brandon siracuse 🏳️‍🌈

My neighborhood has great nighttime vibes. The hills of Omaha provide some pretty neat vantage points.

Walkable cities are perfect for busy people/families.

I had a 45 min break between work calls & wanted to fit in a quick walk.

My wife pointed out we still needed a grocery item for dinner.

I walked 10 mins to the co op and took the long way home.

And I got to pet a cute dog on the walk home!

"Performative," etc is such an American meme. Only in a nation infantilized by suburban stupidity, where there is no public realm whatsoever, could the idea of consciously trying to cultivate and project a vibe be seen as foreign behavior as deserving of mockery.

icymi a victory for corporate resistance this week that was as important as jimmy kimmel

# of paragraphs for news orgs to mention there's no discernable need to deploy troops to Portland, Oregon

The Guardian: 1st paragraph
BBC: 4th paragraph
AP: 5th paragraph
Time: 6th paragraph
Politico: 8th paragraph
NPR: 9th paragraph
CNN: 10th paragraph
NBC: 12th paragraph
Fox News: never mentions

Well, if we’re going to prosecute people for lying to Congress…

This is not turning into a spicy account, I promise, I’ve just been lifting consistently for about a year and I’ve been pretty happy to see how far I’ve come

happy biceptember btw

And of course he complained about the “abundance agenda” being the reason for degradation of federal environmental protections lol

I was at a public forum on passenger rail in Nebraska yesterday and someone in the audience had concerns about how environmental laws have delayed other rail projects, then called for NE to beef up its environmental laws b/c the federal gov’t is loosening its laws too much

They are proposing elimination of the Community and Regional Planning degrees. This is tragic. UNL has the *only* planning program in Nebraska.

Theres an Urban Studies at UNO, and I’ve worked with great alumni of that program, but it’s not quite the same as planning.

California, New York could become first states to enact laws aiming to prevent catastrophic AI harm • Nebraska Examiner California and New York could become the first states to establish rules aiming to prevent AI models from causing catastrophic harm.

AI GUARDRAILS? California and New York could become the first states to establish rules aiming to prevent the most advanced, large-scale artificial intelligence models from causing catastrophic harm involving dozens of casualties or billion-dollar damages.

From Stateline:

Put up or shut up time for the Supreme Court

I love when it just randomly freezes and crashes. Top tier software engineering, truly.

Before the election, I warned that there is no safe haven under authoritarianism.

If they can ship Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a foreign prison—accused of no crime, with no trial—they can do it to anyone.

Americans of conscience must stand against this now.

It’s the second-most-used substance on Earth — and a major climate threat The cement industry has set ambitious climate goals. But as federal funding dries up, its path to decarbonization is in doubt.

Biden policy accelerated efforts to decarbonize cement, one of the trickiest aspects of decarbonization.

Now, under Trump, that progress is likely to dry up.

The most relevant piece of information here is the R which Senator Murkowski keeps next to her name. She and three other Senators could take full control of the government out of the hands of the organization she herself describes as using terror tactics.

the american electoral system is basically 500,000 information-resistant people across a handful of states taking a guess and then going "haha! oops!" every two years. this process takes 18 months and costs four trillion dollars every time

I won’t share RFK Jr.’s lies about autism.

It’s disgusting and dangerous.

If he had a shred of decency, he would apologize and resign.

Autistic people contribute every day to our nation’s greatness.

To every kid with autism, I’m in this fight all the way for you.

meanwhile, prominent pundits continue to deny that there the administration adheres to a segregationist ideology

“What did they expect?” is kind of a misleading question.

The people who supported them didn’t expect something very specific. They expected to own the libs. They expected people they resented to suffer. The expected the world to burn. It wasn’t about specifics.

Tern says that a container from Vietnam that would have been subject to $20-30k in important duties will now cost $1M in tariffs.

This is an extinction level event for the bike industry.

if the united states ever has even a hope of recovering we have to destroy the idea of american individualism. "they don't owe you anything" we owe each other everything actually

A blizzard with potential for 70 mph wind gusts is crazy

When AOC and Adam Kinzinger are both furious at Chuck Schumer, for the exact same reason, maybe you need to give up the idea this is just a backlash coming from far left activists.

An illustration showing the impact of parking requirements on land use. From left to right, the image depicts a gradient of increasing parking mandates: 'No Parking Required' allows for dense, walkable development; '1 Space per 500 Square Feet' introduces some parking; '1 Space per 250 Square Feet' adds more parking lots; and '1 Space per 100 Square Feet' results in sprawling, car-centric infrastructure with large parking lots dominating the landscape. The logo 'PRN' and 'PARKING REFORM NETWORK' are visible at the bottom.

“The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar, in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle, is actually the right to destroy the city.”

- Lewis Mumford

Attending the Nebraska Planning Conference this week and interacting with many passionate public servants made me realize that I really miss working in the public sector with a mission to serve a single community

That’s reasonable tbh

Colorado's Rep Brittany Pettersen (D) flew cross-country with her one-month-old to vote against the GOP budget tonight. Dems ended up one vote short. Pettersen was part of an unsuccessful bipartisan push to allow new mothers to vote remotely. #copolitics

Urban planners: what’s something that you’re embarrassed to admit?

I’ll go first: I’ve never fully read “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”