the other way but they ALWAYS do it.
Before your state was redistricted in favor of the current control the other guys did it too, just to weaken the other side. I'm in favor of a congressional amendment that requires that boundaries be along city or "natural" boundaries (rivers, interstates, etc). But your claim that it's the worst it's ever been is just hyperbole and just makes you out to be ill informed.
No they are not most recent, the man it's named after was the most egregious example. Just because it's "new" to you doesn't mean it's any worse now than it's been at any time in history because it isn't. Gerrymandering has been going on, and has been a staple of American politics since long before it was named after it's most famous egregious use. A little publicity and awareness by yourself doesn't mean it's any worse and you should bloody well know that.
Recent gerrymandering? Are you insane? Maybe you should understand the history of the word gerrymandering then you will understand how long it's been going on.
Because he owned like 30% of the stock and was a cofounder of the company and a personal friend of bill gates who owns 40% of the company.
Tens of thousands of people die every single year from flu. My wife is an ICU nurse and watches people die every year from it. Yes you might be healthy and perfectly capable of handling the flu virus. But when you get it, for the three or four days after you are infected and before major symptoms set in you are spreading virii around like typhoid Mary. And when you go to the grocery store and stand in line next to the guy that just had a transplant and is on immune surpressors you might just kill them.
Sometimes getting the vaccine isn't about you. So next time you get the flu spend the time thinking about all the people you interacted with while you were a walking virus factor and wonder just how many of them your stupidity killed.
An embedded sensor wouldn't do you any good anyway. A dam failure that happened in my state about 20 years (the last) involved water seeping through unknown cracks in the bed rock under the dam that allowed the water to erode a hole in the face of the dam.
For earthen dams they monitor with visual inspections and survey of the top and sides of the dam. Long before the dam fails there will be erosion visible either directly or through sagging surface elevations. Concrete is far more straightforward, beyond cracks in the concrete or foundation seepage the only other major failure mechanism is erosion around the edges.
Most people don't realize that dams leak like a sieve under perfectly normal conditions, so the only effective way to monitor them is directly by trained professionals. Someone that can look at a dam, see a sag starting in the middle and realize something is really really wrong like the guy credited in the article. This trained professional then calls in other professional like divers and surveyors that can do a full analysis of what's wrong so that plans can be devised to repair the damage or in an emergency situation the reservoir can be drained in a controlled fashion. Dam engineering is one of the oldest branches of civil engineering (the oldest branch of engineering).
Hobbyists are too cheap to buy retail. It's the reason the online retailers are putting all the brick and mortar stores out of business.
The limit varies a bit per state but the most common value is not a total weight measure. The size, shape and distribution of the wheels can vary the load that can be carried.
A typical weight restriction is a pounds per square inch weight which is typically administered by the states as a weight of 3200 lbs per axle with the assumption that each axle carries dual tires on each side. This weight is usually figured by weighing the total truck weight, and using mathematical equations (and the trailer geometry) to calculate the per axle weight.
I spent a summer weighing trucks and I can tell you that maximum 3200lbs per axle can vary anywhere from 62000lbs gross weight to over 84000lbs depending on the trailer and tractor combination used. Though the most common configuration for a 50-67' trailer is right around 80,000lbs its not the legal limit in any state I know of. Triple trailer combo's can carry almost 125,000 lbs split between 3 trailers. In fact there are specialty truck trailer combinations with about 16 axles that can carry almost half a million pounds without exceeding the legal limit. See the link below for images of a few examples.
http://www.guymturner.com/heav...
Sure congratulate him for doing his job. But don't think for a minute that this issue wouldn't be seen on major dams because they are, all the time. Dam's are monitored for these issues. Routine and annual inspections are made. This is done precisely to prevent accidents like we've had in the past. Dams must be monitored because water is relentless at finding ways to breach the containment.
