Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin

John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 8h

Using VPPs for grid reliability and ratepayer savings is a no-brainer. Who could possibly be responsible for persuading the Governor to veto this common-sense bill? Oh yes, VPPs cut into utility profits.

Jeff St John @jeffstjohn.bsky.social · 8h

California could save billions of dollars in grid and energy costs by tapping rooftop solar, batteries, EVs, and smart appliances as virtual power plants. Why did Governor Gavin Newsom veto three widely supported VPP bills meant to enable those savings?
www.canarymedia.com/articles/vir...
#energysky

Why did Newsom veto California’s virtual power plant bills?

Supporters say the bills would have helped ease the state’s energy affordability crisis while strengthening grid reliability.

www.canarymedia.com

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 2h

Houston.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 3h

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

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The Highlands Current @highlandscurrent.bsky.social · 6h

Heather Christian, a Beacon-based composer, playwright and vocalist, is among 22 people named as 2025 MacArthur fellows, the organization announced Wednesday (Oct. 8). The awards provide $800,000, paid out in quarterly installments over five years, with no strings attached.

Beacon Composer Wins MacArthur Grant

Will receive $800,000 over five years

buff.ly

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 7h

Congratulations to @darthbluesky.bsky.social on his new gig at the New York Times.

Embrace the Potato Dinner

www.nytimes.com

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 7h

Looks like researchers at SUNY-ESF and Cornell have finally cracked the “Seneca Drums” mystery. Next time you’re out on the lake, don’t light a match.

Gift link:

Why Is This Lake ‘Burping’?

www.nytimes.com

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 7h

“We are quickly emerging as the planet’s rogue nation, determined to deny climate and slow the energy transition as best we can, all in the name of selling more fossil fuel. “

Something extraordinary just happened

But of course there's a but. Or two.

billmckibben.substack.com

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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 8h

The most fundamental political debate of our time: You are integrated into and have responsibility for our complex, imperfect society vs. Nuh-uh.

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 21h

It’s Miss Lauryn Hill in the “That Thing” video

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 21h

If this isn’t a Doom mod in the next 48 hours then what are we even doing here

Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 22h

Incredible (via www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...)

A group of apparent armed agents assemble at the end of a street, as seen from the perspective of a person in inflatable frog costume, their frog’s eyes dominating the foreground. The Ice facility in downtown Portland on Monday. Photograph: Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/AFP/Getty Images

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 23h

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 23h

So did they do the fucking news yet

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 1d

Also for the likelihood that when he doesn’t win it he’s going to respond by bombing the hell out of some place yet to be determined.

Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 1d

We all need to be prepared this week for when on Friday Donald Trump — much to his complete and total surprise — doesn’t actually get the Nobel Peace Prize and he loses his mind.

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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 1d

Those burgers run on wind power! www.tastingtable.com/1964925/burg...

Alex Zielinski @alexzee.bsky.social · 1d

Apropos of nothing, Sec. Kristi Noem is currently praying over Burgerville with Portland ICE officials.

A screenshot of a video of Noem praying at a conference table with other people wearing suits. Fast food bags and water bottles sit on the table.

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Maggie Astor @maggieastor.bsky.social · 1d

This one's for all the parents who have told me they're going through hell trying to find Covid vaccines for their children: It's not just you! Gift link:

Seeking Covid Shots for Their Children, Some Parents Hit a Wall

www.nytimes.com

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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 1d

I've been working on a book proposal and alternating between "this is meaningful" and "this is pointless," and a friend recently shared this quote that she stumble on in a Goodreads review: "Every book is a grand gesture of optimism on the part of both the reader and writer." Keep creating, friends.

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Chantal James @chantalalive.blacksky.app · 1d

They're really on a mission to make you feel like you're responsible for climate change if you need meds to breathe. Tell you what, reduce some of the billionaires to not being billionaires to help greenhouse gasses & we'll keep staying alive with our inhalers.

CNN @cnn.com · 2d

The people who are most vulnerable to the hard-to-breathe air that comes with climate change may inadvertently be adding to the problem, new research finds. https://cnn.it/4pWQMoh

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Megan Greenwell @greenwell.bsky.social · 1d

gotta say I don't think it's a great sign for society that the top editor of a major American news outlet thinks we're in a "fight for the West." (against WHOM, Bari?)

