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J.P.

@jpturcotte.bsky.social

18K followers 43K following 140 posts

Healthcare worker // B.A. in International Studies // Film Studies dropout (Japanese animation history) // Also, international news and Canada-Québec politics. Je publie en français et en anglais, surtout sur Mastodon : https://mastodon.social/@jpturcotte

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J.P. @jpturcotte.bsky.social · 13d

UK Think Tank Says Leaked Documents Show #Russia Is Helping #China Prepare To Seize #Taiwan - www.rferl.org/a/china-russ...

UK Think Tank Says Leaked Documents Show Russia Is Helping China Prepare To Seize Taiwan

A recently released 800-page cache of contracts and correspondence shows that Russia is helping China prepare its military for a potential invasion of Taiwan, according to an independent think tank that received the files and had them independently verified.

www.rferl.org

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Blue Sedition Podcast @blue-sedition.com · 10h

GoFundMe CEO says the economy is so bad that more of his customers are crowdfunding just to pay for their groceries...

Are we winning yet?

finance.yahoo.com/news/gofundm...

GoFundMe CEO says the economy is so bad that more of his customers are crowdfunding just to pay for their groceries

GoFundMe’s CEO says more Americans are crowdfunding everyday essentials like groceries as high costs and strained household finances persist.

finance.yahoo.com

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Not the Governor of North Carolina; got the handle first @joshstein.bsky.social · 10h

“We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive…” is one of those statements that (if I were consulting on any of the ongoing or prospective lawsuits against OpenAI) I would snag as evidence of actual knowledge of the risks of their product.

Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 16h

Oh good, ChatGPT is getting "erotica for verified adults" later this year

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 17h

Eric Trump: "We're saving Christianity. We've saving God. We've saving the family unit. We're saving this nation. I mean, DEI is out of the window, Benny. You no longer have Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem. You no longer have Budweiser going woke as hell. All of this is dead."

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La Presse @lapresse.ca · 23h

Baisse des étudiants étrangers | Un choc pour les universités francophones

Le recul des inscriptions d’étudiants étrangers frappe de plein fouet les universités québécoises, et ce sont les établissements francophones qui encaissent le choc le plus durement.

www.lapresse.ca

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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 1d

Released Israeli hostages reunite with families – in pictures

The last 20 living hostages held by Hamas arrive in Israel after more than two years in captivity

www.theguardian.com

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "I don't know what it is. I like the tough people better than I the soft, easy ones. I don't know what the hell that is. That's a personality problem I suspect. But this gentleman from a place called Turkey has one of the most powerful armies in the world... I want to thank President Erdogan"

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 2d

Crazy week.

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 2d

Chicago not letting Portland have all the fun 🐧

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News @newscastinate.bsky.social · 2d

F-35 : Joly veut forcer Lockheed Martin à générer plus de retombées au Canada

#radiocanada #grandstitres

F-35 : Joly veut avoir plus de retombées de Lockheed Martin

La ministre de l'Industrie veut maximiser les retombées économiques du gigantesque programme d’acquisition militaire du gouvernement fédéral.

ici.radio-canada.ca

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NPR @npr.org · 2d

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

This 4-year-old's heart is failing. A federal grant that might help him was canceled

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

n.pr

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TrumpsTaxes @trumpstaxes.com · 10d

Oh look, another White House Signal scandal.

This time it was an aide to Stephen Miller who was using Signal so openly in a public space that a bystander captured images of the chat.

Oh and the messages were about sending the *82nd Airborne* into Portland.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

White House official inadvertently reveals plans to send elite army unit to Portland

Anthony Salisbury displayed chat about deployment of 82nd airborne division on cellphone while in Minnesota

www.theguardian.com

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unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 2d

ICE in Chicago detained two people (that we know of) for filming them today, a cyclist and a neighborhood rapid responder. This in addition to tear gassing another neighborhood and brandishing weapons at rapid response—both things that have also already been going on for weeks.

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Cristian Farias @cristianfarias.com · 2d

Because she issued the temporary restraining order one day earlier, I missed U.S. District Judge April Perry’s decision against the deployment of the National Guard in Illinois.

