dbonowitz.bsky.social
Buildings. Earthquakes. Public policy.
Functional Recovery <--> Community Resilience.
Giants baseball. Princeton hoops.
contact: djbonowitz (with a 'j') at gmail
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Exactly, and it's a truth I keep hoping Dem leaders, strategists, and pundits will learn, as it has deep effects on how we might actually win an election.
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A great point. When he insults and defames the marches as small, violent, or corrupt, 50501 should sue *him.* Or, since he's immune (smdh), sue the propagandists just as Dominion did.
That's a pipe dream, I know, but we do need to find ways to re-balance the media environment before 2026.
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In Northern Ireland, esp during the Troubles, they have Marching *Season,* but even that doesn't last through winter. There are better ways to do good trouble (more effective, less fatiguing), + Congress & courts need to keep pushing. Then, gear up for election season. Also:
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Finally we can retire that video of Michael Dukakis.
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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...
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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?
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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.
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That didn't stop Reagan's people from using "Born in the USA" either.
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not quite ... I think it's all ersatz?
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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.
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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.
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OMG. Fake Creedence! (7:18 PDT)
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Sponsor update: UFC, Palantir
Music update: Fake Bon Jovi!
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Play Creedence, you cowards
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~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 ...
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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.
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We have rolling tanks!
(I'm not counting the two parked in front of the reviewing stand.)
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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.)
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Leavitt, tomorrow: "the largest audience to ever witness a military/birthday parade, period, both in person and around the globe."
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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."
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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.
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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.
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Lemon, it's June.
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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.
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Was wondering the same.
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I take it nobody asked for his thoughts on the scene where federal troops attack and brutalize the justice-seeking street protestors.
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Kristi Noem does a photo op.
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A useful reference:
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(I agree, but tbf, the earthquake that collapsed the Cypress structure in Oakland did most of the convincing wrt the Embarcadero Freeway in SF.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Wendy, have you met Amanda Smith? She's on bluesky, easily found. Also a geology nerd / gemologist.
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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.