They could always sign up to give comment at a public meeting.

The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 20h ago

New York City’s business elites are long accustomed to direct access to City Hall, where even Democratic mayors felt the need to court the city’s wealthiest and most influential corporate leaders. That access is getting shredded by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

A story of cause and effect: Last November, Ontario banned cities from using speed safety cameras to issue tickets. Reckless speeding immediately surged in Toronto, Ottawa, Guelph, and cities throughout the province. A 🧵 about my latest in Bloomberg (gift link)

What Happens When Speed Cameras Get Shut Off

In 2025, Ontario banned automated traffic enforcement. Now the number of drivers exceeding the speed limit has surged, according to traffic data.

bloomberg.com

You MFers earned it.

Politico@politico.com · 4d ago

Republican Party veterans are concerned that the pipeline of young GOP talent is veering off course — and into terminally online extremism. “We have a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots,” one senior GOP congressional staffer said.

i thrifted a set of these therapy balls awhile back and have been working my way through this youtube channel (which is great), but the same day @tressiemcphd.bsky.social convinces me to pay more attention to my feet, this foot rollout just ....fixes my shoulders?? www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG48...

Self Myofascial Release to Improve Shoulder Mobility

YouTube video by Tune Up Fitness

youtube.com

Shocking.

Notice how he doesn't even mention parking, despite the containers being located along the curb. Other mayors would talk about the tradeoffs and say, "Look, we know New Yorkers like their parking." Not Mamdani. He keeps the focus where it belongs: on cleaner streets.

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani@mayor.nyc.gov · 5d ago

Now this is the kind of trash talk we can get behind. We’re containerizing neighborhoods by taking trash off our sidewalks and allowing mid-size buildings to trade in their wheelie bins for a bigger, better, cleaner alternative: Empire Bins. It’s time to put a lid on it, New York.

Fantastic thread.

Sarah Taber@sarahtaber.bsky.social · 6d ago

A very serious Rural Politico once told me "Dems have to go to farmer meetings! We gotta be where the people are!" I was in fact in a farmer meeting at that very moment! So I live-texted him the meeting. They were complaining that they want indentured workers that they don't have to pay or feed.

But it seems to me that most people, when it comes to food, begin with what they want to believe - my diet is right and ethical - and look for evidence to support it. I understand this: it's literally a visceral issue. But we have to try to get beyond what we want to believe, hard as that is.

Somebody pointed out the precedent a O’Keefe’s proposal will likely set: NIMBYs and other conservative strains could kill projects to improve public safety and fulfill the city’s goals of they just complain and stall long enough. Any decision the city of Berkeley makes only counts they like it.

Kendra K. Levine@kklevine.bsky.social · last wk.

If you can go to the city council meeting tomorrow night to show O’Keefe, Blackaby and other Berkeley city members that a safer Hopkins is good for all of Berkeley. If you can’t, take a minute to send them an email thanks to @walkbikeberk.bsky.social actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

The battle of Hopkins bike lanes are back, the final battle, and I got a lot to say. I haven't attended a Berkeley city council meeting in 7 years, but on Tuesday I'll be there, and I hope you will too. darrellowens.substack.com/p/the-final-...

The Final Battle of Hopkins Bike Lanes

One of the most important climate actions goes to Berkeley City Council.

darrellowens.substack.com

from the Albany Gazette substack

A bio-inspired robot crosses paths with a real insect , 400 million years of evolution face to face with human engineering.

Simple message, really. Thanks for the bluntness, @nondriver.bsky.social. #UrbanTruth

interesting to me that as the administration treats democratic-voting states like conquered or occupied territories, you don’t have pundits demanding the president respect “half the country”

tony romm@tonyromm.bsky.social · 2w ago

NEW: In a stunning admission, the Trump administration admitted in court documents that it canceled billions in energy grants to states "based solely" on politics -- and whether that state was represented by Democrats and backed Harris in 2024. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...

i think people look at homelessness as a relatively new phenomenon and reason backwards to think that in the Before Times, poor people must've all been able to afford houses/their own apartments etc. Most of the housing types the poor used were actually just outlawed (boarding houses, SROs etc)

Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈@maxdubler.com · 2w ago

The two hardest and most unforgiving facts in housing policy are that it actually costs a lot of money to build new homes and that the rents that poor people can afford are not enough to pay off the cost of construction.

