Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

David Duncan

@davdunc.bsky.social

#Reinvent2025

December 5, 2025 at 12:50 AM

Reposted by David Duncan

Ed Davey

@eddavey.libdems.org.uk

I had my disagreements with the BBC under Tim Davie but he was a decent man doing a difficult job.

To see Trump's White House claiming credit for his downfall and attacking the BBC should worry us all.

A social media post by Karoline Leavitt (The White House Press Secretary) showing two news headlines side-by-side. The left headline, under a caption that reads "Shot" reads: "Trump goes to war with 'fake news' BBC," and the right headline under a caption that reads "Chaser" reads: "Tim Davie resigns as BBC director general over Trump documentary edit."

November 9, 2025 at 8:00 PM

David Duncan

@davdunc.bsky.social

#devconf-us Robert introduced an important blog on understanding kV cache in #vllm

September 19, 2025 at 1:25 PM

David Duncan

@davdunc.bsky.social

#devconf-us keynote happens now

September 19, 2025 at 1:11 PM

Reposted by David Duncan

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social

Mass deportations are the number one domestic policy priority of this administration, above everything else.

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · Aug 20

BREAKING — Dept. of Defense civilian employees all received an email a short while ago offering them the opportunity to support ICE and CBP “as they fulfill the President's intent to ensure a safe and orderly immigration system.”

Full text of email and attached memo from Sec. Def. Pete Hegseth:

Subject: Department of Defense (DoD) Support to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) - Southern Border/Internal Immigration Enforcement Activities

FOR DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES

Per the attached, the Secretary of Defense has authorized DoD civilian employees to participate in details to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to contribute to its operations along the Southern Border and its internal immigration enforcement activities.

Selected Department employees will have a chance to offer critical support to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as they fulfill the President's intent to ensure a safe and orderly immigration system.

Applications for details will be accepted at https://www.usajobs.gov/job/842956200.

The process is as follows:
1. Apply at https://www.usajobs.gov/job/842956200.
2. DHS will review your application and documentation
3. Once you have been vetted, DHS will coordinate with the appointed representative from your organization to obtain the necessary approval for your detail
4. Once approval has been obtained, DHS will coordinate a start date and contact you about next steps if you have been immediately selected.
5. If qualified and not immediately selected, you will be kept in the applicant pool to fill additional needs as they arise

MEMORANDUM FOR SENIOR PENTAGON LEADERSHIP
COMMANDERS OF THE COMBATANT COMMANDS DEFENSE AGENCY AND DOD FIELD ACTIVITY DIRECTORS
SUBJECT: Detailing of Department of Defense Civilian Employees to Support the Department
of Homeland Security
In support of the President's priority of securing our borders, I am authorizing the detail of Department of Defense (DoD) civilian employees to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to support its operations at the United States southern border and with internal immigration enforcement.
Detail assignments may be either reimbursable or non-reimbursable. Non-reimbursable details are authorized where the expected benefit of a detail would be comparable to training or development programs that otherwise would be conducted at a DoD Component's expense.
When determining whether a detail may be non-reimbursable under the above standard,
DoD leaders should consider factors such as whether the tasks to be carried out by employees during the detail are of a similar nature to the tasks those employees execute in the course of their normal duties; whether the detail would otherwise enhance the skills and further develop the employees professionally: the duration of the contemplated detail for each employee, including the fact that the training and professional development value might diminish over time as the employee gains experience; and the impacts to the Department from the employee's absence.
DoD supervisors and civilian employees shall comply with DHS procedures for deployment detail assignments, as appropriate. The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with DHS, will provide further guidance.
Thank you for your continued support of the President's National Security priorities.

August 21, 2025 at 3:14 AM

David Duncan

@davdunc.bsky.social

President Trump's war on his predecessor is dramatically escalating just as he faces new pressure over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files — with a steady stream of leaks about his ties to Epstein extending the scandal, day by day. www.axios.com/2025/07/24/t...

