Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Hugh Barnard

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 1d

This is correct, in part - as the grim, military historian in me feels the need to note - it is psychologically much harder to get soldiers to open fire on people they view as 'respectable.'

And I dread, with grim increasingly certainty, that we are headed to a point where that matters.

WhatSaraSaid @whatsarasaid.bsky.social · 1d

protests against this government should include white Boomer grandmothers who meet for pilates class, get a pitcher of mimosas & walk together to the public space

we need people in the street who think everyone can talk their way out of a speeding ticket, they're key to winning

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Sarah O'Connor @sarahoconnorft.ft.com · 3h

Investors are betting big bucks on the idea that AI will create an explosion of leisure time...e.g. it was a key part of the public rationale for the massive $55bn takeover of video games maker Electronic Arts. But are they right?? (short thread linked to my column today www.ft.com/content/4011...)

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Sarah O'Connor @sarahoconnorft.ft.com · 3h

On this third: the decline in working hours has slowed massively in most countries in recent decades, and in the US, has completely stopped since the 1970s (in spite of rising productivity since then). Americans don't even take all their (meagre) holiday allowances.

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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 4h

Trans people at risk of exclusion from many UK public spaces, rights expert says

European Council commissioner voices concerns following April’s supreme court ruling on legal definition of a woman Transgender people risk being excluded from many public spaces as a result of the recent UK supreme court judgment and must be protected from discrimination, a human rights expert has said. Michael O’Flaherty, the European Council commissioner for human rights, said he had concerns about the climate for transgender people in the UK following April’s supreme court ruling that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Mina Hanse @mina-hanse.bsky.social · 14h

Russia has used cryptocurrencies to pay saboteurs involved in its hybrid attacks on EU countries, in an attempt to prevent intelligence services from tracking the payments, according to a senior Polish security official.

www.ft.com/content/2157...

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Alison @finger-post.blog · 8d

My favourite Jilly Cooper story is recounted in Graham Hoyland's 2013 book Last Hours on Everest. What a trooper.

"We lay in a tent for three days in a blizzard. After the first morning we had each told our life stories, and we lay there gazing at the roof of the tent, wondering what to do next.

Luckily Mark had brought a copy of Jilly Cooper's Rivals, a breathily written romance, and Brice had a penknife. We carefully cut it up into three parts. Mark, as owner, was allowed to read it in sequence: A, B, then C. Brice got B, C, then A, but I - as the youngest - was lumbered with C, A, then B, and struggled to comprehend both the plot and the characters.

On our return Mark contacted Jilly Cooper and told her the story. She was delighted to have been able to satisfy three large men at once with only one book."

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 8h

“An essential condition today for entry into the upper echelons of Conservative party politics is being willing to at least pretend that you think taking Britain out of the EU was a good idea. This is a never-ending lobotomy for the Tories”

Brexit will always ruin you in the end.
on.ft.com/4nZ6DBt

How Brexit drained the Tories’ talent pool

The party can’t keep expecting successful people to pretend that leaving the EU was a good idea

on.ft.com

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Reform Party UK Exposed @reformexposed.bsky.social · 5h

Reform UK suspends KCC councillor Robert Ford pending investigation into misconduct after complaint from ‘several’ women

Reform councillor suspended amid investigation into ‘lewd remarks’

A Reform UK councillor has been suspended amid an investigation into allegations of misconduct following a complaint by “several women”.

www.kentonline.co.uk

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Hugh Barnard @hughbarnard.bsky.social · 5h

I don't do much of 'this', too middle class in upbringing. But I do dog-ear sometimes, such liberation.

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Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 18h

The veneration of Books As Objects misses the point entirely. If you're reading a book, turn the corners down, break the spine, spill soup on it. It's your book, go nuts. A pristine, unread book is a tragedy in a way that a beloved, much-read book that looks like the dog's been at it could never be.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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She Guevara @sheg7.bsky.social · 5h

Colonialism historicly erased trans existence from every culture it came across, and now have the audacity to claim its a modern creation.

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Micah @rincewind.run · 18h

the funniest thing about this is that those of us who grew up in the divide all have a bunch of pre-cell phone numbers memorized and almost none afterwards

I know the home phone numbers of two of my childhood best friends from thirty years ago and none of the cell numbers of my college friends

bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 20h

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 19h

That New York Times story lots of people are sharing today about Farage's ties to US anti-abortion groups was first reported by @mc00.bsky.social on Byline Times a year ago bylinetimes.com/2024/11/29/n...

