Tom Schmitz
@tschmitzwrites.bsky.social
Speechwriter and executive comms strategist with a focus on energy & climate. Professional Californian, practicing Virginian, bicoastal sailor. Soundtrack by Steely Dan.
Reposted by Tom Schmitz
Losing it at this
A veces, la vida de un controlador de tráfico marítimo puede ser muy dura...🤭😅🤣🤣🤣
Buenos días, cieletes 😘🤗🩵💪😎
Buenos días, cieletes 😘🤗🩵💪😎
September 17, 2026 at 1:43 PM
Losing it at this
Help Behind-the-Meter come out of the closet. Free the VPP!
Amazing work by my good friends at @pge4me.bsky.social. I hope this project with Google is a forcing function to get the utility and the regulator to open this kind of opportunity to all customers. 🧵
lnkd.in/p/gpGhUNBR
lnkd.in/p/gpGhUNBR
How Home Batteries Unlock the Grid's Next Chapter | Jigar Shah | 28 comments
PG&E ended 2025 with five flexible interconnection sites online. Data centers, EV chargers, hospitals are all waiting for hard path infrastructure that takes decades to permit and build.
This week, P...
lnkd.in
September 5, 2026 at 7:33 PM
Help Behind-the-Meter come out of the closet. Free the VPP!
Batteries as a peaker alternative are a game changer. Traditional peaker plants use gas turbines and are typically the dirtiest generators in the grid system. Huge advance!
Within two years, Australia has managed to drastically reduce its use of fossil fuels because #batteries supply the electricity at peak times. We need much more #energystorage for the energy transition! #ActOnClimate #ClimateActionNow
August 30, 2026 at 3:29 PM
Batteries as a peaker alternative are a game changer. Traditional peaker plants use gas turbines and are typically the dirtiest generators in the grid system. Huge advance!
Caught this show the night before when he performed in San Diego. Absolutely amazing.
Just when you think you couldn’t love David Byrne more he goes to the Hollywood Bowl playing "Life During Wartime" projecting ICE raids 🔥
August 30, 2026 at 1:32 AM
Caught this show the night before when he performed in San Diego. Absolutely amazing.
🎯👇
Writing, quite literally, is thinking. Hence, it is hard to write well because it requires systematic, disciplined thinking. If you aren't writing for yourself you aren't thinking for yourself.
Dean of Science at Stellenbosch University writes that although AI generates almost all the words for his articles (including this one):
"AI did almost all of the writing. I remain the expert and the thought leader behind the piece."
www.nature.com/articles/d44...
"AI did almost all of the writing. I remain the expert and the thought leader behind the piece."
www.nature.com/articles/d44...
August 18, 2026 at 7:59 PM
🎯👇
Reposted by Tom Schmitz
Would be nice if there was one aspect of my life that was Bezos free. Like next week I'm going to read he has purchased a stake in one of my kids.
Amazon founder Bezos nears deal to buy stake in Liverpool - Reports reut.rs/3U7CQfM
Amazon founder Bezos nears deal to buy stake in Liverpool - Reports
A consortium that includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is close to agreeing a deal to acquire a stake of about one-third in Premier League club Liverpool, multiple media outlets reported on Monday.
reut.rs
August 10, 2026 at 12:36 PM
Would be nice if there was one aspect of my life that was Bezos free. Like next week I'm going to read he has purchased a stake in one of my kids.
Glorious. We were fortunate to have one of these in our backyard when we lived in Oakland. We even chose to have our outdoor wedding beneath its canopy during the pandemic. Its blooming season was a source of endless enjoyment. Miss it still.
In the tropics & subtropics, drought-deciduous flowering trees are especially showy because they flower before the leaves emerge, i.e., they are protoanthous. Here’s Jacaranda mimosifolia. 📷: John CCBYSA2 #protoanthy #Bignoniaceae #Botany 🌾🧪🌱
August 5, 2026 at 1:41 PM
Glorious. We were fortunate to have one of these in our backyard when we lived in Oakland. We even chose to have our outdoor wedding beneath its canopy during the pandemic. Its blooming season was a source of endless enjoyment. Miss it still.
This can't be pointed out often enough, and I find myself having to do it far too often. "Lockdown" is what happened in China, where people were forcibly confined inside their apartments. Nothing like that happened in the U.S. We suffered through mild inconvenience, not at-home incarceration.
Appropriate air quotes because the most infuriating part about Americans debating "lockdown" is that it simply never happened. Having to pick up your Applebees and eat it on the sectional does not count. There wasn't even a brief moment where "everything" was closed. That's not real.
if you hated covid "lockdowns" try long covid
August 3, 2026 at 2:22 PM
This can't be pointed out often enough, and I find myself having to do it far too often. "Lockdown" is what happened in China, where people were forcibly confined inside their apartments. Nothing like that happened in the U.S. We suffered through mild inconvenience, not at-home incarceration.
Reposted by Tom Schmitz
BIG DEAL on voting rights this morning:
Governor Spanberger just restored the voting rights of some 60,000+ Virginians.
Her move reverses Youngkin's abrupt decision in 2023 to end automatic voting rights restoration, which brought Virginia back to a system of default lifetime disenfranchisement.
Governor Spanberger just restored the voting rights of some 60,000+ Virginians.
Her move reverses Youngkin's abrupt decision in 2023 to end automatic voting rights restoration, which brought Virginia back to a system of default lifetime disenfranchisement.
Virginia Governor Restores Voting Rights for Thousands With Past Felony Convictions - Bolts
This is the only state that, absent action by the governor, bans people convicted of any felony from voting for life. Virginians have an opportunity to end that system for good in November.
boltsmag.org
July 31, 2026 at 2:29 PM
BIG DEAL on voting rights this morning:
Governor Spanberger just restored the voting rights of some 60,000+ Virginians.
