Water Numbers

Water water is everywhere so let's all have a.....oh wait a sec, it's as salty as sam, yo.

Everybody talkin' California drought left and right these days. William Shatner has a kickstarter going which aims to raise 30 billion (!!!) to build a water pipeline from Washington state to California state.

If it's at the point where people are willing to even think about investing that much money into solving the problem it would be good to understand the numbers involved with the situation before applying any sort of plan into action.

I don't pretend to be smart or anything, but, I do think having a basic understanding of the quantities and numbers involved in problematic situations does let people generate better opinions on the problem. In regards to energy for instance, I see every day people saying this or that will solve the energy problem and get us off fossil fuels....but when you do the math these solutions in some cases would only produce a fraction of what is needed to operate human earth in an advance technological state. I wrote on article on this blog called, "Rating the Energies, Yeah!" to just try and look at how much energy is needed to run human earth in that advanced state and what energy sources were best to do that.

(That energy article here): https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2014/05/ratin-energies-yeah.html

That article aimed to find how much power in terrawatt hours humans need to operate earth at this highly technically advanced state. Similarly to that article, it might help to find out how much water California presently uses, how much is used per industry, and how much water will be created by proposed solutions at the table.

Like the last article, I'm gonna put the same disclaimer up...because I'm not an expert. I'm not anything. The majority of hours of work in my life has been in the furniture upholstery, wood-working/finishing, and residential moving fields....not in science.

Warning

Look-it my fellow global g-units, I'm not a scientist or anything and the datum and opinions expressed in this blog article are my understandings of what seems to be the numbers on the scenario at hand, maybe all the things I read are false...who knows. I, of fairly sound mind at this moment, believe the statistics and opinions expressed in the following text are true...yet, who knows if they are wicked correct or not. I'm just a dude, man...just like you and me. If something written here is of interest to you then by all means conduct your own research and formulate your own opinions on the subject matter.

California Water Use

The United States Geological Survey presents these statistics for water usage in California, to keep the article uniform all quantities shall be expressed in Gallons:

Water use per Day: 38 billion gallons

Which Industries are Using it....

Agriculture/Irrigation: 64%

Electric Power Generation: 17%

Infasrtucture/Government Use/Domestic: 17% 

Industry/Mining: 2%

Okie-doke, so 38 billion gallons is quite a hefty load of drinkable water used per calendar day (24 hour time period). 

First off, I left "Domestic" use in the table for a valid reason. I didn't just lump it into Government use for the reason to show that domestic use of water is almost non-existent in terms of water usage. This is, of course, the millions of citizens drinking water, flushing toilets, washing cars, filling pools, etc....

Jerry's got it wrong.

So for all those "green" hippies who think they are saving the world by not flushing their toilets until they are overflowing ("if it's yellow let it mellow if it's brown flush it down"), or pretending that turning the faucet off while they brush their teeth is saving the world, or yelling at their neighbor because they see them washing dog poop off their walkway with a hose ("YOU CAN'T WASTE WATER, ARE YOU STUPID!?"). To all these people...you are not saving anything at all, when all domestic use by all citizens amounts to about 7% of water use...you are like a grain of sand in the desert...you are not eco-warriors who are saving the planet...you are simple jabronies...plain and simple. This is a systematic problem that HAS NOTHING to do with domestic water use so next time you see someone running a hose, or brushing their teeth, or flushing pee-pee down a toilet...you have no right to get angry at them with your pretentious eco-warrior voices...so just shut up. Governor Jerry Brown (who always smiles and never frowns) has imposed sanctions on domestic water use but that is not a problem solving measure it is simply a band-aid solution that makes it seem like the public is to blame for the state's water problems.

With that out of the way let's move into the other areas of water usage...

Electric Power Generation is the amount of water used in running power plants in the region. California is already getting its nuclear plants to use ocean water for cooling itself down and stopping them from melting down, therefore, nuclear plants despite using a lot of water are no longer (or will no longer in the future be) using drinkable water but rather salty water. If you are running a nuclear plant and have not switched to using salt water to cool the plant down....you are being very silly....there's no reason you can't use salt water for this procedure.

