Yeah, yeah, yeah...
>
>
> America has engaged in some finger wagging lately because California
doesn't
> have enough electricity to meet its needs. The rest of the country
> (including George W. Bush's energy secretary Spencer Abraham, who wants
> Californians to suffer through blackouts as justification for drilling for
> oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) seems to be just fine
> with letting Californians dangle in the breeze,without enough power to
meet
> their needs. They laugh at Californians' frivolity.
Actually we are laughing at the California State Government which
unanimously mandated fixed income but allowed rising costs.
>
> Well, everybody. Here's how it really is: California ranks 48th in the
> nation in power consumed per person.
That's true. Good job. But if you still don't have enough electricy
in-state, you'll have to pay for importing it.
> California grows more than half the nation's fruit, nuts and vegetables.
We're keeping them.
> We need something to eat when the power goes out. We grow 99 percent or
more of the nation's
> almonds, artichokes, dates, figs, kiwifruit, olives, persimmons,
pistachios,
> prunes, raisins and walnuts. Hope you won't miss them.
Ok. I don't like prunes anyway.
>
> California is the nation's number one dairy state. We're keeping our
dairy products.
Ok. You produce 2,554,000 pounds of milk per month. You have 33,871,648
people.
That's 0.075 lbs of milk per person per month. That's 0.009 gallons per
person per month.
You'll probably want to start rationing soon.
(see
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/dairy/pmp-bb/2001/mkpr0301.txt
)
>
> We Californians are gonna keep all our high-tech software in state.
Silicon
> Valley is ours, after all. Without enough electricity, which you're
> apparently keeping for yourselves, we just plain don't have enough
software
> to spare.
Oh, we don't want to keep the electricity to ourselves, we just want you to
pay for it.
Anyway, this should help all those high-school dropouts eager to write
software and have nothing better to do get their start. Thanks.
>
> We're keeping all our airplanes. California builds a good percentage of
the
> commercial airliners available to fly you people to where you want to go.
> When yours wear out, you'd better hope Boeing's Washington plant can keep
> you supplied. There isn't enough electricity here to allow us to export
any
> more planes than we need ourselves. And while we're at it, we're keeping
> all our high-tech aerospace stuff, too, like the sophisticated weapons
> systems that let you sleep at night, not worried you might wake up under
> the rule of some foreign kook.
Too bad you didn't use all that sophisticated high-tech stuff to predict
that your electrical generation capability was soon to be under to rule of
some out-of-state kooks.
>
> Oh, yeah, and if you want to make a long-distance call, remember where the
> satellite components and tracking systems come from. Maybe you could get
> back in the habit of writing letters.
That's okay, I'll just use land-lines for e-mail and Voice-over-IP.
>
> Want to see a blockbuster movie this weekend? Come to California. We
make
> them here. Since we'll now have to make them with
> our own electricity, we're keeping them. Even if we shot them somewhere
> else, the labs, printing facilities, editing facilities, and sound
> facilities are all here.
I'd rather play Riven or EverQuest. What do you think you'll need to pay to
watch your own movies at a theater?
$20.00? $40.00? $100.00? Doesn't really matter, I suppose, because they're
yours.
>
> Want some nice domestic wine? We produce over 17 million gallons per
year.
> We'll need all of it to drown our sorrows when we
> think about the fact that no matter how many California products we export
> to make the rest of America's lives better, America can't see its way
clear
> to help us out with a little electricity. You can no longer have any of
our wine.
If we are willing to pay for your overpriced wine, why aren't you willing to
pay for our overpriced electricity?
>
> You all complain that we don't build enough power plants. Well, you don't
> grow enough food, write enough software, make enough movies, build enough
> airplanes and defense systems or make enough wine.
Sure we do. And if we need more, we are willing to pay a fair market price
for them.
>
> This is your last warning, America. Lighten (us) up before it's too late.
>
Thanks, but no thanks.
> Love,
>
> The Californians
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 29 2001 - 20:25:51 PDT