Certainly, flat-rate water has been a major factor in wastage of water in California. We only got water meters installed here in Sacramento about 4 years ago, which has resulted in a tripling of our water rates - and quadrupling of the pay to the bureaucrats who get sinecures on the various water boards.

But California is a boom-and-bust state when it comes to water. We have 3-5 year drought periods that alternate with floods, such as the floods of 1986 and 1997. If this actually turns into an El Nino year (the forecasts for this are mixed, but generally unreliable either way) this may be another flood year. Folsom Lake and Lake Shasta were at historic lows 3 weeks ago, and have been at least partially refilled since December 1. And it's raining right now, with more rain predicted to continue through Friday.

How ENTIRELY coincidental is it that the weatherman here in Sacramento, CA reported yesterday that the storms since December 1 have dumped 10 trillion gallons of water on the Golden State!

Granted, only about 10% of that has fallen in catchment areas that feed into our many reservoirs and lakes, and rainfall doesn't percolate into the ground water for years - but this is a STUNNING example of the AlGore Effect.

I'm an agnostic Jew; I'm not certain that God exists. But I _AM_ certain that He has a great sense of humor, and delights in confounding pompous braggarts.

We're pretty sure that most large galaxies have a supermassive black hole in the center. We know that some very-VERY-far away astronomical objects are very active in radio and X-ray output; we call these "quasi-stellar radio objects" or "quasars".

Is it not at least remotely possible that these facts are related? My physics degree is 30 years old and I have only sort-of kept up with the news, but it seems at least possible that those gamma ray bursts and quasars are symptoms of the formation or expansion of those black holes. Nearby galaxies seem quiescent by comparison, so since our observations of the very distant objects are also views back in time, I think it likely that those gamma ray bursts are more like childish temper tantrums, and that our own Milky Way has grown up and matured and is now ready to create new life of its own.

It's entirely possible that life on Earth arose about as early as it could have, and that we may be among the "senior" intelligent lifeforms around. Or, perhaps we're entirely alone, which carries with it its own philosophical baggage. It's interesting to speculate, but it's foolish to make definitive statements when we are 99.9% ignorant of what's actually out there.

An additional 5 pounds in mass at launch would have required many times that much in additional fuel. Ounces are important in spacecraft design, especially when you're planning on a 10-15 year timeline. The ESA probably made the best decisions that they could, and second-guessing is idle speculation.

Any of my "it's too bad that..." sentiments have to be balanced with the extraordinary achievement of launching the Rosetta probe, of getting it to the comet, of actually LANDING on the thing, and getting any pictures at all from it. And if it finally spins back into the sunlight, we may still get stuff from it. Especially since the harpoons apparently didn't function, and that it has an effective weight on the order of grams, and that comets do generally release gas and dust into space. Philae could easily be carried back into space with any puff of gas. It probably won't happen, but ..... Who knows?

One downside to RTG (Radio-isotope Thermal Generators) is that radioactive elements decay, and this causes the power output to fall off slowly but continuously. And the probe wasn't deployed for 11 years after launch; it's not something that we can activate on deployment. IF the thing had landed properly, in the sunlight, the solar power would have been fine. It's too bad that it couldn't have carried both, but that would have been a hefty weight penalty at launch.

This is only practical where there are local or regional monopolies MANDATED by local governments. Cities, towns and counties have allowed, even encouraged, sweetheart deals between the regulators and the regulated. Eliminate cable and telephone monopoly powers, and allow other players into the market, and we might get internet service that's as good as South Korea's.

The only difference, of course, is that we don't expect your cell phone or tablet to relay EVERY word to the NSA. The "Echo" device would appear to do just that. We always suspected that Big Brother was going to subcontract the work; now we know who got the bid!

Wikipedia is tolerable for old or static or uncontroversial information. For example, I'm sure that the data on the masses of the 50 nearest stars is reliable.

For anything political or controversial, the Wikipedia "stewards" are hard-left. I would NEVER trust them with anything important.

If I were a teacher, I would inform every student that Wikipedia can NEVER be cited as a reference, and that doing so would be an instant F on any paper.

Yeah, I guess having electronic voting machines AND working printers is an invitation to failure, especially when a few dozen Sharpie pens is ... what, fifty bucks?

I realize this is heresy, but even though I've been working with PCs on a daily basis for THIRTY YEARS, not everything needs to be computerized.

AND, paper ballots allow one to recover from gross errors. Electronic ballots do not.

The only kind of "electronic voting" that I would support would be one that allowed the voter to fill in his ballot on the computer terminal and then PRINT the ballot. The voter then reviews the PRINTED ballot, and then drops it into the ballot box. Immediate results, which is what the BigMediaMoguls want, to do breathless "breaking news" bulletins, AND a scanable paper ballot which would be the OFFICIAL ballot.

True statement! Of course, Nixon was a piker on the corruption front compared to the incumbent.

Are you certain of this? I've seen reports of the Dems doing it; this one, and Althouse in 2012 and again now. I've never seen any reports of the Republicans doing this.

True statement! When everything is data-mined after the election, one of the things that the election "consultants" (and there are no more vile people like "election consultants, whether of the Carville or Rove variety, they're still evil) analyze is the "no vote" ballots; how many total ballots were submitted, and how many had no vote for EITHER candidate.

Ummmm..... Wrong. As the mailer said, they don't know HOW you voted, but the fact that you did - or didn't - is public record. They even know whether you voted in person, or by mail. They even know if you requested an absentee or vote-by-mail ballot and didn't return it.

And the stats are extracted per PRECINCT, which is pretty darned granular.

Big computers and massive databases - especially when run out of the most corrupt White House in history - can be scary things.

It's the "(We WISH we were the) House Majority (and maybe we will be again, but not THIS time) Pac ".