The out-dated coal is still used to power close to 20% of California, which is pretty fucking bad, and not only is coal the most polluting, difficult for workers to mine, and inefficient....but it also uses a fuck-ton of water. These plants, like nuclear, MUST switch to using salinated coastal ocean water for this process. There is no reason as to why these plants need fresh water from aquifers for their water usage needs. Same goes for natural gas and petroleum plants as well.

Infrastructure and government use regards all sorts of things from public owned establishments to public use. Fire hydrants, commercial businesses, public pools, and other public operated establishments. It amounts to about 10% of total usage.

Now that bad boy, agriculture and irrigation, accounts for about 2/3 of the state's water usage. Unlike power plants, switching to using salt water is not an option because you can't irrigate with salt water, you need fresh water to irrigate. This is indeed an actual problem and it actually needs to be addressed because you can't use 66% of the state's water to operate one sector of the economy.

Agri-Bizness

I referred to California's agriculture as a sector of the economy rather as a food source because that's exactly what it is. They're not planting like rice and stuff there...ok? They are planting what I'd call rich people crops. They plant plumbs, kiwies, almonds, grapes, walnuts, lemons, and weed.

You're not feeding the earth with these crops, these are known as "cash crops" plain and simple. They are called cash crops because people pay a lot of money for these products.

That's another thing that angers me about the "green" hippie community. They are all these vegans who won't eat meat n' potatoes....but will subside themselves on weird rich people nuts grown in California...and they'll be all like "if we all just stayed home and smoked weed all day the world would be a better place!"...well, not to burst your bubble but it takes a lot of fresh water to grow marijuana in case you didn't know.

It's weird because the Americans will go to war with Afganistan and burn all their opium farms because apparently "Drugs are bad m'kay"...but you'll never see the Americans drop napalm on California marijuana farms, will you? Kind of strange.

Even though science shows marijuana is not a dangerous drug and helps cancer patients get their appetite back during chemo...it is still a very addictive drug with millions of users in North America. California produces the most marijuana, way more than any state, almost more than all states combined. To operate these semi-legal farms takes VAST amounts of water. Not only water but the indoor growers use incredible amounts of energy to operate their quasi-legal facilities.

It burns me up because these weed hippies are the most fervent about saving the environment and are always angry at government. I bet they are the same people pissed at the public for brushing their teeth and flushing pee-pee without poo-poo down the terlet. Fuck them, fuck these fucking hippies. Marijuana is a cash crop sucking insane amounts of fresh water and energy out of California...and why?

....just so rich people can get high, that's why.

Same goes for almonds, walnuts, oranges, lemons, and other cash crops. Albeit these have nutritional value at least unlike weed which just gives the user a muscle relaxant agent. These, unlike weed, are legal and counted towards GDP and you'd expect that number to be high right? You'd expect the sector that uses 2/3 of the state's water to be a big huge percentage of the state's GDP right?

Wrong.

Agriculture in total amounts to...wait for it....

....TWO (2%) of California's total GDP! Whoooop-deeee-friggin'-dooooooooooo!

Solutions

First off, Jerry Brown's restrictions on domestic water use are ridiculous. To pretend a guy washing his clothes in San Diego, or a some kid making a jug of Kool-aid in San Franciso is the reason why you have a water crisis is down right ridiculous!

Get the Salt out.

The proposed solution of William Shatner of importing water from Washington state isn't a bad idea but 30 billion is quite a lot of funds...and Washington likes water too...maybe they want that fresh water.

If people are serious about this, the first thing you have to look at is de-salination which although had been around for almost a century is only really getting going lately.

The Middle East is the leader in these plants, out of necessity, because they want to operate large scale industries yet live in the gosh darned desert...so they have no choice but to get the salt out of ocean and sea water. 

California's in this situation as well and if it wants to operate its cash crop farms it needs these plants. The Carlsbad plant, when operational, estimates to produce 50 million gallons of fresh water per calendar day. There are 16 plants of this magnitude being planned in California at the moment.

16 x 50 million = 800 million gallons

Not bad, each plant has a price tag of 1 billion bucks. So...if you slap these all around the coast you can generate quite a bit of fresh water. If Shatner is raising 30 billion (he's not gonna get it by the way) he should be looking at building THIRTY de-salination plants along the Western United States coast line which output fresh water to the Californian region.