To be fair Orrin Hatch neutered the FDA on supplements because a LOT of people in Utah got very very rich on them. Chance are if you are buying supplements of ay sort someone from Utah is making money on it. He played to his constituency in this regard. Keep in mind the Mormons have no problem with Evolution or any other aspect of science, they tend to take the point of view that science reveals how God did it. (Disclaimer, I was raised Mormon and have had that exact explanation of evolution taught to me in Seminary class in high school by a church paid instructor teaching from church approved materials).
I believe the Mormon church's position on evolution is along the lines of, Why would you take at face value the "explanation" in the Bible when so much of the rest of the Bible is parable. After all, exactly how is god going to explain quantum physics, general relativity, the big bang and evolution to a group of uneducated former slaves? Wouldn't it just be easier to give them a parable of the creation until they have the knowledge to understand the reality?
So don't blame uneducated science on Orrin, supplements deregulation was a major item of interest for a lot of local Utah businessmen who make a lot of money selling that stuff to people. And honestly, most Americans (IIRC 90%+) approve of supplements being sold without regulations and would get seriously pissed if they couldn't buy their bottle of unregulated plant matter.
As soon as you legalize and exception to discrimination laws based on something specious like religious views you've opened the door to discrimination for anything.
IMO a business has the right to refuse service to anyone they choose for whatever they choose as long as that business is a private membership. The second that business offers services to the open public they relinquish the right to refuse service to people on the basis of their age, gender, race, disability, and sexual identification. If you don't like that the close your business to the public and serve only private members.
Business owners what to have their cake and eat it too and I say they can go fuck themselves. Do you know why people get so angry at the gay lobby? It's because they have real power. Between themselves and people that care about them or support them they have real economic power and they can damage any business that discriminates against them. And I'm a willing supporter of that cause even though I'm straight. Arizona enacts laws protecting discrimination of this sort and I will not be doing business with Arizona (or any resident thereof) and I will encourage everyone I know to do the same.
Those fucking snowbird racists and homophobes living in AZ want to turn Arizona into some anti-gay, anti-Hispanic haven. Maybe this will wake the rest of the population up and they will throw the lot of them out of office.
Microsoft and the big pile of money they handed Ford. Now the money is gone and MS is getting their pound of flesh through licensing fee's.
What I don't understand is why a company like Google or Apple wants to buy and build these huge buildings. Why they don't purchase a dozen buildings spread around that employees can go to or even focused to teams. I get why they feel the need to put everyone in the same building but honestly with email, text and phone, at least at my business most people don't even get up from their desk to talk to people so why do you even need to be in the same building? And spreading the workspace out allows the diverse employment to live and work where they want.
I doubt they did any math. Zuckerberg has total control of the company, he can literally do whatever he wants because he has total controlling interest.
I think they overpaid and did so deliberately. Google forced Zuckerberg to pay that much by making a 10billion offer and he's also been reading in the news that Whatsapp is going to eventually destroy Facebook because all the young kids are using it to avoid Facebook (and sharing personal details with their parents). So he grossly overpaid for three reasons, one to take out a potential future competitor before they can grow to critical mass, two to avoid Google getting the company and using it as leverage for Google+ and three to arrest rumors that Whatapps would eventually lead to the fall of Facebook. Three is not the same as one.
He's not stupid, he knows that the only thing Facebook offers that "new social network" doesn't is network effects. So this acquisition points to one important item, he's not going to rest on his laurels like his former competitors did, he's going to aggressively move against future competitors before they grow large enough to threaten Facebook. That third reason was the most important message he could send to Wall Street and only time will tell if it was worth the 19billion in mostly stock it cost him. Whatapp was barely a million dollar revenue company, and certainly alone wasn't worth even what they paid for Instagram, nor was Instagram of course. The point here is the message he's sending to Wall Street, that he won't go quietly into the night like MySpace or all the others that preceded him.
The towers must be installed to a certain height or the water will never have the head necessary to supply the residents further out. The only way to reduce height would be to build 4 times as many towers. What he's really saying is don't build that tower near the rich, go build it in the poor neighborhood. The time honored request of the rich, which is why there's a federal law against singling out the poor for major infrastructure installations.
Their goal is to prevent the sale of the chromebook by flooding the market with cheap windows imitations.
