Thanks as always to Pirate’s Cove and The Other McCain for the Rule Five links.  And, emphatically, thanks to all readers for your kind words on yesterday’s post.

Moving on:  California has evidently decided to address their housing affordability crisis by making things worse.  Excerpt:

For seven years, a handful of homebuilders offered solar as an optional item to buyers willing to pay extra to go green.

Now, California is on the verge of making solar standard on virtually every new home built in the Golden State.

The California Energy Commission is scheduled to vote Wednesday, May 9, on new energy standards mandating most new homes have solar panels starting in 2020.

If approved as expected, solar installations on new homes will skyrocket.

Just 15 percent to 20 percent of new single-family homes built include solar, according to Bob Raymer, technical director for the California Building Industry Association.

“California is about to take a quantum leap in energy standards,” Raymer said. “No other state in the nation mandates solar, and we are about to take that leap.”

The proposed new rules would deviate slightly from another much-heralded objective: Requiring all new homes be “net-zero,” meaning they would produce enough solar power to offset all electricity and natural gas consumed over the course of a year.

Now, I’ll admit one thing; if there’s a state where solar panels on roofs might be effective, it’s sunny Californey.  And I would never, ever object to someone deciding that solar panels on their roof was a good idea.  Where the stoopid comes in is in the comment:  “No other state in the nation mandates solar…”

Mandates, that’s the dumb part.  An appropriate response from California builders would be “fuck off, slavers” but I doubt that will be the case.  What will happen now is that California’s already high housing prices will rise even higher, and the exodus of the middle class from the Left Coast will accelerate.

Bug?  Or feature?