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I have an ocean view house in OC and switched to drip-watered natives and cut my water use 50%, even though it's leased out now. Some of my neighbors blithely overwater their lawns and gardens. Let's not get started on the golf courses!

Please, please at least one lowly point for pee. Best regards, RA1

Pinehurst #2-- Shades of Scotland and playing golf as Mother Nature intended, more or less. Less is always more, isn't it? And natural is better than whatever else. Of course you are correct that almost all of our food is oil in one form or another. However, I really enjoy the Olathe corn from early August for the short season it is available. I am sure the land there in western CO is irrigated. At least I am not "wasting" it on a cow. I have no night soil. I try to do all my defecating in the daytime. (Easier to do during DST.) Does not flushing the toilet after "only" peeing count for something? Best regards, RA1

Hope! NSA phone surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden ruled illegalhttp://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/07/nsa-phone-records-program-illegal-court

Re: golf courses, the renowned Pinehurst No. 2 where the men's and women's U.S. Open was played last year (about which I went on and on here about 11-year-old Lucy Li) had recently been restored to its original 1940s-and-before design. Among other things, this involved removing acres of lush green grass from the fairways and returning them to sand and native wiregrass, which slashed water consumption dramatically.

No doubt large farms consume the bulk of agri-water, tomcal, but that does mean they should be shut down tomorrow so that pool owners can take a pleasant, cooling dip whenever the inclination hits them. All caricatures aside, there appears to be more than enough water available for all reasonable uses if only folks would stop squandering so much of it on insane practices. It is beyond me why the endless suburbs of LA. Orange County & San Diego have to have the appearance of being located in Wessex, England. And it is equally absurd to be producing high water demand, low value crops like alfalfa in a desert. If ag water were properly priced, it would not be. The contented cows your state is justly famous for might get a bit cranky but se la vie. Almonds are another question (that they are largely grown for export is irrelevant, IMO). I suspect they represent a relatively high value added per acre foot of water particularly if serviced by a state of the art drip water system.1 1 Full disclosure, I'm a Southerner and prefer pecans over almonds, so I have no dog in this hunt.

Luis is great! He was really informative,friendly and an all around great guy. I highly recommend him for first time arrivals in Cuba.

Questions that come to mind: Can you in fact squeeze enough water out of golf courses and McMansions with Olympic sized pools in the back and acres of lush lawn in front to make up the shortage? How long do the farmers have to adjust? Things that are easy in 10 years may be difficult in 5 and impossible in one. Letting yellow mellow and flushing brown seems a trivial ask compared to telling a farmer the 200 acres of almond trees that have supported 3 generations of his family have to die & right now. And if the drought breaks next year, well, so sad, too bad for you. You can always get a job mowing lawns in McMansionville. Assuming the bank doesn't seize your pickup too. (not a question, but what the hell) Point being that cities (or agriculture) don't use water, individuals do. And the consequences of turning off the sprinklers in the front yard are not life changing for the individual involved but the consequences of turning off the sprinklers in an orchard can be catastrophic for a farmer. Clearly water in the desert West has been misallocated and mispriced for decades. The price of agricultural water should rise to reflect its true value and encourage the installation of efficient, Israeli style irrigation systems. The same goes for urban use (with a cheaper residential allocation sufficient to cover the personal needs of a family). A golf course manager was yacking today on the golf channel about this issue. According to him the average course today uses 40% more water than it did as recently as 20 years ago, for no better reason than to cater to the preferences of today's golfers for the visual appearance of their courses. What with evaporation and changing out the water, a single large swimming pool consumes enough water to support hundreds of families. Who knows, if the bill gets high enough the owners of McMansions might reconsider the merits of tennis courts and landscaping more suitable to a desert. And farmers of crops that can't make efficient use of water might find other employment before the bank grabs the pickup.

I also found his website and am using Luis on my upcoming trip to Havana May 30th. I looked at "airbnb" for a private apartment and found that the prices for most of the casa particulars on their site were $5 to $20 per night higher then the other rental sites and that was not including the fees charged by airbnb.

