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I guess I just can't let it slide. Khayman80's argument that Latour doesn't understand that the subject under discussion is net heat transfer is almost certainly disingenuous and intended to mislead, because we had that argument a couple of years ago. Which he lost, by the way.

Latour has written papers about EXACTLY that topic, and I know that Khayman80 has seen at least one of them, because of the mentioned argument (which he lost), in which he admitted to having seen it. So he is either lying in order to try to convince others I am wrong (which is dishonest), of he has completely forgotten about Latour's actual work, in which case he's just making up the argument (which is intellectually dishonest), OR he is trying to make a straw-man argument by suggesting that Latour himself was arguing something he actually wasn't. Which is intellectually dishonest.

I'll let other readers decide the existence (if any) and extent (if any) of Khayman80's intellectual dishonesty. The evidence is right there above, if any of you would care to go read ALL OF those old arguments (which he lost).

No, no, you're thinking of Mao having peasants pull dry turds from his heroin addicted ass.
Omama has a team of Secret service to pull his head from his ass.( the ears make it difficult)

function=1 dysfunction=0

And I have to wonder how that's being figured... consider the Owens Valley to see how Los Angeles' water use far exceeds what was formerly extensive ag use with plenty to spare.

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I will add:

Since this person is not making any scientific argument anyway, but simply attempting ad-hominem, and saying "so-and-so is wrong" without ANY evidence (which is all he can do, because he doesn't have any), this was a completely pointless exercise on his part. He was simply making another attempt at dragging my persona through the mud. I can only conclude that was his only purpose, since he didn't make any actual, substantive arguments.

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I have nothing to do with this person, or he with me. His pretense of knowing who I am and what I think, and his practice of taking years-old comments out of context and conflating them together does not make for sound argument.

Dr. Latour did heat-transfer work for NASA, and has made a career of building control systems for chemical processes involving heat. I daresay he is more of an expert on the subject than "Khayman80".

To the best of my knowledge, no-one to date has successfully refuted Latour's science. Many have tried, many have failed. Khayman80 himself admitted this a couple of years ago, right here on Slashdot, which makes me wonder why he's digging up even older arguments that he has since failed to refute. Perhaps he just forgot. Though I doubt it.

I have no reply to this person specifically. As far as I am concerned, he is a non-person.

That's a good point -- stored water might as well go into the ground (and be used) as into the air (which one might argue becomes rain somewhere to the east, but that does Utah no good, and Utah needs it a lot more).

In the process of moving back to Montana from SoCal, I made numerous trips along both I-15 and routes further west, and I was quite struck by how the states that scream the loudest about conservation and that do the most enforcing against common use of resources... are also in the worst shape. Utah looks the best both agriculturally and industrially -- it seems to have a great deal more local industry than any other western state, yet it looks the most pristine and green, and sports a healthy ag sector. Montana and the agricultural parts of Nevada are also in good shape, as is much of Idaho. But you can just about draw a line around CA and OR solely by the poor condition of what used to be good graze and forest land, and now looks a great deal more drought-stricken than do drier areas further inland.

Nonsense. LOTS of things are obvious to the uninformed:

Global warming, Young Earth, WMDs, chemtrails, anal probes... the list goes on and on. Granted, some of that is MISinformation, rather than lack of information, but I count misinformed as uninformed.

OP:

Well, I grant the "threats or competitors" part, to some degree. But the U.S. now has MORE forests and other wildlife habitat than it had 100 years ago. In my general area, wolves and peregrine falcons have been reintroduced, quite successfully (there is now a wolf hunting season). Not to mention the rebound of raptors like osprey and eagles. There are an abundance of other predators like badgers and mountain lions... which means a robust-enough prey population to support them.

I don't know where you live, but where I do, there's not much extinction going on. Quite the opposite, actually.

Where I lived in the SoCal desert, the water was so high in calcium that for those drinking tap water (which mostly came from deep wells), there was no such thing as calcium deficiency. It was largely a retirement community, and you never saw so many 80 year olds with ramrod-straight spines. You could actually spot older folks who drank bottled water -- by their curved spines.

And it's good-tasting water. Personally I don't like soft water, it tastes like dust.

When you get bad water in SoCal, it's usually not the water -- it's the pipes. Plastic pipes react with chlorine and the result tastes like a corpse. Let the water run til fresh stuff from the mains reaches the spigot, and suddenly you have good water again.

Now, northern plains water from shallow wells, that's nasty stuff -- too much magnesium so it tastes like Epsom salts, or occasionally like rotting plastic. Drill down to a deeper water layer, tho, and the problem usually goes away.

In Los Angeles County, what they did about it was confiscate all the private wells. Consider that a well out in the north county costs around $50,000 (give or take 10 grand) and you'll see it's not a minor taking. After a major flap they graciously ceded 3 acre-feet back to each landowner. I haven't heard how they plan to enforce this; probably by making everyone pay for a limiting meter on their well.

It's actually much cheaper to hook up to a private water supplier: about $15,000 and water costs about 1/4th as much per gallon. (Well water is not free if you pay for diesel or electricity to pump it. At current electric rates, domestic water is about 1 cent per 10 gallons.) However, private water companies only serve very limited areas, and are not an option for most people... but they're trying to grab everyone they can reach, and have gotten county law changed to enforce this... I was told that to my face by the owners of two different private water companies out in the desert. Guess who has wells down into the deep aquifer, and were not affected by the confiscation.

That's interesting about the bruising. I've had maybe a dozen blood draws in my life and never a bruise, but I have thick tough veins that defy all but the most experienced phlebotomists. (I don't usually bruise unless whacked really hard, and sometimes not even then. I also have tough thick skin; I wonder if the two are related. Per actual tests, I clot about average.)

From a safety standpoint, I doubt anyone has ever died from Lasik itself (anaesthesia reactions aside). But from what I've read, there is a broad range of competence, and one does well to research prospective doctors.

Despite which, Utah is one of the greener western states -- even in its desert ag areas. Methinks when you actually manage your water, you also get more use of it. And contrary to city-slicker belief, there is no one more conservation-conscious than farmers; it's their very livelihood.

And on your list of cities, don't forget that California diverts a great deal of water to its major metros, with scant regard for what becomes of agriculture. I guess city folks don't need to eat.

I rant about that somewhere above, but here's an example:
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/...

Let me fix that for him:

"I expect when we run out this next decade, everyone will be very angry over the decisions we made to plant water-intensive cities in a very arid land for so many years".

I suspect the water diverted and used by Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix considerably exceeds the water used by all western agriculture combined. (And remember, ag use tends to return water to the soil. City use tends to flush it into the ocean rather more directly.)

A very good example is the Owens Valley. Old-timers have told me it used to be rich in water and lush with crops and livestock. Then Los Angeles took its water, and the Owens Valley became a desert dustbowl. (There are still a few isolated oases, where some spot doesn't drain to the Owens River.)

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/...

That's a killer for me as well. I'm not a telescope-stargazer, but I do appreciate the night sky... and right now I see in the dark like a vampire (and even better if corrected to 20-20 -- I'm about 20-45 and 20-80, uncorrected). Having halos and spikes would drive me nuts.

I've half-thought about it for my worse eye, but mild myopia has its advantages as well -- even at 59, my worse eye still doesn't need reading glasses except for very small print (2 point or smaller).

Amish dude: "What be with yon multitude of new converts??"