Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 9h

Hoo boy. This is stressing me out.
It should not be a handful of unelected dickweeds choosing if we get a military dictatorship and it's dismaying how little say we have in this.

ktvz.com/news/crime-c...

'The fight is not over': Governor Kotek, lawmakers react to federal appeals court ruling to allow Guard troops in Portland

Governor Tina Kotek and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle offered reactions to a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Monday that said President Trump's administration can deploy National G...

ktvz.com

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Reposted by Mr Fengi

sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 10h

Sua sponte call for en banc less than two hours after the 9th Cir decision to let loose the National Guard into Portland

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Reposted by Mr Fengi

Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 11h

Oh nooooo, Lindsey Halligan, this is not how any of this works

(15 screens into a Signal exchange) www.lawfaremedia.org/article/anna...

Screenshot of a text exchange via Signal between Anna Bower and Lindsay Halligan.

Halligan: By the way - everything I ever sent you is off record. You're not a journalist so it's weird saying that but just letting you know.

Bower: I'm sorry, but that's not how this works.
You don't get to say that in retrospect.

Halligan: Yes I do. Off record.

Bower: I am really sorry. I would have been happy to speak with you on an off the record basis had you asked. But you didn't ask, and I still haven't agreed to speak on that basis. Do you have any further comment for the story?

Halligan: It's obvious the whole convo is off record.
There's disappearing messages and it's on signal. What is your story? You never even told me about a story.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 17h

If it leads to an Irish folk verson of "Woke Up This Morning", I'm down.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 17h

Social media intensified the basic human impulse to rail against generalized people or conditions (I'm no exception). But at some point you've got to reflect & get specific & force yourself to reflect on what, if anything, you expect from posting about it besides provoking engagement.

Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 17h

People posting generalizations like this need to start defining what counts as "idelogical purity" & citing examples that inspired their reaction.

Because there's a distinct gap between leaders or random folks being jerks online & if purity means "no Dems" (foolish) or " no transphobes" (coherent)

Melissa Chan @melissakchan.bsky.social · 1d

Folks demanding political / ideological purity fail to see that this is no longer a movement belonging to the left / liberals. This is an opposition against fascism. By definition it must be big tent. Failure to grasp this: see divided oppositions in Eastern Europe as your failed examples.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 17h

If you find yourself getting a big negative response to a post about "ideological purity" and "big tent", it's because you aren't defining those terms, which by now one should know are constantly used by center & right to sacrifice & dismiss those most at risk.

bsky.app/profile/meli...

Melissa Chan @melissakchan.bsky.social · 1d

PS: I’m probably just explaining something 99.9% of you understand but those few intellectually dishonest are making: Recognizing a big tent opposition doesn’t mean subsuming the causes you care about. This is not anti-fascism at the expense of X, Y, and Z. It’s your cause AND the big tent.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 17h

People posting generalizations like this need to start defining what counts as "idelogical purity" & citing examples that inspired their reaction.

Because there's a distinct gap between leaders or random folks being jerks online & if purity means "no Dems" (foolish) or " no transphobes" (coherent)

Melissa Chan @melissakchan.bsky.social · 1d

Folks demanding political / ideological purity fail to see that this is no longer a movement belonging to the left / liberals. This is an opposition against fascism. By definition it must be big tent. Failure to grasp this: see divided oppositions in Eastern Europe as your failed examples.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 17h

Meanwhile, in "the problems with monocultures are not restricted to biology":

www.techradar.com/news/live/am...

Massive Amazon outage takes down Venmo, Snapchat, Alexa, Reddit and much of the internet – all the latest AWS updates live

An AWS earthquake has given the internet a very bad day

www.techradar.com

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 18h

It's not a critique of you it's just that the already limited utility of polling trend stories is further undermined by the industry either evading or concealing issues of accuracy and factors that may skew results. Or how modeling for error correction is not a purely objective process.

Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 18h

Survey Monkey's site boasts about being AI driven. Which makes me suspect BS and overall its frustrating to see this stuff being presented as definitive rather than interrogated or subjected to additional checks including varying presentation of questions, if the subject is very online, etc.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 18h

"The latest NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey... 2,970 adults ages 18-29, online from Aug. 13 to Sept. 1... a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points." And the link is just to Survey Monkey's site, zero info on how they selecte or verified the ages of participants.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 19h

So, I'd like a link to the source of this and methodology and sample size because in this era of call blocking I'd reallg like to know who answered this and that particular account is not the most credible person.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 19h

173.
Challenge: choose cool cover versions of great songs. Only one per day, if not every day, for as long as one can.
No explanations. No reviews.

youtu.be/B2VLe8b1MrA?...

