Research here suggests question: What would it look like for traditional parties to organize continuously rather than episodically? Not just parachuting in at election time, but building relationships, skills, and trust through year-round work in communities. www.niskanencenter.org/inside-the-d...

Inside the Democratic Socialist uprising - Niskanen Center

Candidates affiliated with (or sympathetic to) the Democratic Socialists of America (the DSA) have recently won several Democratic primaries.

niskanencenter.org

Like, the answer is not “character is nothing,” the answer is simply a broader conception of character. Politeness is only one part of it.

News — University of Central Florida (UCF) abruptly shut down two of its three libraries today, plus an important resource desk within the main library. Staff were given no warning. UCF is the 2nd largest public university in the country w/ ~70k students. Library hours page confirming closures:

From NACTO & the USDOT Volpe Center re: research supporting the downsizing of fire trucks in urban areas. 1/ Smaller, more maneuverable emergency response trucks often have similar, or **better**, capabilities than the most common trucks on U.S. streets.

In January 2024, Bologna became the first major Italian city to implement a 30 km/h speed limit. Despite initial pushback, the "Città 30” initiative has delivered measurable improvements in road safety, public health, air/noise quality and travel behaviour—with no measurable impact on travel times.🧵

All the controversies over Mayor Bass' ED 1 obscure the big headline: it's a hugely successful program that has already led to thousands of affordable apartments built at zero taxpayer expense, and it's just getting started. A 🧵:

Everybody is wrong about ED 1

Ignore the haters. Mayor Bass' signature housing policy is a big success.

futureis.la

My day job is at a rural branch of a public library, and we have a Pride display. Yesterday I was at the desk when a man came in. Fifties, maybe, or sixties. Plaid shirt, mesh trucker cap, suspenders. He went up to the display and just stood there for a long moment. Then he came up to the desk. 🧵 1/

Ever wonder how the International Code Council handles voting for building code changes? You're going to love it, I promise 1st, only governmental members may vote; I.e. code officials. 2nd, the voting structure (see next) heavily weights votes in favor of smaller jurisdictions.

Jason Cox@jasoncoxnc.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Where are International Code Council (ICC) board members from? (And why should you care?) Those who decide the base forms of our cities are largely rural to suburban in preference, reflecting a reputation of code officials who dislike cities while dictating the design for those who live in them.

A detail that has really stuck with me about Tony Judt‘s ‘Postwar’ was the section about how hundreds of thousands of ex-Nazis went on to become East German communist apparatchiks Flunkies like Flanagan remind me of these characters—not truly attached to an ideology so much as place in the in-group

Anthony L. Fisher@anthonylfisher.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Caitlin Flanagan's beat at The Atlantic was "Bari Weiss is great" and now she works for Bari Weiss' Free Press and she's mocking the people Bari Weiss fires at CBS.

I spent more time on this piece than almost anything else I've written in the last year. Building a better, more decentralized internet is an inherent necessity if you want a functioning democracy. I hope people find it a useful encapsulation of where we're at. www.liberalism.org/p/enshittifi...

Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet

It’s not about whether technology is inherently good or bad, liberating or oppressive. Architecture shapes incentives; incentives shape outcomes.

liberalism.org

publiccomment.blog/p/hyperfascism

My Go Big or Go Home thoughts for this Saturday: I make the case for why we should consider amending the Constitution to create a fourth branch open.substack.com/pub/asharang...

We Need a Fourth Branch

Why our most vital institutions should be placed in a constitutional vault - beyond the reach of any President.

open.substack.com

NOW: Hundreds of Solidarity Guard activists in Jerusalem to provide protective presence during the notoriously violent Flag March, when extremist settlers flood the city and Palestinian residents close their businesses and hide inside for fear of being spat on, pushed, and called slurs. (1/2)

I had some thoughts about the broader context of the modern SCOTUS, why it's out of control, and what we can try and do about it.

Delegitimizing the Juristocracy

A week ago, the Supreme Court of the United States decided to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act, clearing the way for Southern states to reimpose discriminatory maps that strip representation from A…

nathangoldwag.wordpress.com

🇪🇺Digitally sovereign communications rely on open standards to enable vendor-neutral federation and prevent lock-in. We’ve mapped European public sector deployments supporting Matrix-based federation. @matrix.org enables: 🔐Sovereignty 🔗Interoperability 🚫No vendor lock-in element.io/blog/digital...

