A project I led is mentioned in this video! It was a demanding yet fun year at CAISO. I really like working here.

via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon

Today the California State Senate pro Tempore, that body's leader, released the committee assignments for 2026, and I would say that they're quite good overall for housing legislation's prospects. There are some tight corners, but also a path. Next session starts in just a few weeks!

Ian Choudri has got that dawg in him

the main reward you are likely to get for total loyalty to trump is the destruction of your career and your reputation www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/n...

It’s wild that we spend years, with significant community engagement, to draft comprehensive plans, and we don’t automatically update zoning codes to match those plans. Instead, American planners often need to restart years of new battles to change zoning. This system has so many veto points

California's construction defect liability system was supposed to protect consumers. But a new report suggests it has become a barrier, preventing middle-income families from buying condos and townhomes in California’s expensive cities:

Do not forget that the Central Valley goes all the way up to Redding. Never let them take this away from you.

As someone who used to have a long car commute, I can just feel the crushing weight of that in so many of these comments. It takes a toll. And yet we still have not built the requisite housing or transit connections to reduce this commuting burden.

Okay, now do property owners

In Santa Monica, the FPPC has disqualified pro-housing Councilmember Jesse Zwick from all future housing votes. They said that because he works for a housing non-profit, he’s “conflicted” and must recuse. Pretty absurd. The NIMBY deep state strikes again. www.smdp.com/state-regula...

tonight the government killed a story on cbs about the slave labor camp in a foreign country theyre illegally sending people to

any US American born before 1980 can’t cook… all they know is asset price inflation, low wages, low goods inflation, eat hot chip , and lie

some of the best advice I’ve heard in business, which also translates to politics: “respond to events.“

Two weeks ago, a very dear friend of my parents was killed while cycling by an SUV driver who turned left into him without looking. The CHP officer tried to protect his killer by bizarrely claiming *he* had been at fault. Even when presented with VIDEO evidence, CHP appears to be doubling down.

Someone requested this alternate graphic: total tax, by year built, for all residential structures in Berkeley. In terms of local property/parcel tax yield, the five years from 2020-2024 amount to more revenue than all the buildings built during the thirty years 1970-1999.

The Portland row-houses are a good example of what major gains in zoning reform produce without building code reform. It’s simultaneously a win for affordable urban housing and an indictment of our ability to produce multifamily housing comparable in quality and features to more urban countries.

I asked @aoc.bsky.social about why she posted this tweet, and she said “because JD Vance is a goober, man.”

These people are living in retirement communities and don’t even know it. It’s incredible. Student enrollment has fallen off a cliff all over coastal communities. Marin county’s median age is as old as Japan!

I frequently thank God for the musical stylings of Oklou. I am very excited to finally witness her performing live this spring. www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Yr...

Simply getting the state to socialize all that risk is not an alternative to substantially reducing the risk. If you do the former without the latter, you're basically hamstringing the state and penalizing low-income Californians who live outside the WUI.

My least popular (and most correct) view is that cars should be automatically limited to the local speed limit. Put the pedal to the floor and you still can't go over 25mph in a residential area. (15 in Manhattan btw)

I'm very tired of repeating myself about this, but, as someone who works professionally on housing affordability, this is a disgusting lie.

As a rural land owner, I should be mostly responsible for mitigating my fire risk. (And am.) I do not expect people in cities to pay for me to live here; my choice to live here is somewhat antisocial and should be treated as such if I am not engaged in raising livestock or something.

In this house we believe Climate change is REAL Insurance risk models are FAKE

I kind of love that "Sacramento" has become SF NIMBYs' euphemistic epithet of choice. For what it's worth, we're building 2x as much housing and our rents are half the price of yours, Connie!

Wow - California did this last year, but it was for five years. Really exciting to see people waking up to the reality that the building code is broken. A freeze isn't enough, or even necessarily good. We have to be reducing building code costs.

I heard the 2024 RAV4 broke the Ford F-150‘s 45 year streak of being the top selling vehicle in the USA Is this good or bad for road safety advocates? Would have to see sales data for other light trucks

They should invent a city that doesn't spend 60% of its budget on cops

I still feel like Bluesky has that sort of influence to be honest. It's a very small website but among the people who are here, content creators with large audiences are *very* overrepresented here and ideas and discussions that start here filter down to other platforms

It's really depressing to watch leftists turn against Death With Dignity because they trusted the Twitter slop arguments against MAID (The Illinois law is very restrictive: Only patients who can give consent at time of treatment w/ a terminal condition and 6mo prognosis.)

I saw a signal with a new leading pedestrian interval this weekend in Sac. I can’t remember exactly where - I was on my bike (maybe crossing Broadway in Land Park?). Exciting to see, but I wish the city would actually put out a plan if it’s started to implement AB 2264.

Sacramento could never - the City actively refusing to enforce AB 413 as policy. In one specific instance, they refuse to take any action even after daily reports of an intersection in front of an elementary school where the sidewalk and crosswalk are blocked by the same lifted truck.

someone tell the California ACLU who is disproportionately more likely to be killed in traffic accidents including those involving people under the influence

The CA ACLU also staunchly opposes automated speed cameras, which studies find are extremely effective in deterring dangerous driving, something that disproportionately harms/kills low income and minority groups. (They're also, obviously, unbiased and don't shoot people)

This is completely unacceptable! AC Transit’s hydrogen fleet has 43%-64% availability depending on model, leading to canceled bus runs and stops in the middle of service. They must address this to retain/grow riders. Transit reliability is even more important to riders than speed or frequency.

I really like this new forecast briefing page that NWS Sacramento puts up: www.weather.gov/sto/briefing

I dunno about this take... I don't think there's a whole lot of carceral-ing going on for drivers. This guy hit a bicyclist and got a 1 year misdemeanor. It was a hit and run. The guy said there wasn't anything he could do for the bicyclist. The guy was a retired doctor!

The American mind cannot comprehend being held accountable for crimes committed while driving.

A track that changed the trajectory of electronic music www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMdX...

“Drunk and drugged driving is now so common in car-centric California that drivers routinely rack up four, five, six DUIs. One woman in Fresno just got her 16th.”

California has some of the weakest DUI laws in the nation. Here, DUI-related deaths have been rising more than twice as fast as the rest of the country. But this fall, a state bill to strengthen DUI penalties was gutted at the last minute. calmatters.org/investigatio... 8/9

The California ACLU is staunchly opposed to the ignition interlock device program and is a big reason that it has not been expanded. Despite the fact that California heavily subsidizes the cost for low-income drunk drivers, the ACLU says that the program is a form of "racialized wealth extraction."

Yeah I’m sorry, but this is indefensible and is *exactly* the kind of shit that people are talking about when they talk about non-profit/activist brainworms. And it’s causing real harm here! Minorities are more likely to be victims of drunk drivers as well!

Cars are so dangerous that parents who move their kids to the suburbs to avoid perceptions of urban crime increase their kid’s likelihood of dying a violent death by like 30 percent.

A necessary evil. Groupchats are where the magic happens on sites like this.

I am on a dangerous trajectory regarding my pace of consumption of holiday candy, cookies, and other treats. It's only December 8. Not sure if I'm going to make it to Christmas.

They will pry the 14th Amendment from my cold dead hands.

I don’t use this app but I noticed some supportive messages popping up and I really appreciate that 🥹💞