Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Chris McLaren

Breen Ouellette (he/him) @breeno.bsky.social · 7h

Carney has quietly put his elbows down.

David Pugliese @davidpugliese.bsky.social · 8h

canadiandimension.com/articles/vie...

Canada flying in lockstep with the United States

Promises of Canadian independence from US influence are unravelling as the Carney government moves forward with the costly F-35 fighter jet purchase. Amid rising global tensions and domestic crises, O...

canadiandimension.com

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Sandi Bachom 📹🎥🎬 @sandibachom.bsky.social · 19h

🔥🔥🔥 Today at immigration court 26 Federal Plaza this woman went ballistic to the masked ICE agents who detained her family member. Where are the people standing up to the Gestapo? I never saw this in 4 months I’ve been filming. 👏👏👏👏

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LOWρUF🐸 🇵🇦🇬🇱🇨🇦🇲🇽 @lowrhoufo.bsky.social · 2h

I feel like Ben Gvir personally being in the room when Greta Thunberg was being tortured should be bigger news

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Mike Black @mikeblack114.bsky.social · 1h

tl;dr this is, as I've been screaming into the wind about for a week now, not just illegal as shit but fundamentally means the Constitution as written is no longer in effect

That said if you want an even deeper dive on the subject than I've done, this is a very good thread

Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 2h

Trump's mechanism to pay the troops during the shutdown is by far the most illegal budgetary action he's taken as POTUS, potentially setting the stage to break everything.

It's also needless because Congress would easily pass a troop pay bill if Johnson were willing to gavel in.

Long thread.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/10/national-security-presidential-memorandum-nspm-8/

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 45m

Tempted. It'd never make it to the table, but just for nostalgia...

Chaosium @chaosium.bsky.social · 46m

Pendragon Classic is live on Kickstarter!

40 years after its original publication, we are proud to recreate the original edition of this classic RPG, as pure and raw as it was back then, with bonus content from the archives.

Back now -> www.kickstarter.com/projects/cha...

Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 49m

Not crow.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 52m

This story is wild. Seems more like a movie plot than something that might result in a death in the real world.

Meth disguised as Canadian beer kills 21-year-old in New Zealand

On March 2, 2023, Aiden Sagala did what many people do after a long, hot day at work. He cracked open a cold one. Little did he know, that swig of beer would kill him. Aiden didn’t realize that the ca...

www.ctvnews.ca

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Jeff Yang @originalsp.in · 4h

ICE arrested comedian Robby Roadsteamer for singing a parody of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” in a Jeffrey Epstein the Giraffe costume outside their facility.

He sings “If you hate brown people / and you are a Nazi” and ICE thugs grab him and drag him into detention. No violence—just speech.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 4h

Or, if we have to endure lil' PeePee calling for this, can we at least call it what it is, and not allow him this nano-thin veneer of being within acceptable parameters for debate in a decent society?

Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 4h

You know, when I look back at 10-years ago Chris, 20-years ago Chris, 30-years ago Chris, the things that motivate me try to be better are the things that I am embarrassed of.

You improve by acknowledging the ways you were wrong, and doing better.

If I couldn't feel bad about some of my history...

Michael Oberg @michaelleroyoberg.bsky.social · 8h

Let me state this as clearly as I can:

It is not the job of a historian to make you feel good about your nation’s past.

We need to print this on t-shirts and bumper stickers.

a close up of a man 's face with his mouth open and a very angry look on his face .

ALT: a close up of a man 's face with his mouth open and a very angry look on his face .

media.tenor.com

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 4h

Sure. And many should.

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Reposted by Chris McLaren

Troy Avevipart🍁 @privatevotary.bsky.social · 6h

Take the abstraction out of Poilievre's sloganeering — it hits different.

𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆.

𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆.

𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻.

They're saying it bluntly. It's up to each of us to choose to actually 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳 it.

Pierce Poilievre
@PierrePoilievre

Sign here. End DEI.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 4h

We've seen this play out in the States, where the mask is off, & it's clear that "anti-DEI" means full-on white supremacy, ableism to the level of eugenics, sexism that'll roll back generations of advances for women, not to mention prejudice against the LGBTQIA2S+ panoply.

Could we just not?

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 4h

The second-most punchable face in Canadian politics, who has never had an actual job outside Parliament, wants you to know he thinks that trying to address structural prejudice and the resulting uneven playing field and quality-of-life issues is "government waste".

