The whole Canada arc is so strange, considering that the vast majority of Americans have no opinion on Canadians or Canada in general beyond, "They're nice, have free health care, and some of them speak French"

I am just tired of Tyler Austin Harper. It’s the same recycled grievance, packaged as a response to something new. It’s like I’m being nudged repeatedly.

My question is not whether the SFMTA Embarcadero streetcar to Caltrain has transit signal priority. Anyone who watches it can see that it obviously does not. My question is why does the SFMTA claim that it has signal priority? Sent from a crush-loaded streetcar.

These are pretty great. Love the robin one particularly.

Tessa Duvall@tessaduvall.bsky.social · 6d ago

🚨 Kentucky has announced the finalists in its "I Voted" sticker contest. 🚨 Per the Secretary of State: Kentuckians can vote for their favorite sticker at the SOS's booth at the State Fair from August 20-30.

I call it the Liberal Theory of Only Good People, “we only want the good house builders to only make the good housing for only good people for no profit.”

I hate to admit this, but I am surprised how quickly I get angry at bad support chatbots and start just telling them they suck because they now make it clear they arent there to SOLVE problems but merely to absorb abuse until you go away. The only way to win is to not play!

If you think you were a token in academia, just wait until you figure out why you are on the anti-woke beat at The Atlantic.

Jarrett speaks about public transit, including some of its more technical aspects, with the same remarkable clarity as he writes ("Human Transit" is a must-read).

Jarrett Walker@humantransit.bsky.social · 2w ago

Do you know people who want to learn about public transit but who learn better orally than by reading? All my recent podcast interviews and conference keynotes are now in one place: humantransit.org/jarretts-key... Please share!

Alright, I'm putting a line in the stand: No more 'why I left academia' takes from dudes that never got their monograph out (in book fields). 'oh sure, I got a gold-plated academic job and bailed out in advance of the tenure decision without a book out, but it was BECAUSE OF WOKE!!' Sure, buddy.

Secret weapon

"how self-absorbed lib elites are" says a guy who just posted about how uniquely heterodox thinker he is

Nothing was more indicative of how he is totally cooked & completely out of ideas than his shameful “Sovereignty is for losers, eh?” take on 🇨🇦 last year.

Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 3w ago

In honor of Ross Douthat's last day at the NYT, let's remember this particular headline tweak from just last year.

I would be happy to pay higher taxes for a more generous welfare state *if* I had a guarantee that the government is not going to use federal funding to discriminate against people who share my values

I look forward to the Justice Department prosecuting Fauci for using his constitutional right, and I wish Dr. Fauci and his legal team a very merry discovery process (Gift link)

Senate panel votes to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress

The longtime infectious-disease scientist refused to answer questions from committee members at a hearing last week.

wapo.st

I'm also a child of LA in the 1980s, and the improvement in air quality since then is absolutely remarkable. It is SO much better.

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 3w ago

Air quality. I grew up in the Los Angeles basin in the 70s and 80s and remember having to stay inside because the smog was so bad - Stage 2 smog alerts, they were called. Apparently they haven't had one of those since 1988. Haven't had a stage one smog alert since 2003.

Do these people just WANT to lose?

Aaron van Dorn@aaronvandorn.bsky.social · 3w ago

"Least fun person in your graduate seminar" us a bold political strategy, let's see how it works out

The best thing about Vote Blue No Matter Who is that it unloads a lot of cognitive burden. I wanted Tom Steyer to be in the Governor's race, but he's not so I'm gonna vote for Becerra. I don't follow his campaign at all: I'm voting for him because he's not a Republican.

rents are up again, I can't move out of my rent-controlled shithole without spending at least half of my income on a new place. I and thousands of my peers would happily settle for mediocre design. cry about it

David Pollack@davidmpollack.bsky.social · 3w ago

If you reduce the barriers to entry for building, more local, small developers would invest in architecture for personal, subjective reasons and there would be fewer mediocre hot takes on design. www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...

Whether it is needed after a natural disaster or cyberattack, the idea that the President can deny aid to states he views as hostile to him is shocking. Indivisibility is inviolable; if it is compromised, that’s the end of the republic.

Secretary of Defense Rock@sodrock.bsky.social · 3w ago

Still can’t over the fact that the president of the United States just told an entire state to pound sand after getting cyberattacked by a foreign adversary because they didn’t vote for him and it was treated like a Tuesday lol

This editorial doesn’t pull any punches on Jane Kim’s terrible ideas. “If Prop C is an example of how Kim would operate as insurance commissioner, voters should run screaming.” www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/arti...

Endorsement: Ben Allen for California insurance commissioner

OPINION: In a race with no Republican, some California voters may see an opportunity to take a chance on a radical candidate for state insurance commissioner. That would be a terrible mistake.

sfchronicle.com

Yeah so NYT asked me ~2 yrs ago to write an op-ed about how the Colorado is running dry, & what we should do to keep this exact thing from happening. I said "There's only one real answer. Bill farmers by how much water they use. Duh." NYT editorial staff freaked tf out & cancelled the piece.

Elias Thorne@truebe.horse · 4w ago

saw an article today about an az politician saying how great it was that we're now in emergency drought conditions because the farmers get automatic bailouts and I feel like way more Professional Rural Understanders just breeze by sentences like that. www.paysonroundup.com/news/arizona...

Elon did one interview where someone asked him a few somewhat challenging questions and has spent every day since crashing out lol

Muni is currently facing an existential crisis. Just a little reminder

The active collusion to inflate the speculative housing market by creating artificial scarcity is called zoning and it is happening right out in the open at your city’s planning commission.

Nicky (They/Them)@sickynicky.bsky.social · last mo.

There is also active collusion from said corporate conglomerate interests and private equity to artificially inflate the speculative market by creating artificial scarcity and colluding to slow competition and consumer protections.

95% of my communications from the Democratic Party look like this. I have never in my life signed up to be texted by a campaign or the party, and I spent fruitless months attempting to unsubscribe from these. These are functionally identical to scam texts.

The idea that the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor are all in completely separate housing markets with no overlap ignores how things work in the real world. In the absence of new high end housing, wealthy people outbid the middle class for the best available existing housing and renovate it.

Barbara Samuels@bsamuels72.bsky.social · last mo.

New MR housing flattens or marginally lowers cost of housing for people in mainstream market, i.e mid-class & some working class people. Which is good. But we shouldnt pretend it meaningfully helps the poor or homeless. They are not competing in the same mainstream market w/ rich or even mid-class.

Don’t sleep on this. You must vote Ben Allen for insurance commissioner. FAIR is a disaster now and worse in the future

Mark Sawchuk@snarkmawchuk.bsky.social · last mo.

Jane Kim, the current front-runner for the state insurance commissioner, would make this already unsustainable problem even worse. She wants you to subsidize fire insurance for rich people who choose to live in the urban-wildland interface where wildfires do the most property damage.

Jane Kim, the current front-runner for the state insurance commissioner, would make this already unsustainable problem even worse. She wants you to subsidize fire insurance for rich people who choose to live in the urban-wildland interface where wildfires do the most property damage.

Urban Land Rent 🇸🇴🚰@urbanlandrent.bsky.social · last mo.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a CA publication speak plainly about both the stakes (and the basic distributional politics involved) The FAIR plan is a ticking time bomb and the primary problem is it promises to insure uninsurable property for rich people. www.latimes.com/business/sto...

Imagine if a woman president spent most her time raving and crying about an election she lost 6 years ago. Emotional. Unstable. Hysterical. Unfit to lead.

I see it everywhere now