A Dungeon Game is here and it's free! (It's been both of those things for ages tbh) Explore subterranean depths, face dragons, and discover what lurks beneath. It's classic dungeon crawling with modern design (i.e. it's good). https://loottheroom.itch.io/a-dungeon-game

a dungeon game by Chris Bissette

the second edition of a dragon game

loottheroom.itch.io

There are a lot of great things about Encyclopedia Brown but possibly my favorite is that his given name is Leroy, which means that he is canonically the baddest man in the whole damn town

Do you know the difference between e-bikes and e-motos? E-motos can reach up to 65mph & are generally not appropriate for teens. No matter your age, if you're using an e-bike or e-moto, always follow traffic laws. We also strongly suggest wearing a helmet. www.arlingtonva.us/Government/P...

Hopkins was my first big bike battle after moving back to Berkeley. The initial Hopkins Council referral, from 2018, is itself old enough to ride a bike. If this very reasonable compromise doesn’t work, my fall-back plan is car-free Hopkins.

Robert Prinz@prinzrob.bsky.social · 3w ago

Info from @bikeeastbay.bsky.social & North Berkeley Now on how to get involved ahead of the July 28 council vote here: bikeeastbay.org/event/hopkin... Come to the free Summer Brake party on July 22 in Berkeley, & fill out a postcard that we'll mail to city council: bikeeastbay.org/event/summer...

Damn, I am impressed. The City of Berkeley just hired an *actual* safe streets expert to run its public works department. Maybe we really can have good things. Kudos to @berkeleyca.gov, I would not have expected this from you.

Why I’m a fan of the Oxford comma.

The moment a Russian nearly kills his partner. It is reported that the average lifespan of a Russian soldier at the Ukraine front line in 2026 is now shorter than that of the common house fly.

RIP Bonnie Tyler. And RIP Tandi Iman Dupree. This remains the best stage entrance by a drag queen of all time, even some 25 years later, and the best use of Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” ever. youtu.be/IHQA5vqn6rw?...

Ad Rock: you can disagree with the current All: POPE MCA: but if you push his buttons then you’re a All: DOPE Mike D: ordain yourself a bishop and you’re All: SCHISMATIC Ad Rock: excommunication is All: AUTOMATIC

The three branches of the United States government, as delineated in the Constitution, are the God Emperor, The High Council of the Six Ayatollahs, and the Federal Reserve

Because we treat each intersection as distinct, and require frequent injuries/deaths at *that* intersection before we intervene, the pattern of "bikes crossing a high-speed/-traffic road" does not get the attention or work needed. Again and again, these specific intersections cause more trauma.

this is a great illustration of one of the fundamental insights of democracy — that there is no such thing as "the people" and that majorities are elusive and ever shifting. no election, no decision, is final and treating an election as a final decision is profoundly undemocratic.

Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · last mo.

A fifth of Leave voters have died.

Capitulation Follow up heymistermix.com/p/capitulati...

Capitulation Follow up

And the destruction of our country

heymistermix.com

Everything Trump Touches Dies. (Laudatory)

Yair Rosenberg@yair-rosenberg.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Netanyahu turned his relationship with Trump into a selling point to his voters. Now it may be his downfall. I wrote about how Trump left Bibi holding the bag in Iran on the eve of an election that he and his allies were already losing. Gift link:

States do not need to contract with companies owned by oligarchs who seek those states' demise. No matter what services an anti-democracy oligarch's company provides, it is not in the national interest of any democracy to send them money. Some in Europe apparently realizing that. And acting on it.

Skye@simplyskye.bsky.social · 2mo ago

France has joined Germany in cancelling their Palantir contracts, becoming the 2nd country in as many weeks to do so — the UK appears poised to follow suit AOC: “Immediately investigate Palantir — (Thiel’s) secretive data mining company that has weaponized information against immigrant communities”