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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the so-thirsty dept.

Cape Town, home to Table Mountain, African penguins, sunshine and sea, is a world-renowned tourist destination. But it could also become famous for being the first major city in the world to run out of water.

Most recent projections suggest that its water could run out as early as March. The crisis has been caused by three years of very low rainfall, coupled with increasing consumption by a growing population.

The local government is racing to address the situation, with desalination plants to make sea water drinkable, groundwater collection projects, and water recycling programmes.

Meanwhile Cape Town's four million residents are being urged to conserve water and use no more than 87 litres (19 gallons) a day. Car washing and filling up swimming pools has been banned. And the visiting Indian cricket team were told to limit their post-match showers to two minutes.

Such water-related problems are not confined to Cape Town, of course.

Nearly 850 million people globally lack access to safe drinking water, says the World Health Organisation, and droughts are increasing.


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:22PM (4 children)

    by Gaaark (41) on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:22PM (#621797) Journal

    Canada, home to water like you wouldn't believe. And great beer. And fine, fine women.

    Did i mention water?

    Yeah.
    Water.
    Drink Canada Dry? I think not!

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:47PM (3 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:47PM (#621806)

      But the water in Canada is all frozen half the year, and half frozen all the year...

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Bot on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:20PM

        by Bot (3902) on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:20PM (#621932) Journal

        Put frozen water in cocktail, drink. Duh.

        --
        Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:32PM (1 child)

        by frojack (1554) on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:32PM (#621942) Journal

        Meh! Global Warming fixes that frozen water problem.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:52PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:52PM (#621950)

          Global Warming fixes that frozen water

          Have you ever smelled thawed muskeg?

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:42PM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:42PM (#621805)

    The free marketeer answer is "raise the price." This will not work immediately because users do not know how much they are spending until they get their bill at the end of the month. One answer to that is to set up a website that lists the water usage for a given address. However, only the most curious people will bother to go onto the website, and there are privacy concerns. Another solution to the information problem is to have the water company hire people at minimum wage to make phone calls whenever a household or business passes a limit of so many gallons, tell them how much it is costing, and lecture them to save water. Given the emergency, the city may wish to consider doing this.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Justin Case on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:49PM (4 children)

      by Justin Case (4239) on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:49PM (#621809) Journal

      No, the market answer is not "raise the price" but rather "the price will go up".

      You authoritarians believe everything is, or should be, controlled by government. That is the opposite of market action. The market makes adjustments to supply and demand without some central all-knowing omnipotent and benevolent decider. Decentralization. It used to be a good idea.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:56PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:56PM (#621811)

        The price doesn't have to go up, water could be supplied for free - but it would only run out faster then.

        Friends of ours bought an olive farm in California - then they found out that they had to pay the water authority for water they pump from the ground, shocking! The next shock was that the bill was a few dollars per acre-foot of water. For perspective, an acre-foot is 1.2 million liters, or... a generous supply of household water for about 9 people for a whole year.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:13PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:13PM (#621816)
        The true capitalist market's answer is for some really rich entity to buy up most of the water and then sell it at a higher price. And even if more people die that way that's not your problem or cost.
      • (Score: 5, Informative) by RS3 on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:42PM (1 child)

        by RS3 (6367) on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:42PM (#621843)

        I'm no authoritairian, in fact I was a staunch libertarian much of my life. (Of course, by definition you can't enforce libertarianism, right?) As I've learned more about life, people, society, etc., I've realized that some people need restraint; IE: "government". The 1800s saw the rise of "Robber Barons" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) [wikipedia.org], monopolies, and the richest most opulent era in modern history, and with it, a disparity of wealth much worse than what we have now; children working all 7 and long days, for example: http://www.history.com/topics/child-labor [history.com].

        So I've come full circle and back to what was decided ~240 years ago: for a just, fair, and balanced society, we need government, which should be: Of, For, and By We the People. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/preamble.asp [yale.edu] Unfortunately, money has power, so to keep society balanced, fair, and just, we need strong laws regarding prices, markets, etc., of certain essential goods and services.

        One of the many things learned from the Great Depression of the 1930s was that food supply and prices needed to be controlled, subsidized, etc.; IE: the market _had_ to be manipulated. More and more the same will be true for water. And we may need cross-continent pipelines for water, like we have for various fossil fuels.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 15 2018, @01:11AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 15 2018, @01:11AM (#622349) Journal

          in fact I was a staunch libertarian much of my life

          Sure, you were.

