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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 1d

The crowd early on:

Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 1d

Fried Snickers were surprisingly not great.

Fried Oreos, OTOH....

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 1d

I was one of several thousand at #NoKings in downtown Redwood City today. We've all turned out at small and medium-sized cities throughout the country, regardless of media coverage.

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 2d

I'm certain that the smarter (but equally immoral) members of the Trump Admin are saying "from now on, never rescue anyone who survives, leave them to drown."

Which contradicts how you treat opposing forces when you're pretending it's a war.

Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 2d

An important argument here, that tariffs will lock in incentives by domestic businesses to keep tariffs because they benefit from excluding foreign competition. Reversing them will be difficult.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1_z...

Were we wrong about Trump's tariffs?

YouTube video by The Economist

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Brian Schmidt

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 2d

Last night, I took questions at the debate.

Today, I’m asking working class New Yorkers what they need from their city government.

Chris Sommerfeldt @c-sommerfeldt.bsky.social · 2d

Zohran Mamdani is doing what he's calling "a reverse town hall" with members of local unions that have endorsed his mayoral campaign (UFT, 32BJ, 1199, among them).

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 2d

I would be careful if Putin suddenly wants to negotiate. He'll probably do that right before his miniscule advances in Ukraine look to him to be likely to start turning into retreats.

He'll have a better sense than we do of Ru finances, economics, military recruitments and weapon stocks.

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 2d

The birth process as well can be bloody and is obviously a demonstration of relatedness.

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Reposted by Brian Schmidt

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 4d

Again, it is a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the White House or Executive Office of the President to order tax investigations into anyone.

And it's not just a crime to DO it, it's even a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such an order to the Treasury Inspector General.

26 U.S. Code § 7217 - Prohibition on executive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations
U.S. Code
Notes
prev | next
(a)Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for any applicable person to request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.

(b)Reporting requirement
Any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service receiving any request prohibited by subsection (a) shall report the receipt of such request to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

(c)Exceptions
Subsection (a) shall not apply to any written request made—
(1)to an applicable person by or on behalf of the taxpayer and forwarded by such applicable person to the Internal Revenue Service;
(2)by an applicable person for disclosure of return or return information under section 6103 if such request is made in accordance with the requirements of such section; or
(3)by the Secretary of the Treasury as a consequence of the implementation of a change in tax policy.
(d)Penalty
Any person who willfully violates subsection (a) or fails to report under subsection (b) shall be punished upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

(e)Applicable person
For purposes of this section, the term “applicable person” means—
(1)the President, the Vice President, any employee of the executive office of the President, and any employee of the executive office of the Vice President; and
(2)any individual (other than the Attorney General of the United States) serving in a position specified in section 5312 of title 5, United States Code.

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 4d

A lot of Lyft and Uber drivers probably are part of that group of 22 million Americans seeing premiums skyrocket.

Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 4d

I'd enjoy seeing Sam or other Dem Representatives do a video of themselves taking on a shift at Lyft because they're not being allowed to do their jobs.

Sam could drive around his district here and chat with passengers about why they should really be back in session, saving our health care.

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 4d

Colossal's stuff supposedly feels like the real thing, but that stuff there feels like AI.

Reposted by Brian Schmidt

Simon Wren-Lewis @sjwrenlewis.bsky.social · 5d

Y'days post: Populism and Economic Prosperity mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/10/popu...
We would expect populist governments to damage the economy. The evidence suggests that they do so in a big way. But we know from Brexit that the media typically nullifies the impact of this evidence on voters.

Populism and Economic Prosperity

Mainstream political parties normally claim that populist parties, if they ever got to power, would damage the economy. We have clear evid...

mainlymacro.blogspot.com

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 4d

Many male frogs have always been "gay" or at least bi. They form mating balls around a female and aren't all that particular about who they're grabbing.

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 4d

We need this in the US.

Republicans freak out about anything national (unless they come up with the idea) but it could a register where you register on the national or a state level (why anyone would only register on a state level isn't clear, but give that option to Republicans).

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Reposted by Brian Schmidt

paris martineau @paris.nyc · 5d

my latest investigation for @consumerreports.org is based on months of reporting and 60+ lab tests of leading protein supplements

we found that most protein powders and shakes have more lead in one serving than our experts say is safe to have in a day (🧵)

www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein...

Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead - Consumer Reports

CR tests of 23 popular protein powders and shakes found that most contain high levels of lead.

www.consumerreports.org

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 5d

I'll make a donation if Stanford proactively rejects it, like MIT has.

Reposted by Brian Schmidt

Stanford AAUP @stanfordaaup.bsky.social · 6d

As we’ve said before, no university should sign on to this compact, certainly not our own. @gjmartin.bsky.social and other Stanford AAUP colleagues explain why in this editorial👇

From the Community | We must refuse the 'Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education'

Associate professor Greg Martin writes on behalf of the Stanford's AAUP chapter to condemn the White House's compact on higher education.

stanforddaily.com

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 5d

I don't know about what evidence was known, but it doesn't matter - the boats should've been seized and people arrested instead. There was no imminent threat to justify blowing them up, and any claim of a state of war is simply false and illegal.

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 6d

Biden did pretty well managing a coordinated response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. NATO's expansion and weaning Europe off of Russian fossil fuel were also major victories.

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 6d

FWIW, my parents moved into an independent living facility in their 70s and love it, many activities and chances to be with other people.

That's when you can afford a decent place of course....

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 6d

Glad to see CA is treating hydropower as dispatchable instead of baseload - we weren't doing that a few years ago. IDK if other places have made the switch too.

Next steps would be to add forebays/afterbays to maintain stream flow while increasing dispatchability.

Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 6d

Time for my annual reminder: first rains like we're getting now in the Bay Area are mostly for getting soils wet, not so much for water supply. Later rains are what will really add to groundwater and reservoirs.

We do get snow in the Sierras though, so that helps directly.

Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 6d

Source: www.msn.com/en-us/news/p...

MSN

www.msn.com

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Brian Schmidt @schmidtbrian.bsky.social · 6d

Trump and MAGA say he's always right about everything, so he's going to be right about this political prediction, Orban to win by over 28 points - right?

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