Saturday, May 30, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lane-splitting-road-legalization-california-state-assembly-bill-passes/

Motorcyclists may face new rules on California's roads
CBS NEWS
May 30, 2015

California is a step closer to becoming the first state to legalize "lane splitting," when a motorcycle rider drives between other vehicles on congested streets and freeways. The State Assembly has passed a bill making the practice legal, CBS News' Ben Tracy reports.

In most states, riders must stay in a marked lane, like a car. In California, riding the white lines is allowed but has never been regulated.

Now, the State Assembly has passed a bill that would put strict limits on lane-splitting speeds.

Motorcycles could travel up to 15 mph faster than the flow of traffic, up to a maximum overall speed of 50 mph.

Will Texas motorcyclists be allowed to "lane split"?

State Assemblyman Tom Lackey, a former California Highway Patrol officer, co-authored the bill and cites safety as a factor.

"By allowing them to move between vehicles in a safe manner lessens their likelihood of much more serious injury, and it also allows for the free-flow of traffic," he said.

Legalizing lane splitting is gaining support among riders.

"One of the main reasons we do it is to be safe," said motorcycle rider Sebastian Rodriguez. "If a car rear-ends a car, it's a bumper that gets broken. If a car rear-ends a motorcyclist, it could be a leg that gets broken."

Although studies indicate careful lane splitting is no more dangerous than other kinds of driving, accidents will happen. Motorcycle rider Robert Gutierrez admitted he couldn't steer clear of a collision in which he was involved.

"I was splitting lanes, and he was coming out, and I was like, 'Oh, should I avoid him or not?'" he said.

While Lackey said his bill moves riding in the right direction, many drivers remain skeptical.

"Accidents happen no matter what miles per hour you're going, so whether it's 15 or 50, if they're not checking the mirrors, you know, good luck," said motorist David Timmons. "You're tempting fate at that point."

Next stop, the State Senate. Lackey hopes the road rules will become law by 2016.

"This measure is so important because it will directly result in the saving of lives," Lackey said.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_splitting

Lane splitting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lane splitting refers to a two-wheeled vehicle moving between roadway lanes of vehicles that are proceeding in the same direction. More narrowly, it refers to overtaking slow or stopped vehicles by traveling between lanes.[1][2] It is also sometimes called lane sharing, whitelining,[3] filtering, or stripe-riding.[4]

Alternatively, lane splitting has been used to describe moving through traffic that is in motion. It is similar to filtering, or filtering forward, which is used to describe moving through traffic that is stopped.[5][6] When the space used is between two lines of vehicles, this is also known as lane splitting; however, filtering can be accomplished by using space on the outside edge of same-direction traffic as well. There can be significant savings of time by bypassing what otherwise would be obstructions.[7][8]

In the United States[edit]

Lane splitting by motorcycles is illegal in certain places, such as most US states with the sole exception being California, but widely used and legal in many other countries.[2] Additionally, the legality of lane splitting for motorcycles and bicycles is the same in some places, such as California,[9] but different in other places, such as Nebraska, where lane splitting is prohibited specifically for motorcycles and is therefore lawful for bicycles.[10]

Safety[edit]

Lane splitting is controversial in the United States,[18][19][20][21] and is sometimes an issue in other countries. Questions are debated as to whether or not it is legal, whether or not it should be legal, and whether or not it should be practiced regardless of legality. Bills to legalize lane splitting have been introduced in state legislatures around the US over the last twenty years but so far none has been enacted.[22][23][24][25][26][27]

Filtering forward, in stopped or extremely slow traffic, requires very slow speed and awareness that in a door zone, vehicle doors may unexpectedly open. Also, unexpected vehicle movements such as lane changes may occur with little warning. Buses and tractor-trailers require extreme care, as the cyclist may be nearly invisible to the drivers who may not expect someone to be filtering forward. To avoid a hook collision with a turning vehicle at an intersection after filtering forward to the intersection, cyclists are taught to either take a position directly in front of the stopped lead vehicle, or stay behind the lead vehicle. Cyclists should not stop directly at the passenger side of the lead vehicle, that being a blind spot.[28][29][30]

