And what is $0K/yr? You know, like all the unemployed folks in the Bay Area earn?

One Purchasing excess electricity isn't a subsidy

Yes, it is.

Try and sell someone a solar panel install that can not sell it's excess electricity to the power company at a premium over the going rate on the spot market.

BTW, the excess electricity typically goes to waste, and the money paid to the solar panel owner drives up the cost of electricity for everyone else.

He's not only 'poor' he's among the poorest in California... Apparently he earns less than his unemployed neighbors.

The fact that the middle class bears the heaviest burden of taxes is an indictment against the political realities, not against the idea of giving solar panels to the poor.

Citation please.

The top 5% earn 20% of all Income and pay 40% of all income taxes...

The US actively taxes anything that might upset the local utilities. There are relatively few incentives to do it and more disincentive than anything.

You are kidding, right?

The US Gov't subsidizes:

solar panel research,
solar panel manufacturing,
training solar panel installers,
the purchase and installation of solar panels,
AND requires utilities to buy all the energy the panels generate at above market rates, if they want it or not.

What more could the government do to support adoption of solar power?

And there's no one in California poorer than this fellow with his $70K salary?

When did homeowners become 'poorest residents' in California?

Seems to me a person too poor to buy a house is, by definition, 'poorer' than a homeowner.

That 99/100 believe one thing shouldn't be used silence the 1/100 - that is what I, as a layman perceive as going on in the scientific community.

An easy example of this is when climate scientists refuse to make their raw data available to those that wish to challenge their findings. If they have faith in their findings, what's the problem?

Other notable issues arise when things like the famous hockeystick graph which clearly showed temperatures rising in advance of rising CO2 levels is used to argue that rising CO2 levels are responsible for the temperature increases observed. Or when dire predictions are made (No polar ice by 2015!) and then the predictions fail to come true.

To the average person, being asked to accept and act based on scientific consensus these public mis-steps undermine their faith in science and those that claim to practice it.

I don't want to debate the above examples (but hey, it's Slashdot, go for it!), my point is the above are examples that have flown in the face of what everyone was taught in 8th grade science (mis-reading a graph, refusal to share data, and making outlandish predictions based on a desire to gain publicity rather than scientific facts).

The point is the perception science by the layman, and the above examples all undermine the perception of science's infallibility.

...when we replaced the scientific method with scientific consensus?

That 99 out of 100 scientists agree one thing is true doesn't make it true - it may be, it may not be, but the number of people that believe doesn't make it so.

When the scientific community is caught 'correcting' raw data and ostracizing 'non-believers' that challenge their beliefs they undermine the public trust in 'science'.

I was taught that the scientific method welcomed challenges to accepted beliefs - a return to that position would go a long way towards reforming belief in science.

Taking the pictures to sell to the players and parents themselves (which again, I don't think he was doing) is a little murkier, but still usually fine.
Some states have privacy laws that require a written model release between the photographer and the subject. Others are fine with verbal consent or "implied consent."

Where did I agree/give consent to photographer at the local amusement park to take my picture as I'm riding their roller coaster? I'm not saying I didn't, but was it when I walked on the property, when I bought the ticket, or when I got on the ride? I'm not aware of giving consent in any of those events, but that doesn't mean I didn't consent. (There could be a small sign as I enter the park, a waiver on the ticket stub, or a notice as I enter the roller coaster.)

The rich? Fuck no. It's truckers. 18 wheelers cause around 99% of the wear and tear on the roads, but all of us subsidize that shitty business model.

And we ALL benefit from it also in the form of lower prices for goods shipped by trucks... Or is your grocery store, d part net store, local car dealership and Home Depot all supplied via the railroad?

You can SEND Amber Alerts from your phone? Amazing.

Then why are owners of eco-friendly cars the ones complaining loudest about such a tax targeting them? They think their wise decision to let taxpayers subsidize their car purchase also entitles them to a discount on infrastructure taxes...

Right, all those "poor" stockbrokers in CT that travel in to Wall Street will never be able to afford the tax.

This tax replaces the gasoline tax for 5,000 drivers. That means they get their gas cheaper, and then write a separate check for their mileage tax. That writing the check after the fact is the thing that will kill this initiative.

At 1.5 cents/mile driven, a driver with a high-milage (eco-friendly) car will pay much more in taxes than the driver of an SUV. Simply put, the driver of a 15 MPG SUV used 3x as much gas, and as such paid 3x the state tax (since they used 3x as much gas) as the driver of a 45 MPG car.

The driver of a plug-in car will (finally) stop freeloading on the backs of customers that drive cars that run on fossil fuels...

The average driver covers 10-12,000 miles year, which means the 5,000 drivers will likely pay, on average, $150/month in "infrastructure" taxes.

In Japan, in Korea, in China they do not have AA --- and their economies are growing leaps and bounds and everybody can attest to their technological achievements.

Got a big 'minority' problem in those countries?

Actually, I realize that all Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans are not 'equal' in the eyes of their fellow countrymen.

We can't end AA for the same reason we can't unwind our crazy sentencing guidelines in this country... Both require politicians to make the change, and to do so opens them up to either racism or being soft on crime, either of which would be a political career-wnder in America today.

That said, admitting students that got 400 points lower on their SAT than the lowest-accepted Asian-American is s disservice to low-scoring student.

There was a debate a while ago about colleges giving 'legacies' preference during admission at the ivy's - that sounds great, make it a meritocracy, until a black alum finds out his son or daughter can't get into Harvard because they are a legacy...