Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Dale Baker

Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 4h

PORTLAND, Ore. — A small group of federal agents in camouflage and face masks watched from atop the immigration processing center Thursday night as a unicorn, peacock, dinosaur and raccoon danced to Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Costumed protesters in Portland defy description of the city as a 'war zone'

Dancing frogs, peacocks and unicorns outside the federal immigration building present a joyful contrast to the Trump administration's portrait of the Oregon city, they say.

www.nbcnews.com

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 30m

If Congress WANTS to be emasculated, then the whole federal plan goes out the window. Madison would never have contemplated this in a million years.

Horrible, corrupt politicians, sure. Lots in the Federalist papers about them.

But Congress critters who want to bend over and beg for more abuse?

Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 31m

I only go to our local TJ by metro now, and only the TJ located on top of a metro stop.

Their parking lots would make Dante want to write a sequel.

Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 2h

Trader Joe's Exec1: we'll sell lots of really good stuff at good prices

Exec2: that doesn't sound at all evil. We're a big company, we're supposed to be evil

Founder1: we are going to have the most inadequate, cramped, badly designed parking lots in the fucking world

Founder2: ok that works

Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 35m

What five events defined your childhood?

Nixon elections/Watergate
Moon landing
US pulls out of Vietnam
Disco (still mad about that)
Cowboys Super Bowls

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 40m

FAFO MAGA morons

The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 1h

President Trump and his party's sadistic little game is going to hurt real, live human beings. And some of them are likely to turn out to be GOP and Trump voters. trib.al/VQp4hVl

GOPer Quietly Admits Trump Cuts to Blue States Will Hurt MAGA Voters

Trump and his lieutenants are taking sadistic glee in slashing projects in blue states. Guess they’ve forgotten that their supporters live in them too.

trib.al

Reposted by Dale Baker

Kevin Reuning @reuning.bsky.social · 1h

Trump straight up murdering people in the Caribbean and the NYT writes this

The Trump Split Screen: A Peacemaker Abroad, a Retribution Campaign at Home

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Reposted by Dale Baker

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1h

“Whereas criminal suspects in this past may have been incriminated by a Google query on, say, how to clean up bloodstains, a more comprehensive, detailed back-and-forth with a tool like ChatGPT gives investigators far more opportunities to prove intent and mindset…”

What You Tell an AI Chatbot Could One Day Be Evidence in a Criminal Trial

User exchanges with ChatGPT and other AI tools are a valuable new form of evidence for law enforcement in criminal investigations and prosecutions.

www.rollingstone.com

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 1h

"Arial Trespassing" sounds like a SERIOUS font violation.

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Reposted by Dale Baker

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 2h

The alarming aspect of this deliberate "anti-woke" algorithmic biasing of LLMs from an educational perspective is our institutions all bought in to an imaginary of innovation, then got locked in to enterprise contracts, and now the models are being recoded so they undermine educational values

Marcus Luther @marcusluther.bsky.social · 3h

Genuine question: for those enthusiastically pushing AI tools into every part of our education system—what checks/guardrails are there around algorithmic biases like this?

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 8h

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 1h

A flagship media outlet clearly states that truth and lies depend on your perspective.

Which is utter horseshit.

Which makes them and other similar media leaders.....

Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 1h

A very apt summary: "pollingism’s suburban-strip-mall blandness"

Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · 3h

I've been waiting for someone to make this point.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/o...

Opinion | Voting for Mamdani Taught Me Why Trump Won

www.nytimes.com

Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 4h

I learned French despite my teachers in school. Only the actual French-born instructors in diplomatic language school were any help.

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 4h

Pardon my sudden visit not knowing your background. As a teacher trying to get Americans to learn French (and other subjects) in a way that sticks, tales of bored language students in classrooms always grate on my nerves.

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 4h

You and 95% of all Americans who ever studied a foreign language in school. Nothing like rigidly sticking to a model that's a highly proven failure.

At least two-thirds of Europeans are bilingual. It can be done.

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 4h

Alonzo is America's best unknown sage. He comes to DC every year the same weekend.

Haven't missed that in many years now.

See him wherever you can. He's a classic road warrior comic.

Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 4h

Teacher duties don't happen without coffee consumption.

That is an ironclad rule in the universe.

IYKYK

Edutopia @edutopia.org · 9h

☕

The Educator's Guide to Iced Coffee: An illustrated flowchart, with icons next to each step. Become a teacher (diploma and graduation cap), Pour hot coffee (espresso pot), Go to school (car), Get lost in teacher duties (notebook, pencil, stars, dizzy spiral), Forget about coffee (clouds/thought bubbles), Drink it cold (mug of coffee with snowflakes around it)

Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 4h

Yes. This. Exactly right.

Every complaint on social media about evil rightwing politicians doing evil or stupid things is tied with Iron-cored cables to THE IDIOTS WHO VOTED FOR THEM.

No votes, no evil morons in office.

This is a straight up Pogo problem. The enemy is in the fucking mirror.

Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 4h

Imagine if we had laws against that and a government agency empowered to investigate and even refer people for criminal prosecution when they do this.

Nah, that just obstructs the magic of the market.

David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 4h

Stunned, me. Like a cow in an abattoir chute, suddenly smacked in the head with a sledgehammer.

Which pretty much describes the American electorate at this point.

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 6h

Imagine that

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 4h

He nails it. The literal history of Christianity is authoritarian violence from not long after it became a legal religion in the Roman Empire.

They just ramped it up from there. Our modern iteration of hypocrisy is actually pretty wimpy compared to what they did for centuries.

James Aura @jamesaura.bsky.social · 5h

John Fugelsang on 'Separation of Church & Hate'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj3O...

John Fugelsang - “Separation of Church and Hate” | The Daily Show

YouTube video by The Daily Show

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Dale Baker

David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 5h

Many of those compositions were penned overseas and dumped in our country without sufficient tariffs collected. A city that isn't a Democratic hellscape would have played more Copeland and John Phillip Sousa. #MAGA

Luca Migo ❌👑 @victinibcn.bsky.social · 8h

Unbearably violent images from Downtown Chicago where a classical music concert was played on the Chicago River. This is too elegant and magical to be seen.

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 5h

The Founding Fathers could not have conceived of a co-equal branch of government with numerous enumerated powers simply shrugging its shoulders and going home.

"Whatever, dude."

NOT in the Federalist papers.

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Reposted by Dale Baker

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

RENMAC: “.. Another sign of a cooling labor market. According to the latest University of Michigan data, consumers see a rising probability of losing their job during the next five years. In October, this series rose to 22.9%, the highest since March.” 🇺🇸

#UMich

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 5h

"It’s a deliberate policy of demographic contraction that could wreak havoc across the US economy."

AKA demographic suicide.

FAFO

www.derekthompson.org/p/the-us-pop...

The US Population Could Shrink in 2025, For the First Time Ever

It's a story with massive economic and political significance. But it's receiving strangely little attention.

www.derekthompson.org

Reposted by Dale Baker

Denis @dbourk.bsky.social · 19h

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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 5h

Exactly right. Congressional Republicans at both ends of the Capitol do not have a single working pair of balls between them.

Complete doormats and begging for more abuse.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 18h

“.. Inside the White House, top advisers joke that they are ruling Congress with an “iron fist,” according to people who have heard the comments. Steve Bannon, the influential Trump ally, likened Congress to the Duma, the Russian assembly that is largely ceremonial.”

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...