Trump's "Russiagate" crusade enters fraught new territory

It's fast becoming a vehicle for MAGA's white whale: the prosecution of President Obama.

www.axios.com

August 20, 2025 at 7:19 PM

David Duncan

@davdunc.bsky.social

Orlando FL at The White Wolf.

August 16, 2025 at 2:24 PM

David Duncan

@davdunc.bsky.social

August 11, 2025 at 5:33 PM

Reposted by David Duncan

Donald McCarthy

@void-d00m.bsky.social

Ordinary people and Doomers, whether appalled or excited by climate collapse, need to understand that the world in which we live is a political world and that politicians, confronted by the intransigent modalities of physics, are perfectly capable of engineering societal panic to avoid reality panic

August 7, 2025 at 11:35 PM

Reposted by David Duncan

Stars and Stripes

@starsandstripes.bsky.social

ICYMI: Jim Lovell, a former Navy test pilot and the commander of Apollo 13 who helped turn a failed moon mission into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering in an ordeal that transfixed the world, died this week at 97.

Jim Lovell, Navy veteran and astronaut who commanded Apollo 13 mission, dies at 97

www.stripes.com

August 8, 2025 at 11:31 PM

David Duncan

@davdunc.bsky.social

bsky.app/profile/anat...

anatrader.bsky.social @anatrader.bsky.social · Aug 6

🤖 Introducing "The Consilium" - my multi-agent AI advisory system!

Building AI agents for finance, travel, weather & health on Red Hat/AWS. Target: $50-80/month.

https://davidduncan.org/consilium-introduction.html

#AI #AWS #PersonalProjects

August 7, 2025 at 2:46 PM

David Duncan

@davdunc.bsky.social

"It’s definitely a case of shooting the messenger,” said Dean Smith, chief strategist at FolioBeyond. "Firing the head of BLS is not going to improve data collection and dissemination … it’s going to undermine confidence in the data going forward,” he added.

finance.yahoo.com/news/us-payr...

Data credibility fears fueled after Trump orders firing of labor official

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Sharp downward revisions to past jobs data on Friday, followed by Trump’s sudden order to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, stoked investor fears about the integrity...

finance.yahoo.com

August 2, 2025 at 12:13 PM

Reposted by David Duncan

Kai Ryssdal

@kairyssdal.bsky.social

"WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 1, 2025) – The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations"

cpb.org/pressroom/Co...

August 1, 2025 at 4:59 PM

Reposted by David Duncan

El Norte Recuerda

@elnorterecuerda.bsky.social

Only 36 million Latinos voted in the 2024 election. That’s half the Latino population, now 66 million. And IF half of the eligible voting population voted for Trump, that’s only 25% of the total population. So 75% of the TOTAL Latino population did not vote for Trump. Please stop justifying hatred.

barbaricus.bsky.social @barbaricus.bsky.social · Jul 2

More statistics:

July 2, 2025 at 7:35 PM

Reposted by David Duncan

Unusual Whales

@unusualwhales.bsky.social

🚨BREAKING🚨

I just released the full report on Congress trading in 2024.

Like every year since 2020, some US politicians beat the market.

From the start of 2024 to year end, many had unusual trades & huge portfolio gains.

Here are the top political traders of 2024.

January 7, 2025 at 4:36 PM

Reposted by David Duncan

David Dunning

@daviddunning6.bsky.social

How Dunning-Kruger works...
and travels.

February 14, 2025 at 1:46 PM

Reposted by David Duncan

Erin Powell

@erincpow.bsky.social

Florida's newest invasive mealybug currently prefers roadside weeds but may pose a threat to solanaceous crops (e.g., tomatoes, peppers).

This species was only recently described from Japan where it is likely also introduced.

New open access paper: www.degruyter.com/document/doi...

September 14, 2024 at 5:03 PM

Reposted by David Duncan

Stacey Burns

@wentrogue.bsky.social

“If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions.” —Molly Ivins, who died of breast cancer at the age of just 62.

She should have been 80 years old today.