Watered With Good Intentions
Posted in Environment by Julie Ponzi
Pardon the excessively local character of
this particular story now capturing my imagination, but I cannot help but note it for the larger moral it brings us regarding environmental "experts" and their good intentions. It turns out that the month of September has brought with it a record number of water-main breaks in Los Angeles County. City engineers now openly speculate that the aging infrastructure cannot handle the watering restrictions imposed in the name of water conservation. Lawn and garden watering is now restricted to two specific days of the week. It does not take an active imagination to think through what has been the result. Water pressure is massively intensified on those two particular days as everyone rushes to water at the same time. Sink holes, disrupted water service, wasted water, and massive repair bills now plague an already over-taxed and under-served people. Yes, liberals . . . it's always a very good idea to trust the wisdom of bureaucrats to regulate the minute details of your life.
3:07 PM / September 24, 2009
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California (and LA in particular) clearly has some issues with its water system. What do you suggest, Julie, to avoid such "wisdom of the bureaucrats"? Do you know what led to the water restrictions in the first place in LA?
https://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/11/emptying-reservoirs-in-the-mid/
Yes, conservatives ... it's always a good idea to respond to a carefully worded question by linking to an article on a website that proudly advertises "conservative t-shirts" in the sidebar, "The Largest Selection of Liberal-baiting Merchandise on the Net!"
Still, this is Julie.
Yes, liberals...it's always good idea when you can't respond to an argument to focus on the ads on the site where the argument is found.
Dear Yersinia,
There's no argument to respond to when the author offers such question begging morsels as "the question is whether people should exercise dominion over nature, or whether nature should lord over man," before proceeding with a series of moronic and self-serving remarks - this, in particular, raised a chuckle: "Most species for whose preservation the power of government has been harnessed are ones whose loss few would mourn, or even notice." Ah, yes: that precious majority, as opposed to those lunatic "few," whose credentials as environmental scientists are legend among the right.
When there's an argument worth responding to, hell, when there's even an argument, I'll respond, but until then I'll stick with cheap shots, if it's all the same to you.
In the words of a friend of mine, be quiet: grown ups are speaking.
Yes, "Another one," I too noticed that line about "the question is whether people should exercise dominion over nature, or whether nature should lord over man." I'd guess that the writer and the vast majority of their readership would be against the sort of "dominion over nature" that is represented by, say, birth control pills. But the Ann Coulter variety, involving raping the planet as much and as often as one wishes, provided they possess a property deed, well, that's just fine.
Wow, Julie's most recent link here, to the American Spectator article (that presumably was her response to my question), offered me this when I opened it:
"Hello, I’m Mark Levin.
The far left hates Spectator.org.
That’s why I love reading it.
Help spread their message.
CLICK HERE and Donate."
American Spectator - buy it because the far left hates it!
Anyway, I didn't quite get how the content of that Spectator article addressed my question about LA's water situation (which was the subject of Julie's original post), as it deals, only indirectly, with the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which isn't connected to Los Angeles. The article is primarily a screed against government and the Endangered Species Act and calling for the "common sense" that the author claims to possess. I didn't see how it connected to the issues of LA, their watering bans and their infrastructure issues at all.
Julie complains about problems with the "aging infrastructure" and how residents are "already over-taxed and under-served" by the "bureaucrats" who "regulate the minute details of your life." Presumably, they are also pocketing some of those excessive taxes, too, if you have so many infrastructure issues despite them. So, the problem is the government, the bureaucrats, telling people when to water their lawns. If people had their liberty and could just water as they pleased, without the government meddling, all would be fine. Perhaps what you need is (more) water privatization!
Read this and then let me know how much you really want it.
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/private-vs-public/case-studies-of-failed-water-privatizations
It includes details of problems that LA County has already had with water privatization - read about R. Keith McDonald and his 10 federal felony counts for kickbacks and votes-for-cash schemes; he's just one of 12 convicted in South Bay corruption brought on by privatization of services.
Keep in mind, too, that in California, households pay 20% more, on average, for water services from private providers than from public. And you get pollution, high operating costs, and corruption. Big improvement.
Julie, did you send that American Spectator article to Sean Hannity, too? It seems he's really latched on to it, even though, much like the article itself, he's just drawn a whole series of ahistorical, convoluted, ridiculous conclusions.
Jon Stewart obliterates it pretty tidily, and he's also funnier than Hannity or the Spectator writer:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/30/jon-stewart-schools-sean_n_304011.html