          The 1800s saw the rise of "Robber Barons" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist), [wikipedia.org] monopolies, and the richest most opulent era in modern history, and with it, a disparity of wealth much worse than what we have now; children working all 7 and long days, for example: " rel="url2html-28134">http://www.history.com/topics/child-labor.

          And what's wrong with that? The same era also saw a transformation of the US from a provincial backwater to developed world superpower. To the contrary, it shows that not even the worst excesses such as child labor and wealth inequality are that bad for the future. What is missed here is that workers made considerable sacrifices during this time and those sacrifices were paid back with one of the wealthiest societies in human history.

          So I've come full circle and back to what was decided ~240 years ago: for a just, fair, and balanced society, we need government, which should be: Of, For, and By We the People. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/preamble.asp. [yale.edu] Unfortunately, money has power, so to keep society balanced, fair, and just, we need strong laws regarding prices, markets, etc., of certain essential goods and services.

          This is the real flaw of libertarianism. Government should be this way, but you can't force people to govern themselves well, particularly, if not forcing people is the foundation of your creed. It's nice to say that government should do these things, but when you simultaneously admit that it'll merely favor the very ones it's supposed to regulate, then where are you? You've painted yourself into a corner.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:51PM (2 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:51PM (#621810)

      I don't know the local geography of Cape Town, but one of the few things that will be saving the people of Florida during their coming water crises is that an absurd amount of water is currently used by agriculture. They cry "water shortage" in the city, meanwhile the nearby tomato farmers use more water than the entire city. Sooner or later, the tomatoes are going to lose out, and then people will really have to start taking conservation and alternative sourcing seriously - or just leave the state because they don't like paying for bottled water to bathe in.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:47PM (1 child)

        by frojack (1554) on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:47PM (#621949) Journal

        You're going with Tomatoes as the problem? Seriously?

        Water all around you.
        Solar and wind everywhere you look.
        Three Nuclear Power plants.

        Seems to me desalination or RO water would be an obvious choice in Florida and South Africa.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:17PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:17PM (#621957)

          Inland tomatoes seriously consume more water from the local aquifer (the same one that supplies household drinking water) than the entire coastal city of Sarasota, in Sarasota County alone. Similar situations exist for ag-use everywhere in the state. When a cold-snap comes, 1000hp engines pump water up out of 12" boreholes to keep the citrus wet, makes the aquifer drop by 10 feet overnight. Meanwhile, suburbanites are told to only water their lawns between the hours of 6 and 7am on alternate days of the week depending whether or not they have even or odd house numbers, building codes call for 1/8" flow restrictors in shower heads, and similar nonsense.

          I'd like to see Crystal River and Turkey Point get 5 or 6 new nuclear friends in the state, especially if it could mean an end to the burning of coal and other fossil fuels here, and with the surplus power we could run desalination plants, but, no... new Nuclear will be lucky to open the first plant in 30 years in the US sometime soon. With the cost of electricity in Florida running ~$0.11/kWh, going with a RO desalination efficiency of 3.6 kWh/m^3, that's ~$0.002 per gallon, or roughly $6 per person per month typical (100gallons/day) usage - not a terrible deal on the economic side, but the cheap RO water I've tasted in the Bahamas is, frankly, nasty, and probably not suitable for crop irrigation due to residual salt accumulation in the farmland. If we wanted to convert the Sarasota municipal water region over to RO water, first they'd revolt due to the taste, (there's no current plans [usf.edu] to use RO), they're projecting a need of 30 million gallons per day, which would require roughly 10MW to run the RO plant alone, that's about 7.5 tons of coal per hour [quora.com], or a bit over one rail-car full of coal per day, with the attendant fly-ash disposal problems, sulfur, mercury and other toxic emissions, cost of scrubbing to reduce those problems, etc. And, this is just one of dozens of Florida counties with similar fresh water needs.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:09PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:09PM (#621815)

    Because millennials have never even heard of "drought". How the f do you pronounce the word "drought" anyway??

    SoylentNews is old people

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:16PM (1 child)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:16PM (#621876) Homepage

      Here in California they tell us constantly that we're in a drought and we have to do the right thing and use less water and accept skyrocketing water bills, while monstrous new housing developments are continuing to spring up all over the place.

