California Doing California Things

[Elixir]

the author of that steaming pile doesn't think that people like @TSwizzle can figure out what a pile of bullshit it is.

They are quite obviously correct about that.

 

[Politesse]

California is bracing for the closure of two major oil refineries, including one in the Bay Area. State lawmakers are sounding the alarm on what that could mean for gas prices. In the East Bay, the Valero Benicia Refinery is expected to close in April 2026. Down in Southern California, owners of the Phillips 66 refinery are also planning to stop operations in the next year. Either way, fewer refineries will mean higher prices. It’s a simple case of supply and demand. That has some state lawmakers concerned about the future. Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine) said, “If all we’re doing here in California is reducing our emissions, which are 1% global emissions, it doesn’t matter a damn. I would argue again that when we’re thinking about climate leadership, we need to make sure that the policies that we’re implementing here in California are affordable and accessible for all Californians. I know that what climate leadership does not look like, and that is $10 gas.”
The head of California’s energy commission is telling lawmakers that the closure of two refineries could force the state to import more gas. So far, there has been no action from the assembly. One estimate from the University of Southern California shows gas prices could jump by 75 percent when the refineries close. That would add up to more than $8 a gallon next year.

News

California is governed by imbeciles.

What action do you want the Assembly to take, exactly?

 

[Shadowy Man]

California is bracing for the closure of two major oil refineries, including one in the Bay Area. State lawmakers are sounding the alarm on what that could mean for gas prices. In the East Bay, the Valero Benicia Refinery is expected to close in April 2026. Down in Southern California, owners of the Phillips 66 refinery are also planning to stop operations in the next year. Either way, fewer refineries will mean higher prices. It’s a simple case of supply and demand. That has some state lawmakers concerned about the future. Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine) said, “If all we’re doing here in California is reducing our emissions, which are 1% global emissions, it doesn’t matter a damn. I would argue again that when we’re thinking about climate leadership, we need to make sure that the policies that we’re implementing here in California are affordable and accessible for all Californians. I know that what climate leadership does not look like, and that is $10 gas.”
The head of California’s energy commission is telling lawmakers that the closure of two refineries could force the state to import more gas. So far, there has been no action from the assembly. One estimate from the University of Southern California shows gas prices could jump by 75 percent when the refineries close. That would add up to more than $8 a gallon next year.

News

California is governed by imbeciles.

What action do you want the Assembly to take, exactly?

He’d rather bitch and moan, I am guessing, than provide a well thought out policy proposal.

Sorry, I meant roll his eyes as he will to this post.

 

[TSwizzle]

Hilarious.

The U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday notified project leaders that the administration plans to terminate $4 billion in federal funds. The department pointed to its new, 310-page report outlining issues with the project that range from missed deadlines, budget issues and an overrepresentation of projected ridership. The California High-Speed Rail Authority will have 37 days to make corrections before the funding termination is final.
Democratic Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla released a joint statement “High-speed rail is the future of transportation — with the potential to bring customers to new businesses, businesses to new employees, and to connect communities hundreds of miles away with affordable and faster transit. The fact is that the California High-Speed Rail Project is already the most audited public works project in the country. Rather than advance the progress being made in the Central Valley, Secretary Duffy has used a review process to appease President Trump and punish Californians who didn’t vote for him. We’ll keep fighting every partisan, self-defeating policy of this Administration as we build infrastructure fit for the 21st century.”

News

They have been at it 17 years, spent many billions of dollars and have yet to lay any track for a 120 mile stretch of railway to connect two shitholes in the Central Valley. There is no way in hell this “infrastructure” will ever be ready this century.

California is governed by imbeciles. Padilla and Schiff are clowns.

 

[Politesse]

Why do people always say "yet to lay any track" as though that were the first step? Bridge first. Then rail. You don't start with the rail and then build a bridge under it.

No wonder Republicans are incapable of getting anything done! Even the concept of gravity eludes them.

Also, shitholes? Wtf? It's remarkable the degree to which these so-called "patriots" despise the country they live in.

 

[TSwizzle]

Why do people always say "yet to lay any track" as though that were the first step? Bridge first. Then rail. You don't start with the rail and then build a bridge under it.

It has been more than ten years since they broke ground. How big is the bridge?

