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#1 Jun 30 2014 at 1:32 PM Rating: Good
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In Detroit apparently thousands of delinquent bill payers have had their water shut off for weeks.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-detroit-water-20140629-story.html#page=1
This has apparently led several groups (apparently) to actually reach out to the U.N. for help under the notion that over 10,000 people are being denied a basic right of life.. water.

This raises some concerns with me..
The ethical question of charging people for water goes without saying.
When I first discovered long ago that I was to get a water bill (which was from a company on the other side of the country) I was kind of dismayed.. but meh..
Most of the arguments there involve "Go and get your own water if you don't want to pay" however my reaction to that is that most fresh water that I know of is either off limits because someone already bought/claimed it or the water is completely contaminated because: civilization.

In my view, this is one of those things that should fall on the governing body to facilitate rather than leaving it to a bunch of pulled-out-of-the-air cash funnels... but yes yes.. capitalism. No, I don't think capitalism is the problem here. The bottom line is when people don't have water they die. That's it. How much more complicated can it be made?


ALSO:
Why are American people reaching out to the U.N. for help?
Am I overreacting in saying that the implications of that are so ghastly that I want to vomit up my venting spleen?





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#2 Jun 30 2014 at 1:42 PM Rating: Excellent
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Strikes me as particularly bad timing as summer is approaching and people will be needing to stay cool. Akin to cutting off someone's gas supply with winter just getting started. Never mind the fact that some poor soul will have to ride on the bus next to someone stinky and smelly who's gone without a shower for a month. No envy there. As an over-arching thought, I'd hate to be in anyway involved in Detroit right now. That city is a mess wrapped in a bigger mess.

Also, protip: always pay your water, never pay your sewer. They can't turn that off. Smiley: thumbsup

Edit: Also, reading that, they make it sound like there's a leak that hasn't been addressed at that one house. That water is going somewhere, or their meter is ridiculously broken. Either way it sounds like the city doesn't have the means to address it, or they believe it's a problem on the customer's end.

Edited, Jun 30th 2014 12:48pm by someproteinguy
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#3 Jun 30 2014 at 1:47 PM Rating: Good
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A container of 50 water purifying tablets costs like $5. One Two tablets is good for about a liter of water. I've always got a supply in my Dodge bag. If they don't want to pay for someone else to do it for them, they're welcome to do it themselves.

That's assuming the meter isn't broken or whatever. If its just people not wanting to pay their bill, then ***** 'em.

Edited, Jun 30th 2014 3:53pm by lolgaxe
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#4 Jun 30 2014 at 2:14 PM Rating: Excellent
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Are you paying for the actual water itself? I'd assume most of the cost comes from the transportation and sanitation of the water. Of course, I come from the wetter side of the country, I suppose the actual wet stuff is more of a commodity as you go west.

Anyway, charge on the actual H2O or not, someone has to pay to make it come out of your faucet. If not charged per household based on usage then it'd have to be included in the general municipal/property taxes. Payment per household seems fair to me (I don't want to pay to fill my neighbor's pool or keep his grass lush when it's 98F outside).
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#5 Jun 30 2014 at 5:36 PM Rating: Decent
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someproteinguy wrote:
Edit: Also, reading that, they make it sound like there's a leak that hasn't been addressed at that one house. That water is going somewhere, or their meter is ridiculously broken. Either way it sounds like the city doesn't have the means to address it, or they believe it's a problem on the customer's end.

Two words: grow house. I mean, it is Detroit, after all. Check their power bill as well.

It's a shame, though, isn't there a big-*** lake nearby? One of the running jokes on that "Sleepy Hollow" show was the absurd notion that people actually paid money for water.
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#6 Jun 30 2014 at 5:57 PM Rating: Good
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Debalic wrote:
someproteinguy wrote:
Edit: Also, reading that, they make it sound like there's a leak that hasn't been addressed at that one house. That water is going somewhere, or their meter is ridiculously broken. Either way it sounds like the city doesn't have the means to address it, or they believe it's a problem on the customer's end.

Two words: grow house. I mean, it is Detroit, after all. Check their power bill as well.

It's a shame, though, isn't there a big-*** lake nearby? One of the running jokes on that "Sleepy Hollow" show was the absurd notion that people actually paid money for water.


You can't drink the water in the eastern Great Lakes. That **** catches fire.

