dbonowitz.bsky.social
Buildings. Earthquakes. Public policy.
Functional Recovery <--> Community Resilience.
Giants baseball. Princeton hoops.
contact: djbonowitz (with a 'j') at gmail
4,112 posts
1,285 followers
564 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
Aha. I assumed it was all sound-alike pseudo-covers. The band is quite talented, but I wonder if Sec. Hegseth is familiar with their repertoire from the first Trump term ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2iq...
comment in response to
post
Serious question: Can we sustain it?
I'm not taking anything away from today, but even though the last 5 months have felt like 10 years, the real do-or-die date is Nov 2026, somehow still 17 months away.
So ... do it all again next June?
comment in response to
post
It was basically an infomercial, a 2-hour version of the recruiting ads you see during NFL games. Not a spectacle in any sense of the word. So kind of a relief, actually, given the other news of the day.
comment in response to
post
That didn't stop Reagan's people from using "Born in the USA" either.
comment in response to
post
not quite ... I think it's all ersatz?
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
comment in response to
post
seriously, the marching is quite sloppy. I don't know enough to know if that's intentional, but it's no match for the Chinese.
comment in response to
post
Apparently the $45M cost did not include licensing the music they're shamelessly faking -- so far, Heart, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, even -- I kid you not! -- Creedence. Amazing.
comment in response to
post
OMG. Fake Creedence! (7:18 PDT)
comment in response to
post
Sponsor update: UFC, Palantir
Music update: Fake Bon Jovi!
comment in response to
post
Play Creedence, you cowards
comment in response to
post
~7 pm EDT: Is this actual music from Heart, or just a shameless ripoff of Barracuda?
Oh no, now a ripoff of Aerosmith (?).
... and the narration returns ...
comment in response to
post
omg, they just caught Marco Rubio yawning.
Among the other dignitaries on the stand: Dana White, wearing sneakers.
Among the sponsors (who get a shout out every few minutes): Lockheed-Martin (natch), Coinbase, Oracle.
comment in response to
post
We have rolling tanks!
(I'm not counting the two parked in front of the reviewing stand.)
comment in response to
post
For my sins, I'm watching the live stream on the White House web site. 30 minutes in, even T himself looks bored. (Also, no tanks yet.)
comment in response to
post
Leavitt, tomorrow: "the largest audience to ever witness a military/birthday parade, period, both in person and around the globe."
comment in response to
post
Love Jamelle, and his historical analysis is valuable as always. But he mocked this view 6 months ago, and I suspect he still has a little more faith in our remaining institutions -- and in our fellow citizens -- than is justified, as if all we have to do is "Say no."
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
comment in response to
post
And maybe not just war, but all four horsemen.
In T1, the Q among conservatives was "Should I decline an offer (or quit), or would my replacement be worse?" Still a quandary, but we get more concrete data every day. McMaster, Mattis, Tillerson, maybe even Sessions would be welcome alternatives now.
comment in response to
post
Is it fair to say these losses in close, winnable votes are on Jeffries? Maybe there are explanations or excuses, but I'd start with Yes.
Put down your rhyming dictionary, learn to count votes, and get your caucus in line.
comment in response to
post
Lemon, it's June.
comment in response to
post
On the substance, of course that share went up, but that doesn't mean it's fair. If you concentrate income among fewer people, their share of total taxes will go up even as their RATE goes down (and inequality gets worse).
It's Bessent who's playing games here.
comment in response to
post
Was wondering the same.
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
comment in response to
post
I take it nobody asked for his thoughts on the scene where federal troops attack and brutalize the justice-seeking street protestors.
comment in response to
post
Kristi Noem does a photo op.
comment in response to
post
A useful reference:
bsky.app/profile/step...
comment in response to
post
(I agree, but tbf, the earthquake that collapsed the Cypress structure in Oakland did most of the convincing wrt the Embarcadero Freeway in SF.)
comment in response to
post
Hot take: Whoever's elected president should get to do whatever they want with the rose garden as long as everything else they do is per the Constitution, and Congress and the Courts should hold them to it.
comment in response to
post
Yes, he's driven by vanity and retribution (two sides of the same coin), but in terms of policy, it's as much about who his partners are, and they're different this time.
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
comment in response to
post
I mean, the content is VERY GOOD, but the fake spontaneity is a total turn off. (He strides out of a room with purpose, encounters exactly one reporter with one softball, then walks right back into the same room?)
If there's one thing you shouldn't try to fake, it's authenticity.
comment in response to
post
Cool. I look forward to learning what the cost premium or BCR is for this system (unless someone here knows?).
"Protect assets and maintain uptime" is the right idea, but SEIA is fighting tooth and nail to stop possible code changes that would do the same for seismic, hurricane, and tornado loads.
comment in response to
post
Dude is obviously cosplaying Glengarry Glen Ross.
"I can go out there tonight, with the materials you got, make myself $15,000. TONIGHT. In TWO HOURS. Can you?"
Some day, other a-holes will be cosplaying as him.
comment in response to
post
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
comment in response to
post
Well, sorta. There's value to the theater of it (this clip), but it's Mace who's playing hardball here -- shutting down the Ds & winning a motion even with no Rs in the room.
The Q is whether Ds will do this when they have a majority.
Turn this theater into a campaign message, or it means nothing.
comment in response to
post
Wendy, have you met Amanda Smith? She's on bluesky, easily found. Also a geology nerd / gemologist.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...
comment in response to
post
We see exactly the same phenomenon with natural disasters. When you only see the same 3 or 4 images over and over, you know it's an event with pretty limited impact. Of course now, you have hundreds of individual cameras, so you get different angles, but they still all shoot the same 5-block area.
comment in response to
post
Don't worry, Jake Tapper's on it.
(At what point will our media see how they're being played in the same way they all apologized for in 2020. These nonstop open mics, esp in the oval, are just like how he took over the daily covid briefings out of sheer vanity, and caused untold damage and misery.)
comment in response to
post
@pablo.show, thanks for noting Canady's $1M NIL deal. Blew my mind, plus the fact that 6 or 7 of her TT teammates were portal transfers.
Re the politics of foreign students, if there was no reaction by Black recruits to the DEI rollbacks, I doubt there will be much now.
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
comment in response to
post
Yes, exhausting, but it doesn't mean we can ignore the issue, as it points back to the media asymmetry: the right's leaders are more willing to lie and shout, and they have a propaganda wing to boot. If Dems can't solve this problem, we'll never win a national election.
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
comment in response to
post
Agree, but did you see Klobuchar yesterday? She did this but it still fell flat. I stopped listening as soon as she pivoted.
If the initial Q is legit, stay on topic. If the Q is about today's phony story, give a 1-word answer, then pivot to how the media is letting T (or whoever) set their agenda.