Here it is: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The Supreme Court will hate it because she does originalism.

storage.courtlistener.com

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Caroline @northernck.bsky.social · 2d

If PM Carney & Min Hodgson think Cdns will support Alta facilities double dipping their way to paying no industrial carbon taxes while being able to add credits, AND adding a pipeline, they have another thing coming:
“The consultation document also says companies can
thenarwhal.ca/alberta-carb...

Alberta moves to weaken its carbon tax system: document | The Narwhal

Thousands of oil and gas facilities could soon be able to opt out of Alberta’s industrial carbon tax system

thenarwhal.ca

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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 2d

The Department of Education reportedly fired nearly everyone in the office that focuses on the nation’s children with disabilities in a wave of new layoffs

Special education staff decimated after Trump administration shutdown firings: Sources

The nation’s special education services have been significantly damaged after Fridays’s mass layoffs within the Department of Education, sources told ABC News.

abcnews.go.com

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

JORDAN: Comey is where weaponization all started. 9 years ago he took the dossier--

BASH: But that's not what he's being prosecuted for

JORDAN: I'm just saying, you want to talk about weaponization, that's where it started

BASH: So this is retribution then

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Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 2d

“I’m a cop. I am not supposed to feel dread. He’s a brown person. HE’S supposed to feel dread!”

Bari nods sympathetically.

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 3d

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

A tweet from Bari Weiss that says “"It's shaken me to my core," a lieutenant said of Mamdani's unexpected victory in June. "The absolute dread I feel is palpable.
"
Today in @TheFP our @Olivia_Reingold talks to the cops who say they will walk if Zohran Mamdani is elected in November:”

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 2d

More CDC Cuts :: NCHS Edition 📊🔫

At least 1/3 of the staff at the National Center for Health Statistics has been cut (and remain cut). This is catastrophic for our nation’s health data.

Say goodbye to national health statistics that you can trust, healthcare surveys, NHANES and data systems.

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CousinIT aka SevenBowie @cousinit.bsky.social · 2d

US Troops Deploying at Home Is Worse Than You Think youtu.be/-STmAGQwqvM

US Troops Deploying at Home Is Worse Than You Think

YouTube video by Cappy Army

youtu.be

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Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 2d

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 3d

Also: if you work for ICE, even if you’re not one of the ones arresting citizens or tackling 15-year-olds or zip-tying kids together and segregating them by race, you’re part of the mechanism making it happen, and you should suffer long-term social and post-regime-change consequences.

Ari Cohn @aricohn.com · 3d

Some weirdo on Twitter has been absolutely melting down for like 36 straight hours because I posted:

When this is over, do not forget what ICE did, and what ICE is. And do not make room for them in society. Make sure they know that they are, and will continue to be, reviled and beneath contempt.

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Lena Sun @lenasun.bsky.social · 3d

BREAKING: Some of the layoffs at CDC are being REVERSED.
Here is my updated story.
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

More than 1,000 CDC staff receive layoff notices during government shutdown

Another round of mass layoffs has struck CDC. The agency had already been cut during a reorganization this year, and more employees are now being shed amid the government shutdown.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 3d

I saw myself as maybe all in for J.B. Pritzker

But I am losing faith, rapidly.

Police state fascism in America is bigger than Trump. It's backed by Democrats just like Republicans. And it's not going anywhere

unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 3d

Note: it's not even curfew yet.

State police just started pushing people off the business park corner. Here in the road, a brave group of demonstrators are attempting to hold their line.

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Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 3d

“No, Speaker Johnson — the No Kings rally on October 18 is not a hate America rally. In fact, it’s quite the contrary: It’s a love America rally.” #NoKings

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Alan Dettlaff @alandettlaff.com · 3d

Yesterday I was told that the class I’m scheduled to teach this month, Confronting Oppression & Injustice, is no longer part of our curriculum. This is a required class yet there was no discussion, no faculty vote, just an email saying the class no longer exists. This is what it’s like in Texas now.

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