Research[edit]
Little safety research in the United States has directly examined the question of lane splitting. Preliminary findings from a University of California, Berkeley study were published in October, 2014 with a full report expected by the end of the year.[31] The European MAIDS report studied the causes of motorcycle accidents in four countries where it is legal and one where it is not, yet reached no conclusion as to whether it contributed to or prevented accidents.[4]

Proponents of lane splitting state the Hurt Report of 1981 reached the conclusion that lane splitting improves motorcycle safety by reducing rear end crashes.[21] Lane splitting supporters also state that the US DOT FARS database shows that fatalities from rear end collisions into motorcycles are 30% lower in California than in Florida or Texas, states with similar riding seasons and populations but which do not lane split.[32] No specifics are given about where this conclusion is found in the FARS system. The database is available online to the public.[33] The NHSTA does say, based on the Hurt Report, that lane splitting "slightly reduces" rear-end accidents, and is worthy of further study due to the possible congestion reduction benefits.[2]

Lane splitting is never mentioned anywhere in the Hurt Report, and all of the data was collected in California, so no comparison was made between of lane splitting vs. non-lane splitting. The Hurt Report ends with a list of 55 specific findings, such as "Fuel system leaks and spills are present in 62% of the motorcycle accidents in the post-crash phase. This represents an undue hazard for fire." None of these findings mentions lane splitting, or rear end collisions. The legislative and law enforcement advice that follows this list does not mention lane splitting or suggest laws be changed with regard to lane splitting.

In Europe, the MAIDS Report was conducted using Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) standards in 1999–2000 and collected data on over 900 motorcycle accidents in five countries, along with non-accident exposure data (control cases) to measure the contribution of different factors to accidents, in the same way as the Hurt Report. Four of the five countries where data was collected allow lane splitting, while one does not, yet none of the conclusions contained in the MAIDS Final Report note any difference in rear-end accidents or accidents during lane splitting. It is notable that the pre-crash motion of the motorcycle or scooter was lane-splitting in only 0.4% of cases, in contrast to the more common accident situations such as "Moving in a straight line, constant speed" 49.1% and "Negotiating a bend, constant speed" 12.1%. The motorcyclist was stopped in traffic prior to 2.8% of the accidents.[4]

Preliminary results from a study in the United Kingdom, conducted by the University of Nottingham for the Department for Transport, show that filtering is responsible for around 5% of motorcycle Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) accidents.[34] It also found that in these KSI cases the motorist is twice as likely to be at fault as the motorcyclist due to motorists "failing to take into account possible motorcycle riding strategies in heavy traffic".[34]




“In most states, riders must stay in a marked lane, like a car. In California, riding the white lines is allowed but has never been regulated. Now, the State Assembly has passed a bill that would put strict limits on lane-splitting speeds. Motorcycles could travel up to 15 mph faster than the flow of traffic, up to a maximum overall speed of 50 mph. …. Although studies indicate careful lane splitting is no more dangerous than other kinds of driving, accidents will happen. Motorcycle rider Robert Gutierrez admitted he couldn't steer clear of a collision in which he was involved. "I was splitting lanes, and he was coming out, and I was like, 'Oh, should I avoid him or not?'" he said. While Lackey said his bill moves riding in the right direction, many drivers remain skeptical.”

