Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Anne Ford

Nikkolas Smith @4nikkolas.bsky.social · 14h

after millions of views and shares of my Portland Frog art. (thank you all🙏🏾) I got requests to highlight priests, and chickens, and Chicagoans, and T-Rexes, and more… all of us who refuse to bend the knee. so this is for US.
𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚃𝚊𝚕𝚕.
𝚆𝚎 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚆𝚒𝚗.

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Sarah Wood @sarahwood.bsky.social · 1d

A man who has declared war on American cities is not deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 2d

I write full time largely because of one thread about getting high with the Irish president. As cringe as it is to admit, my entire life has been massively enhanced by Twitter and ketamine over precisely the same time that those two things have proven less beneficial for Elon Musk.

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 3d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

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Anne Ford @amsawford.bsky.social · 2d

“the girlfriend of one the founders of antifa”

Black and white photo of Marlene Dietrich, in a top hat and white tie tuxedo, looking straight at camera

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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 2d

I have taken
the freedom of speech
that was in
the Constitution

and which
you were probably
using
for peaceful protest

Forgive me
the courts said they were
so agitating
and so irritating

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Trump: "We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds."

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Anne Ford @amsawford.bsky.social · 4d

Wait… whaaaaaaaat??! What is he trying to say?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4d

Dr Oz: "Some of the reasons that premiums are going up is because if you take people who didn't know they had insurance and therefore never put in any claims off the rolls, then you still have people who are charging enough to make up the difference. But I do think there are criminal elements."

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Only In Boston @onlyinbos.bsky.social · 5d

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Anne Ford @amsawford.bsky.social · 6d

This is a worthy read

Dr Lindsey Fitzharris @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 6d

Memphis writer Dan Conaway, who helped found the @dailymemphian.bsky.social & comes from a century of local journalism, has just been censored by his own publication.

Here’s the column they wouldn't run.

Please consider writing:
[email protected]
[email protected]

Stand with Dan.

"Family and friends," he said, "then home – where you live, your neighborhood, your town, your city – then your state, then your region, then your country."
My father was explaining to me when I was 11 or 12 why he went to war when he didn't have to. He was driving me to Boy Scout camp, and we had some time to talk. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he was an engineer, and his company had government contracts that could keep him here. At almost 33, he was also getting long in the tooth for war. My mother would also have me tell you he also had two small children, my brothers, one eight months, and the other five.
He joined the Navy a week after Pearl Harbor.
"Those are the priorities in the order of priority," he continued. "But if your country is threatened, really threatened, everything flips. If your country, this country, falls, everything in that lineup falls, everything in that lineup is at mortal risk."
"So, I'll know when it's country first?"
"You'll know," he answered.
Last week, I shared the mayor's plan for peacefully enduring, if not gaining, from the National Guard presence in our city.
That was last week.
This week changed everything.
This week, the president called an extraordinary meeting. He and the secretary of defense addressed a room of some 800 generals and admirals called from their command posts around the world to hear the president's words in Virginia.
He told our country's top brass their attention would soon be turned inward. That they would be commanding military operations in our cities against the "enemy within." Further, he said that they should hold military training exercises in our cities.
Never mind what Secretary Hegseth told them. His message was as empty as his suit. He basically told them they had to shave and lose weight.
The Commander in Chief told them their enemies are Americans, and that their field of battle would be Democratic cities. The great power and might of America's military would be turned toward its own.

Toward here, people. Not here in general terms, here in very specific terms. Memphis is an official battlefield.
"Family and friends," he said, "then home – where you live, your neighborhood, your town, your city ..."
As the rest of the world rages, the president told his top military leaders that we will disengage from the protection of our interests and those of our allies and attack the political enemies of our president, root out the "radical left," crush "the woke," seal our borders against mighty Venezuela, and reduce blue cities and states to whimpering vassals of the federal government.
The president who would be king.
Before this week, he commanded the justice department to intimidate and threaten, even indite, his political enemies including a former director of the FBI, and DA's in Georgia and New York.
A president can't do that. Not just because it's blatantly personal and political. Not just because it's abuse of power, petty, and childish.
Because most if not all of what he's doing is straight-up, in-your-face, unconstitutional. It is, in fact, just the latest additions to the long list of unconstitutional that defines the dangerous actions of this man.
You know this is wrong. No what-about this or that. You know this is wrong. No bemoaning the awful state of something or somewhere. You know this is wrong.
Nothing excuses this. Nothing.
Now, he has openly told the military that anyone in America that challenges him is the enemy, and where they live the new front.
The National Guard deployed here will be unarmed and have no power to arrest. They are a camo-covered smokescreen, eye candy for the cameras disguising what will really be going on, click bait for the internet.
We now know that Trump and his minions are sending hundreds of ICE agents and FBI agents to Memphis, not to mention a small army of Justice Department prosecutors and investigators. The mission is to arrest, prosecute, incarcerate/deport as many people as possible.

Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General, was here this week to tell us that, along with Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, and Stephen Miller, Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff. Not to mention, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, looking very much like he was waiting to be told wat to do, bless his heart.
Here, ready to rumble.
Who wasn't here or invited was Steve Cohen, the duly elected Democratic representative in Congress of all the people who will be in that rumble.
Republicans should be every bit as alarmed as Democrats – every American should – because every time Trump stomps on the Constitution, he leaves that boot print on every one of us.
Or, as the very first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, famously put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Due process and habeas corpus are becoming quaint reminders of a once proud nation of constitutional laws and justice.
What happened in that room in Virginia this week, and what happened out at Shelby Farms give us more than a hint of what could follow the National Guard to Memphis.
"So, I'll know when it's country first?"
"You'll know," he answered.

One man has put 340 million people at risk of losing this democracy. Just as surely as he's made the Oval Office look like a bad imitation of royal chambers at Versailles, just as surely as he's made the majority of both house of Congress look like lackeys waiting to empty the king's chamber pot, just as surely as he's turning the Constitution into a Mara-a-Lago doormat, just as surely, he's coming for us.
You're right, Dad. I know.
I'm a Memphian, soon under siege.
(Lt. Frank E. Conaway Sr., 1943)

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Colin Dickey @colindickey.com · 9d

Man, I'm sorry, but reading all these AI generated essays from students, it just sucks all the joy out of everything. It's exhausting, makes you into a weird paranoid cop, grinds you down, wastes your time, makes you feel like shit about everything.

Fuck this shit technology and all its enablers.

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Anne Ford @amsawford.bsky.social · 9d

I’m so nostalgic for the “World Ending 20122” party that I threw in 2012!

Everyone wore the fashions that would be popular in 18,110 years — floating earbuds, neon, and YOLO hats

Screenshot from a crappy nostagiriffic AI Slopfest where a girl with weird hands awkwardly drinks something (is it blood?) and a boy with a confusing shirt is on his phone and an eager fake tween talks into camera in from of a garage weirdly decorated with too many balloons and twinkle lights. There is a sign that says “World Ending Party 20122!” On the garage

Anne Ford @amsawford.bsky.social · 9d

This is the way

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 9d

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

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Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman.bsky.social · 10d

I’m mad. Please put it in the newspaper (@gqmagazine.bsky.social) that I’m mad. Go Sox! www.gq.com/story/yankee...

When I asked Josh Gondelman, our esteemed Boston sports correspondent, to sum up the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, he put it like this: “I moved from Boston (okay, Somerville) to New York City more than 14 years ago, but the ugliest parts of my personality come out when I think of the Yankees. I want them to lose in new and innovative ways. I want their fans, including children, to have a bad time watching.”

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Anne Ford @amsawford.bsky.social · 12d

Happy birthday to you both!

(His cake might be a fire hazard though, what with the 267 candles)

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Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 12d

While I’m at it: You guys know what to do!!

youtu.be/jPCJIB1f7jk?...

Lip Sync Battle - Tom Holland

YouTube video by Comedy Central Latinoamérica

youtu.be

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Josh Kantor @jtkantor.bsky.social · 12d

Feeling alright about that 6th-inning medley of "Love Will Keep Us Together" into "Love Will Tear Us Apart."

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Matt Disaster @mattdisaster.bsky.social · 16d

Forgive me, Zach Woods, I did not know you had that dog in you.

Andy @andy.wrestlejoy.com · 16d

Comedian Zach Woods calls out comedians who are performing in Saudi Arabia’s comedy festival

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The Volatile Mermaid @ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.social · 17d

Is this what the TikTok kids meant about the rapture being today

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 17d

Trump to the UN: "I'm really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell."

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Anne Ford @amsawford.bsky.social · 18d

Oh, that’s fine… it’ll just be fodder for my head canon 😁

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Anne Ford @amsawford.bsky.social · 18d

Fascinating lore, as always… thank you!

And speaking of comics—this other hed just seems to be missing the word “orphan”?

Daily mirror newspaper front page—the title “Sandy the dog waits for Ann” is circled in pink

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Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 18d

This is exactly what a baby trying to convince his doctor not to give him a shot would say.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18d

Trump: "It's too much liquid. Too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number. The size of this thing when you look at it. It's like 80 different vaccines and beyond vaccines."

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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 21d

UPDATE: when Mesolithic people roamed this now-drowned landscape, they should have been able to see a 2-mile-wide crater - and this seems to be the cause of it: www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Wow!

(Hat-tip to @mytholder.bsky.social).

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Anne Ford @amsawford.bsky.social · 21d

Map of Hola, Kenya: green map with one road north-south and a winding river, also north-south

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Wh*donesque @whedonesque.bsky.social · 23d

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