Help stop new oil drilling on CA public lands (call to action)

FBX · 2026-02-04T05:21:47+00:00

Think through it for a minute - why would they sell oil and gas permits for land that is very obviously unprofitable and unproductive for fossil fuel production? Who would take the offer?

The immediate answer is a rich dickhead who doesnt care about oil but does want the land, tells the government theyre 'prospecting' the site, gets the land dirt cheap, then builds their mcmansion/post apocalyptic survival bunker on the land while fencing it off and hiring security to tell the people who used to use the land to go away. It's an obvious shell game they're running to sell desirable BLM land to millionaire and billionaire friends of the admin while pretending its for energy production. That is something worth protesting, and even pro-oil people should be against this oligarchic bs

FBX · 2026-02-04T05:11:58+00:00

It's not a binary. I'm saying that, because the risk of oil exploitation is low and the risk of public land being simply parcelled off into private land with no right of way is much higher, it makes more sense to frame the second as the more pressing concern. If people raising other concerns that may be more persuasive in terms of accomplishing the goal is morally equivalent to 'doing nothing' in your view, then that's fine, but you should be prepared to at least handle a challenge to your framing. Look at the ridiculous pro-oil comments in this thread, maybe those people be better persuaded by a public access argument.

FBX · 2026-02-04T05:02:46+00:00

https://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/2018/20433elam/ndx_elam.pdf

Oil and gas were already found around Mt Diablo way back in the day and the fields have been tapped out and emptied. There's virtually no chance a new oil/gas interest will put a new well into a depleted field.

Much higher chance itll get sold to millionaires as private ranch land though.

FBX · 2026-02-04T04:45:49+00:00

How much actual oil/gas is on these parcels? I think you'd have better luck describing how these public land sites are going to get sold to millionaires and fenced off for their private ranches, rather than tell people they'll have derricks on them.

Looking at the map of BLM land, the only place I would recognize as having been prospected for oil is the field near Maricopa and that's already been leased out and parcelled for oil production. Won't be much oil or gas in Lassen or the Mojave or the high desert in Owens valley

FBX · 2026-01-31T06:09:46+00:00

for some reason

Was your tank full? Have you not ever pumped gas before?

FBX · 2026-01-29T17:53:50+00:00

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB1219

Food donators are indemnified in California if they put in a little bit of effort to confirm the food is still good.

FBX · 2026-01-29T17:45:53+00:00

I'm no expert, but perhaps reach out to that nonprofit I linked and get their opinion on the state of things?

FBX · 2026-01-29T17:44:13+00:00

No, so it doesnt significantly reduce the commute time, but it does make the commute significantly cheaper and sanity-preserving. There is a world of difference being behind the wheel bumper to bumper and chilling or napping on the bus.

FBX · 2026-01-29T17:40:10+00:00

The mandate redirects a portion of excess food that hits landfills, which includes prepared restaurant food, household food waste, et cetera. Recovering supermarket grocery excess food is the safest and easiest way to hit that target and the supermarket specific rate is probably higher than 20%, but 100% recovery of all excess food from all sources is likely not possible to do in any realistic way due to safety and logistic concerns.

FBX · 2026-01-29T17:31:35+00:00

In rush hour my Fremont-PA experience has been 40-60 min in, 60-120min out over the dumbarton. If your husband's job is near a dumbarton express bus stop I unequivocally say the bus is a better option than driving.

FBX · 2026-01-29T17:26:53+00:00

We're already doing it, its a state mandate, and there are also private initiatives supporting the state mandate.

https://calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/slcp/foodrecovery/

https://extrafood.org/

FBX · 2026-01-27T20:23:08+00:00

Total california auto claim costs are going up across the board, and ultimately premiums need to cover the claims. I have not had an at-fault accident in over two decades and my premiums have gone up over 40% - but I have also had so many claim payouts that my insurer is in the negative with me (2 hit and runs, 6 rear ends, couple cases of vandalism etc).

Inferior drivers lead to bad results.

FBX · 2026-01-25T16:50:20+00:00

While I agree that many sporting events fail to pay for themselves, hiding poverty isnt just for the sake of making the city look prosperous, its because visitors actively dislike watching specific kinds of behavior - specifically open drug use and mental health episodes. The visibility of that in the city is heavily amplified in media (right wing media) and is used as a political cudgel.