I didn’t realize at first exactly what the term “lane-splitting referred to. What I really hate is when motorcycles ride in the same lanes as the larger vehicles and especially when they erratically move back and forth in and out of lanes. One of the problems is that I can’t recall ever seeing a turn signal on a motorcycle, or a cyclist using the old fashioned hand signals to indicate that he wants to change lanes. I have also seen them a few times riding actually on the white line, which is what this article refers to. Good old Wikipedia has a good article on the subject, including what is legal in other countries. Very interesting. In the highly congested traffic areas such as Asia, riding down the center between lanes is legal and occurs frequently, and may move the traffic along better, according to Wiki. It is true that when a motorcycle has been riding on the white line it has definitely been more easily visible to me, whereas coming along on my left in my blind spot is much trickier if the biker is alone. A large group of cycles in the passing lane, of course, can’t be missed by the driver, which is the main reason I prefer for them to do it that way. My favorite way for motorbikes to ride is in groups which ride in a disciplined manner two by two in the left or passing lane, especially as they are almost always traveling faster than cars. They are more visible and can get the heck of my way faster that way. As you can probably tell, I would like to see them banned just like pit bulls. I hate the immature way bikers usually act, and I hate their noise. I would like to point out that I passed a motorcycle in town one day a few years ago and, wonder of wonders, it didn’t make a loud and obnoxious roar. Apparently it is possible for bike owners to get an effective muffler for their hogs, but it seems they aren’t required to do so by law. While California is making laws, they should make that one, too.





http://news.yahoo.com/dennis-hastert-allegedly-engaged-sexual-misconduct-during-time-202654802.html

Dennis Hastert Allegedly Engaged in Sexual Misconduct With Male Individual During Time as Teacher, Sources Say
By JOHN PARKINSON, ARLETTE SAENZ, JOSH MARGOLIN and MIKE LEVINE
May 29, 2015

Photograph -- Dennis Hastert Allegedly Engaged in Sexual Misconduct With Male Individual

The alleged "misconduct" referenced in the indictment of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert is of a sexual nature involving a male individual, dating back to Hastert's time as a high school wrestling coach and history teacher in Yorkville, Illinois, sources with knowledge of the case told ABC News.

Related Stories --
Latest on Dennis Hastert: Statue to honor ex-speaker on hold Associated Press
Latest on Hastert: Boehner 'shocked' by reports Associated Press

Associates and former colleagues of Hastert expressed surprise and dismay today over allegations that he disbursed $1.7 million in hush money payments to conceal alleged misconduct from a period before he entered politics.

The school district that employed Hastert from 1965 to 1981 as a high school history teacher and wrestling coach noted it "was first made aware of any concerns regarding Mr. Hastert when the federal indictment was released" Thursday.

The indictment revealed that Hastert's time at Yorkville, in Illinois, is "material" to the allegations against him and the U.S. Attorney's investigation. The indictment itself does not mention what the alleged misconduct is.

A statement released by Yorkville Community Unit School District #115 added it "has no knowledge of Mr. Hastert's alleged misconduct, nor has any individual contacted the District to report any such misconduct. If requested to do so, the District plans to cooperate fully with the U.S. Attorney's investigation into this matter."

A spokesman for Dickstein Shapiro LLC, the lobbying firm that Hastert joined in 2008 after leaving Congress, confirmed in a brief statement that "Dennis Hastert has resigned from the firm."

Ron Safer, a former U.S. prosecutor in Chicago who is now in private practice, said the indictment "is weird for a hundred different reasons."

"If you are trying to keep everything secret, you don't indict," Safer told ABC News. "Because eventually this information will have to come out either when he pleads, because that’s public, and a factual basis will have to be revealed," Safer told ABC News. "I cannot imagine a judge sealing that. ... The public has a right to this kind of information. This guy is a public official."

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest declined comment directly on the indictment because the matter "falls into the category of an active Department of Justice investigation," but indicated that President Obama expects a comprehensive investigation.

"Even though Speaker Hastert served as the Speaker of House in the other party, there's nobody here who derives any pleasure from reading about the former speaker's legal troubles at this point," Earnest said. "As a more general matter, the responsibility that the Department of Justice has to make sure that our public officials are not violating the public's trust is an important responsibility. And again I won't speak to any of the specific cases but the president certainly believes they have an important job to do and expects them to do it."

Hastert is likely to be arraigned next week, but a date has not yet been set and is entirely up to the judge. The U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago confirmed that no bond has been set. Customarily, the arraignment happens within five days to a week of an indictment, and bond will be set when Hastert is arraigned, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney.

