dbonowitz.bsky.social
Buildings. Earthquakes. Public policy.
Functional Recovery <--> Community Resilience.
Giants baseball. Princeton hoops.
contact: djbonowitz (with a 'j') at gmail
4,079 posts
1,280 followers
563 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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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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bsky.app/profile/dbon...
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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.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...
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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.
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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.)
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@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...
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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.
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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.
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Yep. Been saying this a while now. "People in the middle" = Group 3.
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
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Yep, and seeing now that Jamelle said it before me:
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Well, I do think we should find and deport violent non-citizen criminals, and that's a solid message to campaign on.
I agree about immigration reform, but the first step toward that is winning elections in 26 and 28.
Of possible interest: bsky.app/profile/reic...
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I'm also pro-immigration, but with respect, even these flawed numbers demand a different message for 2026:
- ICE should find & deport violent criminals, as under Biden.
- Trump lied to you about how many and where they are.
- That they're going to schools, courts, businesses proves it.
#HeLiedToYou
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Yes, because the "general goal" is still characterized as "deport violent criminals." That's easy to support.
Our message should be more than "they're doing it badly." We need to open eyes to the fact that the goal itself was always a false premise -- a lie. #HeLiedToYou
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Thank you for posting this data. (The shift in 2025 from majority CBP to majority ICE is also interesting.)
The ramp-up prompts questions about ICE staffing & internal culture. How many are new? How many also worked for ICE under Biden? Are they mostly transfers from CBP, or from where?
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Yes, but tbf, it's hard for national Ds to manage big, spontaneous actions. So we get:
- 1000s of marchers (good!), but media strategy & rational actor analysis are not their forte
- a few graphic incidents dominating coverage
- Prof Kruse et al. advising against Mexican flags, alienating some.
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Yes, because the right has better message discipline (i.e. willingness to outright lie) among its elected leaders, plus a propaganda wing to boost those messages.
The media asymmetry is real, and it's essential to election outcomes.
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They did. This one's from July 11, just before Biden dropped out.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
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I 100% expect that tomorrow Trump will do BOTH of the following:
1. Praise the local cops for restoring law and order.
2. Blame/distance himself from the local cops as being under local authority. "It wasn't ICE that did that."
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Doubling down on "l'etat c'est moi" tyranny.
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
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All good. We can't win elections without the faith communities any more than the other side can.
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Well ... I'm not quite there yet, as I would never ask someone to shout something they don't actually believe. "God bless" is kinda like "Gesundheit" or "Merry Christmas," which even as an atheist I can live with.
But do they own the American song book? Hell no.
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I've thought about this (see below), and believe it or not, I think the best strategy is to join in at the top of my lungs, with loud interjections, e.g. "where at least I know I'm free -- BECAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION, FUCK YEAH!" etc.
Better than stewing in silence.
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Agree. Meanwhile, I would start with HR records. How many signed up or transferred in only since 1/20/25? How many were there through Biden, or even since T1?
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Reminds me of the old joke that getting an acquittal for an innocent client is a defense attorney's *second* biggest thrill.
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Unfortunately, the choice is no longer suspension v. fight. By caving earlier, they're now playing by T's rules, so the choice is more like suspension (and hope that's enough appeasement) v. $20M settlement directly to the corrupt office-holder.
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A low bar tbh ;-)
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One of the things that makes high level college softball such an exciting and interesting game. (The speed and reflexes, not the peeing.)
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Yes, there's governing, and there's campaigning, and media hits are the latter.
Naive Q: Who decides which Ds go on these shows? Does each respond to invites on their own?
Can DNC have a strategy here, to put the best talkers on camera and let the procedure wonks do their thing in the cloak room?
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I like to provide my own! It makes the whole thing a more immersive, interactive media experience.
(Actually, it's why I stopped watching this junk. And when I see clips, I take a deep breath and remind myself that they will all be forgotten by Tuesday.)
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Not fully academic, but @jonrauch.bsky.social has been making this argument with examples from U.S. history -- including the effectiveness of "Stop the Steal." 20-minute podcast here:
bsky.app/profile/jonr...
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Again, I agree, especially as an atheist. But I also go to a lot of city council meetings, and even in the SF Bay Area, it remains a fixture. We can make it mean something new.
"Fighting over the meaning ... contesting its appropriation by people who hate everything good ... is important."
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I hear you, but committing to preserve and defend the best version of this country means something different now.
Plus that last phrase is a banger.
(When they shout "under God," I want to shout "FOR ALL.")
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Reclaim the flag. Reclaim the pledge. Yes, it's cringe, but I have still not heard a better Dem slogan for 2026:
"Liberty and Justice FOR ALL."
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BREAKING: Republican Senator opposes use of Israeli flag at angry campus counter-protest over Gaza war.
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Yep.
bsky.app/profile/dbon...
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Yes, and I would even say that his audience is often only himself, as he exorcises his own demons. Most of the EOs had large components of Biden erasure, and he's been itching to fire on protesters since at least 2020.
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Very good, but beware of ANY politician splitting hairs. Did the NG deploy anywhere?
Greater LA includes the City of LA + the County of LA (with many urbanized but unincorporated areas) + dozens of independent cities. Much of the activity yesterday was in Paramount -- technically NOT City of LA.
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I read the whole piece, and there's not a single mention of whether they might be unipedal.
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Heh. Malaysia.
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Like pretty much all of the EOs: 3000 words of b.s. preamble about wokeness, followed by a tepid actual requirement "as current law allows" ... which were then implemented in over-the-top ways by intimidated agency heads.
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I mean, is that the actual DHS twitter account? I confess I do not know.
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Maybe. Or possibly reclaimed from an old building. Either way, it's a shame we can no longer hold DHS accountable for posting a photo and a ridiculous claim about it without any evidence or context.
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Gonna go out on a limb here and say there's no way those are U.S. standard bricks in the photo on the right.
#structural_engineering