Amazon's had a growing problem for some time with astroturfed reviews. On products it's reasonably possible to get a feel for things even through that because of the sheer numbers involved, but for contractors and labor it's going to be a critical problem.

I'm pretty generous when it comes to hiring people to do things I don't want too, but who...

Ok, suggestion for just such a hire (so you can have an opportunity to be generous!): Retain someone to teach you the difference between "to" and "too." :/

Math:

Ameliorating $4/month waste:

$1000 / 4 = 250 months until positive ROI. Your $1000 estimate is way high, though -- what he proposed is about $300 at most, at the scale he indicated. Probably not even that. It mostly depends on the wiring. Long is costly. Short and efficient, you're way down in costs. The rest is relatively constant. Solar panels, charge regulator, inverter. I show the closer numbers along with yours in square brackets: [$300 / 4 = 75 months until +ROI]

That's 20 years. [6 years]

After that, it's a constant ~$48 / year win.

Over the working and retired lifetime, figuring age 30 is when this is done in deference to slashdot's basic demographic as I perceive it, 40 years remain, so 20 [6] of that is payment, which means the ROI is 20 x $48 = $960 [34 x $48 = $1632]

There's also the social benefit of not drawing that power. It all adds up.

There's also the benefit of not losing functionality when power goes out.

And it's fun and personally rewarding.

And it's affordable, much more so that typically larger solar projects.

So, no, no stupidity. You're not thinking clearly, and to top that off, your data is bad.

but why should anyone but the individual pay for said options???

We have to start from the premise that said individual may well not be able to afford these options.

Then, we pay for the same reason that we as group pay for other things that benefit society over the long term, like roads, fire departments, public education, defense, sewers, sidewalks, dikes, rain gutters. We know certain needs are going to come up, and/or certain events will actually happen, so we prepare for them in some way that optimizes the outcome.

Unwanted children are very often a serious burden both on society at large, and often upon the parents, and often even to themselves. The workforce is diminished and damaged, and people grow up under conditions that start out with a fairly strong negative impetus.

We benefit directly by stronger parent-child relations; by prepared parents as opposed to "oh crap, I/we didn't plan on THIS!" parents; By better educated and happier citizens.

It's the future we're investing in. That's one of the best things society can do.

Lastly, the evaluation should, at least in my estimation, be based upon this criteria:

Which is worse? Unwanted children, loss of productivity, social turmoil and misery, or a very reasonable levy upon the citizens in general?

All family planning services taken together ca. 2010 account for 2.37B out of the total of 3.55 trillion spent, or .06%, or 6/10,000ths of the total expenditure. That means for every $1000.00 you paid in taxes, that 60 cents of that went to cover family planning. Not too harsh, I'm thinking.

To me, if that is the question (and I think it is), the answer is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Your cite: "the current event is the most severe drought in the last 1200 years"

Responding cite: "multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years"

I think that in presenting this, the poster may be contending that a 20-year drought is more severe than a 3 year drought. Although that really depends on the range of conditions we call a drought. If it's a narrow range, a 20-year event is almost certainly worse than a three year event. If the range is wider, not so certain. I wonder if the tree ring data can be analyzed for severity as well as duration.

Then we have this in the responding cite:

"a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years."

That means the former started 1150 years ago (within your 1200 year range) and the next one, after that.

Pretty sure the other poster has checkmated you one way or another, and perhaps both, assuming the data being cited is accurate.

The dustbowl also checkmates anything California is currently experiencing, just as an aside.

There's just no way this allows us to assign the current drought definitively to AGW, as the data shows much worse events without any such impetus.

So, could it be AGW causing the current drought? Sure. Is it? No one knows. And when people claim it is? They are full of hot air, either passing along misinformation, or being disingenuous themselves (I always assume the former, because the number of people who actually have a reasonable grasp on the situation are very few on either side.)

a) I was well aware of the kind of punitive shaming / badging he was referring to;
b) My knowledge of the history of the 20th century isn't all that bad, try me if you like;
c) I was table-turning his (hopefully) tongue-in-cheek contextual suggestion to force armbands on gays,
d) while making fun of Christians, because superstition embodies all those weaknesses.
e) Godwin's law is the mention of Nazism or Hitler as a comparison, and WRT:
f) punitive shaming / badging is common in the US now, so no need to go prior to the 1950's:
g) therefore, Godwin's law is not in play (my references here are not a comparison.)
h) My slashdot id is "fyngyrz", not "fyngyrx"

Any questions for me, AC?