Some of Hastert's former colleagues on Capitol Hill also expressed dismay over the allegations of misconduct.

"Anyone who knows Denny is shocked and confused by the recent news," Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who served in the House with Hastert. "The former speaker should be afforded, like any other American, his day in court to address these very serious accusations. This is a very troubling development that we must learn more about, but I am thinking of his family during this difficult time."

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who served in the House with Hastert from 1991 to 1995, said the allegation of misconduct spelled out in the indictment "doesn’t make any sense to me."

"I'm very disappointed in what I've heard and I want to find out more about it," Santorum told CNN today. "To see this kind of revelation is really upsetting. I feel bad for everybody involved."

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner declined to comment, stressing that Boehner will need more information before potentially commenting.

Margaret Matlock said she taught physical education at the high school during Hastert's time there and recalls he had a highly regarded reputation.

"Everybody adored him because he was the wrestling coach and they were always winning state champions," Matlock said.

David Corwin, whose son Scott Corwin was on one of the wrestling teams coached by Hastert, said the former speaker was a devoted coach and teacher.

"He was a good coach. He took them to wrestling camps in the off season and he did whatever he could for them. He was a good teacher. Couldn't have asked for a nicer guy," David Corwin said.

Hastert has not responded to multiple requests for comment by ABC News.

ABC News' Jordyn Phelps and Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.




“A statement released by Yorkville Community Unit School District #115 added it "has no knowledge of Mr. Hastert's alleged misconduct, nor has any individual contacted the District to report any such misconduct. If requested to do so, the District plans to cooperate fully with the U.S. Attorney's investigation into this matter." A spokesman for Dickstein Shapiro LLC, the lobbying firm that Hastert joined in 2008 after leaving Congress, confirmed in a brief statement that "Dennis Hastert has resigned from the firm." …. "If you are trying to keep everything secret, you don't indict," Safer told ABC News. "Because eventually this information will have to come out either when he pleads, because that’s public, and a factual basis will have to be revealed," Safer told ABC News. "I cannot imagine a judge sealing that. ... The public has a right to this kind of information. This guy is a public official." White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest declined comment directly on the indictment because the matter "falls into the category of an active Department of Justice investigation," but indicated that President Obama expects a comprehensive investigation. …. "Even though Speaker Hastert served as the Speaker of House in the other party, there's nobody here who derives any pleasure from reading about the former speaker's legal troubles at this point," Earnest said.”

I must admit I feel a bit sorry for Hastert. He wasn’t on my list of public enemies (such as Rick Perry for one), and, unless he was one of those who were involved with the pages in the scandal several years ago, he has been either very discreet about it or comparatively clean in his later years. I do blame him, however, for involving himself with underage youths while he was a teacher – thus in a position of power over them. That puts him in the position of being a victimizer rather than a lover.



http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/buzzfeed-potentially-several-alleged-victims-in-hasterts-past/ar-BBkoXpX?ocid=iehp

BuzzFeed: 'Potentially Several Alleged Victims' In Hastert's Past
Talking Points Memo
Catherine Thompson
May 29, 2015

An anonymous source familiar with the case of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said federal prosecutors knew of "prior misdeeds" Hastert committed against potentially several alleged victims that were not included in Thursday's indictment, BuzzFeed News reported Friday.

Around the same time and based on the accounts of two anonymous federal law enforcement officials, The Los Angeles Times reported that Hastert allegedly agreed to pay out $3.5 million in hush money to an unidentified man to compensate for sexual abuse that occurred while the former House speaker was working as a high school teacher and coach in Yorkville, Illinois.

BuzzFeed's anonymous source told the outlet that U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon considered additional charges against Hastert in regards to an "Individual B," which ultimately were not pursued. No further charges are expected to be filed, the source told BuzzFeed.

This article was written by Catherine Thompson from Talking Points Memo and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.