West Michigan is the only habitable part of Michigan. The UP looks nice, but there isn't anything up there as far as jobs unless you work at one of the 3 or 4 Universities.
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#7 Jun 30 2014 at 6:03 PM Rating: Good
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This is one of the few up sides to being out in BFE, no water bill to pay for, and even if my power goes out I still have a hand pump to fall back on.
#8 Jun 30 2014 at 6:17 PM Rating: Good
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RavennofTitan wrote:
This is one of the few up sides to being out in BFE, no water bill to pay for, and even if my power goes out I still have a hand pump to fall back on.


I have a well, and pretty good sized tank in my basement. If I lose power I still have enough water to last me quite some time. I recently moved my tank and got a higher pressure system and a bigger tank (running around 45-50 PSI now). My old tank was set to around 30 or so.

The water from my well tastes just about perfect. I'm lucky, because there is a patch of water underground that stretches though this town and the next few towns over. It goes under my grandmother's house, just 7 miles down the road. Both her close neighbors are fine, and then about 20 miles from there at the local community college, they have the nasty water. The college has tested and tried and tried and cannot get any good water sources on their property.

It's like... stinky rusty water. Someone told me once it was a chemical given off by rotting leaves, but I don't know if that's true.

I'm just glad my water is good. It's got a little bit of lime in it, not enough to cause any issues with faucets or sinks. But enough to cause caking inside my hot water heater over the years.
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#9 Jun 30 2014 at 6:50 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Are you paying for the actual water itself? I'd assume most of the cost comes from the transportation and sanitation of the water. Of course, I come from the wetter side of the country, I suppose the actual wet stuff is more of a commodity as you go west.


I thought that if you didn't pay your water bill that you just kept getting billed and just owe them money.. I was surprise to see that they could actually shut it off for individual people.


Here's the thing. To be part of a civilization one must accept that all other forms of survival are unavailable to you except that which can be provided by that civilization. To be a fair and humane civilization things such as water should be freely provided in whatever way that it can be provided. If the state has to build a multimillion dollar treatment plan than freaking do it.
Once again (just like in health care) this is something that should be free. Not bottled water or anything fancy.. tap water.

Charging money for it is just pathetic.
We could pay for it with taxes just like highways and just fund it. It's what the gov is supposed to be for.
No.. instead they sell this basic human right to the highest bidder who essentially taxes the roll of a medieval tax collector.
Once again this is not against capitalism. Capitalism would be great if it weren't for the greedy ************ just like Communism would probably be great if it weren't for the greedy ***********

I haven't really thought much on this before...
because I'm wondering where slope becomes slipperiest.. where to draw the line with things, as was mentioned such heating and electricity..?? Am I talking about a gov take over of utilities? maybe.. but not any government we're capable of having right now.. from any party.




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#10 Jun 30 2014 at 6:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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Kelvyquayo wrote:
I thought that if you didn't pay your water bill that you just kept getting billed and just owe them money.. I was surprise to see that they could actually shut it off for individual people.
Really?

It's not hard, just like turning on a faucet. Go out to the meter, open the box and turn the thingy. Speaking of good ideas for adolescent hijinks... Smiley: rolleyes
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#11 Jun 30 2014 at 7:02 PM Rating: Good
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someproteinguy wrote:
Kelvyquayo wrote:
I thought that if you didn't pay your water bill that you just kept getting billed and just owe them money.. I was surprise to see that they could actually shut it off for individual people.
Really?

It's not hard, just like turning on a faucet. Go out to the meter, open the box and turn the thingy. Speaking of good ideas for adolescent hijinks... Smiley: rolleyes


I live in a wigwam so...
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#12 Jun 30 2014 at 7:44 PM Rating: Excellent
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Charging money for it is just pathetic.
We could pay for it with taxes just like highways and just fund it. It's what the gov is supposed to be for.
We do pay for it with taxes, it's just a usage based tax.
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#13 Jun 30 2014 at 9:18 PM Rating: Excellent
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Kelvyquayo wrote:
No.. instead they sell this basic human right to the highest bidder who essentially taxes the roll of a medieval tax collector.

The city of Detroit handles their own water utility as part of the municipality.
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#14 Jul 01 2014 at 6:08 AM Rating: Good
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TirithRR wrote:

You can't drink the water in the eastern Great Lakes. That sh*t catches fire.

I assume the water everywhere in Detroit is flavored with diesel.