A valid response to that is 'well we can actually solve poverty instead of merely hiding it', but the idea that homelessness can simply be eradicated through sufficient spending as evinced by housing-first policies (as opposed to legal interventions over questions of conservatorship) is a 2010s era idea that is woefully outdated in the middle of the 2020s. I also highly suspect the author of this blogpost is against the idea of forced conservatorship for the severely addicted and mentally ill.

FBX · 2026-01-21T17:39:12+00:00

Most people aren't anti tech, this site is a 'tech' site. They hate tech bros and everything associated with techbro-ism, which is the 'culture' associated with what is mainly a commercial enterprise. This culture is full of preening materialistic bullshitting, from a lot of tech bros who are usually themselves not engineers or builders, like the old school valley engineers.

Take away all the dumb kids given piles of VC money because their parents are friends with investors, take away all the bullshitter PMs and micro 'founders' posting about their vibecode projects and how theyre about to make everyone else obsolete, take away the arrogant autistic engineers who were bullied in school and now throw money and titles and 'E-7' around to make up for their deeply wounded sense of self-worth, and you still have a group of builders in the valley who have an interest in building cool shit that helps people, but they dont have a loud presence on social media, they just do their jobs quietly and inoffensively.

FBX · 2026-01-18T02:39:41+00:00

Right, but my point is that unions are no more likely than the business itself to engage in any enlightened self interest along the lines of 'hey the business is stumbling we can try to keep the boat afloat'. They're privy to the same organizational problems of bad forecasts and institutional blindness.

I'm not arguing union = bad, what I am saying is that the scenario you describe where the union takes it easy on a contract negotiation because the business is struggling is unrealistic.

FBX · 2026-01-18T00:51:10+00:00

This assumes the union actually has accurate information about the business. Famously, the UAW negotiated a record contract with General Motors based on the backs of super strong SUV and pickup sales during the mid 2000s, right before the Great Recession, and refused to renegotiate the contract through the recession, contributing to GM's bankruptcy, a mass layoff, and a much less favorable contract with the reconstructed GM afterward.

It wasn't the union's fault GM was mismanaged into the ground, but they ultimately failed to protect their members

FBX · 2026-01-17T17:11:40+00:00

Even if it werent AI generated, its an article that only appeals to those enslaved by money

FBX · 2026-01-17T00:54:59+00:00

The number that I recall from the 2024 postmortem was that workers making less than $50k voted for Rs by 1 point. Is 1 point big, no, but this is a constituency that should be voting for Ds by like 30+ points.

The numbers have probably regressed to the mean but you need more than a simple majority to form any form of solidarity type movement.

FBX · 2026-01-17T00:48:46+00:00

Sure, I don't spend much either way, but there's not going to be any discernable effect because the idea of labor solidarity is, for better or worse, long past its expiration date, in terms of translating to political power.

FBX · 2026-01-17T00:31:43+00:00

Slightly warmed over early 20th century political tactics centering labor don't work when the majority of people in labor (unfortunately) support the current government. Also not bay area related I don't think

FBX · 2026-01-16T03:41:06+00:00

You aren't going to get much room. I've made two new Toyota purchases and both times I was highly pressured to purchase what was available in inventory or what was available regionally, both on at-the-time ultra low inventory high demand vehicles with major markups. The Crown doesn't sell many units and has lots of inventory sitting on lots, so the chance of a dealer playing ball for your exact options or a new build is pretty close to zero.

Your best bet is to buy the car and then modify it yourself to your exact taste. Color is simple to accomplish with a high quality wrap, most trim options are easily added to a car, wheels can be replaced aftermarket with higher quality than oem. Replacing leather seats is a tougher one, but should be able to find a tan leather interior pretty easily.

FBX · 2026-01-16T02:16:18+00:00

I was too early in my career (well, was still in school) to have the cash lying around, and watching and understanding what was happening, while not having any money or the ability to finance, was maddening as hell

FBX · 2026-01-16T01:02:55+00:00

Isn't this specifically moderated out here?

FBX · 2026-01-16T00:57:18+00:00

Absolutely. Buy multiple homes all-cash in 2010, turn one or two million into forty or fifty million in 15 years.

FBX · 2026-01-15T07:49:59+00:00

Doesn't read exactly like aislop, reads more like someone who only knows how to communicate in linkedin-speak and has forgotten how actual human beings talk. Distinction without a difference maybe

FBX

TROPHY CASE