“An anonymous source familiar with the case of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said federal prosecutors knew of "prior misdeeds" Hastert committed against potentially several alleged victims that were not included in Thursday's indictment …” That does look as though the investigators were planning to do a white wash on the matter, doesn’t it? Good for Anonymous! “Around the same time and based on the accounts of two anonymous federal law enforcement officials, The Los Angeles Times reported that Hastert allegedly agreed to pay out $3.5 million in hush money to an unidentified man to compensate for sexual abuse …. U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon considered additional charges against Hastert in regards to an "Individual B," which ultimately were not pursued.” Perhaps they decided to spare Hastert in the case of victim number 2 because he is a wealthy and powerful Republican, or possibly because he was relatively well-liked in general. Personally, the photographs of his face on the news have been enough to make me feel some mercy toward him. He looks like a chastened man already. It’s like the wonderful book “The Scarlet Letter.” I think he will wear that letter the rest of his life.





http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/05/29/fox-amp-friends-doesnt-see-any-problem-with-sta/203815

Fox & Friends Doesn't See Any Problem With Statue That Displays Native Americans Kneeling To White Missionary
Blog ››› RACHEL CALVERT
May 29, 2015

Fox & Friends cried reverse racism when St. Louis University relocated what students and faculty considered a racially and culturally insensitive statue of Native Americans kneeling in front of a white missionary.

Following student and faculty complaints, St. Louis University relocated a statue depicting Native Americans being converted by Belgian missionary Fr. Pierre DeSmet, S.J. According to St. Louis Magazine, university officials pointed to concerns of cultural insensitivity and "white supremacy" in explaining the decision to move the statue inside the university's art museum:

Clayton Berry, SLU's assistant vice president for communications, tells SLM that the statue was moved to the university's art museum after staff voiced concerns.

"In more recent years, there have been some faculty and staff who have raised questions about whether the sculpture is culturally sensitive," Berry says. "Hearing that feedback, the decision was made to place the piece within the historical context of a collection that's on permanent display in our SLU Museum of Art."

University staff weren't alone in finding the statue of two Indian men submitting to a white man troubling. Two years before its removal, the student newspaper called it "the most controversial and misunderstood of all the artwork on the Saint Louis University campus." During Occupy SLU, the six-day student protest against racial inequality sparked by the Ferguson protests, Twitter user @EmmaculateJones shared photos of the statue, calling it a visual representation of "white supremacy on SLU campus."

However, Fox contributor Tucker Carlson called the relocation an "act of racism" on the May 29 edition of Fox & Friends, insisting to co-hosts that the statue's detractors were likely "wholly ignorant" of DeSmet's good works:

KILMEADE: It's a statue of Father Pierre Jean DeSmet ... And right there he is blessing American Indians back in his day. You know why? He was a Belgian Catholic priest who was able to convert countless members of American [[-]] Indians back in that day, and the American Indian community embraced him and his legacy. And among his good friends was actually Sitting Bull.

[...]

CARLSON: Despite those facts, of which I think the student body is likely wholly ignorant, the statue has been removed and shuttled off to a museum where it will be shown with the appropriate cultural context. Why? Because he was a white supremacist? No. Because he was white. His skin color is itself considered so offensive by the school that this statue can no longer be on display.

[...]

KILMEADE: Did anyone even Google this?

[...]

HASSELBECK: I mean, just do your homework! He was a friend to that community, reached out, and because of him a major treaty was signed. And after he died, only then did things get even more violent. He was the peacekeeper between the two groups.

This is hardly the first time that Fox News has brandished supposed reverse discrimination to demean attempts at correcting actual injustice.



http://www.salon.com/2012/04/26/tucker_carlsons_downward_spiral/

Tucker Carlson’s downward spiral
Alex Pareen
April 26, 2012

Alex Pareene's annual Hack List is so popular -- and useful -- we thought we should spread it out over the year. This is the first in a regular feature taking a deeper look at our media's most pernicious hacks, which we'll rank in order at year's end.
In many ways Tucker Carlson’s a better symbol of the pathetic state of what passes for conservative journalism than even Glenn Beck or the late Andrew Breitbart, to name two of his contemporaries with a much larger following. Glenn Beck started as a no-account shock jock and is now a no-account Internet show host. Breitbart at least went from Drudge lackey to successful right-wing media mogul. Carlson, though, began his career in the most respectable fashion possible and has spent the ensuing decades gradually lowering himself into the gutter. His story illustrates why we can’t have a responsible or at least slightly less hysterical conservative media.

