Unfortunately you need to take Arizona, Utah, and Colorado as well. California needs the Colorado River.

She referred to a report from the Circular Action Alliance, the state-sanctioned group established to represent and oversee the implementation of the law on behalf of the plastic and packaging industry. It finds the law will increase the cost of disposal between six and 14 times for common products, such as Windex bottles, made of polyethylene terephthalate.

“If the producers don’t successfully sue to stop the fees, this will certainly add to product inflation for CA consumers,” she said in an email. “Californians already have to pay exorbitantly high curbside collection fees for trash, recycling, and organics ... so, starting in 2027, our groceries will cost a LOT more but we won’t see a reduction in our waste bills.”

Right, I forgot about those Windex Chocolates that I buy every week.

It sure would be nice to see some reporting touch on important aspects that are less obvious, such as where does TetraPak fit in? I think it’s a plasticky cardboard that is currently somehow partially recyclable into shingles, and I believe it’s the only sterile milk container alternative to HDPE currently in common use.

I don’t remember back in the day when stuff like milk and Coke came is glass bottles that were returned in an orderly fashion, washed, sterilized, and reused with new disposable metal or cardboard lids, but I’ve heard that was common. Is there a particular scaling problem with that kind of infrastructure? Did it get outlawed due to falsified safety concerns lobbied by plastics manufacturers, or simply become too expensive next to single use plastics?

I’m not going to be very happy voting for Big Oil Beccera but it seems like the best way to avoid the Republican Runoff.

The solution to this stupid problem is implementing Ranked Choice Voting for statewide offices but that’s a future fight, no good for the present.

It’s increasingly seeming like the old billionaire white guy may be the best choice. What the hell is this timeline?

Of course, the best choice is actually whichever Dem is polling the highest before the election deadline, since a general election with a choice between Bianco and Hilton would be a comic tragedy.

The measure would have prevented owners of 50 or more single-family rental properties from using a tax break, which allows for gains from selling a property used for a trade or business to be deferred if a taxpayer acquires another property of a “like-kind.”

It’s not even about something serious like repealing prop 13 tax assessment increase protection for large corporate landlords. It’s just a measly 1031 exchange hit. Do it right and take away their prop 13.

I’m not sure if I’ve made my peace with it, but my despair was something of a phase. Everything unfolding is too big for me to stop it, so I’m just along for the ride now. I think a lot of people haven’t really seen it coming yet, so there’s going to be a lot of wailing and public gnashing of teeth (and blaming Democrats) in the relatively near future.

But I don’t think the opposite of hope os necessarily despair. The despair is still present if I want to go looking for it, but I compartmentalize it most of the time, and focus on the things I need to do in the near-term. I still have plenty of responsibilities to execute. One foot in front of the other.

Enjoy what you can when you can. Be thankful for what you have.

In hard times, it's overwhelming to live only in the present.

Incorrect as a general rule. I find the present plenty overwhelming, but it’s precisely because of the overall societal trajectory into the future.

There is some minor to moderate difficulty right now in dealing with high inflation, but that’s not the overwhelming part. What’s overwhelming is the obvious worldwide collective descent into madness and the terrible future in store for billions of people as we blow past old climate goals.

Even if we all somehow manage to rein in the fascism that’s not serving the interests of the majority and is spreading across the world, we’re hurtling towards:

• worsening natural disasters
• collapse of insurance markets
• collapse of mortgage markets
• collapse of food supplies
• dwindling fresh water supplies, both rivers and aquifers
• worldwide refugee crisis from unlivable equatorial regions
• martial law to suppress food riots and refugees
• likely development of autonomous robot soldiers that removes any possible balance for front line morality
• likely accelerating and compounding climate impacts through tipping points
• collapse of the AMOC
• melting permafrost methane release
• sea level rise inundation

That all seems fairly well baked in at this point, but none of it has really come to pass yet. The future bad effects are not yet actually part of the present, but the feelings of overwhelmedness that they induce are very real for anyone paying attention.

Mindfulness in the present is a good escape from the future.

Ok that’s kinda cool but this land sailing thing looks way more awesome than puttering around on the flat in my SUV. Still wouldn’t want to own one though.

Right, I’ll just pull over and get my landyacht out of the back of my truck. OP, is there a rental place for these in Primm?

Current Cox monopoly service area customer here, and I don’t love them, but this sounds like a recipe to make things even worse.

Ever since I first saw it, this one has given me a feeling of ye olde Burning Man. I think it does have to do with the human form broken down into blocky robot shapes iterating across the page, but also the fire ring rollercoaster of Sauron in the desert with mountain backdrop. I don’t know, I just like it.