 

[thebeave]

Why do people always say "yet to lay any track" as though that were the first step? Bridge first. Then rail. You don't start with the rail and then build a bridge under it.

No wonder Republicans are incapable of getting anything done! Even the concept of gravity eludes them.

Also, shitholes? Wtf? It's remarkable the degree to which these so-called "patriots" despise the country they live in.

It seems like you're fussing over word choices and phrases as a way to dismiss and/or avoid talking about the huge delays and budget overruns that are happening with this monumental disaster. And of course, you managed to squeeze in the usual tiresome, mandatory digs at Republicans who have little to do with this thing at all. The sooner this thing gets nixed the better. Its just throwing good money after bad at this point.

 

[Politesse]

of course, you managed to squeeze in the usual tiresome, mandatory digs at Republicans who have little to do with this thing at all.

We're literally talking about a news story about the latest Republican attempt to undermine and delay the project, and you say they have nothing to do with it? Pull me another one!

Anyways, I suppose you think all the rail workers, contractors, lumber mills, cement factories, steel mills, land owners, electricians, local governments of Republican-dominated counties, and fabricators are all staffed exclusively by DEI liberals? Nothing to do with it, indeed! You're unintentionally insulting the people you think you're defending. And if it's somehow true that no Republicans work any of these jobs, you should be writing the DNC a nice thank you card for songle-handedly keeping fifteen profitable American industries alive.

As usual.

 

[thebeave]

of course, you managed to squeeze in the usual tiresome, mandatory digs at Republicans who have little to do with this thing at all.

We're literally talking about a news story about the latest Republican attempt to undermine and delay the project, and you say they have nothing to do with it? Pull me another one!

Anyways, I suppose you think all the rail workers, contractors, lumber mills, cement factories, steel mills, land owners, electricians, local governments of Republican-dominated counties, and fabricators are all staffed exclusively by DEI liberals? Nothing to do with it, indeed! You're unintentionally insulting the people you think you're defending. And if it's somehow true that no Republicans work any of these jobs, you should be writing the DNC a nice thank you card for songle-handedly keeping fifteen profitable American industries alive.

As usual.

When talking about Republicans, I was referring to who dreamed up this boondoggle in the first place and has kept it going. This project's beginings were largely a wet dream of progressive Democrats who have been running (or I should say "ruining") the state unimpeded for decades now. The DoT is just planning on withholding a mere $4 billion of federal funds. Which is a rounding error on this out of control beast. Why should taxpayers in other states be helping fund this mess at atll?

I am all in favor of the construction jobs, you refer to, but not as "make work" on stupid shit. How about instead of a train that hardly anyone will use, we construct power plants (primarily nuclear) and upgrade our electrical grids to support the upcoming demands of AI, electric cars and appliances? And build and upgrade our water reservoirs. And thin our overgrown forests to mitigate fire hazards. You know...useful stuff that is actually needed.

 

[Politesse]

of course, you managed to squeeze in the usual tiresome, mandatory digs at Republicans who have little to do with this thing at all.

We're literally talking about a news story about the latest Republican attempt to undermine and delay the project, and you say they have nothing to do with it? Pull me another one!

Anyways, I suppose you think all the rail workers, contractors, lumber mills, cement factories, steel mills, land owners, electricians, local governments of Republican-dominated counties, and fabricators are all staffed exclusively by DEI liberals? Nothing to do with it, indeed! You're unintentionally insulting the people you think you're defending. And if it's somehow true that no Republicans work any of these jobs, you should be writing the DNC a nice thank you card for songle-handedly keeping fifteen profitable American industries alive.

As usual.

When talking about Republicans, I was referring to who dreamed up this boondoggle in the first place and has kept it going. This project's beginings were largely a wet dream of progressive Democrats who have been running (or I should say "ruining") the state unimpeded for decades now. The DoT is just planning on withholding a mere $4 billion of federal funds. Which is a rounding error on this out of control beast. Why should taxpayers in other states be helping fund this mess at atll?

I am all in favor of the construction jobs, you refer to, but not as "make work" on stupid shit. How about instead of a train that hardly anyone will use, we construct power plants (primarily nuclear) and upgrade our electrical grids to support the upcoming demands of AI, electric cars and appliances? And build and upgrade our water reservoirs. And thin our overgrown forests to mitigate fire hazards. You know...useful stuff that is actually needed.