The Daily Caller, the site he launched with a promise to offer a new model for conservative journalism, is primarily a catalog of sleazy traffic-baiting aggregated Web garbage (“Top 10: Most beautiful ‘most beautiful’ women [SLIDESHOW]“), ancient relics of online commentary with nowhere else left to publish (Ann Coulter, Mickey Kaus), and overblown scandal-mongering headlines that promise much more than they can deliver. In other words it is like a mean-spirited parody of a conservative version of the pre-AOL Huffington Post, with a healthy dose, recently, of attention-grabbing race baiting. This is not the sort of thing Carlson used to be known for.




“According to St. Louis Magazine, university officials pointed to concerns of cultural insensitivity and "white supremacy" in explaining the decision to move the statue inside the university's art museum: Clayton Berry, SLU's assistant vice president for communications, tells SLM that the statue was moved to the university's art museum after staff voiced concerns. "In more recent years, there have been some faculty and staff who have raised questions about whether the sculpture is culturally sensitive," Berry says. "Hearing that feedback, the decision was made to place the piece within the historical context of a collection that's on permanent display in our SLU Museum of Art." …. Two years before its removal, the student newspaper called it "the most controversial and misunderstood of all the artwork on the Saint Louis University campus." During Occupy SLU, the six-day student protest against racial inequality sparked by the Ferguson protests ….

William F. Buckley, Jr, Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlton all have one thing in common. They are all fiercely pretentious and utterly devoid of anything useful to say. They are intelligent, but like certain criminals, they use their mind for evil. "Nuff said!”




WATER WARS?


http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/05/29/media-pick-apart-anti-immigrant-groups-ad-blami/203820

Media Pick Apart Anti-Immigrant Group's Ad Blaming California Water Shortage On Immigration
Blog ››› CRISTINA LOPEZ
May 29, 2015

Univision and the Los Angeles Times have thoroughly debunked an ad by the anti-immigrant group Californians For Population Stabilization (CAPS) that blames California's drought-induced water shortage on immigration.

Although CAPS presents itself as an organization focused on "preserv[ing] the environment," numerous experts have pointed out that the group disingenuously uses environmental concerns to promote an anti-immigrant agenda. For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has described CAPS as "a nativist organization masquerading as an environmental group." Similarly, Huffington Post reported that the executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC) remarked of CAPS: "They're basically trying to find any way to spin their anti-immigrant vitriol, so hey, why not choose the environment?" And NBC News reported that "[t]he National Council of La Raza said CAPS can say their concern is the environment, but that it is actually an anti-immigrant group."

According to SPLC, CAPS is part of an anti-immigration network that includes several organizations that have been labeled as "hate groups." Further, SPLC notes that CAPS has received funding from the Pioneer Fund, which has bankrolled "leading Anglo-American race scientists." The California drought is not the first example of CAPS exploiting a crisis in order to advance its anti-immigrant agenda -- in 2011, the group used California's unemployment rate to advocate for "slow[ing] legal immigration."

CAPS' television ad that plays on concerns about the drought features a young boy asking, "[i]f Californians are having fewer children, why isn't there enough water?" On the May 27 edition of Univision's Noticiero Univision, correspondent Luis Megid interviewed San Francisco State University professor Oswaldo Garcia about the ad:

Garcia, a meteorology professor and tropical climatology expert, dismissed CAPS' claims. He noted that although California's population has grown, 80 percent of the state's developed water supply is used for agricultural -- not residential -- purposes.

The Los Angeles Times also rebutted CAPS in both a news article and column. Addressing CAPS' claims in a May 24 article, the Times reported:

Some drought experts have taken issue with [CAPS'] claims, pointing out that the majority of the state's water supports agriculture.

