Let them drink dust;

A member of an influential California commission overseeing $2.7 billion in water spending stepped down this week after pressure from environmentalists over his position on building a dam.
Anthony Saracino, a longtime California water resources consultant, resigned from the California Water Commission on Monday after environmental groups raised a furor over his advocacy for considering the expansion of Shasta Dam, one of several major water storage proposals in the running to receive funds from the 2014 ballot-passed water bond. State officials have identified expanding water storage as one of the long-term methods of improving the state’s ability to weather droughts by increasing the ability to capture floodwaters and other excess runoff.
Saracino, 56, sent his resignation letter to Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Friday, citing pressure from “special interests,” as well as potential future conflicts of interest stemming from his work as an industry consultant. He had been nominated for a second term in 2014 and was scheduled to have a confirmation hearing in the state Senate today.
“It was clear to me, talking to folks, that it was going to become a circus and a distraction from important commission activity, so I decided to step down now rather than waiting till January to avoid the circus,” Saracino said in an interview. “It’s unfortunate that irrational special interests can influence water policy by essentially stifling public discourse and rational discussion.”

Tom Nelson – “Today, April 1, Twitter informed me that my account was “locked” until I deleted this tweet…”

The life of a climate lukewarmer;

I am a climate lukewarmer. That means I think recent global warming is real, mostly man-made and will continue but I no longer think it is likely to be dangerous and I think its slow and erratic progress so far is what we should expect in the future. That last year was the warmest yet, in some data sets, but only by a smidgen more than 2005, is precisely in line with such lukewarm thinking.
This view annoys some sceptics who think all climate change is natural or imaginary, but it is even more infuriating to most publicly funded scientists and politicians, who insist climate change is a big risk. My middle-of-the-road position is considered not just wrong, but disgraceful, shameful, verging on scandalous. I am subjected to torrents of online abuse for holding it, very little of it from sceptics.
I was even kept off the shortlist for a part-time, unpaid public-sector appointment in a field unrelated to climate because of having this view, or so the headhunter thought. In the climate debate, paying obeisance to climate scaremongering is about as mandatory for a public appointment, or public funding, as being a Protestant was in 18th-century England.

Or does it blow?

The European Union is considering pulling the plug on high-wattage hair dryers, lawn mowers and electric kettles in a follow up to its controversial ban on powerful vacuum cleaners.
The power of hairdryers could be reduced by as much as 30 per cent in order to be more eco-friendly, a draft study commissioned by Brussels suggests, threatening many of the models favoured by hairdressers and consumers for speedy blow-dries.