      Drought, my fucking ass. I'll believe it when California secedes from the union and gets its water supply cut off by the other states. What is more likely, though, is that in such a scenario California will have its own civil war with L.A. and San Francisco against everybody else, and we will squish those sniveling wimpy city scum like the roaches they are.

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:25PM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:25PM (#621986) Journal

        You know, most peoples pornographic fantasies consist of sex, not violence. Just thought you might want to know.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:37PM (4 children)

    by looorg (578) on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:37PM (#621822)

    Perhaps it wasn't the best idea ever to build towns in places that cant sustain the population. But then we have people that insist on living in places that gets hit by natural disasters over and over and over again and still they move back.

    • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:20PM (2 children)

      by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:20PM (#621857) Journal

      While your comment is quite correct, we humans fail to understand and protect our environment properly. Cape Town is surrounded by rivers but the drought has dried many of them but then again many have been dammed for power or to divert water to other places, which makes the prolonged drought much worse.

      I have family in South Africa (not in Cape Town) and the water situation is generally bad everywhere because of the drought; saving water includes not flushing the toilets until absolutely necessary for example, something that would be found disgusting in America.

      Then cities tend to grow beyond the wildest dreams of their founders and the load on the environment gets to be too much to be sustainable. Think of the California coast and valleys for example, how long can water last as demand expands? What measures will be acceptable once water is really scarce?

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:53PM

        by frojack (1554) on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:53PM (#621951) Journal

        not flushing the toilets until absolutely necessary for example, something that would be found disgusting in America.

        I believe we in America invented the phrase "If its yellow, let it mellow, if its brown, flush it down".

        In the US, perfectly good toilets are being replaced at a fantastic rate with low-volume flush models. There's risk of a porcelain shortage.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:20PM

        by looorg (578) on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:20PM (#621958)

        There is that, it's not insignificant. Still lots of Towns or cities probably did fine when they where smaller. Cape Town is now around 3.5-4.0M or something like that? It might have grown to large to sustain itself from the surrounding area. They might not have what it takes to become or be a real Megacity. Still there are quite a few larger cities out in the desert and such that are doing fine so it might just be substandard municipals in combination with natural causes.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:32PM (#622229)

      that's only possible with government stealing the money to do it. if people and companies had to pay for it themselves it would have worked it self out much quicker.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:11PM (15 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:11PM (#621851)

    How fucking afraid do you people have to be to expend this much effort to NOT see the elephant in the room?

    Cape Town is out of water because the GDP of the country has more than cut in half (13K to less than 5.5K) since the competent white rulers were bullycided by "the world community" into abandoning the country to a bunch of socialist kleptocrats. Nothing there works anymore and it isn't going to. Period, full stop. Stop blithering about ecological questions, etc. because none of that matters. If they were competent and wealthy they would have plenty of water.

    And don't feel superior either, you same morons have turned most major Western cities over to the same incompetent fools so you could feel virtuous. London, Paris, LA, Chicago are all shitholes now and New York is quickly sinking back into that state.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by jelizondo on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:46PM (10 children)

      by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:46PM (#621866) Journal

      Tsk, tsk. Talking about elephants while hiding your own. The GDP of SA was $3,445.7 U.S. dollars in 1994 (the year Mandela came to power) and today is $5,284.6 U.S. dollars. Unlike you, I give you a reference for the data: The World Bank. [opendataforafrica.org]

      Have you ever even visited SA? I know the country and I do have family there and no, it is not a shithole. Could it be better? Certainly. If I kidnapped you and then transported you to Cape Town, Johannesburg or any other city in SA, you would think you were in some American city.

      The only valid point you make is that is currently governed by a bunch of kleptocrats.

      • (Score: 4, Touché) by crafoo on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:12PM (3 children)

        by crafoo (6639) on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:12PM (#621874)

        Tsk Tsk yourself. Cape Town's murder rate is 1.5x Detroit. Yes, it is indeed a shithole.

        • (Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:54PM (2 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:54PM (#621896) Journal

          DAYUMN! They need some gun control, don't they?

