Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 4h

I am so upset. I have told literally everyone I know about Barbara McQuade’s book “Attack from Within” and have been talking about it for weeks. And she’s going to be here and I’m going to be working an event that was sort of an inconvenient request to begin with since it was so last minute. 😭

Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 4h

That feeling when you reach out about booking a top favorite author to visit your campus. And then she replies and says actually she’ll already be there next week. And then you realize you just thee days ago agreed to a last minute tabling event request. What a roller coaster.

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Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 1d

Small Press Fest was this weekend and this is part of my haul. These are prints made by some very talented U of I students and I can’t wait to get them framed and see them on my walls!

Two posters side by side. The one on the left is green and blue and says “F*ck AI Art Buy From Real Degenerates”. The poster on the right has a hissing black cat with a red mouth and candle and says “Resist Fascism!”

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

Wen should direct more attention to incidents like these because Americans are more likely to respond to brutality to pets than to brutality to human beings.

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

EL PASO — a family says ICE showed up at their house looking for migrants and shot and KILLED THEIR DOG, then didn’t help them as the agent ran away and was not identified.

kfoxtv.com/news/local/e...

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 3d

papers like the New York Times actively help right wing propagandists by introducing false claims as something that's open to debate and interpretation, instead of clearly framing them up front as lies pushed by unreliable operators

Turning Point USA is a right wing propaganda op aimed at kids

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Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 3d

So we can’t have healthcare but Argentina gets $20,000,000,000 because reasons?

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Ted Brassfield @tedbrassfield.bsky.social · 3d

Capitalism in a nutshell:
Studies of UBI - positive effects, cheaper than government benefits, don't directly finance capital, so WE MUST STUDY MORE

Studies of LLMs - lots of harm, very expensive, directly finance major corporations & the wealthy, so we MUST IMPLEMENT BUT BETTER SOMEHOW

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 3d

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

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Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 3d

I was surprised when UIUC overtook UNC to be the #1 ranked library science program because I thought the program at UNC was excellent and had some advantages for academic librarians. School of AI? Really? Disgusting.

Moni Barrette-Comics Librarian @monibarre.bsky.social · 3d

Brother eew

dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

UNC schools of data science and information science to merge, forming unnamed ‘School of AI’

SDSS Dean Stanley Ahalt will be made dean of the new school while SILS Dean Jeffrey Bardzell will stand as the University’s Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and Vice Provost for AI.

dailytarheel.com

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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 3d

$20 BILLION.

Remember that we’re being lied to whenever we’re told that we can’t afford something that helps American families.

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 3d

The Trump administration confirmed that the U.S. bailed out Argentina.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had directly bought Argentine pesos in global currency markets in a bid to relieve pressure on the nation’s embattled President Javier Milei, a supporter of President Trump.

The U.S. just bailed out Argentina, Treasury Secretary confirms

The US Treasury has finalized a $20 billion financial rescue of Argentina, including a currency swap arrangement with the country's central bank.

www.washingtonpost.com

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 3d

Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

(Published June)

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations

A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirem...

www.propublica.org

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Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com · 3d

If you rename the Department of Defense the Department of War, then bomb fishing boats in the Caribbean, and shoot an unarmed priest in the head with a pepper bullet, you should automatically be barred from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for the rest of your life.

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Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote.com · 3d

I’m sure this is fine. abcnews.go.com/US/dominion-...

Dominion Voting Systems sold to company run by former Republican election official

Dominion Voting Systems, which sued Fox over its reporting on the 2020 election, has been sold to a seemingly new election company run by a former GOP election official.

abcnews.go.com

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Melissa Reynolds @melkatrey.bsky.social · 3d

I just keep coming back to this, the most obvious lacunae in every conversation about “incorporating AI” into our classrooms: no one—literally NO ONE—can explain how it improves the work of learning & knowledge-making. There is, in fact, overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

This whole thread.

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 3d

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 3d

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

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Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 4d

Vote for people and policies, not parties. And for heck’s sake get money out of politics.

Put people over party and profit in the midterms - Opinion

With all three branches of the government controlled by the Republican party, there is no denying who bears the primary responsibility for the lawlessness and terror (never mind the complete governmen...

www.smilepolitely.com

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Meredith Shiner @meredithshiner.com · 4d

“Let Republicans have the literal blood of American citizens on their hands—and make that the central issue of the shutdown. Otherwise, enjoy having your health care subsidy debate in the gulags these people would happily send us all to. I hear that poll-tests great.”

The Case for the Forever Shutdown

Senate Democrats actually allowing the GOP to stop funding the government is only the first step. Now they have to make the case that Trump’s government is illegitimate.

newrepublic.com

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Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 4d

And you’re helping amplify the perception that it’s biased by reporting that it’s news rather than ignoring it as the whining of an anti-education, ignorant jerk who is vocally supporting pedophiles and authoritarianism.

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Karly Kingsley @karlykingsley.bsky.social · 5d

All these headlines saying “Bondi Goes on the Attack.” Really? She wasn’t in the octagon, she’s a public servant who was at an oversight hearing. Her job was to answer questions. She refused to do her job. Stop glamorizing and whitewashing this moronic, performative bullshit.

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John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 5d

Um, ICE just coldly shot an unarmed PRIEST in the head w a pepper ball when he (and everyone around him) clearly posed no threat.

For the crime of … complaining about government policy.

Core 1A speech.

With cameras rolling, they’re sniping priests for sport.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 5d

Here’s video of the incident

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Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 5d

Looking for one thing you can do right now to help protect the right to vote? It will only take a few minutes, and you can share it with all of your friends. joycevance.substack.com/p/a-thing-yo...

A Thing You Can Do Right Now To Help Protect The Right To Vote

The U.S.

joycevance.substack.com

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Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · 5d

We're going a bit batty in celebration of #BatAppreciationMonth. Archibald Thorburn's "British Mammals" (1920-1921) contains some of our favorite bat #SciArt in #BHLib. Check it out thanks to #FieldMuseum
➡️ www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48418555 #BatMonth 🦇 🧪

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 5d

Someone should start asking why we’re hearing and seeing Stephen Miller so much all of a sudden.

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Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 5d

Our bat of the day is the fancily named Pipistrellus etula, a species only recently discovered by PhD student Laura Torrent at the BiBio Research Group. The name "etula" honors the inhabitants of its native Bioko Island and means "god of the island" in Bantu, the local language. tinyurl.com/pipetula

Photo of a small brown bat clinging to a piece of wood. Bat has darker brown wints and ears and a fuzzy body.

Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 6d

a young boy says he is a butthead in a netflix advertisement

ALT: a young boy says he is a butthead in a netflix advertisement

media.tenor.com

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Mara Thacker 🏳️‍🌈🦇 @maralina.bsky.social · 6d

big bird is riding in a carriage pulled by a horse .

ALT: big bird is riding in a carriage pulled by a horse .

media.tenor.com

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