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#15 Jul 01 2014 at 7:19 AM Rating: Good
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So it's basically Red Bull?
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#16 Jul 01 2014 at 8:00 AM Rating: Good
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lolgaxe wrote:
So it's basically Red Bull?

Bottle it. Market it as naturally infused hydrocarbon water. Call it Detroit #2. Bet the hipsters would buy it.
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#17 Jul 01 2014 at 3:09 PM Rating: Default
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Kelvyquayo wrote:
In Detroit apparently thousands of delinquent bill payers have had their water shut off for weeks.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-detroit-water-20140629-story.html#page=1
This has apparently led several groups (apparently) to actually reach out to the U.N. for help under the notion that over 10,000 people are being denied a basic right of life.. water.


It's a political tactic. No one's being denied a right to anything.

Quote:
The ethical question of charging people for water goes without saying.


No one's being charged for water. They're being charged for the expense of delivering water to their homes.

Quote:
Most of the arguments there involve "Go and get your own water if you don't want to pay" however my reaction to that is that most fresh water that I know of is either off limits because someone already bought/claimed it or the water is completely contaminated because: civilization.


I've yet to encounter a public park that didn't have some kind of drinking fountain. Which is free to the public and is required by law to be drinkable. Anyone can obtain water. To even remotely compare this to the kinds of water issues that the UN is usually dealing with is laughable. The "reaching out to the UN" bit is political grandstanding.

Quote:
In my view, this is one of those things that should fall on the governing body to facilitate rather than leaving it to a bunch of pulled-out-of-the-air cash funnels... but yes yes.. capitalism. No, I don't think capitalism is the problem here. The bottom line is when people don't have water they die. That's it. How much more complicated can it be made?


I'm not sure how capitalism even enters the equation. This is a city run service. In a city that has been dominated by socialist policies for decades now. So much so that they've chased out their tax base and are left with nothing but poor people who require far more public assistance than there is money to provide them. Capitalism might be a solution to this (although it might even be too late for that), but it's absolutely not the problem.

Quote:
Why are American people reaching out to the U.N. for help?


Again: Grandstanding. It's about raising attention and making people feel bad about the plight of the poor in Detroit, under the hope that this will build some kind of public pressure to "do something!", which will almost certainly involve more money spent putting a band aid on the problem that will only delay things for a bit longer. Look for calls to declare Detroit's water situation a national emergency, so as to get federal aid money (maybe FEMA will show up and help out even!).


Quote:
Am I overreacting in saying that the implications of that are so ghastly that I want to vomit up my venting spleen?


You are overreacting, but that overreaction is precisely what is intended. The agenda here is to generate public sympathy from the rest of the nation, so that we'll decide to foot the bill for Detroit's poor, now that they've squandered the tax base they had.

Detroit is a great example of how Socialism fails btw. Should be a warning sign, but I'm sure most will miss it.
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#18 Jul 01 2014 at 3:32 PM Rating: Good
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I've yet to encounter a public park that didn't have some kind of drinking fountain.

You need to get out more, then. I can't think of a park with a fountain. Maybe it's a San Diego thing.

Detroit is a great example of how Socialism fails btw.

Amazing that after a decade you still have absolutely no ******* idea what "socialism" means. Even after dozens of people have explained it to you.
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#19 Jul 01 2014 at 3:48 PM Rating: Default
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Smasharoo wrote:
I've yet to encounter a public park that didn't have some kind of drinking fountain.

You need to get out more, then. I can't think of a park with a fountain. Maybe it's a San Diego thing.


Aside from the occasional tiny corner park (which are usually more like a bit of lawn/field than a real "park"), they always have them. Do parks where you live not have restrooms? If they've got a restroom, they've got a sink with running water, and usually a drinking fountain attached to the structure (both of which can be used to obtain free drinking water if you need it). Certainly, every park with some kind of recreation facilities (like basketball/tennis courts say) will have drinking fountains. All that are attached to schools will.

You're seriously going to go with this line of thinking? Talk about doubling down on ridiculous.

Quote:
Detroit is a great example of how Socialism fails btw.

Amazing that after a decade you still have absolutely no @#%^ing idea what "socialism" means. Even after dozens of people have explained it to you.


Lol! Um... Sure Smash.

