I got distracted from #uncertainfate for a while, but it now returns with Hazeldine, appropriately a band that I got distracted from for a while.

Tl;dr: If you think the main problem with NYC development is obstructionist councilmembers blocking affordable housing, vote yes; if you think it's developers running roughshod over public oversight, vote no. If you think they're both problems, this may require more than a ballot measure to solve.

Finally, an explainer on the NYC ballot measures that actually explains, thanks, Chris Robbins and @hellgatenyc.com!

My latest gig: writing @reinventalbany.bsky.social's weekly Subsidy Sheet newsletter, which runs down all the ways New York state is funneling public money to wealthy corporations. Catch up on recent entries below, or subscribe for free at: reinventalbany.us4.list-manage.com/subscribe

Even setting aside substance, “a freelance healthcare journalist reporting in the NYT on a mayoral candidate’s old college application obtained in a hack and flagged by a prominent racist who is granted anonymity even though everyone knows who he is” is one of the strangest stories I’ve ever read

A reminder: It is possible to cancel your Times subscription for "news" or whatever it is they're pretending they're doing, while keeping it for games.

He actually did the meme.

Think you just answered your own question there, Baltimore Orioles customer survey.

Gameday 3D is MLB The Show meets Goat Simulator, and I couldn't love it more.

Emma Goldman was deported along with another 600 anarchists, communists & socialists, while 10k+ more nationwide were rounded up in the Palmer Raids, 105 years ago during the First Red Scare and tbh idek which number Red Scare we're on now www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

No, @nytimes.com headline writers, the White House didn't deny violating the judge's order, it said the judge had "no jurisdiction," which is a very different thing. -- @neildemause.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/u...

And we have arrived at the “straight up disappearing people” phase of the autogolpe. hellgatenyc.com/r/17049bf8

Now there's a lede. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Subtlety was never our mayor's strong suit.

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

I read this three times, trying to figure out why Buster Posey was delivering a talk to Giants fans in the form of a rap, before realizing the San Jose Mercury News doesn't know how to spell "rapt."

We're joined by @neildemause.bsky.social from @fieldofschemes.bsky.social. He discusses his love of the NY Mets & @fcbarcelonabr.bsky.social & schools us about the American tradition of shifting billions of public $$$ to help pay for private stadiums & arenas. thesportsfanproject.com/podcast/

Rep. Rich McCormick's remarks that schoolkids shouldn't get free lunch when they could "go to work at Burger King" reminds me of his '90s precessor Rep. John Mica, who testified about welfare reform by, well:

Bluesky account autoposting when new Aadam Jacobs Collection shows are uploaded is now up and running! bsky.app/profile/ajcp...

Government efficiency! (from r/Passports)

Oh, so you're here for journalism and not just jokes? Fine, check out @erininthemorning.com's excellent analysis of which bits of Trump's anti-trans executive order are serious threats, which are wild-ass shots in the dark, and which are somewhere in between: www.erininthemorning.com/p/a-line-by-...

The Large Reproductive Cell is the name of my new Trotskyist splinter group.

I still keep writing "representative democracy" on my checks.

My letter to City Winery NYC, on the occasion of its announcement that going forward it will impose a $25 food/drink minimum on top of ticket prices.

I'm excited to be playing a small part bringing this music out of Aadam's closet and into the public's ears, often for the first time. Hopefully the collection will eventually get its own account to post updates when new shows go live; for now, best option is to follow: bsky.app/profile/live...

Famed singer was actually widely known, knew how to get home. Verdict: PANTS ON FIRE.

It appears that, much like the A's, I could still use another arm.

Great article. I’d add that the union movement began with the Gilded Age as well. But that too was violent. The current robber barons won’t give an inch without some sort of countervailing power. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/o...

Dan aka Tom is too modest to mention it, but if you want to subscribe to read a 2024 Clifford K. and James T. Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons–winning cartoon every week, you can do so here: manage.campaignzee.com/l2UvkJdcSc

This after 16 paragraphs of CEOs talking about how they all need to beef up security because people just hate CEOs for some inexplicable reason — confirming the old rule that the best way to find the real news in Times articles is to read them backwards.

Once again tapping - no, *pounding* the "support local, independent, worker-run newsrooms" sign

"McBride doesn't enter Congress until January, and I think the normal response to a bunch of people freaking out about which bathroom you might use two months from now is 'I usually don't plan those things that far in advance.'"

My favorite part of Jeremy Peters' doofy NYT piece on how trans rights activists are too uppity is when he blames insisting on terms like "pregnant people" for being overly confrontational. Damn bomb-throwing copy editors cost the Dems the election! www.erininthemorning.com/p/new-york-t...

"Fighting for Delawareans" doesn't include Sarah McBride's own interns, apparently.

I wish I had more to say about Tall Dwarfs, but maybe it’s totally okay to still be thinking about some bands.

Reminder that having gendered bathrooms at all is 1) dumb, 2) only about a century old, 3) the result of an ideology that women couldn't use the same toilets as men because they were inherently weaker.

With Rays execs saying the team will play 2025 in Tampa before going back to build a new stadium right next to the one in St. Pete that they hate for its location, maybe time to revisit this one. web.archive.org/web/20190212...

Crap, now I guess I have to come up with something to say here?

"Fear-based messages tend to circumvent our higher reasoning ... because evolution has taught our species to react strongly and quickly to things that are dangerous. This innate human tendency has long been noted by the media industry, resulting in the old press adage, 'If it bleeds, it leads.'"

This is going predictably badly. "Last year, New York increased its tax credit to $700 million a year from $420 million and raised it to 30% of most costs. But Steiner says tax credits offered in the United Kingdom and Eastern Europe have become a problem."

The 76ers arena plan avoids some of the most headline-grabbing horror stories from other cities’ sports venue deals: no $2B price tags or beloved local bars uprooted by eminent domain. But does that make it, you know, good? (by me, for @defector.bsky.social)

genuinely pathetic that hochul can be bought for less than a year of tuition at a middling private school

I still can't definitively say what The Trypes were, but I can say what they almost were, which might be just as good. #uncertainfate

The standard use of “police said” articles — where the main or only source of information came from law enforcement — keeps leading the media to publish information that is outright wrong. fair.org/home/on-camp...

NYC real estate interests are pushing for a "vacancy reset" law to let them hike rents in regulated apartments. The other times this was tried, it ended very, very badly.

Can New York's new law requiring registration of short-term rentals actually bring down the city's sky-high rents? The short answer: Probably, yes. The long answer: There will be math.

I am very disappointed that no baseball news site has run the headline "Paul McCartney becomes first 81-year-old to pick up stolen bass."

This will surprise absolutely no one who follows corporate subsidies, nor will the fact that Kathy Hochul is insisting that no really they're good anyway because reasons.

Another day, another instance of ProPublica requiring its unionized staff to produce content for a scab paper.

This week in #uncertainfate: How Jeffrey Lewis found me, and how I found him back.