Would love a postmortem on what % of tonight's traffic delays are driverless car related! 2/2
21.12.2025 02:39
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Would love a postmortem on what % of tonight's traffic delays are driverless car related! 2/2
In downtown SF right now. Dozens of cars backed up behind one Waymo idling at an intersection where the stoplight has no power. Two more similarly stuck eith cars piling up on our way from Montgovery to Castro. I did see one u-turn for the police line on Market! 1/2
hooooooooooooo boy
*youth pastor voice*
Let me tell you kids about another carpenter who wasn’t very popular with the authorities
Before: KATSAS, WALKER, and PAN, Circuit Judges. Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge KATSAS. Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge PAN. KATSAS, Circuit Judge: These appeals present the question whether Congress may constitutionally prohibit the President from removing members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board without cause. The district courts upheld the constitutionality of statutory removal protections for members of these boards. We reverse. Under Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), Congress may restrict the President's ability to remove principal officers who wield only quasi-
legislative or quasi-judicial powers. But under Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U.S. 197 (2020), Congress may not restrict the President's ability to remove principal officers who wield substantial executive power. As explained below, the NLRB and MSPB wield substantial powers that are both executive in nature and different from the powers that Humphrey's Executor deemed to be merely quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial. So, Congress cannot restrict the President's ability to remove NRB or MSPB members.
PAN, Circuit Judge, dissenting: The public is well served when some parts of our government are insulated from the fray of politics. That is because certain government functions are, or should be, nonpartisan. For example, courts of law and other adjudicators that apply legal standards to facts must be impartial, and their impartiality is protected when the decision-makers do not fear losing their jobs when there is a change in presidential administrations. And some agencies that employ subject-matter expertise to address technical regulatory and policy issues, such as the Federal Reserve, are better able to execute their duties and to inspire public confidence in their decision-making if they are distanced from political considerations. Such "independent" government entities have existed in our country in some form since 1790.! And 138 years ago, Congress created the first nonpartisan expert independent agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The Supreme Court confirmed that such agencies are constitutional ninety years ago.? Today, approximately thirty-three independent agencies apply specialized expertise to make merit-based decisions on behalf of the American people, in liverse areas like commerce, public safety, and energy. And numerous courts of law — such as the Tax Court, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims — serve as independent adjudicators, even though they are housed within the Executive Branch. See Christine Kexel Chabot, Is the Federal Reserve Constitutional? An Originalist Argument for Independent Agencies, 96 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1,39-40 (2020) (describing the Sinking Fund Commission of 1790, which had two members who were not removable by the President). 2 See Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935). 3 See infra notes 14-20.
The government urges an unprecedented interpretation of the Constitution that would lead to the full politicization of our government and a massive transfer of power to the President. My colleagues take an alternative approach in name only. Rather than expressly declaring Humphrey's a dead letter, they redefine Humphrey's "substantial executive power" exception such that it does not allow for any independent agencies. In so doing, they enable the government to achieve its goals while maintaining the appearance of judicial restraint. Under either approach, independent agencies as we know them cannot exist in this country. Because that outcome is not required by our Constitution and does harm to our nation, I respectfully dissent.
CADC, 2-1, says Trump could illegally fire Wilcox and Harris.
Trump judges in majority say Humphrey’s doesn’t apply to NLRB or MSPB, and so don’t have to wait for SCOTUS to overrule it.
Biden judge in dissent says the ruling “paves the way to autocracy.”
media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/doc...
For folks (and journalists) who want to search the Oversight Committee email texts, I made a database for searching the 20k text files:
splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app
Oh to be a spiky little guy snuffling around in the mossy ground
In the century leading up to 1975, nearly 6000 freighters went down in the Great Lakes.
The Edmund Fitzgerald was the last.
The last. In 50 years, not a single commercial freighter has been lost in the Great Lakes.
Why?
It's NOAA. Of course it's NOAA.
I just keep thinking “Elon Musk just got a trillion dollars”
Have you filled a city kermit for this protest?