46 x 50 million =  2, 300, 000, 000

We know that California needs 38 billion gallons of fresh water per day to support its nuts, grapes, and weed habit. So, 2.3 billion would give them about 6% of the fresh water they need....which honestly doesn't cut it...AT ALL.

Is the answer to build a 30 billion dollar pipe-line and steal water from Washington state? No.

The only answer is to make laws that limit cash crop farming in the region. Sorry.

America'll go napalm all the rice fields in Vietnam just to fuck with them...or it'll go burn up all the cash crop opium fields in Afganistan to de-mafia the region...but you won't see it fucking with illegal cash crop farms in it's own backyard.

If they even limited cash crop farming in California the problem would be solved but they can't. Wasting water to produce 2% of the state's GDP is every citizens god given right! Vegans need their almonds for their diets! Weed addicts need their hit! It's their god given freedom to use this much water!

FIRE! FIRE!

Is it too drastic for Jerry Brown to ask the federal government to drop incendiary liquids on legal and non-legal cash crop farms and burn them sky high? Yes, yes it is. It's too drastic when they do it in other countries too. You can't just burn 'em up. So what do you do?

If pipelines, de-salination, and napalming aren't real answers, then what is? Maybe there's no answer...maybe California behind its alluring facade of Hollywood is actually a down-right mess of a region. 

Maybe the federal government should start similar economic sectors that are strong in California in other regions. Maybe a second or third silicon valley can spring up in other locations around the United States which lures people away from that region is a good idea. Maybe a second Hollywood can spring up in New York or Chicago or Boston or Texas (redneck Hollwood?) which lures people away from the over-saturated California region. Who knows.

Conclusion

The suggested solutions of Jerry Brown to blame the crisis on the domestic population is downright ludicrous.

Shatner's idea of importing water from Washington holds merit but good luck getting 30 billion, g. Good luck convincing the state of Washington to part with its fresh water too.

De-salination plants along the west coast can give them a few billion gallons of fresh water per day...but they use a fuck ton more than 2 billion a day.

Fire bombing all the almonds, walnuts, and marijuana cash crops is simply too drastic.

Who knows. It seems when you pull back the curtain of Hollywood bullshit...this region is simply a wasteful behemoth who runs off coal for power for their energy. It's possibly the most inefficent economy on earth.

The main point to bring up is not to blame regular folks washing their dishes for this mess, that's down right absurd.

Califoooooornia.

Oh Gosh, I really like those Redneck Monkey Movies.....

Geoffrey Lewis (Left): RIP

One of the stars of those old seventies redneck monkey movies died the other day, Mr. Geoffrey Lewis, and that really got me thinking about those old redneck monkey movies again. I'm Talkin' 'bout Any Which Way but Loose and Any Which Way you Can.

It was these movies 'bout two guys, some chicks, and a monkey who run a foul with a nazi biker gang and the cops...so....Clint Eastwood kicks the shit out of all the nazis and the cops.

I saw these movies when I was really young too. A lot of the American stations that I got as a kid (TBS, WGN, SBK) used to take turns showing redneck movies. Whenever I used to come home from school as like a 12 year old kid...the TV would darned sure have some sort of silly redneck movie on.

Redneck movies involved a lot of drinking, fighting, bottle throwing, truck driving, country music, and a touch of romance. An example of a more modern redneck movie would be like Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze where like Swayze has to drink and fight and bang chicks...but the seventies redneck movies were even more better than Roadhouse.

The pace-setter for seventies redneck movies were the Burt Reynolds ones where he has to drive a truck full of goods somewhere (or ride along side in a trans-am keeping the cops away from the truck is more accurate). This one was ALWAYS on after school when I was a kid and I must have seen it numerous numerous times. Looking back now, Smokey and the Bandit, didn't make any sense. Like, Reynolds is a "smuggler" yet he's smuggling BEER over state lines. As a kid I thought this was soooo bad ass but beer is not illegal in any state. What was so bad ass about "smuggling" cases of two-fours over state lines? Nothing. Anyone can deliver beer....it's not illegal at all. There really was no reason for Officer Jackie Gleason to have given Burt Reynolds and good ol' Cletus a hard time for 2 hours due to them having a truck full of beer.

