What is the meaning of ”ceasefire?” What is the meaning of “talk?”

Definitely this, but I think the stormwater catchment plantings are even more infuriating—they’re all the exact size of a parking space and we take them out of the sidewalk!

And the shocking corollary is the way so much of the media and voters have treated him as an “outsider” *even when he is in power.* This is undoubtedly helped in part by his claims to be fighting a “deep state”, but its mostly postural and aesthetic.

This is genuinely good news, but to compare to Bangalore and London’s Crossrail and not Shanghai and Madrid betrays limited ambition.

Adding a light rail system to a city without one will require additional procurement pipelines, along with special maintenance, training, operating procedures, etc. Plus it makes the whole system less flexible in the future (eg if we want to connect IBX to the rest of the system via interlining?)

It’s a real, though less-discussed, measure of the scale of the housing crisis in this city how rent is a very real burden even at pretty high incomes. Not the most important measure, but a very real one!

This is genuinely great news. If another about-face by the Feds could also get the MTA to suspend work on the IBX as a light rail line so we can open the planning back up as a proper heavy rail subway line, we’d really be cooking. . .

I, for one, welcome Bill Ackman continuing to light some tiny fraction of his fortune on fire

To me this reads as a bank shot against Cuomo from the White House. A month before the Dem primary, every piece on the return of Byford is going to have to include a recap of Cuomo’s crimes against the MTA, culminating in him running Byford out of town. If intentional, its a good move.

Totally serious, though it’s very nice to get the *extremely* rare policy win for justice here. The real question is how is power wielded in Albany? For his time as governor Cuomo supported the “Independent Democratic Conference,” a group of D’s who would be R’s in any other state.

The Democratic Party, particularly at the state level, could hardly be called “left wing.” Is this 1 party rule ineffective & too confusing to voters? Clearly. But the fix is structural reform to the electoral system to encourage competition (e.g., rank choice voting, multi-member districts, etc.).

Well, of course that’s just because TikTok both taught them how to run a transnational criminal enterprise and launder the proceeds *and* turned their brains into soup.

But partially we care because the Founders fucked up by making the Constitution too hard to amend, thus forcing a degree of deference to their views. We look back not because they were correct or omniscient, but because that’s the only ground their fucking mid-tier drafting and negotiating left us.

Partially Americans care because American Christian religious practice frequently vests the American constitution with quasi-Biblical status, both explicitly and implicitly (see, e.g., “Trump Bible” sales), thus equating the Founders to the Prophets of the Old Testament.

Unbelievably important, impactful program, but shout out to Nunn-Lugar for immeasurable dog-that-didn’t-bark impact too!