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 1d

bellissima

We're thrilled to announce that Anduril founder Palmer Luckey will join Bari Weiss live in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, October 8, at 7:00 p.m. for a conversation on the future of American power-and the fight for the West.
Tickets are LIVE- get them here!

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David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 1d

As basic question from an ex-police reporter: Can some of our journalists detail the training regimen all these new federal agents receive? The lethal incompetence involving use of force and perameters of the 4A suggests they are just handed guns, masks and badges and told to go fuck people up.

John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz.bsky.social · 1d

ICE is made up of men who have failed the human test and have nothing of value to offer this nation.

Adults with decency and options and possibilities don’t do this shit.

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 1d

As time goes on I really think one of the most important pieces of art from the last ten years is that Dark Crystal prequel series on Netflix because it teaches kids the important lesson that collaborating with bad people will not spare you from being destroyed by the bad people.

Olivia Messer @oliviamesser.bsky.social · 1d

I kind of can’t believe this Bari Weiss quote is even real, and yet www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/b...

“I know that there are some people in this room who don’t believe that my marriage should have been legal … and that’s ok. Because we’re all Americans who want lower taxes.”

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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 2d

I was curious if The Post's shift to accommodating the right was yielding any distinct benefit to the paper. To this point, it hasn't — and it's hard to see why it would.
More data (including on CBS) here:
www.pbump.net/o/you-cant-g...

You can’t get anti-institutionalists to trust an institution

I will stipulate at the outset that I do not know how to reverse the long trend toward distrust in traditional American news sources. There's probably a solution out there, likely something involving ...

www.pbump.net

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 2d

The line about Weiss having “a cop's heart and a tadpole's brain” is one of those insults like “short-fingered vulgarian” that latches onto its target so deeply that it stays there forever.

Sabrina Imbler @sabs.bsky.social · 2d

simply a brilliant blog from @redford.bsky.social on billionaire bootlicker bari weiss taking over cbs news
defector.com/bari-weiss-s...

In the process, Weiss gets to continue two of her lifelong passion projects: trying to get people fired, and mainstreaming previously verboten ideological strands, like how the Nazi salute means something else or how genocidal starvation is actually fine. Even in the most generous reading—where her entire career and indeed life might reflect anything more than the cold calculus of a pure cynic who wants the approval and patronage of the world's richest and vainest reactionaries—Weiss's entire worldview is in the negative. She positions herself as a freewheeling intellectual and iconoclast, taking on the stilted orthodoxies of liberal power, but the irony is that her effectiveness is totally circumscribed by the limits of that orthodoxy. She does not have an original thought in her head, merely a list of supposed excesses and hypocrisies riddling the elite liberal world.

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Sabrina Imbler @sabs.bsky.social · 2d

simply a brilliant blog from @redford.bsky.social on billionaire bootlicker bari weiss taking over cbs news
defector.com/bari-weiss-s...

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Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin

Maggie Astor @maggieastor.bsky.social · 7d

Another call for sources: I'm reporting on pediatric Covid vaccine access. If you've had trouble finding pediatric doses in stock, or if your child was turned away, I'd love to hear from you: [email protected].

Thanks to those who replied to my pregnancy callout; that story will be out soon.

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Damon K @dadadrummer.bsky.social · 7d

We have many great images from the @umaw.bsky.social event in DC on Monday, but this has got to be my favorite - Alexia Roditis of Destroy Boys with Rep Rashida Tlaib (and an amused Yasmin Williams looking on)

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 2d

The man has now released three (excellent) covers of songs from Low’s THE GREAT DESTROYER album, just go ahead and do the whole album my dude

Nonesuch Records @nonesuch.com · 2d

@robertplant.com and Saving Grace perform Low's "Everybody's Song," from their new album, 'Saving Grace,' on BBC Two's 'Later... with Jools Holland.'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVzp...

Robert Plant with Saving Grace - Everybody's Song (Later... with Jools Holland)

YouTube video by BBC Music

www.youtube.com

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