Yea I agree it might not work but like I said, the old tricks are the best tricks.
They did the same with netbooks. Discounted to $15, then used the $15 price to force the OEM to reduce the specs. Once they got the specs to the point of garbage and sales started to drop off they raised the price a bit, rinse and repeat until the entire market is gone. That's what happened to netbooks, incredibly popular until MS deliberately destroyed the hardware requirements so that no on wanted them anymore. Everyone that bought a netbook and hated it? That was Microsoft ensuring they were underpowered pieces of garbage.
The best tricks are the old tricks.
Actually, they have to receive permission from the TSA to do so. As soon as it appeared that there was going to be a trend of many airports requesting permission the TSA suspended the ability to ask for permission to "study" the issue. Since that point it's been impossible for any airport to request permission for private screening. Until Congress removes the requirement that the TSA must approve an airport switching to private screening I can guarantee they won't approve anyone switching regardless of the reason.
Yes it would be a diabolical communistic liberal plot to give every god fearing red blooded American diabetes to make them dependent on the government and make government larger.
That's all Obama ever does, that is make government bigger. Obama is responsible for the massive increase in Federal spending, even under the Bush years. He's especially responsible for the financial meltdown started during the second Bush term that was triggered by financial deregulation passed by a veto proof margin of a completely republican controlled congress during the Clinton years.And he's liberal, and we all know Liberal is bad bad bad. And he's so liberal he's just one step from being Karl Marx himself. And the lead singer of Korn told me he single handily wrote legislation that gives him the power to kill any american he wants and no republican was involved in the passage of that bill. And before I forget, he created (and only he created) the TSA to make sure he can personally fondle grannies and little kids and he plans to use the TSA to seize permanent control of the US!
The pioneers came to Utah around IIRC 1840. From 1840 to about 1950 the salt lake valley discharged all human raw sewage into the Jordan river that discharges directly into the great salt lake. When you discharge sewage into a high salinity lake like the great salt lake (9 times saltier than the ocean) rather than float like it does in fresh water the waste sinks to the bottom. Also, because of the high salt content bacterial decomposition of the waste essentially halts.
This is the reason you don't ever see native Utah residents swimming or recreating in the great salt lake. The waterfowl and migratory stopping point is valid, but other than pink floyd http://www.utahbirds.org/feata... those migratory birds aren't hanging out in the great salt lake (GSL), they hang out in the slightly freshwater swamps that exist where freshwater streams connect to the GSL. That doesn't make the GSL any less of a huge toxic waste pit that is devoid of all life except for brine shrimp and brine flys.
Utah. We had a nearly 7 year drought with sub 50% snowfall every year. Near the end of that drought all the reservoirs in the mountains that provide the summer water were damn near empty. The progressive pricing was instituted county wide and has continued since along with some of the extra money being spent on water use reduction public campaigns such as http://www.slowtheflow.org/.
They also setup several community demonstration gardens with various native and non-native plant life to show people how to plant attractive yards that consume significantly less water which are the water conservation gardens link on the page I linked above.
Phoenix is actually one of the places I believe within the next decade is going to have an eye opening event with water. Las Vegas is currently in the throws of theirs, Utah did it in the late 90's early 00's. Rainfall patterns are changing and the new Colorado river pact is going to dramatically change water allocation for Phoenix at some point in the future (probably the very near future) and you don't have the advantage Utah does (if we don't use our water in ends up in the evaporating toxic waste pit called the great salt lake which means there is no reason not to use every drop). If I was you I would be actively campaigning for increased water rates and water use reduction plans because if you don't put them place in before the catastrophe when it is forced on you it's going to be very costly.
Most Phoenix dwellers aren't aware of this but the vast majority of the water Phoenix uses comes from the Colorado River and it's pumped 6000 feet over the mountains using the power from Glen Canyon dam which is nearing it's life expectancy (it's about silted up). At some point in the future the Colorado River allocation is going to change drastically and at some point in the future the Glen Canyon dam is likely to go away. So not only will the water allocation go down you will have to start paying money to pump it over the mountains (the government currently pumps it for free).