Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mike Bogacz

@bikemogacz.bsky.social

phew

utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 5d

Paragraph from a David Brooks column in the NYT with the last sentence highlighted:

know a thing or two about the American elite, ahem, and if you've read my work, you may be sick of my assaults on the educated elites for being insular, self-indulgent and smug. But the phrase "the Epstein class" is inaccurate, unfair and irresponsible. Say what you will about our financial, educational, nonprofit and political elites, but they are not mass rapists.

December 18, 2025 at 5:47 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

my son, Toyota Cragathon

@cdgoldstein.baseballprospectus.com

hey if you're wondering "has a baseball website covered whatever the fuck Miller is talking about, for some reason and done it more accurately than he is?" the answer is absolutely, yes:

www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article...

December 17, 2025 at 8:06 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Screamer Jim

@screamerjim.bsky.social

Same way I found out about Epstein

December 15, 2025 at 4:58 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

jenny tightpants

@jtp.bsky.social

this website

December 13, 2025 at 11:03 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Strahan Cadell 🇨🇦🇻🇦🇺🇦🇬🇱

@quincunctial.bsky.social

The administration is quite literally breaking all the laws of God and man to destroy Kilmar Abrego Garcia as an example to everyone.

His freedom is our freedom.

December 12, 2025 at 1:57 PM

Mike Bogacz

@bikemogacz.bsky.social

I tawt
I taw a puddy tat
It's just a Sylvester
(Just a Sylvester)

December 8, 2025 at 5:26 PM

Mike Bogacz

@bikemogacz.bsky.social

there's this weird disconnect between writers and readers where readers remember an internet with fewer paywalls and writers remember when writing jobs paid better, and neither can quite synthesize that the current model is worse for everyone except capital

December 8, 2025 at 4:42 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Mark Harris

@markharris.bsky.social

An astonishing letter published in the Times of London.

Headline: SAVED BY STOPPARD
Sir, In 1993 my wife and I went to see the first production of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (obituary, Dec 1), and in the interval I experienced a Damascene conversion. As a clinical scientist I was trying to understand the enigma of the behaviour of breast cancer, the assumption being that it grew in a linear trajectory spitting off metastases on its way. In the first act of Arcadia, Thomasina asks her tutor, Septimus: “If there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose?” With that Stoppard explains chaos theory, which better explains the behaviour of breast cancer. At the point of diagnosis, the cancer must have already scattered cancer cells into the circulation that nest latent in distant organs. The consequence of that hypothesis was the birth of “adjuvant systemic chemotherapy”, and rapidly we saw a striking fall of the curve that illustrated patients’ survival.

Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia.
Michael Baum
Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, UCL

December 3, 2025 at 3:05 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

winston

@winston.cc

it's wild how the positive use cases are like "save 5 minutes reading a long doc" and "write a generic email faster" and the negative use cases are "get encouraged to dive deeper in psychosis, misogyny, or suicidal thoughts" and we're still on the fence about overall value

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 19d

New from 404 Media: ChatGPT told a violent stalker to continue running his misogynistic and threat-filled podcast despite the “haters,” and to visit more gyms to find women. The man stalked women in multiple states, including touching and following from work

www.404media.co/chatgpt-spot...

ChatGPT Told a Violent Stalker to Embrace the 'Haters,' Indictment Says

A newly filed indictment claims a wannabe influencer used ChatGPT as his "therapist" and "best friend" in his pursuit of the "wife type," while harassing women so aggressively they had to miss work a...

www.404media.co

December 3, 2025 at 6:17 PM

Mike Bogacz

@bikemogacz.bsky.social

one of the most persistent and bizarre assumptions of the liberal mind is that we've already accommodated special needs so thoroughly and completely that gaming the system is as big of and issue (or even bigger) as the original problem. real "end of history" mindset that needs to go away

mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 20d

Balancing "no person with a disability should be denied accommodations" with "it's important to discourage non-disabled people from pretending to be disabled to take advantage of these accommodations" is really difficult and I don't have a great answer for what anyone should do about it.

December 3, 2025 at 1:56 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Kieran Hurley

@kieranhurley.bsky.social

incredible quote lol

When a doctor told me I’d come close to dying, and that the play had to stop using real knives, I remember thinking: “You just don’t understand theatre.”

November 28, 2025 at 8:21 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Nathan Kalman-Lamb

@nkalamb.bsky.social

This is a really sick story.

From everything I know, Boston’s Logan Airport is a legitimately dangerous place to travel through.

abcnews.go.com/US/19-year-c...

A 19-year-old college student who was on her way to surprise her family for Thanksgiving break was detained at a Boston airport and later deported despite a federal judge's order blocking her removal, according to her attorney.

Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, who entered the U.S. from Honduras when she was 8 years old, was about to board her flight to Texas last Friday to visit her parents and siblings when airport authorities told her to step aside, her attorney Todd Pomerleau told ABC News.

November 27, 2025 at 9:46 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Brendel

@brendelbored.bsky.social

My idea has always been that this was a funny pilgrim guy and he wrote it the same way we might write “Goofus Glorkins” and then historians have had to spend 500 years trying to decipher his good bit

Wikipedia @wikipedia.org · Nov 19

CROATOAN 🌲

This English attempt to settle in North America ended with a mystery.

In 1587, settlers established a colony on Roanoke Island, now part of North Carolina. Governor John White returned to England for supplies and did not make it back for three years due to war. 🧵⬇️ (1/3)

Group of men in 16th-century attire examine the word "CROATOAN" carved on a tree, referencing the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Text says: In 1587, over 100 English settlers vanished from Roanoke Island off North Carolina. When their governor returned three years later, the colony was deserted. Its only trace was the word "CROATOAN" carved into a post.

November 19, 2025 at 12:43 PM

Mike Bogacz

@bikemogacz.bsky.social

this is basically just the "isn't there someone you forgot to ask" meme

November 18, 2025 at 12:45 PM

Mike Bogacz

@bikemogacz.bsky.social

I think this is a good demonstration of the limits of Bouie’s utility at NYT. This is a fairly good summary of what should be done, but the real useful analysis would be why the dems as currently constructed have little interest in doing any of this

Denny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · Nov 14

Jamelle was cooking.

Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/o...

If they win, Democrats will have to use their newfound authority to rethink, even dismantle, agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They may need to walk back the Bush-era decision to consolidate those agencies and others under a single department, given the wild abuses perpetrated under this administration and its predecessors. It will need to give serious thought to major political and social reform, including D.C. statehood, a federal ban on partisan gerrymandering, a new voting rights act and federal protections for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, including the rights of gender and sexual minorities. Democrats will also need to embrace the legislature’s constitutional authority to structure the executive branch and the judiciary, up to and including Supreme Court reform.

If they win next year, Democrats will need to treat the next Congress not as a return to the status quo ante but as the beginning of a new era in which the principal task is to roll back the president’s effort to create and consolidate a personalist dictatorship. They’ll need to fortify the American political system against future attempts to play dictator and lay out a project of genuine democratic renewal. None of this is possible without a willingness to use power rather than just hold it. What we’ve seen this week is that there are still too many Democrats whose instinct is to retreat to normalcy rather than face the conflict at hand.

November 16, 2025 at 2:59 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Gary Alexander

@garyalexander.bsky.social

Personally, I think the idea that all women should be measured by the failures of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris is actually a sort of sexist doomerism.

CNN @cnn.com · Nov 15

Former first lady Michelle Obama said America is "not ready for a woman" president during a conversation at her New York book event. https://cnn.it/43ApuKZ

November 15, 2025 at 10:06 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Steve

@letscallitsteve.bsky.social

I just remembered this from Glenn Kessler 3 months ago

The Bottom Line
As we have documented, 17 women have claimed Trump engaged in sexual misconduct. A Manhattan jury found that Trump sexually abused and defamed one woman on our list. But no credible allegation has emerged to connect Trump to any of Epstein's crimes. If the full file is ever released, we are confident that no connection would be found.
Rest assured - if Trump were prominently mentioned, it would have been leaked by now.

November 13, 2025 at 4:52 AM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Lincoln Michel

@thelincoln.bsky.social

A pretty bleak thing that GenAI is revealing is that a significant percentage of the population seems to have no interest in actually learning or doing anything. They want to ChatGPT their way out of hobbies, art making, everything... www.thecut.com/article/woul...

The People Using ChatGPT to Cheat at Their Hobbies

Why are so many of us letting AI have all the fun?

www.thecut.com

November 12, 2025 at 6:42 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

more mr. nice guy

@juniorhoncho.bsky.social

second verse on this is one of the funniest things i've ever heard

November 9, 2025 at 3:10 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Ed Burmila

@edburmila.bsky.social

Researchers have known for a long time that you can quickly spot when the fix is in by looking for statistically implausible numbers of games ending exactly one point under the spread.

November 10, 2025 at 10:09 PM

Reposted by Mike Bogacz

Ryan Marino, MD

@ryanmarino.bsky.social

Panera’s moderately caffeinated lemonade was loosely associated with 2 deaths before it was taken off market.

This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.

Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · Nov 7

I fully believe in the corporate death penalty and believe we would be a better world if OpenAI lost its corporate charter and was forcibly dissolved.

www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...