Blaming the drought on immigrants "doesn't fit the facts," said William Patzert, a climatologist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The drought is caused by meager snowpack and poor planning, he said, "not because the immigrants are drinking too much water or taking too many showers.

Others point out that many immigrants probably use less water than the average California resident because they tend to live in multi-family dwellings, not higher-consuming single-family homes.

"It's unlikely that the 'burden' of immigrants is very significant," said Stephanie Pincetl, professor in residence at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA."

Additionally, in a May 26 column, the Times' Michael Hiltzik wrote that CAPS was "exploit[ing]" the drought by "immigrant bashing," and added that "pointing the finger at immigrants" is "cynical, dishonest and factually incorrect." Hiltzik noted that even with population growth, "a sharp reduction in urban per capital water use" has allowed the state's total water consumption to go down (emphasis added):

The truth is that California has been able to sustain that huge increase in population without a commensurate increase in water consumption--actually, with a decrease in water consumption. In 1990, when the census placed the state's population at 29.8 million, the state's freshwater withdrawals came to 35.1 billion gallons per day, according to the authoritative U.S. Geological Survey. In 2010, with a population of 37.3 million, that state drew 31.1 billion gallons per day.

How did that happen? Chiefly through a sharp reduction in urban per capital water use, which has been falling steadily since the mid-1990s, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, and especially in the populous coastal zone.

CAPS' anti-immigration claims, which were recently echoed by the National Review, are reminiscent of other conservative media outlets that have used the California drought as an opportunity to baselessly attack environmental policies.




“Univision and the Los Angeles Times have thoroughly debunked an ad by the anti-immigrant group Californians For Population Stabilization (CAPS) that blames California's drought-induced water shortage on immigration. Although CAPS presents itself as an organization focused on "preserv[ing] the environment," numerous experts have pointed out that the group disingenuously uses environmental concerns to promote an anti-immigrant agenda. …. According to SPLC, CAPS is part of an anti-immigration network that includes several organizations that have been labeled as "hate groups." Further, SPLC notes that CAPS has received funding from the Pioneer Fund, which has bankrolled "leading Anglo-American race scientists." …. in 2011, the group used California's unemployment rate to advocate for "slow[ing] legal immigration." CAPS' television ad that plays on concerns about the drought features a young boy asking, "[i]f Californians are having fewer children, why isn't there enough water?" …. Garcia, a meteorology professor and tropical climatology expert, dismissed CAPS' claims. He noted that although California's population has grown, 80 percent of the state's developed water supply is used for agricultural -- not residential -- purposes. …. Blaming the drought on immigrants "doesn't fit the facts," said William Patzert, a climatologist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The drought is caused by meager snowpack and poor planning, he said, "not because the immigrants are drinking too much water or taking too many showers. …. Additionally, in a May 26 column, the Times' Michael Hiltzik wrote that CAPS was "exploit[ing]" the drought by "immigrant bashing," and added that "pointing the finger at immigrants" is "cynical, dishonest and factually incorrect." Hiltzik noted that even with population growth, "a sharp reduction in urban per capital water use" has allowed the state's total water consumption to go down (emphasis added) …. CAPS' anti-immigration claims, which were recently echoed by the National Review, are reminiscent of other conservative media outlets that have used the California drought as an opportunity to baselessly attack environmental policies.”

It’s Hillary Clinton’s vast rightwing conspiracy again, and it’s led by the Koch brothers and other large corporations including farms like Monsanto. They just don’t want to reduce our carbon footprint or save water, or grow crops that are actually adapted to a dry climate, except maybe for the vineyards. I understand that wine is best made from grapes raised in dry places.

They are, of course, also more often racist and Xenophobic than modern-day progressives are. Most people in the US are actually limited educationally and emotionally, especially when they are highly doctrinaire in their religious beliefs. One characteristic of modern fundamentalist Christianity is a high degree of inflexibility and exclusiveness. We are a population derived from “the dregs” of Europe in some ways, in that most of our early settlers were relatively poor and uneducated. They came here to escape severe and intractable poverty in Europe’s cities. Many of them were, in fact, criminals, with certain states being set up as penal colonies. They were the class that in earlier times would have been called “peasants.” The land grants, when given to more wealthy people generally went to the youngest sons and others who weren’t going to inherit the bulk of the family fortune. They also were less liberal in their religious views, with “low church” groups and religious radicals dominating. They could read and write, but they had to work for a living. They had land, but they weren’t gentlemen farmers, except in the slave-holding South. I heard years ago that present day North Carolina was “a Vale of Humility between Two Mountains of Conceit. George Washington, the wealthy gentleman farmer, lived in Virginia.

It’s clear to me that one of the main things that will happen in a progressively warming environment is that there will be more drought, and as Patzert said, a reduction in snowfall. There is a hopeful article today about El Nino possibly causing more rainfall on the West Coast this year. I hope so, but if it all comes at the rate of 10” per hour as it has been in Texas there will be the same disastrous flooding and mudslides, so that’s not good. It would be helpful if a great many new deep and cement-lined reservoirs were built so that when the rain is coming down at those huge rates it could be caught and preserved. See the interesting article about the desert city of Petra and it’s system of underground cisterns. Some of the rainfall trapped there would become runoff, but some would be saved for drinking and bathing. I include the whole article because Petra is not only beautiful, it is a technological marvel which was carved out of the “living rock.” I think our modern day engineers might look at it as a way of developing our drought-resistant new cities of the future.





http://nabataea.net/waterw.html
Petra, Capital City of Nabatea

Throughout the city of Petra are hundreds of underground water cisterns. Every possible drop of rainwater, as well as the water piped into the city was stored and used later.

You might also want to check out the paper on Nabataean Water Collection

Extended Abstract from: Petra Water Systems : The water supply and distribution system of the Nabataean city of Petra in southwestern Jordan has been explored and together with data extracted from excavation sources, key cisterns, dams, springs, channels and pipelines comprising the water distribution system have been placed on a site map [Figure 1, The Water Supply and Distribution System of the Nabataean City of Petra (Jordan), 300 BC-AD 300, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15:1, 93-109, 2005]. Analysis of the system indicates exploitation of all possible water resources using management techniques that balance reservoir storage capacity release with continuous flow pipeline systems to maintain a constant water supply throughout the wet and dry seasons of the year.

The origins of Petra began ca. 300 BCE. Urban development progressed with later Roman administration of the city starting at 106 CE; final Byzantine occupation to the 7th century CE completed site occupation history. Trade networks that extended throughout much of the ancient orient and Mediterranean world intersected at Petra and brought not only strategic and economic prominence but also impetus to develop water resources fully to sustain increasing population and city elaboration demands. City development was influenced by artistic, cultural and technological borrowings from Seleucid, Syro-Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Eastern civilizations through trade route associations; the Petra water distribution system showed indications of hydraulic technologies derived from these contacts as well as original technical innovations that helped to maintain the high living standard of city dwellers throughout the centuries.

Analysis of Nabataean piping networks indicates that design criteria are employed that promote stable flows within piping, use sequential particle settling basins to purify potable water supplies, promote open channel flows within piping at near critical (maximum) flow rates that avoid leakage associated with pressurized systems and are designed to match the spring supply rate to the maximum carrying capacity of a pipeline. Estimates of the total city water input from multiple piping networks derived from spring sources and stored cistern water supplies (including latest discoveries of subterranean water cisterns) are made and compared to the water supply rate of ancient Rome in the same era; although a fraction of Rome's supply rate, the amounts are more than adequate to provide for the hygiene and practical needs of the city.

New discoveries related to maximizing water flow rates by internal piping wall surface roughness patterns appear to predate later discoveries in western science by some 20 centuries. This, and other demonstrations of engineering capability in hydraulic system design indicates a high degree of skill in solving complex hydraulics problems to ensure a stable water supply and may be posited as a key reason behind the many centuries of flourishing city life.Extended abstract from: Petra Water Systems by C. R. Ortloff.

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