And you think Republicans are going to build any of that? When have Republicans ever built anything remotely useful? Their whole schtick is funding nothing, opposing everything, and getting us mired in endless, expensive wars with countries and cultures they don't understand.

There are plenty of Republicans in the state government. If they want to deprivatize and update the power grid, build new nuclear power plants for some reason, push EVs and electric appliances, put money behind fire prevention, and "build new reservoirs" for some reason, they are free to advance a bill to do those things. But they don't. In fact, they adamantly, vociferously oppose at least three of those.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Perhaps you should explain to them that you’d rather spend 4x the cost of a home to put them up in jail. That should clear up their confusion.

As far as I can see, there are broadly two categories of homeless people.

• People hard on their luck, lost job, medical debt, what have you.
  They would indeed benefit from getting housing.
• People who are on the streets because of addiction and/or mental health problems, especially refractory mental illness.
  They don't just need homes, they need treatment. Sometimes, involuntary commitment would be necessary, but that's hard to do these days. Jordan Neely for example should have been committed.

What would you estimate to be the proportions of each class amongst homeless persons as a whole, and why?

My feeling is that those in the latter group are few in number, to the point where nations and jurisdictions where the former group are provided with adequate assistance have a very low number of homeless people, almost all from the latter category.

There are three groups, not two:
1) The economic.
2) The non-dangerous mental cases.
3) The dangerous mental cases.

I don't have the numbers on this, but it seems likely that the latter group is of fairly invariable size in any given population, while variation in homelessness rates is driven almost entirely by variation in the numbers from the former category.

No.

Really?

Because the former category tends not to stay homeless.

That's an argument for "yes". Did you read what I wrote before disagreeing with me?

The majority on the streets are mental or drugs.

That's both extremely implausible, and not a claim that in any way contradicts my hypothesis, whether true or false.

Re-read my post. It says that the number of people with mental illness or drug issues will change less over time than does the number who are down on their luck.

Unemployment and poverty vary with economic cycles; Mental illness and drug use should vary far less - nutters are nutty and addicts stay addicted, regardless of the availability (or not) of work.

I would agree that this group changes less, but that's not the same as staying fairly invariable in size. If nothing else, it's been estimated that fentanyl deaths might be down because of attrition. Substantially down.

I would also expect mental illness and addiction levels to be far less variable from place to place, as well as from time to time, so the existence of places with low levels of homelessness would strongly suggest that the places with high levels have more poverty/unemployment instances per capita, while having a very similar per capita instance of craziness or drug addiction. But that's not the argument you flatly contradicted, it's just a refutation of your irrelevant but likely flawed assertion.

And here I completely disagree. That would only be true if there were little if any migration and attrition levels were similar in all locations.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Mental illness and drug use should vary far less

Hard to be sure because people complain less when times are good, and that can mask mental illness. Stress brings out more crazy. Wars, natural disasters and people like trump can drive people crazy, so to speak. So can unemployment or poverty.

Also there's the issue with the marginal ones. Someone who is barely able to function in good times can easily be pushed into non-function in bad times and then probably not recover.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And let’s not forget the homeless population.

Thanks for the reminder. I tend to forget since they almost never bother me.

Exactly. I have long suspected people were living behind a few of the transformers around here. Recently I have actually seen one of them more than once. Ok, someone's there. Doesn't hurt me. I've never seen anything nasty there.

(The transformers are separated from the houses by walls, but they have a few feet of open space around them in case the linemen need to do something. It makes for out of the way locations where normally nobody would ever go.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

California is the gift that keeps on giving...

State Bar’s botched exam for new lawyers is California’s latest entry to the hall of shame

And this is somehow supposed to be a California-only thing?

You realize the MAHA report shows many hallmarks of being very badly written by AI? (Which is typical when you ask AI to do write something false.)

 

[Elixir]

Mental illness and drug use should vary far less

Hard to be sure because people complain less when times are good, and that can mask mental illness. Stress brings out more crazy. Wars, natural disasters and people like trump can drive people crazy, so to speak. So can unemployment or poverty.

Also there's the issue with the marginal ones. Someone who is barely able to function in good times can easily be pushed into non-function in bad times and then probably not recover.