Oh hey, I am once again going to talk about lack of distress tolerance, specifically for shame, and how it ties together AI, the “male loneliness epidemic,” Trumpism, and yes, people’s indignation that anyone might think they’re a bad person for continuing to buy Harry Potter merch.

Chuck Tingle@chucktingle.bsky.social · 4mo ago

whenever folks talk about harry potter and separating artist from art they always have this indignant 'OH SO IM A BAD FOR BUYING THESE BOOKS?' but thats not the real issue. the reality is that many will BELIEVE you are bad, and that is VALID. its not your choice what others think of you

(1/n) Holding the coursework constant but changing whether there's a diploma has no effect on wages: www.jstor.org/stable/10.10...

Love this "hill of hysteria" concept 🎯! During every street redesign in Seattle, NIMBYs say it's going to "ruin the neighborhood"... but it doesn't. "Change is hard and even if a decision maker is convinced it's going to be for the better there is always resistance" www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgRT...

56. Administration fires National Science Board, the governing board of the National Science Foundation, presumably as part of an effort to erode the institutional structures that protect the independence of NSF

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Breaking: Trump has fired the membership of the National Science Board, which is oversees NSF. I have confirmed separately with multiple now-former members of NSB.

That architecture has now been replaced. Social media platforms curate what most people see. Their logic isn't verification, it's engagement. Whatever holds attention gets amplified, regardless of truth or consequence.

OpenAI's Sora and Meta's metaverse were shuttered the same week. Both were defined by an aesthetic that embodies Silicon Valley's current project: to undermine labor, replace art + lived experience with digital facsimiles, and extract value at any cost. And users recoiled at the mere sight of them.

AI's aesthetics of failure

On the demise of Sora and our enduring revulsion to AI slop

bloodinthemachine.com

If American-born children are not U.S. citizens, where would we deport them? Do Stephen Miller et. al. actually want to deport them? I suspect not. The Trump project has never been about deportation but about keeping noncitizens working for "real Americans." washingtonmonthly.com/2026/03/30/b...

Birthright Citizenship: Supreme Court Could Create an Exploitable Noncitizen Class

Trump’s bid to strip birthright citizenship from millions is a moral, administrative, and legal catastrophe.

washingtonmonthly.com

ALSO, instead of consulting Adrian Vermeule and Montesquieu to understand the right way to think about a constitutional membership rule in a republic formed on the ashes of slavery, we should consult Frederick Douglass, who fought for that rule. FFS. teachingamericanhistory.org/document/our...

The industrial policy that helped spawn the world's biggest semiconductor manufacturer traces directly back to the New Deal's Tennessee Valley Authority asteriskmag.com/issues/13/th...

A doorfietsroute (high-quality cycling route) is designed to enable fast, safe, and comfortable cycling over longer distances. Per CROW, five essential characteristics define such routes. Together, these elements ensure cycling becomes a competitive alternative to the car, especially for commuting.🧵

“Everything we can save is worth saving. Everything we can do is worth doing. We’ve already lost a lot, but we don’t have to lose everything. We don’t have to surrender.” 💯 - @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/m...

Rebecca Solnit Says the Left’s Next Hero Is Already Here

nytimes.com

Waymo blocks first responders at scene of mass shooting in Austin

I can't believe it's been 7 1/2 years since @atherton.bsky.social scared the shit out of me with this great primer on the thorny issues around AI-driven autonomous weapons, and things have only gotten scarier www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/m...

Are Killer Robots the Future of War? Parsing the Facts on Autonomous Weapons (Published 2018)

nytimes.com

This is still one of my favourite videos ever, perfectly explaining the staggering amount of public money that’s going into NOT solving traffic congestion. “It means you spend a lot of money now for a very short-term benefit." Jevon’s Paradox via Australia’s great show “Utopia.” Please share!

How to Fix Traffic Congestion In Australia | Utopia

YouTube video by Working Dog Productions

youtube.com