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.

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.

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??"

Sounds like it's time for a major browser to implement a default feature (so it becomes common as of the next update):

"Return opaque white canvas unless the user instructs otherwise."

Because I can't think of any good reason why the default should be "Return valid canvas" (tho "Ask" might also be a good setting).

I foresee the next step being websites that refuse to speak to you until they receive something they think is a valid canvas... at that point we'd want to add "Return random canvas" where "random" means "made up of common-as-dirt elements so it looks tolerably real".

One might drag forth the "buggy manufacturers' argument": if your product is no longer needed or wanted, you can't force people to buy it.

Of course that would depracticalize a good deal of the Web, but point being that it's not a *right*. They can try to sell it to us, of course, but how invasive should they be allowed to become? At what point does their "making a living" become "at our expense" ??

A small problem with Ghostery:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So, you're saying that when 70% of the cost of a legal employee is state-mandated non-wage expense, that's the business' fault?

The problem isn't the businesses, nor the employees, nor the wages. It's the number of fingers the government has in your pocket if you try to do things right and lawful.

I once looked into what it would take to have one legal part-time minimum-wage employee for one year in Los Angeles County. It came to $28,000 before I paid a cent of wages. Since that exceeds my best net and is several times the value of the employee, obviously it wasn't happening. Someone didn't get a job, and I didn't expand my business.

No, they value the fact that you just can't stay in business when your out of pocket cost is $28/hour for a $10/hour job that earns the business maybe $15/hour in billable labor (and remember, there's also overhead to pay before you can even think about profit).

The business owners I've talked to would rather NOT hire illegals, because there's also an unreliability factor (90% can't be counted on to show up every day) and a quality control factor (most are less qualified than you'd really want), but when it's hire the illegal or go out of business thanks to the mandated costs of legal labor... well, I don't like it either, but I understand why it happens.

"But if they bettered themselves, they would not be picking produce for sub-subsistence wages, now would they? So those poor farmers would still have to ship in exploitable people..."

Uh, no. Used to be every generation of our own as-yet-unskilled kids did this work. We'll never run out of a next generation of kids.

And I suspect those "exploited" people would tell you it's a better living than they made in the old country -- otherwise, why come here in the first place?