It's a pretty big deal that the NYC Bar Association--one of the most prominent and respected bar associations in the country--is accusing the President of ordering the "unlawful summary execution," i.e. murder--of civilians in violation of US and international law. www.nycbar.org/press-releas...
More cities, NGOs, even HOAs are getting disaster insurance.
'Parametric' plans pay out at key triggers: hurricane hits cat 5, wildfire crosses line, etc.
Now, some of those plans are rewarding climate adaptation with big discounts.
with @jojofoshosho.bsky.social for @kneedeeptimes.bsky.social !
The insurance industry is broken, especially in wildfire-prone states like California that have been hit hard by climate change. Could a community-based risk reduction model be the solution? Proud to have gotten to co-write this story for @kneedeeptimes.bsky.social with @megduff.com 🌎🧪
As global heating produces more wildfires, "Americans have increasingly been bombarded by toxic smoke." 41K people in the US now die from this smoke each year, "one of the most costly and important climate impacts.” www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
Hundreds of red leaves form a carpet bellow the Japanese maple. Two red leaves cling to the otherwise bare tree. Photo by Robert Emond.
#ColorADay | #RedWed
“Memories of Autumn Past” alternate title “Roll Out the Red Carpet”
#Photography 📸
#WestCoastKin #PNW #Oregon
#PhotographersOfBluesky
#PhotographersUnited
#BlueskyPhotography
#ArtistsOfBluesky
#BlueskyArt #Landscape #Nature
reminder: Jimmy Kimmel is enough of a mensch that he devised a segment on which actors who are just short of having enough work to qualify for union healthcare come on his show and deliver a single line of dialogue
deadline.com/2024/07/jimm...
Bee on a white pink flower
A bee is here
A new study led by @clairbarnes.bsky.social shows that human-caused global warming tripled heat wave deaths in European cities this summer to 24,400. These 16,500 people would still be alive if we weren't burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow.
hey just an FYI: we're not yet at the part where AI companies and the state are so closely intertwined that disclosing energy usage would constitute a threat to national security or some other such bullshit, making transparency into the environmental impact of data centers all but impossible
It bears repeating: choosing to double down and accelerate our burning of fossil fuels will kill off a substantial proportion of humanity
That is something we want to avoid - and can choose to avoid
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
"Putin appears to have gained the upper hand...[He] was treated as an equal on U.S. soil, managed to sidestep any potential American sanctions for now and announced no battlefield concessions. Trump, who vowed...to end the war on his first day in office, failed to secure even a temporary cease-fire"
Eyeopening walkthrough of DC by this creator. If you aren’t in DC, worth a watch all the way to the end—
Remarkably, NASA is looking for partners (wealthy individuals, philanthropic orgs, companies etc.) to keep crucial climate satellite missions like the Orbiting Carbon Observatory going. Whether they make such a deal before $$ runs out remains to be seen... www.cnn.com/2025/08/13/c...
"“I ain’t ever bought no prostitutes. I ain’t never raped nobody. I ain’t never paid anybody off. None of that stuff,” said G, a resident from one of the photographed tents.
“He’s much more of a criminal than I am”"
streetsensemedia.org/article/home...
This is a wonderful read.
Once again, if you know anything about who is behind the DHS or ICE social media accounts, particularly on X, I'm very interested in talking to you. hannahgais@proton.me or 334-315-8634 on Signal.
Good Peter Baker article ⤴️ on Trump's brutish abuse of power in service of narrative. But words matter. When is a behavior an "echo" of something in the past, and when is it that thing incarnate?... 1/2
Well done, New York! The state's building code now requires most new buildings to be all-electric. This makes good economic sense: It's cheaper to install a two-way heat pump to both heat and cool, vs a one-way AC plus a one-way furnace. Outgrowing indoor combustion also benefits climate and health.
In the past when I sat down to write about Israel, I’ve had a moment where I take a deep breath and accept that, as a Jewish woman, it’s going to be difficult. This time, there was no such moment.
I wrote about the intentional starvation of Gaza by Israel/US, and the moral imperative to say enough:
