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With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, the Boston Globe’s Luke O’Neill tries to figure out the politics of parking-place savers (those folks who, after digging out a parking place on a public street, then stake a claim to it with a piece of furniture. Along the way, he manages to cite both Locke and Hobbes.

Here’s a bit from his introduction.

Consider the arguments in favor of space-saving: This space is the fruit of my own personal labor. Due to my hard work, I alone have endeavored to stake out for my own benefit a parcel of value, which is now mine to dispense with how I please. Those who wish to avail themselves of parking should follow my virtuous example, and pull themselves up by their shovel-straps.

The counter-argument is no less easily applied to a political point of view: The roads, they say, belong to all. One cannot own what belongs to the people, and the act of shoveling out a space contributes to the greater good, providing more parking for others to enjoy. It is, in effect, a tax one pays for the use of the public space, which is just.

And yet, the more and more people I ask, the analogy breaks down, with many self-identifying progressives saying they are in favor of space-saving.

It doesn’t make sense.

It’s an interesting and wry take on a contentious issue.

I used to fly into Burbank frequently.

On the last bit of the leg from Phoenix, the air lane follows the aqueduct that California used to steal water from the Colorado River. The plane would cross a mountain range and I would see a swath of green lawns, almost every one with a swimming pool in the backyard, all made possible by the Colorado River (which no longer reaches the sea).

I always found the view vaguely disgusting.

The area is crushed under two or three inches of snow. Crushed, I say (just ask the telly vision).

There are rumors of a burgeoning black market in bread and milk, as thawing is not expected to begin until noon. Even our morning paper was an hour late.

Civilization as we know it is doomed absurd.

I’m taking it easy on a snow day.

(Typo corrected.)

. . . but you didn’t hear about it on your telly vision . . . .

Via Job’s Anger.

Anchor Person: Someone said snow. Snow snow snow. Brooklyn Blond, is there snow?

Brooklyn Blond: Yes, there is snow. See the snow. Fall, snow, fall.

Boston Brownette: There is more snow. See the snow fall. Snow is slippery. See the car slip. Slip, car, slip.

New Hampshire Hussy: It also snows in the rural areas. See the snow? There is snow. See the snow fall. Fall, snow, fall.

Anchor person: So you are saying that snow is falling, that snow is slippery?

All together: Yes, see the snow fall. Fall snow, fall. Slip, car, slip. Fall snow, fall. Slip, car, slip. Fall snow, fall. Slip, car, slip. Fall snow, fall. Slip, car, slip. Fall snow, fall. Slip, car, slip. . . . .

Fleeing Philadelphia before the threatened Snowmageddon which is expected to be much worse than the Saturday night Snowmageddom, pictured here.

Addendum, That Very Evening:

Looks like I got out of town just in time.

Some years ago in the mid-70s, some of my friends and I took a driving trip through the Outer Banks. It was my first visit there.

When I saw homes built dangerously close to the water (homes that now are on stilts because the Atlantic Ocean is gonna do what it’s gonna do), I recall remarking that “Americans go all stupid when someone says ‘waterfront property.'”

According to my local rag, that may be starting to change.

We had weather.

Collateral damage:

At least there’s enough water left for skinny-dipping.

Barely.

Lupin Lodge, the clothing-optional resort in the parched wooded hills above Los Gatos, is perilously close to running out of water. So close that it’s landed on California’s official drought-watch list as one of five community water districts forced to haul in weekly truckloads of H2O.

Bare facts at the link.

California is sinking into the sea, just not in the manner that many predicted.

The ground is sinking because farmers and water agencies throughout the Central Valley are pumping groundwater heavily from far beneath the Earth’s surface to make up for the lack of rain. The problems caused by this sinkage are many, with no easy fix in sight.

Vlot’s wells are collapsing, crushed by the shifting soils. The dam Hurley depends on to divert water into the company’s canals from the San Joaquin River has sunk so far – about 3 feet in just five years – that the river is threatening to spill over. If that happens, he’ll have less water to distribute to farmers who grow cotton, tomatoes and a range of other crops.

Cali’s not the only place with that sinking feeling.

Here’s the good news:

Virginia’s highest court has ruled that the American Tradition Institute (ATI), a free-market think tank that promotes climate science denial, must pay damages to the University of Virginia and former professor Michael Mann for filing a frivolous lawsuit against them. The decision comes in a case that has sparked controversy about the abuse of public records laws to harass climate scientists.

The bad news: the amount of the award was $250.00.

Via Delaware Liberal.

Science is taught at the University of Farmers!

From today’s local rag:

Four Virginia landmarks are among the 30 nationwide threatened by climate change-related weather conditions, according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

(snip)

“Jamestown Island is mostly less than 3 feet of elevation,” she said. “If the high projection is correct, then in 50 years, it would be predominantly under water.”

Levees would do nothing to help, she added. “The water’s actually coming up through the ground as well,” Mitchell said. “It’s a very spongy sort of ground. Just building a levee around it won’t keep the water out.”

I have nothing to add. Just read the rest.

The big headline in today’s local rag (pictures at the link) was about the violent rain and severe flooding yesterday. I measured three inches, most of which fell in a three hours, in my rain gauge.

We are klling nature, and nature is preparing to retaliate.

In a troubling new discovery, scientists studying ocean waters off California, Oregon and Washington have found the first evidence that increasing acidity in the ocean is dissolving the shells of a key species of tiny sea creature at the base of the food chain.

(snip)

Until now, the impact on marine species from increasing ocean acidity because of climate change has been something that was tested in tanks in labs, but which was not considered an immediate concern such as forest fires and droughts.

The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a scientific journal based in England, changes that.