The Beaverton @thebeaverton.com · 7h

“Restore merit, end DEI” says man who could only get elected in Canada’s safest Conservative stronghold

OTTAWA - Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has launched a petition to "end DEI programs and restore merit", just months after losing his own heavily-favoured seat before running in an even more hea...

www.thebeaverton.com

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Andrew Karre @andrewkarre.bsky.social · 7h

🧵It has been clear for years that a key difference between past instances of book banning and the present censorship cataclysm is that the banning happening now targets not only books, but librarianship as a profession and libraries as an institution. 1/4

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Skyla Dawn Cameron @skyladawn.ca · 6h

Kobo boxset sale! Save 25% with the coupon code BOXSET at checkout CA/US/UK/AU/NZ kobo.com/p/october-bo...

Misanthropic. Obsessive. Manipulative. Talks to the hallucination of her dead sister. Save on Waverly Jones Mysteries Vol I and start your murder board... www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/...

A boxset of books with a young woman on the front cover looking down, trees running vertically behind her. She is serious and contemplative and the overall vibe is moody. The promo text says Waverly Jones Mysteries: Volume One. 25% off at Kobo until October 20, coupon code BOXSET at checkout. "Five stars. Fucking hell."

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 5h

Relevant in these days. (Really has never not been relevant somewhere every day since Milton wrote it.)

Anthony Oliveira @meakoopa.bsky.social · 6h

here's the full text from the opening of Book 9 of PARADISE LOST, wherein Milton (while invoking his muse) talks about the tacky jingoist trash of writing epics about homelands, and his disinterest in projects that incite war.

Not sedulous by Nature to indite
Warrs, hitherto the onely Argument
Heroic deem'd, chief maistrie to dissect
With long and tedious havoc fabl'd Knights [ 30 ]
In Battels feign'd; the better fortitude
Of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe Races and Games,
Or tilting Furniture, emblazon'd Shields,
Impreses quaint, Caparisons and Steeds; [ 35 ]
Bases and tinsel Trappings, gorgious Knights
At Joust and Torneament; then marshal'd Feast
Serv'd up in Hall with Sewers, and Seneshals;
The skill of Artifice or Office mean,
Not that which justly gives Heroic name [ 40 ]
To Person or to Poem. Mee of these
Nor skilld nor studious, higher Argument
Remaines, sufficient of it self to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climat, or Years damp my intended wing [ 45 ]
Deprest, and much they may, if all be mine,
Not Hers who brings it nightly to my Ear.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 5h

Also, everything else aside: Angela Basset rocking this look? You know that's going to be a cool movie in at least some ways.

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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 6h

We have to penalize blatant lying, particularly by public figures. We’ve slid
into a post-truth world and nothing but sheer cultural gruntwork is going to get us out.

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 8h

NEW — I dug into the story of ICE abducting a 13-year-old boy in Massachusetts and moving him 500 miles across state lines without notifying his mother, local cop's complicity, and how the federal government's justification for such cruelty is already falling apart:

ICE took a 13-year-old they said had a gun. Local cops say he didn’t.

Now he's detained 500 miles away from his Massachusetts home.

www.thehandbasket.co

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Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 7h

Almost like we founded the entire country on opposing this exact sentence.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8h

Bessent: "No kings equals no paychecks"

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 5h

Important medical checks.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 5h

Pretty sure Karl Popper already nailed that thesis. And then someone made a good one page cartoon out of it.

We should all adopt the ideas, and--as you say--bully the fascists relentlessly.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 5h

Going down this road is, I'm pretty sure, why Eddie Campbell ended up making these books, so while it might end up with you a little crazy it could be a net good for humanity. :)

Cover of Eddit Campbell's THE GOAT GETTERS

Cover of Eddie Campbell's KATE CAREW: America's First Great Woman Cartoonist.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 6h

For P. G. Wodehouse's birthday, Ogden Nash's poem "PG Wooster, Just as he Useter":

Bound to your bookseller, leap to your library,
Deluge your dealer with bakshish and bribary,
Lean on the counter and never say when,
Wodehouse and Wooster are with us again.

🖋️ David Levine

Caricature of Wodehouse standing nonchalantly, holding a cigar

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 5h

I don't think I've mentioned, but I have mad respect for your work/study ethic. I couldn't sustain the level you've been working at for years over like a week.

I had one particularly challenging term in undergrad and I still have nightmares about the schedule I had to make to get through it.

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