Her move reverses Youngkin's abrupt decision in 2023 to end automatic voting rights restoration, which brought Virginia back to a system of default lifetime disenfranchisement.
Governor Spanberger just restored the voting rights of some 60,000+ Virginians.
Her move reverses Youngkin's abrupt decision in 2023 to end automatic voting rights restoration, which brought Virginia back to a system of default lifetime disenfranchisement.
Reposted by Tom Schmitz
Why is your current, and future, energy bill higher than before? Here's a reason.
Breaking News: Federal officials acknowledged in court documents that they canceled grants to states that didn’t vote for President Trump in 2024. nyti.ms/4gRd5Kb
July 24, 2026 at 8:53 PM
Why is your current, and future, energy bill higher than before? Here's a reason.
Reposted by Tom Schmitz
The worst part is I have no problem believing this is legitimate.
July 19, 2026 at 3:14 PM
The worst part is I have no problem believing this is legitimate.
Reposted by Tom Schmitz
Why I’m a fan of the Oxford comma.
July 14, 2026 at 3:33 PM
Why I’m a fan of the Oxford comma.
Now that is some innovative ratemaking. Way to go, OR & PGE!
Oregon raises electricity rates by 29.7% for data centers and cuts residential electricity rates by 1.3%.
www.opb.org/article/2026... #energysky
www.opb.org/article/2026... #energysky
Oregon approves PGE’s 29.7% rate hike for data centers under landmark law
The Oregon Public Utility Commission unanimously approved Portland General Electric’s rate hike for large energy users to take effect Wednesday. Residential rates will go down 1.3%.
www.opb.org
July 10, 2026 at 1:33 PM
Now that is some innovative ratemaking. Way to go, OR & PGE!
Reposted by Tom Schmitz
"Pack it" 💯🎯
Court can't go on like this. The Constitution as plainly as possible says people who were born here have an unequivocal right to citizenship. Four people whose ONLY job is to read the Constitution for the rest of their lives just tried to overturn it because they're tired of brown people. Pack it.
June 30, 2026 at 4:32 PM
"Pack it" 💯🎯
Drape some black crepe around this thread, in mourning for what our nation has lost.
I do not think there is sufficient appreciation for how catastrophic yesterday’s decision in Slaughter is for this country. As Justice Sotomayor said in her dissent and she intoned from the bench yesterday, “today the majority reshapes our Govt.”
June 30, 2026 at 3:09 PM
Drape some black crepe around this thread, in mourning for what our nation has lost.
🎯
The "hydration break" really is a perfect American capitalist innovation: a nakedly commercial play to insert more ad revenue into a game that doesn't have ads anywhere else in the world, all under the guise of some humanitarian interest in the players' wellbeing.
June 17, 2026 at 9:53 PM
🎯
This is The Way
i know people won't be able to help themselves but can you all not even derisively comment on the ufc abomination tonight, just let that shit go, watch soccer instead
June 14, 2026 at 11:40 AM
This is The Way
Exactly this. Not a cause for celebration or veneration, but examination and regulation.
It shouldn’t be controversial to say that the creation of a “trillionaire” represents a giant and complete failure of public policy and government.
June 12, 2026 at 10:22 PM
Exactly this. Not a cause for celebration or veneration, but examination and regulation.
🎯🎯🎯
attempting to document all the ways the internet has cooked our brains is impossible -- it's fractal, the machinery of collective truth-finding has not broken down, it has shattered into an infinitude of tailored realities, each inhabited by a single person trapped in a dialog only with themselves
June 8, 2026 at 2:45 PM
🎯🎯🎯
Prescient indeed 🎯
Three years ago tomorrow, I very nervously gave this speech. I knew my career as a TV journalist was dunzo, cooked, filleted, kaput the morning I wrote it. (Thanks to Kat insisting I go for it anyway.)
The end is awfully prescient at this exact second, though. Big ups to Scott Pelley for fighting.
The end is awfully prescient at this exact second, though. Big ups to Scott Pelley for fighting.
June 8, 2026 at 12:38 PM
Prescient indeed 🎯
I fear that while this is not yet universally true, it soon will be, at least for corporate media.
June 3, 2026 at 1:14 PM
I fear that while this is not yet universally true, it soon will be, at least for corporate media.
Reposted by Tom Schmitz
another day, another story about the administration's war on knowledge itself, all in service of allow its corporate patrons free rein to rob us blind and poison our world www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/c...
Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System
www.nytimes.com
June 2, 2026 at 10:47 AM
another day, another story about the administration's war on knowledge itself, all in service of allow its corporate patrons free rein to rob us blind and poison our world www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/c...
There it is. AI now adjudicating claims for a health insurer that is already so infamous for driving customers to despair that its CEO was shot in the street.
Oh, the humanity...
Oh, the humanity...
"It also said the company’s AI applications had avoided the need for more than 15 million calls, adjudicated hundreds of millions of claims, and contributed more than 150 million lines of code."
adjudicated hundreds of millions of claims
adjudicated hundreds of millions of claims
UnitedHealth Tracks Workers’ AI Use in Push to Transform Company
UnitedHealth Group Inc. is tracking how often some employees use artificial intelligence tools as part of a push to embed the technology throughout its operations, according to people familiar with th...
www.bloomberg.com
May 15, 2026 at 4:11 PM
There it is. AI now adjudicating claims for a health insurer that is already so infamous for driving customers to despair that its CEO was shot in the street.
Oh, the humanity...
Oh, the humanity...
LFG
folks, the idea is out there. Virginia Democrats are talking about it. this could happen.
gift link to the NYT: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/u...
gift link to the NYT: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/u...
May 11, 2026 at 4:53 PM
LFG