What a great overview here for Marbleheaders on their current budget situation. marbleheadcurrent.org/2026/03/30/c...

“Put politics aside when voting.” The thing about Massachusetts MAGA people is that they exist in a reality where all of their views are just the default and everything else is “political”.

Saw a certain never trump former MA governor walking at a safe distance by the No Kings protest on Saturday as I was taking pics and I just keep thinking how feckless that was for someone with that much local social capital to want to see the event but not just stop in a say they support everyone.

No Kings in Swampscott, MA. #nokings #fuckice

This is going to be a hot take, but I think both of these things miss some major factors about tax rates and affordability. #mapoli

I’m of the opinion that this is where AI companies will be in 5 years: continually raising the prices for something people initially thought was cool and novel, but slowly eroded as a product over the years.

It appears I have successfully put a lot of finger prints on the Swampscott Master Plan, but this high-priority goal on updating the bylaws around sidewalk clearing and overgrowth trimming for better enforcement is one I'm especially proud of.

This reminds me of the most unintentionally funny lines about policing that I’ve ever read in a paper. swampscottrjag.medium.com/analysis-of-...

This is good. The law even bans law enforcement from entering 297(g) collaboration agreements with ICE—but it includes a rather conspicuous exception for the #Massachusetts Department of Correction's agreement, which pro-ICE Governor Maura Healey supports. #mapoli massdump.ghost.io/maura-healey...

Work things I’m quickly coming to detest: “Hey, [insert preferred AI tool here] had some questions on this thing. Here’s the 5,000 word long list of questions it has, can you answer them for me right now?” This certainly isn’t making ME more productive.

Swampscott, Boston, and other towns banned them in the 1910s explicitly to keep out immigrants. Here we are in 1969 finally repealing that…magically right after the Fair Housing Act was passed. archives.lib.state.ma.us/server/api/c...

The weird thing is that despite the hype, people are still trying to figure out what to use it for. So far its best use cases are: 1.) summarizing things 2.) coding and debugging assistance People definitely use it to generate content for a variety of things, but it’s not actually great at that.

I’m sure it’s frustrating to watch this in Boston, but from Swampscott it makes one jealous that someone has any street infrastructure projects that are even a glimmer of an idea. I still can’t get the town to enforce sidewalk bylaws because the bylaws suck. www.wbur.org/news/2026/03...

Al Gore awakens.

…and it looks all the news links are missing so things like an open comment period on the master plan are currently inaccessible. Every IT person: they went live on a Friday???? Yes, fam, that was the intentional choice.

It is March 20, the first day of spring…and there are still sidewalks in Swampscott that are partly covered in snow. The last measurable snow that didn’t melt the next day was in late February…

i feel like people in Minnesota would say the opposite. the response from Bluesky to the ICE occupation has been enormous. it really made me feel like this is a real platform where people are building and connecting.

I think it’s less about skill and more about “the algorithm”™️ being compatible with quality users. At its high point Twitter had a plethora of interesting users that acted in good faith on the site. Now social media has to contend with bad actors and thus ye olde algorithm no longer works.

This is why local journalism is great. Simply giving updates on things that every once in awhile you go "Oh yeahhhh, where is that thing at?" swampscotttides.org/top-story/sw...

Looks like Swampscott if finally updating the town website (🥳🙌👏)...but they forgot to transfer over the entire meetings and events calendar which contains all of the agendas for public meetings (🤦😵‍💫📉).

The comment anyone in Swampscott makes about a new business or attraction going in is “will there be parking?!?” because they literally can’t imagine a world where you don’t drive to things.

Me finding out the public comment period for Boston Region MPO’s Transportation Improvement Program ends tomorrow and that Swampscott has an application in for our Rail Trail.

75% of Massachusetts’ middle housing predates 1940. That’s not a coincidence, or just “market demand.” For decades, we’ve made it increasingly difficult, or outright illegal, to build the very homes that shaped our communities and grew Massachusetts' middle class.

I’ll chalk this up partly to the format of the event, but these are mostly incoherent progressive-sounding thoughts he’s rattling off. swampscotttides.org/news/moulton...

Let’s talk about Christian Zionism…

For 2 days in a row now, there has been a line out the door at the 350 bakery in Swampscott and I hope people take this as a sign that maybe the people waiting in line there might also like to do other things in immediate walking distance if they were available.

Monitoring the latest ringing of another Shepard Tone that adds to the previous unresolved tones.

Worth reiterating that the acting administrator of DOGE during the Musk era is still very much the acting administrator of DOGE today and recently made a LinkedIn post about how great the work of DOGE was last year. But no one wants to ask her questions now. www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

This is what I think about every time someone at work says we should lean in more with AI.

If only the democrats would use the opportunity to go all in on housing…

Hoping there is more outreach for this coming, but Swampscott’s draft Master Plan is now available for the open comment period until April 1. www.swampscottma.gov/home/news/sw...

I swear PDs coordinate these social media postings. …this isn’t even a picture of Swampscott, by the way, despite what the sign in the picture says. AI? Photoshop? Why?

Let’s goooooo. Get it done. swampscotttides.org/top-story/na...

How school districts like Swampscott remain relatively segregated medium.com/p/how-school...

Certainly a choice by @semafor.com to have Anthropic, a major subject of the news recently, sponsor a newsletter about things they could be involved in.

someone at the pentagon frantically typing “Claude, open the strait of Hormuz for me, quickest possible strategy, make no mistakes.”

I think the hard lesson for Americans and perhaps Israelis to accept is that we absolutely do the false propaganda thing we accuse the countries we are attacking of doing. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Local Massachusetts weekly says it's confirmed that the Pentagon was relying on Claude for strike targeting, which is how they came to bomb a girls' school. thisweekinworcester.com/exclusive-ai...

“Let’s kick this off not just with a war crime, but with a war crime that specifically targets young women in a regime that is famously misogynistic while we try to claim moral superiority”

There was some New Yorker employee on NPR yesterday marveling at how much of a policy flip-flop this Iran war thing was for the Trump admin and this was one of the rare occasions I actually shouted at the radio “maybe if you haven’t been paying attention?!?!”

Hate to say this was the obvious outcome, but… www.reuters.com/world/middle...

While I appreciate the Select Board going through the motions here I do not believe they will ultimately come up with anything bold enough to actually intervene in cases where DHS is causing harm to people in the borders of our town or slow DHS down.

Someone who is running for Swampscott Select Board recently said in a meeting: “Maybe we can look to Marblehead for model guidance on financial management on…” and the room quickly and loudly noted that was a bad idea.

A little wild that the attempted debunkings coming out of Israel about children being killed in Iran are simultaneously claiming Iran is making everything up and they are using kids as human shields on purpose.

WSJ reporting that the U.S. used Claude for the air strikes in Iran. Centcom has been using Claude "for intelligence assessments, target identification and simulating battle scenarios" www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Feels like we would have gotten less war under a Hillary or Kamala administration, tbh.

Seems relevant: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Also, please don’t entrust OpenAI with your personal health data.

Fun thing to say, but in housing PE is a symptom, not the cause. So yes, by all means, get PE out of housing…by actually allowing smaller businesses to own and operate multifamily housing.