Let Them Drink Beer (Marie Antoinette paraphrase)

[Owly055]

In these times of drastic water shortages in California, it's really far too late to talk about real solutions. A conservative estimate of 150,000,000 acre feet of unused water flows out of the mouth of the Columbia river every year. Another estimate has it at 123 million gallons per minute flow at the mouth. In any case it's a HUGE amount of water. You can drink fresh water out of the ocean as much as 40 miles out to sea!!

This is a vast resource, "going to waste" every single day..... A highly debatable statement ;-) ............But once the water has reached the mouth of the river, who has a claim on it? What are the environmental impacts of removing a portion of it?

I propose a 40' diameter undersea pipeline from Astoria to Northern California. It would be anchored to the sea floor but would float about 300' below the surface. It would pump beer to the thirsty folks in California from a vast brewery complex located at Astoria. Rail cars and barges would ship huge quantities of grain and hops from all over the nation..... all over the world actually to Astoria where it would be brewed. Wort would be made in Astoria, innoculated and pumped to California, fermenting on the way, to be bottled and kegged in California for distribution to the thirsty masses. In fact people would bath and shower in beer, water their lawns and golf courses, flush their toilets, wash their clothes, and swim in beer.

This would keep the population in California........ they'd be too drunk to go anywhere else, and who would ever dream of leaving that Big Rock Candy Mountain where little streams of alcohol come a trickling down the rocks and there's a lake of stew and of whiskey too.... Where you sleep all day, and they hung the jerk who invented work......

Oregon and Washington have the resource to keep California the paradise that it is......What's holding up the show?

H.W.




One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains