Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 7h

Adding to the Sophie's World recommendations.

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Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 1d

Every time someone makes me read something Peter Thiel said it’s like “Scrooge McDuck is Jesus Christ and Huey, Dewey, and Louie are Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel and Daisy is Mary Magdalene and that’s why women voting has lowered American sperm count.”

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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 16h

the actual story here, which the media never talks about, is that police in this country have become a discrete right-wing political operation. the story isn't about cops leaving (they're lying about that), it's about the police trying to exert influence over elections.

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 1d

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

A tweet from Bari Weiss that says “"It's shaken me to my core," a lieutenant said of Mamdani's unexpected victory in June. "The absolute dread I feel is palpable.
"
Today in @TheFP our @Olivia_Reingold talks to the cops who say they will walk if Zohran Mamdani is elected in November:”

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Stephanie... In New Zealand @bootstheory.bsky.social · 8h

"We dismantled all the social support structures and then people sought out the only social support structures available, this is a mystery" - Mark Mitchell, apparently

Mountain Tui @mountaintui.bsky.social · 9h

Gang numbers reach record highs under National - but could be even higher, as police can no longer easily identify members.
Meanwhile gang profits double too. Too bad most Kiwis will never realise in the absence of right wing media dominance & not enough funding on the other side #nzpol #kiwi

Police Minister says record high gang numbers "highly concerning" July 29 1News article

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Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 7h

Thread.

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 19h

This two-parter below is exactly why it's hard to make clothes in the United States.

Let's look at how much it costs to produce a button-up shirt in the US. 🧵

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 8h

This looks amazing, doesn't it?

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Josh Addison @monkeyfluids.com · 11h

I'm really not sure what to make of this. I saw a few bits of newspaper on our lawn that I figured blew in from the street, or fell out of the delivery truck that had just dropped something off. I was about to throw them out when I saw they were FROM DECEMBER 1975. Let's take a look...

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M R. X. Dentith @mrxdentith.com · 9h

I hope David Seymour will be publicly telling off the Taxpayer's Onion about this, like he has numerous journalists who have brought it up...

Paul Thistoll @pault.bsky.social · 13h

The next time someone says the Atlas Network is just a figment of our left wing paranoid imagination show them this X post:

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CNN @cnn.com · 9h

The mother of hostage Matan Zangauker can be seen speaking with her son in a video call, telling him that the war is over and that he is on his way back home.

Follow live updates: https://cnn.it/438ojlI

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Elouise Quigan - Haslett Street Books @elouisequigan.bsky.social · 11h

How is there any dignity in elderly care when people aren’t being showered for TWO WEEKS. And only eating 1/4 of a meal because there isn’t enough time to ensure they can eat.
This is absolutely grim reading.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Aged care sector in 'crisis'

Residents were sometimes going two weeks without a shower and staff were forced to ration incontinence pads, a report found.

www.rnz.co.nz

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Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 14h

I do recall that. You had Prince's song, "Batmania", just everything Batman everywhere. Yeah, you're right, promo people probably thought "oh, this is how we do promotion now".

Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 15h

Independence Day or "ID4", as it was called, kicking off an era of abbreviating films to three-letter acronyms. MIB. SW1. X2. MI:2.

Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 15h

The promo hype around Dick Tracy was crazy and unmatched until maybe Independence Day or Mars Attacks.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 15h

watching the warren beatty DICK TRACEY movie and it is insane? legitimately wild to me that it was a hit?

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Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 17h

Very Stephen King vibe. "How long is left in the story? Last 5%? Wait! I've got a whole other full plot idea to include!"

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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 1d

👇👇

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Mike Drucker @mikedrucker.bsky.social · 20h

This is such an embarrassing way to defend an article. “Here’s our new piece. Being mad at it makes it correct! IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, YOU ARE THE COPS.”

Okay, lady, we get it. You like Bari Weiss. That’s legal in America. Nobody is arresting you.

Sally Jenkins @sallyjenx.bsky.social · 23h

Ratio me. Please. It's a badge of honor. If you don't like a link, go follow some chicken-heart who needs the approval of the thought-police. Caitlin Flanagan of @theatlantic.com is a tremendous writer and this piece is an excellent read. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Don’t Bet Against Bari Weiss

The new editor in chief of CBS News triumphs over her critics.

www.theatlantic.com

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Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 19h

Ender went off and played games in space while his largely ignored siblings did the hard work of creating world peace through pseudonymous Reddit posts.

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Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 19h

Genevieve O'Reilly included study of Jacinda Ardern (among others) in crafting her portrayal of Mon Mothma.

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"spooky sukkot" daniel s. @self.agency · 21h

the reason many jews, including non- and anti-zionists, are upset by this meme is because it relies on an older antisemitic trope about jews being a parasitic race with no culture of our own. but a consequence of diaspora is that our culture has always been enmeshed with the societies we live in.

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Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 1d

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 21h

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Ryan Sproull @ryansproull.bsky.social · 21h

I knew a guy who loved Transmet so much he got the three-eyed smiley face as a tattoo. The next year, Evolution came out in cinemas.

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Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Podcast @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 22h

Peter Thiel turning out to be this stupid honestly messes with my idea of him as the eminence grise behind the Gawker lawsuit, maybe Hogan pitched him on it and kept having to explain like “a lawsuit is like when they blew up the Death Star brother”

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn't insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time.

VANCE: No, George, I sai--

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back

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Graham Platner for Senate @grahamformaine.bsky.social · 1d

We have armed secret police kidnapping people off the street based on the color of their skin.

When we win: we will haul them before a Senate committee. The masks will come off. There will be consequences.

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