A year after Smokey and the Bandit came out...someone had a great idea. They took the redneck genre of film (drinkin', truck drivin', n' fightin') and threw a monkey in the mix....not just any monkey, but an Indonesian Orangutan into the mix. Now, if you're not familiar with Any but Way which Can you're probably thinking that putting a Sumatran ape into a redneck movie is just a stupid idea....but you're wrong....it's not a stupid idea. It's a brilliant idea is what it is.

There's no real set-up either as to why Clint Eastwood and Geoffrey Lewis are hanging out with an Orangutan. Clint just goes into some shed near his house and fools around in the dark for a bit, and then the lights come on and it's an orangutan....and then they high five and start chugging beer. That's it. There's no scene about him meeting the ape and there really doesn't need to be. Clint Eastwood is a bare-knuckle boxer who has a monkey...get used to it.

The President of the United States

Look, putting a primate into your films just makes them better, it just does. It's like adding salt to french fries, or bacon on pizza...getting a monkey into your movie just automatically makes it better. It has to be a REAL monkey though...not an animatronic one like in that Korean gorilla baseball movie, and it can't be a midget in a monkey suit like in that Matt LeBlanc baseball movie...IT MUST BE a LIVE n' REAL MONKEY....like in Bedtime for Bonzo starring Ronald Reagan (I've never actually seen Bedtime for Bonzo but from the title I assume it's about the president of the United States helping a monkey fall asleep). It's gotta be a for-real ape...a computer generated monkey or a midget in a suit cannot replicate the effect, it just can't.

It always works, always. Like, Grandma's Boy was a great movie and then they made it even better by whippin' a monkey in it. It can't fail, it's a fool proof strategy.

If you don't like monkeys....there's something veritably wrong with you.


RIP Geoffrey Lewis

What a great actor, he's probably like the first guy ever to wear a baseball cap backwards and that became really cool to do for a while. The last time I saw this guy in a movie, I was actually quite disappointed in what I witnessed though.

The last movie I saw him in was Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects about ten years ago. It's a movie about this circus clown and his family of juggaloes, or whatever the fuck they are, who go around murdering folks. Geoffrey Lewis shows up in this film and takes on the juggaloes.....and loses. What the fuck?

Am I to believe that...a bunch of juggaloes can defeat Clint Eastwood's sidekick? That a bunch of retarded circus clowns can best Geoffrey Lewis in arm-to-arm combat? I don't think there's any situation that could play out in reality where that scenario is even remotely believable!

Lewis fucking hung out with Clint Eastwood, he banged that chick who shows her tits in Hair (the chick that goes on all those National Lampoon Vacations), he's dealt with nazis n' cops n' the mafia, WHILE HANGING AROUND WITH A SUMATRAN ORANGUTAN....and I'm just supposed to suspend belief and accept that this man can be defeated and killed by a bunch of fucking juggaloes? No way, Jose.

It's cool Rob Zombie casted this old screen icon for his juggalo movie...but I feel the direction he took the film was quite effronterous in nature....the film, all in all, was unrealistic and the movie suffered for it. Lewis should have kicked the juggaloes asses, dumped their vehicles into a dump truck and high fived his ape...like what would have happened if this movie took place in real life.

Either way, RIP dude, you were a cool guy.


What's Up with Clint, though?

What's Clint doing with his life these days? How come the seventies Clint was bare knuckle boxing in scrap yards, drinkin' with monkeys, kicking the crap out of nazis and cops, carrying around a 44 magnum, chillin' with Eli Wallach, and bein' good/bad/ugly......while the now-a-times Clint is like worrying about his mom's bridges over counties and hanging out with Meryl Streep? Seems like a weird direction to take his on-screen persona if you ask me.

With the death of Geoffrey Lewis, I think Clint should complete the Whether but Loose which Can trilogy and reprise his role of the Philo Beddoe character one last time. I know he's too old to flip out and shit but he can still be like a wise foul-mouthed granpa who drinks with monkeys and drives the story for the new-era bad-ass lead character.


