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.

Glad you agree. Perhaps you can tell the various environmental groups to stop using it now.

Hospital
Hamas using UN ambulances
Bombing at gaza school, probably from hamas rocket falling short
Hamas rockets in two different UN schools

This isn't rocket surgery, not by a long shot. Hamas really is "the bad guys." Haven't even started on the tunnel stuff yet, and them using them as weapons storage. And commandeering all those materials meant for housing, and instead built it up for the sole purpose of terror, war, and screwing over the civilians.

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.

In March 1989 much of Quebec lost power for the same thing.

They lost power because the common-mode breakers tripped, not because their system was actually damaged.

You're welcome to eat your words now.

You mean the hospital where snipers were shooting at soldiers? Bet you also turn a blind eye to them transporting terrorists around in ambulances. You know that automatically makes it a military target. I'm surprised you didn't try trotting out the story of the school, where a bunch of people died the other day. Where various groups, including hamas started screaming "it was an israeli shell(ever see a shell not leave an impact crater?)" And surprise, it comes out today that the people were killed by hamas and a "errant" rocket. But I'm sure that you're quite thrilled to hear about the UN schools in gaza having rockets inside.

No they don't. You might not realize this but a contract places obligations on both parties. I know you've probably been brought up with the one-sided "terms of service" style contracts that have "we can get out of this any time but you can't" clauses, but you might want to see how many times that "we can get out of this any time but you can't" clauses have held up in court. They can't just say "we don't like you" and kick him off the plane.

The only thing that would warrant a paying customer being denied service would be some sort of serious disruption to the other passengers or the plane itself. Speaking ill of a gate attendant doesn't affect the plane in any way, therefore they have no right to remove him from the plane.

You seem to forget about them having his money and all that.

Now, at last! Google People! In cooperation with the Venter Institute.

Amazon isn't out of expansion area. Their target is all of retail, and there's still a lot of non-Amazon retail. Most other big US companies with lots of cash have hit their natural limits.

Trying to go beyond those limits is tough. Google has not been successful in expanding beyond ads. (Android only makes money as an ad platform; Google's phone revenue is small.) Apple has a lot of cash, but can't find any way to use it that will yield the kind of margins Apple is used to. Facebook is still growing, but again, it's all ads.

There's only so much ad spending in the world, and the ad-based companies are all fighting over the same pot. There's more room to grow when your business model is "sell everything".

You mean Germany has the autobahn. And seen a smart car going down the freeway, usually they're fighting to keep the car on the road about the time they get hit by draft buffeting. I even saw one manage to lose it, spin out, and disintegrate after getting hit by buffeting on a wet highway.

You know the greenie groups like to claim that 100,000 species are wiped out every year. That of course is a pile of BS.

Don't worry if it flies over your head, but the data goes back to 1913.

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.