Edited, Jul 1st 2014 2:48pm by gbaji
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#20 Jul 01 2014 at 3:48 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Talk about doubling down on ridiculous.
Heh.
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#21 Jul 01 2014 at 4:05 PM Rating: Good
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Aside from the occasional tiny corner park (which are usually more like a bit of lawn/field than a real "park"), they always have them. Do parks where you live not have restrooms?

No....they don't. Because they're parks, not shopping malls. I have, of course, seen water available at parks, but it's definitely the minority of places. I could see it being an ordinance or a state law in some places that require them, but that's obviously not the case everywhere. The upshot of that, of course, is the argument "All da parks I see have water for free hue hue hue" is utterly useless. Do you know anything about Detroit parks? I don't. Maybe they all have saunas and colonic huts. Maybe government employees stroll about and give blowjobs to passerby. Maybe they only have POISONED water and unleash attack dogs on people. I have no idea. You have no idea. Your experience 2000 miles away CANNOT be ******* extrapolated and applied.
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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#22 Jul 01 2014 at 4:26 PM Rating: Excellent
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While they probably don't have poisoned water, I certainly wouldn't lay odds on public park water being potable -- especially not in some low income Detroit park. Either because it was never intended to be or because of neglect to the system over the years.

That said, I love the fact that Gbaji's answer here is for the poor folk to gather up their buckets and head on down to the well. I mean, if we're paying for distribution then it's the same system distributing to their homes as the one going to the park drinking fountain that's now supposed to dispense hundreds of gallons per day, right?
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#23 Jul 01 2014 at 4:42 PM Rating: Default
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Jophiel wrote:
That said, I love the fact that Gbaji's answer here is for the poor folk to gather up their buckets and head on down to the well. I mean, if we're paying for distribution then it's the same system distributing to their homes as the one going to the park drinking fountain that's now supposed to dispense hundreds of gallons per day, right?


Given that the conditions the UN usually deals with regarding lack of access to water is when people can't get potable water from a well near enough to be usable, and would never consider the mere lack of running water into someone's home to even enter the equation, that's kind of relevant, right?

I was responding directly to the implication that this can be remotely considered some kind of human rights violation because of the lack of access to water. Can we agree that this is a ludicrous claim? In most of the world, people don't have running water in their homes and are struggling to have water within a days walking distance. So forgive me if I find the plight of the denizens of Detroit somewhat lacking in that context.

Can we at least agree that the whole bit about reaching out to the UN over human rights is political stunt?

Edited, Jul 1st 2014 3:43pm by gbaji
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#24 Jul 01 2014 at 4:46 PM Rating: Excellent
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I don't care about the UN thing, I'm just laughing at you telling the poor folk to head on down to fill their buckets. Not because it'll cost the city any less money (it won't if it's the same water and now you're just stressing some parts of the system not made to be stressed) but just out of, I dunno, some conservative creed or something I guess.

Edited, Jul 1st 2014 5:46pm by Jophiel
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#25 Jul 01 2014 at 4:48 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
I don't care about the UN thing,
If he'd have read the thread he'd have noticed most people don't, but damnit he spent days rehearsing these talking points he "thought up himself" and he'll be damned to not use them.

Ha ha, I'm just kidding. He'd have done it even if he had done any reading.
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#26 Jul 01 2014 at 5:26 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
I don't care about the UN thing, I'm just laughing at you telling the poor folk to head on down to fill their buckets. Not because it'll cost the city any less money (it won't if it's the same water and now you're just stressing some parts of the system not made to be stressed) but just out of, I dunno, some conservative creed or something I guess.


Um... A good portion of the topic revolves around "the UN thing". Also, I didn't tell poor folk to do anything. I responded to a statement about how in the absence of water coming directly from people's taps, it would be very difficult to obtain any fresh drinkable water. The implication seemed to be that if you can't get water from your tap, you have to go to a river or something, and that it'll be unsafe to drink. I pointed out that there are numerous public drinking fountains all over the place in any city. How the hell do you think homeless people manage to survive? The idea that water would just not be available was and is absurd.


Now, as to the point of cost, sure. If it were just about the total volume of water. But it's not. It's about the service itself. That's what you pay your water bill for. You pay $20-$30 per month for the convenience of water coming out of your taps. But the point is that this is a convenience, not a right. I fail to see how this remotely falls into the category of human rights violation. Which was my sole point. I'm not even sure what you're arguing about. I was not making *any* moral judgement about people having to walk somewhere to get water. I was only commenting on whether there was free water they could obtain that would be safe to drink.

There is, right?
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