I really take issue with dichotomies like crazy/sane, functional/non-functional etc.
Those are words words of convenience that enable arbitrary classification of people by mechanism of definition, whereas in fact every individual is actually “on the spectrum” of crazy/sane, functional/non-functional and all the rest of those dichotomies.
I think there are very few non-functional crazy people whose afflictions are unrelated to circumstance.
If society puts a lot of people under economic stress there will be more crazy, and that’s just one among several major circumstantial aggravators of crazy.
And crazy is, in Loren’s context, only one of a dozen or more words for undesirable…

Are people undesirable? I’m open to the idea, at some times more than others. But we should admit it if that’s the case. It’s our only hope of wiping out undesirability!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It was precisely because Brandon was out of his mind that he was ousted. So yeah, being out of one's mind is an impediment.

Bullshit.
The Biden administration was doing rather well, considering the mess the Trump administration left behind.

And the continual attempts by the Republicans to ensure nothing got fixed.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Mental illness and drug use should vary far less

Hard to be sure because people complain less when times are good, and that can mask mental illness. Stress brings out more crazy. Wars, natural disasters and people like trump can drive people crazy, so to speak. So can unemployment or poverty.

Also there's the issue with the marginal ones. Someone who is barely able to function in good times can easily be pushed into non-function in bad times and then probably not recover.

I really take issue with dichotomies like crazy/sane, functional/non-functional etc.
Those are words words of convenience that enable arbitrary classification of people by mechanism of definition, whereas in fact every individual is actually “on the spectrum” of crazy/sane, functional/non-functional and all the rest of those dichotomies.

Yeah, I think most mental health things are ranges.

I think there are very few non-functional crazy people whose afflictions are unrelated to circumstance.
If society puts a lot of people under economic stress there will be more crazy, and that’s just one among several major circumstantial aggravators of crazy.
And crazy is, in Loren’s context, only one of a dozen or more words for undesirable…

In this case I'm using "crazy" as unable to hold down a job because of mental health.

Are people undesirable? I’m open to the idea, at some times more than others. But we should admit it if that’s the case. It’s our only hope of wiping out undesirability!

I don't claim to have answers. The economic ones have a clear approach: a roof over their head. The others, though, I don't know what to do. And I don't know how to reliably separate the two groups.

 

[Elixir]

In this case I'm using "crazy" as unable to hold down a job because of mental health.

Okay, my first and last job where I punched a time clock, lasted under a year. I quit due to my mental state bring incompatible with the workplace requirements. It wasn’t the considerable physical hardship, or even the conditions that included chemical and metal vapors, lots of super-loud noises and way too much UV exposure. It was more the production quotas. I loved the actual work but hated the continual mental pressure.

So I went back to the far more relaxed requirements of weed dealing. Somehow the exposure to legal ramifications never weighed on me. And it kept me fed better too.
WAS I CRAZY?

 

[Politesse]

When talking about the respective merits of the Parties and their "visions" for California, it is important to remember that Republicans are open to the possibility of mass killings, and Democrats are not:

California mayor wants to give homeless people 'all the fentanyl they want': 'Need to purge these people'​

"Quite frankly, I wish that the president would give us a purge. Because we do need to purge these people," Parris said.

He didn't say this to a friend with a wire or at a crowded bar, but at a public meeting he knew was being recorded. When asked later whether he was joking, he clarified that he was not. Parris is, and has been, the duly elected and several times over re-elected mayor of a city of 160,000 citizens, of whom he has requested permission to murder 526 in cold blood.

No, Republican "solutions" to California's problems are not acceptable, and should not be tolerable to any loyal American citizen.

 

[TSwizzle]

He didn't say this to a friend with a wire or at a crowded bar, but at a public meeting he knew was being recorded. When asked later whether he was joking, he clarified that he was not. Parris is, and has been, the duly elected and several times over re-elected mayor of a city of 160,000 citizens, of whom he has requested permission to murder 526 in cold blood.

526? Pah, that's a paltry number compared to the roughly 2,500 annual deaths in Los Angeles county. You know what annual means right? Every year roughly 2,500 homeless people die on the streets of Los Angeles county. But for some reason, actual deaths don't seem to phase you. Why are democrats allowing this to continue? Why hasn't this been fixed? What are the democrat's solution to this? Why aren't the drug treatment programs being funded? This is what we voted for on prop36 but insufferable prick Newsom stalls and then makes things worse by closing prisons and dumping these people into the abyss.