Conclusion

You can't insert monkeys in every movie or it'll ruin the gimmick....but I would say every 1/14 films could have monkeys inserted into them without losing the monkey magic. So, if you're in the hollywood scene and you're a big-shot you should try to work a monkey into at least one in fourteen of your films, I'd say.

I don't think the Presidential monkey movies work though. I don't think Presidents should be making monkey movies...it's just stupid. Reagan's monkey movie just seems odd.

With the Dawning of the Digital Age....Is there a Future for Apostrophes, Accents, Cedillas, and Umlauts?

.....or is there NO FUTURE for apostrophes, accents, cedillas, and umlauts in this digital human age?

In this article we will wonder aloud whether these punctuation variables, or as many refer to them "accidents of history," have any place in the current digitized writing climate. We're gonna look at what the heck they are, then we're gonna look at where they probably came from, and then conclude on whether or not these letter variations have a future or not.


What are these Things, anyways?

' = Apostrophe
é, ê, è = Accents
ç = Cedilla
ū = Umlaut


They are cute little punctuation marks that appear in sentences or on top of vowels or under the letter C from time to time in Euro-disseminated languages. English people know about the apostrophe more than any of the others...the others appear in the latin-based romance languages more often (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, etc.).

They are for pronunciation and have no value to reading and writing. Speech and reading/writing are two separate mental faculties that surprisingly have little in common with each other. Reading/Writing is very technical and code-based while speech is more wave-modulated audio bits which are learned from listening and repetition.

You can be 100% illiterate and still be a great speaker or singer....speech is not related very much at all with reading/writing. Readin' and writin' is a code that is deciphered with the eyes to the brain whilst speaking/listening is a code deciphered with the ears to the brain.

For that reason, are pronunciation-related variables necessary in eye-related deciphering? Not really, no.

The digital age has seen the rise of Google Translate, which has spidered almost all written linguistic codes and matched them with definitions in order to act as a universal translator. It isn't perfect but it's pretty freaking good to be honest. I can send a Chinese article through it and read it in English and get a pretty good jist/idea of what was stated in the Chinese coded article.

Languages have been broken down, bit by bit, and all definitions/idioms/concepts that these variables represent have been massed together in one database which can churn out any langauge codification into the language you are able to read with your brain. It's pretty amazing, really.

That's the state of affairs in the present (2015), but before we conclude on the question if these linguistic punctuation variables have a place in the human future...let's first look at where I think they originated from.


The Possible History of the Weird Lines n' Slashes on our Dumb Words

Note: This is a theory and I have no way to really prove it so it's just food for thought, really.

I honestly believe that apostrophes, accents, cedillas, and umlauts are accidents of history which were born unto writing by errors in the early printing press era (16th to 18th century).

A written language is only a written language if many many people accept that the definitions of the character-variable sets are what they are. If a few thousand people accept and use the term "Shoe" to refer to the things you put on your feet to help you walk then that character variable set of "Shoe" is thusly an accepted term, part of the lexicon, and part of written language.

Prior to the early printing press era, do you know how many people on earth were literate? Do you know how many people could read linguistic codes and understand them? Less than 1% of people could. The invention of the printing press (which first appeared in China prior to the 14th century) is what made written language codes accepted languages. The automatisation process of the printing press disseminated the written codes to a wide audience who in turn learned the codes in order to read the books and flyers coming off the press line.

Old school printer.

In the early printing press era in Europe, these machines were not exactly the most efficient and error-free devices to say the least. The first problem was the people who worked the printing press machines were illiterate people (paid in pennies) who matched up the symbols they were given to the press plate to print a page....and being illiterate it was common that dozens of small errors were made in every single page that was printed in any given book.

The other big problem was any small damage to the machine plates would get soaked with ink and a page might be printed with dashes, slashes, dots, and other dumb shit all around the page....and since it is a plate and uniform...the dots and slashes APPEARED IN EVERY SINGLE BOOK THAT WAS PRINTED ON THAT MACHINE.

These problems in the early printing press era may even be a large factor as to why European dialects shifted and mutated the way they did. Spanish, French and Italian were once THE SAME LANGUAGE at one point. We must also factor in small deviations of style created by poets and other writers which disseminated texts to their region which altered the written codes in their areas (copy cats wanted to write like the popular poets of their region) yet printing press errors may be a stronger factor as to why dialects variated the way the did.