I'm currently visiting in Berlin for 3 days and then to Budapest. Just got here today so I'll update later. Just went to Tabasco. The Tabasco/Pinnocio/BlueBoy complex hasn't changed one bit in the 35 or so years I've been visiting. A supermarket of guys- between the 3 bars and the small park next door and the street in front there were about 50 at 9pm on a Monday night. For those who complain that the "scene" has disappeared- it's still here same as ever. I miss the many Polish guys who used to be there. There are some Romanians and many Turkish-Germans. The majority now by far are North African-Arabs and the guys are overly pushy now. They grab you constantly and are hard to get rid of. I just walked back to my hotel room as I don't feel comfortable carrying much money there and want to put stuff in my safe in case I do bring anyone back. The beautiful gay Nollendorfplatz neighborhood has gotten extremely nice but is still incredibly cheap for tourism. I have a 4-Star hotel 3 blocks from Tabasco and 1 block from KaufhausDesWesterns department store for $59/night taxes included. Any suggestions? I know about laundro.mat but doubt I'll venture to it. Will update.

The high increase in unemployment in Brazil is blamed for a 24% drop in auto sales, year over year. This is a bad sign for Brazil's economy, for sure. Many Brazilians who only a few years ago were classified as "middle class" are no longer in that category because of being unemployed. Many of those former "middle class" who had jobs and bank credit cards, no longer have credit because they are unemployed. Credit that was available to the "middle class" stimulated the economy. Now things have changed. In light of the high unemployment in Brazil, I suspect that we will be seeing more garotos in the saunas equal to or greater than the quantity we saw eight or ten years ago. Below is a link to an article that discusses the auto decline and some of other Brazilian economic decline - http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-business/sales-of-new-vehicles-in-brazil-decline/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRioTimes+%28The+Rio+Times%29

I must be the poopy equivalent of ice-nine. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-nine

Well yes, it kinda does. Especially so if you are inclined to refer to the West Bank territory as Judea and Samaria. Of course some Israelis and some Pals have pretty much agreed on an alternative solution: The only remaining point of dispute seems to be who gets to hold the rifles. ==== "So called" Palestinians? Really? You really want to go there? Although I readily concede that Israeli nationalism in the 20th century has managed to conjure up the golem of PAL nationalism out to the varied Arab inhabitants of Palestine. Not unlike the French reinvention of the nation state during the revolution calling up a corresponding German nationalism the way a magnet organizes a random heap of iron filings. ---- How 'bout that; worked a medieval Jewish myth into a historical parallel with a scientific analogy thrown in to boot. When you're good, you're good and, baby, I'm on a roll! ==== PS RA1, I'd never deny I walk around in my own reality distortion field.

My new low-flush toilet is nice. Once for yellow, for brown I push twice. Though once in a while There appears such a pile That a torrent will barely suffice.

I have one of those now... a delightful gimmick.

One condo renovation, the architect specified a toilet that had 2 flush volumes -- low for #1, high for #2. But the flush was electrically driven, so wastrel that way. Indeed can't win for losing.

No points for pee....

My pleasure. SoCal is supposed to be desert and scrub, as you say. Our old idea that natural resources are infinite thus infinitely squanderable gets us to this point. Then compounded by perverse incentives. Just like raising corn on the high plains, a supremely unnatural endeavor that takes huge inputs of water and fertilizer to make it go. And then to grant subsidies to use that corn to produce ethanol, to try and get free of our petro-addiction -- but of course what is that very fertilizer but a petrochemical. Not to mention -- speaking of poop -- our mortal sin of using purified drinking-grade water just to flush away our night soil. What the third world would give for a few drops a day of what we waste every hour. And so forth and so on and on.

Adam Smith, I emplore you to jump in here. I'll be on the patio having coffee. This is the culprit...

We all have personal reality distortions, no? So, the answer is yes. Best regards, RA1

That's pretty much what I've been telling my pro Israel friends ever since Bibi started yakking about this nonsense, lookin. It's nothing more than a way to stop any 2 state negotiation in its tracks w/o admitting he has no interest in allowing a Pal state under any circumstances.

If no hotels allow visitors and there are no sex saunas where does sex happen? Has anyone tried AirBnb yet?

Thank you! If I may add to your post, I found that the last link works if you input http://cubaguiagay.blogspot.co.uk/ If you don't understand Spanish, Google translates it into English more or less.

Below is the information that I promised to submit. • The company that I used is based in Canada to provide People-to-People programs for Americans and others. http://www.cubatravelforamericans.com, • http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=gay+cuba&FORM=VQFRAF • http://www.theculturetrip.com/caribbean/cuba/articles/the-cuban-experience-the-ten-best-havana-restaurants • The source http://cubaguiagay.blogspot.com.es/is in my web bank. It works there for me, so type it into your browser. Hope it works, for it gives some good, timely information and is a current source. I used the following guide books: TIME OUT: Havana & the Best of Cuba, DK EYEWITNESS TRAVEL CUBA, THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CUBA, and LONELY PLANET CUBA. These books were 2014 or 2013 editions.