          GASP! They DO have gun control! Well, why isn't it working? Why, why WHY does gun control always fail? Capetown is like Detroit, or Chicago, or any other liberal US city! SHOCKING! I'M SHOCKED, I tell you!

          http://ewn.co.za/2015/03/10/South-African-gun-laws-back-in-the-spotlight [ewn.co.za]

          Just ask any European, he'll tell you that Capetown must be a shithole. Europeans don't kill each other like those nasty Africans, or Americans.

          As an aside:

          Plinking. I grew up with a .22 rifle. Any given weekend, I could be found down by the railroad tracks and creek, shooting at whatever. After joining the Navy, I asked a Mexican buddy if he wanted to go plinking. He says, "What's plinking?" I tell him we can walk along and shoot cans. He says, "What kind of cans?" I tell him, "AfriCANS, Puerto RiCANS, MexiCANS, any kind of CANS we can find!" He grins, and says, "What about AmeriCANS?" I laugh, and tell him sure, but they aren't worth anything, because they are EVERYWHERE!

          Manuel turned out to be a pretty good shot, considering he didn't grow up with a rifle!

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:23PM (1 child)

            by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:23PM (#621959) Journal

            That was a good joke. Sorry you got downmodded but sometimes SN is like that.

            You can own and carry a gun in SA. The main difference is that you must get a permit and getting the permit entails a “competency test” (i.e. you know how to handle a weapon safely), having no Police record and getting all of your personal information recorded, including fingerprints along with details about the authorized weapon.

            In my opinion, a sane approach to letting citizens own weapons as opposed to “gun shows” in the U.S. where any lunatic can buy a weapon and then wreck havoc in the neighborhood.

            A bit over half (55%) of the murders are stabbing or blunt-object lessions and mostly is black-on-black on the towns.

            Now, an interesting thing I’ve seen only in SA. You can hand your handgun to the airline at check-in on domestic flights and they will promptly return it to you after landing. It doesn’t have to be on your checked luggage.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:46PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:46PM (#622233)

              "a sane approach to letting citizens own weapons"

              learn the difference between a right and a privilege.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:05PM (2 children)

        by frojack (1554) on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:05PM (#621953) Journal

        The GDP of SA was $3,445.7 U.S. dollars in 1994 (the year Mandela came to power) and today is $5,284.6 U.S. dollars.

        So barely even keeping up with inflation then.... Zero Growth or net negative growth perhaps.
        In 2016, the relative value of $3,445.00 from 1994 ranges from $5,200.00 to $8,780.00.

        https://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ [measuringworth.com]
        http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ [usinflationcalculator.com]

        What you consider the only valid point is rather educational all by itself. Especially with the present trend of importing the kleptocrats into the EU at record rates just so there will be someone to milk the cows, only to find out they aren't interested in that kind of cow.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 4, Informative) by jelizondo on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:08PM (1 child)

          by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:08PM (#621980) Journal

          Thank for the reply. Indeed, it could be much better, as it was during 2010-11 but the government is more interested in lining their pockets than in doing good for the country.

          Now, my point was that the parent poster pulled figures out of his behind to support his opinion of white being superior to black. The GDP has never been $13k dollars, so clearly it was made up.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @04:45PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @04:45PM (#622201)

            Maybe before "those changes" the blacks weren't counted at all so the GDP was 13k dollars per white capita ;).

            And life was just great for most of the whites and pretty crappy for the blacks.

            The blacks aren't doing themselves favors though (we're not monkeys, whooooo ninja-style!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_JD_v2kIzk [youtube.com]

            Reminds me of those Muslims firebombing buildings and shooting people because some cartoons linked Islam to violence and terrorism ;).

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday January 14 2018, @03:54AM (2 children)

        by jmorris (4844) on Sunday January 14 2018, @03:54AM (#622080)

        Well I happened to have another tab open on gab at the time and a chart had just went by, so I scrolled back up and used it. Seemed like serendipity. And no I have no intention to get into dueling footnotes because it is a no win scenario. But because I'm a giver, I just dug it back out for ya:

        post with chart of SA GDP denominated in USD [gab.ai]

        And no, I would not want to visit. When a country gets refugee camps it is probably not a tourist destination anymore. While parts might resemble some U.S. cities it is only because of our cities are also shitholes that I wouldn't be caught in after dark. Plus SA now has two decades of black rule and I can't think of any nation or city so ruled that is safe and prosperous. My own US State has a horrifying murder rate twice the U.S. average but SA doubles mine. (first page of google results level of research only) And that is comparing to the country as a whole, urban centers are probably the high crime areas there as they are here. Nope. Pass.

        • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:03AM (1 child)

          by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:03AM (#622108) Journal

          Thank you for your kind reply.

          Please let me say a couple of things. One, I’m not a Southafrican so I really don’t care very much about what the world thinks about that country. I do have family there and yes, I know a bit of the country, but it is not an honor-thing to defend them and/or explain their ways.

          Some of my family lives in KwaZulu-Natal, a province (state) which has a murder rate higher than the national average, but not the highest. However I do not know of anyone (family, friends or acquaintances) killed there. Some will say it is just white privilege speaking and maybe, just maybe, that is the right explanation. But I have travelled through the country and have never felt less safe than in Houston or San Francisco or Miami and maybe, as you say, it is because we’re now used to shitty cities.

          I don’t have hard data because “race” is not tracked on the statistics but my observations point to murder being mostly black-on-black and my opinion (again no hard evidence) is that when you or I see a black person, we see that: a black person. Whereas a black person in SA sees a Zulu, Xhosa or any other ethnicity (tribe) and some of them are sworn enemies to the death.

          In a more familiar way, when you or I see an Asian we have no clue if they are Korean, Japanese or Chinese. However an Asian will tell you immediately to what ethnic group they belong because of a “funny nose” or a turn of phrase that is a clear indicator of ethnicity to another Asian and to which we are blind.

          Second, the per capita GDP of SA has never been $13 thousand dollars. Maybe someone scrambled ZAR and USD on the chart you referenced. Not to dispute that the country has seen better years (2010-11 is an example of much better), but in general the GDP [google.com] has been growing, just not with the current government.

          Finally, would I move to SA? Probably not. Will I go again this year for 3-4 weeks? Definitively yes. Being forced to move and given a choice, where would I go? To Canada or New Zealand. :-)

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @12:59AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @12:59AM (#622344)
            If there's one reason white people suceed maybs it's because we don't fight with eachother. hummm
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Entropy on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:44PM (1 child)

      by Entropy (4228) on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:44PM (#621890)

      They genocided the people that kept the nation together because they were white. But hey, it's OK to kill white people these days, right? Now they are on the brink of self destruction--much deserved!

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @07:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @07:45PM (#621913)

        All I want for Christmas is a white genocide.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:32PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:32PM (#621963)

      The elephant is in the room because the limp-dick white hunter had to prove his manliness by shooting the elephant with a high powered rifle and then stuffed it's head and mount it on the wall. If the "competent" white rulers hadn't come to play colonial wanna-be royals, the elephant wouldn't be in the room at all.

      As I recall, before the recent bullycide, there was only one color of people in SA who might be called wealthy, and they aren't the ones who lived there for hundreds of years. So, those immigrants who were later bullycided "knew what was good for the dumb-bunnies" and made everything better with rule-by-terror, but the new immigrants coming to other places are the ones mucking up everything?

      Rants and rages against people based on arbitrary prejudicial lumpings by race, color, religion, or country of birth, are simply avoiding the real issues at hand. Kleptocrats are a real problem everywhere, and no group has a particular advantage over another in that area - except, perhaps, that kleptocrats do tend to be at least somewhat wealthy before they elevate themselves into power so they can grab more of what they already have enough of.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Sunday January 14 2018, @12:26AM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Sunday January 14 2018, @12:26AM (#622011) Journal

      London, Paris, LA, Chicago are all shitholes now and New York is quickly sinking back into that state.

      For fucks sake. See, this is why you don't turn the mentally retarded loose on the internet without adult supervision. Otherwise they sign up and make accounts on news aggregators with names like jmorris.

      Hey fuck head, yes, you jmorris, stop looking around at the ceiling and drooling on yourself, you know nothing of New York or any of those cities. I live in NY and I can tell you we're doing quite well.

  • (Score: 2) by arcz on Monday January 15 2018, @12:53AM

    by arcz (4501) on Monday January 15 2018, @12:53AM (#622339) Journal

    Instead of banning certain uses of water, just raise the price. Dumb socialists.
    Raise the price and if people really really want to wash cars you can afford more plants to purify seawater.

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