Imagine the time and place in the 17th century, hundreds of thousands of people learning the new hip thing called reading in their spare time and hundreds of interesting books being printed to be read by these hundreds of thousands of people. The printing presses in all the major metropolis cores (London, Paris, Seville, Lisbon, Venice, Hamburg, etc) are all running off these printing presses like crazy and people in all these core-cities are reading these texts...

Let's say the printing press in Seville made an error on the plate, the worker matched the symbol to his blue print wrong, then hundreds of thousands of people in Seville would read the book with the spelling mistake. Hundreds of thousands of people, who are learning to read for the first time in great masses in human history, all getting a book with a minor alteration in the language system. Next thing you know, all Spanish people are writing "Jajajajajajaja" instead of "Hahahahahaha" to represent laughter because that's how language in written code was presented to them.

Or let's say Lisbon's printing press factory sent out a popular book with a weird line over a vowel. Let's say a scratch in the plate put a small diagonal line over an "e" on EVERY SINGLE BOOK that was printed and acquired by hundreds of thousands of people in Lisbon. All of a sudden people are asking their friends and elders..."Hey, what is this line over the e?" and all it took was one bozo to make up something to pretend he's smart and say..."oh that? Well it means it's an e that's pronounced more high pitched " and next thing you know that scratch on the printing plate has now become a damned RULE of ORTHOGRAPHY and bozo-face gets appointed head of the Portuguese academy of writing rules because everyone thinks he's so fucking smart. Whooop-de-dooooo.

Oh, go take a walk, blue pen bozo.

Or let's say, (just one more, sorry), that London's printing press puts some dumb scratch between some dumb word and people look at it and go "what's that line between my word, guvnah?" and then some fantastic fop pipes up "Well, that's an apostrophe, it is! How could you not know that you simpleton!?" and then that printing plate scratch gets a name and everyone is throwing these new-fangled high falutin' apostrophes in all their dumb books and acting all smart. Fast forward a few hundred years and english teachers ALL OVER THE PLACE are taking out red pens and anxiously scanning their student's papers for the word "your" to see if they put the apostrophe in it if they wanted to denote "you are" and if it's not there....they load up that red pen like it's some sort of scepter of divine truth that shoots lightning at orthographic mistakes and they draw the biggest and meanest circle around your "your" and write over it in HUGE red ink "you're" to let you know how stupid you are! Oh, take a long walk you english teachers, take a nice long walk and really think to yourself how petty you are. You're job is to circle words that have missing apostrophes! You're duty on earth is to circle printing press plate scratches from the 17th century and make your students feel stupid. Take a long introspective walk, you english teachers, you.

Jabroni....thy name is apostrophe.


Does the Digital Human Future have a Place for These Printing Press Mutants of Yester Year?

Look, for style purposes I think everyone should write how they feel is fun for them to write. Me? I like to use punctuation when I write. I use commas and especially ellipses (the three+ dots). I use ellipses because I actually think what I'm gonna write next when I put that break in. I'll be writing these silly blogs.......and then I'll like stop and breathe and think for a second.....and then finish whatever dumb thing I was writin' 'bout.

The other main mutation factor in written langauge codes that I mentioned above is poets and writers who have unique and interesting styles do 100% change the vernacular and lexicon of a region/world. People don't just start writing from scratch otta nowhere...they synthesize and copy other writers who's stuff they've read. So if you like apostrophes or cedillas or umlauts then go for it and use 'em. If that's your style, then yo.

....but....

Don't go overboard with silly writing rules. Like, if you're getting mad over You/You're ....honestly ....you should chill out. If I write this,

"Your taking this reading/writing shit too serious. Maybe you should chill out and go walk you're dog or something..."

In all seriousness, is there a person out there, who can read english, who's so stupid that they couldn't understand what was being stated in that sentence? If you couldn't understand that statement above because a printing press error from the 17th century was omitted from one word then, sorry to rude, but maybe you are very very stupid. Maybe you can't read.

If you did understand that statement but were angered and enraged by it...well....maybe you're a bad person or something. If you love your dumb apostrophe so much maybe you should marry it.