Reposted by Mr Fengi

Roy Edroso @edroso.bsky.social · 1d

I covered this shit, and yes.

Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 1d

Compare yesterday's millions to this and how we couldn't escape breathless coverage of the Tea Partiers at their peak.

April 15, 2009 is said to have been the day that had the largest number of tea party demonstrations reportedly in more than 750 cities.[73] Estimates of protesters and locations varied. The Christian Science Monitor reported on the difficulties of calculating a cumulative turnout and said some estimates state that over half a million Americans participated in the protests, noting, "experts say the counting itself often becomes politicized as authorities, organizers, and attendees often come up with dramatically different counts."[74][75] Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, estimated that at least 268,000 attended in over 200 cities.[76] Statistician Nate Silver, manager of FiveThirtyEight.com, has said that a cumulative crowd size estimate from credible sources was of 311,460 attendees in 346 cities, which accounted for all capitols and major cities little noticeable or no reliable media coverage in other protests could have contributed to a lower number of attendees and locations.[77] The largest event, in Atlanta, drew between an estimated 7,000 to 15,000 protesters.[77][78][79] Some of the gatherings drew only dozens.[74]

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Reposted by Mr Fengi

Luke O'Neil @lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 1d

I guess I saw some shit talk from the left about these kinds of protests, but by and large most of what I've seen is people on the left saying look at all these people ready to be organized. A lot of raw material to work with.

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Reposted by Mr Fengi

Impartial BOO-rivARRtive @mikemay.bsky.social · 2d

Lots of people here who consider themselves political experts but not a single person predicted that Trump would post an AI video of him dropping a bunch of shit from a fighter jet onto protesters

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 2d

Nope. As Mike says even the cop presence was relatively restrained.

Mike Fragassi @refrag.bsky.social · 2d

Did anyone in Chicago see any counter-protesters today?

Mike Fragassi @refrag.bsky.social · 4d

In the 3rd photo below, according to the alt text, you see the main 2 "Chicago Flips Red" women (wearing black) yelling at protesters taking part in an anti-ICE march.

bsky.app/profile/coli...

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 2d

5 to get to know some of me:
Brazil
The Battle (2023) by Vera Egito
Delicatessen (1991)
Murder By Numbers
Meshes of The Afternoon

AHHH! real meghan!! 나영지 🇵🇸 @ruemcclammyhand.bsky.social · 2d

5 movies to get to know me:

-the host
-baby assassins
-the taste of things
-to wong foo
-how to make millions before grandma dies

Jeff Zhang @strangeharbors.bsky.social · 2d

Wife wanted in on the trend, so here are 5 movies each to get to know us:

Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 2d

This is how you know most Millennials have reached A Certain Age - their own high end N Halsted St clothing boutique with an out of date pun name.

This place is called Left On Thread and has clothes that are Sexy But Not As Sexy When Your Teens Were Closer Than Your Thirties.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 2d

Not sure where it is going but starts as a late Prohibition noir set in Milwaukee. The midwest gets some Pynchon - yes!

Already one very Pynchonian name: Boynt Crosstown, boss of Unamalgamated Ops detective agency.

Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 2d

Walked by a bookstore, saw this on the front table and almost yelped in delight and the spouse got it as an early bday present.

Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon which came out last week.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 2d

Walked by a bookstore, saw this on the front table and almost yelped in delight and the spouse got it as an early bday present.

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 2d

If you are trying to get downtown on the blue line O'Hare Branch, you may need to travel in the opposite direction to Belmont or further west to get on.

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Reposted by Mr Fengi

Anil Dash @anildash.com · 3d

Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!

The Majority AI View - Anil Dash

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

anildash.com

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Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 2d

Ahab is upset that the whole crew has blocked him on Bluesky and The Novel is enjoying that because it is petty that way.

Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 2d

From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.

Mr Fengi @mrfengi.bsky.social · 2d

Not engaging works, though it is telling that the right (and trolly jerks of all kinds) went from "if you don't like it, don't read it or block it" to "how dare everyone avoid me". See also how EM keeps threatening to end blocking entirely.

cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 2d

it is my pleasure to report they are indeed mad as fuck on the other site over being blocked and ignored. keep up the excellent work everyone

Free the World @PatriotVerity
x.com
I joined Bluesky 6 hours ago, have not said anything rude or abrasive, and I'm already blocked by over 58,000 people.

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