Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 5h

bouie sums it up better than i

bsky.app/profile/jame...

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 6h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 7h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 18h

Anyone have a few fave newish #boardgames of 2025 (or even back a couple years)? Exploring a lot of possibilities for next batch of games to buy, so am already familiar with what’s hot and/or highly rated, more looking for what you personally are really digging

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 20h

I am struck by how lack of standing seems to so frequently evade court challenge to unconstitutional government actions.

It's an odd thing missing, given that this problem was solved in ancient Athens: for certain matters the entire citizen body ('ho boulomenos,' 'whoever wishes') had standing.

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 17h

are you a ref

you have to tell me if you’re a ref

Amanda Mull @amandamull.bsky.social · 18h

It’s not a crime to lie to refs or cops

Bill H @dahoovster.bsky.social · 18h

Apparently if you signal timeout while also yelling time out, and immediately regret it, you can claim you were merely clapping and the refs will stop the game without charging you a time out. Despite the evidence being in HD. Madness.

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 18h

Listen, some Excel monstrosities are born of ignorance and some are born of necessity

OK yes this is a case of me being a hit dog hollerin’ but still, sometimes you gotta make do with the tools you’re allowed y’know?

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 18h

Anyone have a few fave newish #boardgames of 2025 (or even back a couple years)? Exploring a lot of possibilities for next batch of games to buy, so am already familiar with what’s hot and/or highly rated, more looking for what you personally are really digging

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 18h

I can’t tell whether this means you’d like or absolutely hate Blood on the Clocktower

Anyway I enjoy social deduction until my friends remember I’m very good at both elements of them (lying/social reading and deduction), at which point I become public enemy #1 and get turbo-ousted for awhile

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 21h

a man with a triangle on his forehead is smiling in a video game

ALT: a man with a triangle on his forehead is smiling in a video game

media.tenor.com

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James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 22h

It's incredible the extent to which Congress just utterly refuses to defend itself. You'd think for entirely self-interested reasons you would stridently oppose having the power of the purse arbitrarily ripped from you, ya know?

Why would you allow yourself to become the Roman Senate circa 27 BC.

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 23h

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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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 22h

i am the furthest thing from an expert on how llms really work, but seems like a reasonable statement is, to paraphrase colbert: "the corpus has a well-known educated liberal wordcel bias"

K. Chen @tznkai.bsky.social · 1d

Not an AI pusher but I am extremely optimistic they will fail to make AI more conservative friendly in the way they want just look at what happened with Grok.

Marcus Luther @marcusluther.bsky.social · 1d

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?

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 22h

Appreciate it, and no worries if not!

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 23h

(By "this" I mean C&G therapies bombing in clinic)

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 23h

I know you've mentioned this a few times -- out of curiosity, can you point to any news articles or writeups on this, for those interested in more detail?

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Schnorkles O'Bork @schnorkles.bsky.social · 1d

Literally the Russ Vought impoundment thing has completely removed the GOP's ability to negotiate. There is no reason to negotiate.

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The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.social · 1d

People on here have been begging Democrats to seize coverage and fight and and and, and this is that. It’s exactly that, and it’s being executed well, and the win conditions are we win the fight, or if we lose, the consequences are very clearly pinned to the GOP.

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 1d

i'm going to pretend i didn't see this

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 1d

this is exactly what you baseball perverts deserve

Keith (vibe spreadsheeter) @mosheroperandi.bsky.social · 1d

oh, in that case I approve. Baseball fans deserve nothing less

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escalator TO HELL @escalator.bsky.social · 1d

post-mortem pardon autopen gonna go brrrr when it happens

Mike Black @mikeblack114.bsky.social · 1d

gonna be at least one SCOTUS case that ends up hinging on a comparison of an autopsy derived time of death vs an autopen time stamp

nah just kidding 6-3 the President lives eternal and his signature is always valid

Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 1d

the day that it finally happens is gonna be surreal because the way they report it will be fucking deranged

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Carlos Yu @carloshasanax.bsky.social · 2d

I am glad people are realizing, after nine years of electoral politics and fifty years of this minor Mob boss in public life, that Trump does not actually make non-coercive deals, and so he doesn't actually know how to make a deal that will stick out of mutual self-interest, a concept he denies.