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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 19h

How W. E. B. Du Bois responded to government policing of "anti-American" sentiment during the 1910s:

"I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, 'We are seeking to have the Constitution of the United States thoroughly and completely enforced.' ”

Federal agents invaded even the offices of The Crisis and the National Association for the advancement of colored people and asked searching questions: " just what, after all, were our objects and activities?” I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, “We are seeking to have the constitution of the United states thoroughly and completely enforced.” It took some ingenuity, even for Southerners, to make treason out of that.

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Karly Kingsley @karlykingsley.bsky.social · 11h

Media outlets from WaPo, NYT, AP, and CNN to Newsmax are refusing to sign the Pentagon’s new gag-order press policy in a rare moment of total bipartisan media unity. This is the way. We can have different ideologies, but we must have a free press.

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⚯ Michel de Cryptadamus ⚯ @cryptadamist.universeodon.com.ap.brid.gy · Aug 29

in case anyone out there still doesn't believe that the #broligarchs are planning to destroy the global economy and the US dollar denominated financial system so they can rebuild it with bitcoin, here's the Nerd Reich's favourite thought leader and author of […]

[Original post on universeodon.com]

Balaji
When Bitcoin wins...
0:00 It ends the Fed 02:10 Payments become packets 3:30 Keynesianism falls like Communism 4:20 Real estate falls in real terms 5:40 Fiat billionaires get flipped 6:20 Money printer runs out of toner 7:50 The battle begins... 10:00 ...and it's time to build - Y

.‘ BALAJI SRINIVASAN ‘
When Bitcoin Wins

What happens when Bitcoin wins? 4:39 PM - Aug 29, 2025 - 93.2K Views

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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 8h

Reporters must promise not to publish unauthorised material to obtain press credentials.

US news outlets say they will not agree to Pentagon reporting restrictions

Reporters must promise not to publish unauthorised material to obtain press credentials.

bit.ly

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Wolfgang Blau @wblau.bsky.social · 16h

file under: the subtle humour of a homepage editor.

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onion person @junlper.beer · 20h

watching the UKs green party elect an actual unafraid leftist into leadership and see party membership double in under a month is once again endless proof that if you stand up for leftist causes and treat the electorate like adults, you’ll win people over easily

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Climate Andy @andycorney.bsky.social · 23h

Professor Anderson’s @kevinclimate.bsky.social conclusions are that to achieve the Paris 1.5°C we need 20% emissions reductions annually, for 2°, 7%. The UK’s share? 12-15% reduction. That’s the science! Carrying on like this will destroy most life & very soon.🔥
climateuncensored.com/talk-at-the-...

Talk at the Tyndall Centre Conference: Our Critical Decade for Climate Action - Climate Uncensored

Venue: UEA. 8th September 2025

climateuncensored.com

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Hugh Barnard @hughbarnard.bsky.social · 8h

Fairly sleepless, now working. I rate this as highly as Forever Changes for sheer abundant musicality:
youtu.be/Za7MHFAdYrY?...

Kind of thing that couldn't be recorded by a 'label' today. Too mad. #music

A Tiny Book

YouTube video by Fuchsia - Topic

youtu.be

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The Transfeminine Review @thetransfemininereview.com · 13h

"You make the best of it all and hope you can help make it a little better for the gurl after you."

- Miss Major, 2023 💔

One of the things I hear with some younger trans people I know is they feel, "I'm gonna get this surgery, and I'm gonna learn that way of speaking, and I'm gonna be done." You're never done. If you're a straight, cisgender person, you're never done. Things are always happening that have the potential to change you. So all I am today is not who I'm gonna be tomorrow, because of the things that happened to me today and later tonight. People forget that. "Oh, after I transition, I'm gonna be through." Well, good luck with that. 'Cause if you're through, then it's time to leave, you know, and I don't wanna go anywhere yet.
I'm in my seventies. Why didn't I stop? Number one is community. My gurls. I've had moments of thinking about stopping, but I didn't. I made sure I would step back, reju- venate myself, and then got back out there, and that's how you make a way. Our stories are not all the same, but the destination is: to get some place where we have some peace and harmony, and we can be at ease with ourselves and the people around us. You make the best of it all and hope you can help make it a little better for the gurl after you.

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Hugh Barnard @hughbarnard.bsky.social · 10h

www.twz.com/land/sig-sau... see also:
The second phase of the action is a military offensive which goes farcically wrong when the government troops show a complete inability to handle their own technologically sophisticated weaponry. (from Pohl's 'The Wizards of Pungs Corners'

Sig Sauer's M7 Rifle For The Army Is Now Lighter After Controversy

Excessive weight was among the lengthy criticisms of the M7 that an Army captain put forward earlier this year, prompting controversy.

www.twz.com

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José Sepúlveda @josesepulveda.bsky.social · 23h

ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the 94 million pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the #Trump administration’s cuts to The Emergency Food Assistance Program.

My latest video for @propublica.org.

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