Finland's official Pravda^W^Wleading newspaper had an article on this particularly American issue. The main thesis is that you guys have a lot of freedom to offend and beat up each other, because any government intervention would go against the natural freedom of free men to do unto each other as they like. Of course, the follow-up is reduced freedom for individuals in lots of ways. You guys have more freedom than us in certain ways, but as a result you have less freedom in some other ways. It's hard to say which way is right, but it sure sounds a lot like BSD vs. GNU.

Personally, I'm in for more freedom in some areas. Finland officially switched from the Eastern Bloc into the EU 20 years ago, but I'm yet to see the full effects.

If your business is supplying cakes, then you should supply cakes, just do it as well as you manage. No matter who wants a cake. No harm at all in that. There's no reasonable place for a business to refuse service based on opinion. Behavior in your place of business, sure -- but that's about it.

There are quite a few businesses that support themselves, just doing what they do because they like doing it. These people are already financially independent, they just like to work.

I ran a martial arts school with lots of students at a very low rate monthly because I loved teaching. Did it for years. I supported it with my software business. Now, although I'm done teaching, I still keep a free studio open where my black belts can go to practice with mats, heavy bags, speed bags, pads, makiwara, mirrors, recording equipment (for self-evaluation) and so on. It's not huge, but it is heated and cooled and provides everything needed to work on one's progress and maintain conditioning.

Should I decide to hang a "no Christians" sign on my studio, it would make absolutely no difference to my willingness and ability to keep it open. Nor would it for my school. It'd just mean no Christians. And no one who didn't "get it", most likely, as it's just as idiotic as "no gays" or "no blacks" or "no women" or "no felons."

It's quite practical in a case like mine, in terms of doing it and sustaining it. I hope someone in one of these states does it. Not because I support discrimination of this type; but because it puts a point on the real issue here: you shouldn't discriminate based on what others do or don't do as long as it doesn't involve you. And other people's relationship choices do not impact others except in their imagination, and that puts us back to the right and proper and complete lack of a "right not to be offended", which, if it existed, would be a basic and profound anti-liberty concept. Not only would it put a point on it, it would attract the news media quite well, which again would be an entirely good thing, outside of hacks like Drudge and agitprop vendors like Fox News.

So. What you're saying is that Christians should be forced to wear armbands. Have I got that right?

What do you want on them? "Superstitious"? "Gullible"? "Critical Thinking Impaired"?

Just wondering...

But one doesn't need contraception. sex education, or abortion in order to have sex. After all, no other animals on our planet have contraception, sex education, or abortion and they have plenty of sex.

Yes indeed. But (some) people are able to evaluate the consequences of having sex, such that they would like to modify their behavior so that they can enjoy the act, without the consequences. By attempting to remove the means to do this, religion seeks to leverage people's actions through their concern for consequences (pregnancy and so on, if you are having trouble following.)

Inasmuch as religion has no relevance to my life, I have no interest in what they would like me to do, and I utterly reject anything that they would force me to do. Now, if you want to restrict your access to contraception, sex education and abortion along the lines of some set of religious dictates, that's perfectly ok. Just keep your superstitious claptrap away from my personal choices and you'll be fine. Otherwise, we have a problem.

your "choice" to like the same sex isn't.

You have to read as far as the ninth amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Other rights that are exclusively a matter of informed, personal and consensual choice, are obviously covered. Any law -- or private action -- that denies such rights is unconstitutional or simply wrongheaded.

Yes, I know there are many such laws and attitudes. WRT the laws, we had laws implementing slavery and denial of woman's right to vote (among many others), and we managed to figure out those were asshole positions to take. So there's considerable highly visible precedent for us correcting our course when ideas like yours manage to turn into law and acting out.

Hopefully, eventually we'll have legislators -- probably by accident -- that will be pro liberty instead of these lace-panty, pearl-clutching corporate shills we have now. As far as the attitudes go, we can't fix stupid. Yet. But genetics is coming right along, there's hope there, too.

Actually I just so happen to keep abreast of news regarding Ethical Concerns for other reasons.