Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1h

Quite funny that people aggressively defending their decision to leave Twitter can't bear to not be involved in the discourse surrounding an article they can't read

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 12h

Didn't Goodfellas explain this? The problem with whales is they think in terms of opportunity cost, they don't see a $100 net gain on a $10 bet as $100 won, but $1000 lost by not betting $100. Their very success haunts them because they think they could have gotten more if they had been bolder

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 13h

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 14h

A silly example, but just shows how people want to impose their ideas on areas that has nothing to do with them

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 14h

Over on Substack I had a *vegeterian, non-patriot* dispute that a Muslim Deli using lamb ham as a substitute for pork in Ham and Cheese Sandwiches was a sign of integration because "lamb and cheese isn't a real ham and cheese sandwich". And "I'm like DUDE - you don't eat ham or care about the UK!?!"

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 14h

Absolutely, but it gets at people's ideology. They care about the gender binary, and want to maintain. Same way we often conflate racism with white supremacy i.e. some people just hate everyone different to the but others are happy to live and let live as long as they and theirs are in charge

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 14h

Likewise a lot of the "trans backlash" is more specifically a non-binary backlash because enby's challenge to the idea of gender binary is much more threatening to heteronormative society. You see this in opinion polling where the support for trans women using female toilets rests on bottom surgery

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 15h

I do not see how the tensions in American society can wait until the next mid-terms let alone the next general election to be resolved

Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 18h

Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 17h

Unconstitutionally taking money that the law says must be spent on one purpose & using it for something else—when it's to establish personalist control over the FUCKING MILITARY—is about as dangerous a constitutional crisis/failure as you can imagine

Via: www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

The Office of Management and Budget sent a notification to Congress about their intent to use research and development funds to pay members of the military, two sources with direct knowledge tell NBC News.

A spokesperson for the OMB confirmed to NBC News that it plans to use the research and development funds and that there are two years' worth of funds available within the Department of Defense.

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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 20h

Texas is preparing emergency resources for wildfires and floods. The Texas National Guard should be THERE — not in Illinois.

We stand ready to support their return home so they are best positioned for helping Texans respond to any natural disasters.

Abbott activates emergency resources ahead of growing wildfire threat, flood risk in Texas

With expected growing wildfire danger across Texas and the potential for a flood risk this weekend, Gov. Greg Abbott is activating more state emergency response resources Friday.

trib.al

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 18h

I think it's more that they're different, and the film deserves more credit for adapting the iconography of the book for contemporary American politics and their more hopeful take on politics

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 18h

Alan Moore did not imagine this. The Guy Fawkes mask for V was David Lloyd's idea, and it was The Wachowskis who changed the ending to be more upbeat with people power overwhelming the security services without a singular vanguard

Will Jennings 🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 19h

How Alan Moore imagined standing up to totalitarianism...

How the end of V for Vendetta would look if it were set in Portland.

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Paul Singh @paulsingh.bsky.social · 1d

It’s not just the Jewish suitcase at the back of the hall. It’s the Muslim suitcase, the Hindu suitcase, the Sikh suitcase all sitting at the back of the hall, with many asking why they should stay in a country where both the left & right are immersed in racism & xenophobia.

The New World @thenewworldmag.bsky.social · 1d

It is extraordinary to report that, in 2025, the Jewish suitcase is back in the hall, waiting for the moment of sudden flight. I feel nothing but shame

✏️ Matthew d'Ancona

The Jewish suitcase is back in the hall

After Manchester, many British Jews are asking why they should remain in a country where they feel despised

www.thenewworld.co.uk

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Or a more delusional one.....

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · Nov 19

Sometimes wonder whether the increasingly rentier structure of much of the US tech industry might generate Dutch Disease effects on the rest of the US economy

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

You were robbed! Typical metropolitan elitism denying the provincial revolution

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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 1d

More weight to @garius.bsky.social ‘s idea that McCartney’s The Frog Chorus (“We All Stand Together”) is the perfect anti-authoritarian protest song…

Reverend Jesus "H" Christ @reverendjesus.com · 2d

Blessed are the frogs, for they keep making authoritarians look incredibly stupid

Three persons in inflatable frog costumes. One of them is holding a nicely painted sign with two little cartoon frogs holding hands, below the text "FROGS TOGETHER STRONG"

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

A good reminder that the American Armed Forces was doing DEI/EDI work as early as the 1940s not because of "woke" but because interracial tensions is bad for morale and combat effectiveness youtu.be/SyYSBBE1DFw?...

A Welcome to Britain, 1943

YouTube video by US National Archives

youtu.be

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Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 2d

This is the correct take, by the way. Why I have come around to some form of a wealth tax is not because I fantasise that it can pay for the government programs I want (it won’t) or moral disgust at wealth (don’t care), but because of very rich people using their money to warp the body politic

William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 2d

Lot of people confidently missing the point in the replies to this: if every cent of Elon musks net wealth was liquid, which it isn’t, that’s not even enough money to run the govt for two weeks. The problem less that they have money, and more how they use that money in destabilizing ways.

Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 2d

“The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

British & French politics

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

A big thing will be if Labour would be dumb enough not go in May 2029 rather than July (September?) 2029. A bunch of LibDems wins in key councils just months before the election might be the thing to push them over the top

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

He's betrayed you @lukemiddup.bsky.social. he's not wearing the leather jacket

BBC Newsnight @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social · 2d

“Zack Polanski is a breath of fresh air.”

Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister and author of 'Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance', discusses the new Green Party leader.

#Newsnight

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

Anti-intellectualism really is hardwired into our psyche, for better or worse

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

Two things I heard this week underlined this to me. Capello not organising entertainment for his England because he was used to Italian players who would busy themselves discussing football over coffee & the Luftwaffe having a culture of paperwork/shop talk whereas the RAF just told pilots to relax

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

Guys, it really shouldn't wind you up so much that pretty, witty people who you think are a bit vacuous are successful. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it happens all the time

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