Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 3h

It’s a big reason why we have two kids but we refuse to use strollers in Japan. Just a huge hassle to find elevators. Just suck it up, carry the kids, and use stairs/escalators around stations.

川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 3h

Japanese train stations are in a fierce competition of how ADA hostile they can be while still being technically compliant.

Just survived Toyosu station, entered the fare gate and was told there’s no elevators. You had to exit and enter through a physically separate fare gate area. Like what.

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Reposted by 川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸

Jeff Fecke @jkfecke.bsky.social · 3h

Every virus causes damage to you; this is a part of the existence of every living thing on this planet. Eventually, the damage will become significant enough that you'll die. That, too, is something that happens to all living things. That's why you have to actually live while you live.

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 3h

Never get that in Tokyo, nope.

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 3h

Completely anecdotal but I feel like directness is correlated with how rural the area is.

I visited Kurashiki as an adult and was chatting up a taxi driver “wow things haven’t changed a bit in 30 years!” And he straight-up told me my eyes had problems, because there was a lot of new development.

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Weedle @weedle.bsky.social · 4h

Most predictable thing in the world that we'd start coming up with reasons why protesting against Trump is cringe and bad.

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Reposted by 川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸

Catsuka @catsuka.bsky.social · 1d

"Tears of the Mountain", the 3rd 2025 graduation short from french Gobelins school, is online.
Directed by Luke Ashworth, Yehor Bondarenko, Alp Kurdoğlu, Romane Talva and Ange Yajima.
Full film >> www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB9J...

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Adam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 21h

If you’re new to bluesky you really ought to hit “follow all” on both @liberalcurrents.com starter packs, it’ll greatly improve your experience go.bsky.app/QC76CyV

go.bsky.app/JtF6uD1

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Reposted by 川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸

Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 12h

Bluesky 2023 when we had to reskeet ourselves 50 times a day so the other 9 people had something to read when they logged in

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 11h

Trump’s superpower. It’s quite amazing honestly. What a political talent.

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Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 21h

tfw your 1,000-word tweets aren't working

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 18h

the extent to which media elites treat liberal americans as if they do not count in the body politic is a real problem

Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 20h

I read the piece. You shouldn't. He dismisses the "No Kings" protests as liberals in blue cities. He invokes Rosa Parks, as if rural white people in the 60s loved everything that the movement then was doing. "We need a movement but not this one" is a core centrist tact these days.

Ezra Levin ❌👑 @ezralevin.bsky.social · 20h

Is this a joke. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 11h

Completely and utterly anecdotal but I feel like I run into more Northeast Chinese in Japan whereas in America a huge majority is from the South, and I wonder if there’s a traditional reason for this (Manchukuo)

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 12h

The entire Republican Party strategy for achieving what are comprehensively & wildly unpopular policy objectives now consists entirely of bypassing Article I of the Constitution through wildly illegal abuses of both Article II and Article III.

Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 16h

Whatever you think about CFPB, it was created by Congress (as part of the Dodd-Frank Act) and can only be abolished by Congress, not by the President acting as a dictator.

Reuters @reuters.com · 22h

White House budget director Vought plans to shut down CFPB within months, says it's no longer protecting consumers reut.rs/4qjMIyT

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 14h

The thing is JD Vance has taken the lesson of “always double-down and never admit any faults” from Trump because it works for Trump

But he’s got the causality wrong. Trump can do it because he’s Trump, Vance does not have it and doubling done just make him look stupid.

Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 17h

These. Were. Men. In. Their. 30s.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

No one in the GOP Hitler chat was a "kid"

We checked. Sorry, JD Vance.

www.motherjones.com

川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 14h

You’re absolutely right. People are being super weird about the *abilities* of AI.

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 14h

TIL Bessent is a married gay man.

MAGA is truly a diverse, woke movement.

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 17h

The next Dem admin must come down hard on every entity involved.

The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 19h

Exclusive: More than three dozen organizations and individuals are expected to attend a dinner with Trump on Wednesday after opening their checkbooks to support a $250 million White House ballroom.

Trump Invites Ballroom Donors to Glitzy White House Dinner

The dinner is set to include representatives from Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Alphabet’s Google, Amazon and Palantir Technologies.

on.wsj.com

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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 17h

The Groypers are on a long march through the institutions and right-wing Jews are way too complacent about the idea that it’ll be fine because these people also hate Muslims.

The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · 18h

One 24-hr period

'I love Hitler': Leaked messages expose Young Republicans' racist chat₽
Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

Capitol Police called to investigate swastika in GOP congressional office
An American flag altered to include an image of a swastika was found in Rep. Dave Taylor's office.

Border Patrol posts reel featuring Michael Jackson lyrics with antisemitic slur
Avery Lotz

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Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 18h

this administration is held up and together by negative polarization, but they're also basically running a natural experiment in trying to break negative polarization so we get to find out just exactly how far it'll carry them ig

Distinguished Herbert West Fellow, Miskatonic Institute Gigan @gigansprogress.bsky.social · 18h

I really can't get over how its held together by negative polarization and nothing else, and if that starts to go they're in freefall

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Reposted by 川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸

the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) @merovingians.bsky.social · 19h

the government needs to stay shut down until the authoritarianism is meaningfully constrained or Republicans break the filibuster

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21h

Trump: "We're just at the start. We're going to go into other cities that we're not talking about purposely. We're getting ready to go in."

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GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 1d

there are a couple of ways to think about this, one is that no one should be running for their first senate race at this age, and the other is that if platner can’t beat her, he definitely can’t beat collins. i think he can. everybody needs to stop crying and start fighting.

Philip Bump @pbump.com · 1d

Janet Mills going to the Senate at 79 would make her the oldest elected freshman senator in history — but just as old as or younger than 1 in 9 senators serving in this congress. www.pbump.net/o/a-79-year-...

A 79 year-old freshman senator would be … unusual

Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) has announced her intention to run for Senate against the state's well-known — ahem — incumbent, Susan Collins. When the next Senate term begins in January 2027, Collins wil...

www.pbump.net

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 1d

In general even people on here struggle to comprehend how much WORSE the GOP has become even from their very bad baseline.

The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.social · 1d

I know other people are saying this is what College Republicans always was, and I’m not trying to run interference for republicans, but my experience with friends who were members a quarter century ago was not this. This is much worse.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

POLITICO: “.. They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies .. and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

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The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.social · 1d

I know other people are saying this is what College Republicans always was, and I’m not trying to run interference for republicans, but my experience with friends who were members a quarter century ago was not this. This is much worse.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

POLITICO: “.. They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies .. and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 1d

But the establishment!!!!

Like come on, pols like Obama, AOC, and most recently Mamdani overcame them to win. It can happen if you got talent. Believe in your candidates.

Daniel Gilmore @gilmored85.bsky.social · 2d

Its amazing how little faith so many ppl have in their own preferred candidates or in their ability to convince voters to vote for them in a primary

Guy Trivago @convolutedname.bsky.social · 2d

That's what the primary is for!