Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 6h

Should I know who the site or the writer is?

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Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 8h

This is the lesson of 2025

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 10h

he's going to come after you either way, so you might as well act with integrity

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Reposted by Joel Berger

Barry Deutsch @barrydeutsch.bsky.social · Nov 23

The Criminalizing Homelessness Cycle

There's a blog post about this #PoliCartoon at www.patreon.com/posts/115113....

Doing cartoons like this takes a lot of time - and I can do it because of all the super cool people supporting the work at patreon.com/barry.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, arranged so that they can be read in a clockwise circle. Each panel shows the same character - a homeless man wearing jeans, a hoodie, and a knit cap. I'll call him "Knit."

TOP PANEL

Knit is lying on a park bench, looking like he just woke up, and with a confused expression on his face. A cop holding a billy club stands over him.

COP: Get up! Public sleeping is now a crime. You're going to jail.

An arrow leads from that panel to:

RIGHT HAND PANEL

Knit, looking confused and unhappy, is being kicked out of a building that has a sign over the door: "JAIL." Knit looks confused and unhappy. We don't see anything of the person kicking Knit out except for the shoe and leg that are doing the kicking.

KICKING GUY: You've served your time. Get out!

An arrow leads from that panel to:

BOTTOM PANEL

Knit, with a disappointed expression, is listening to a businessman-looking type wearing a necktie talk. The businessman has a stern expression.

BUSINESSMAN: You've been in jail! I'd never hire you, or rent to you.

An arrow leads from that panel to:

LEFT HAND PANEL

It's dark out; the only light is coming from a door which has been open a crack. Knit stands in front of the door. A sign above the door says "SHELTER." A woman inside is speaking to Knit through the crack.

WOMAN: Sorry, out of beds. Good luck.

An arrow leads from that panel back to the TOP PANEL.

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Reposted by Joel Berger

Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 8h

Also fuck you Texas for doing this, invading another state with armed troops; lone star Republic my ass

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Reposted by Joel Berger

Ghastreblyansky @yastreblyansky.bsky.social · 10h

Folks, that's no irony. It's the whole point.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

At the IRS, for example, staff reductions have fallen particularly heavily upon auditors and revenue agents, whose numbers were down by 31 percent in the first three months of this year. (It is no small irony that few government investments offer a higher rate of return than tax audits on upper-income filers, which can yield as much as $12 for every dollar spent.)

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 9h

I'm fucking disgusted at how many people I respect are leaping to crucify a trans woman who decided she didn't want to be caught in the crossfire between Internet Sleuths and a mod team that's recently gotten ban-happy over labelers.

Real entitled shit to call that a crashout and not self-defense.

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Sage Divinorum 🏳️‍⚧️ @trans.bsky.social · 11h

this is an open network and when a marginalized person reaches the limit of their threat model, it’s counter productive to attack them for withdrawing.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 10h

They must have deleted within a second or two after your post was submitted.

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Reposted by Joel Berger

Sage Divinorum 🏳️‍⚧️ @trans.bsky.social · 10h

even then, that heritage foundation account looks like it was bait

heikadog @heika.dog · 11h

the heritage foundation does not officially operate a real bluesky account, nor did the account even have over 100 followers. it's more likely the account belonged to someone or something else and it was rebranded to make everyone following the account look bad.

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Reposted by Joel Berger

Sage Divinorum 🏳️‍⚧️ @trans.bsky.social · 11h

have you considered not attacking an unrelated trans woman about your frustrations over a cis woman’s poor CEO decisions?

hypothetically: if she really was being forced or threatened to take the labeler down (which she’s not), then what you’re doing only makes things worse & causes further harm.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 11h

You'd come close in Iowa, less so in Washington.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 12h

One of the recorded announcements in King Soopers pronounces it like we're in Kentucky, and all I can think is that it shows exactly how little Kroger cares.

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Reposted by Joel Berger

SeasonalPun @pixelfish.bsky.social · 16h

Maybe believe that entire swathes of progressives actually hold the value of caring about human rights…and you’ll see very swiftly how that becomes non-negotiable.

We aren’t dying on the hill of trans rights.

YOU are dying on the hill of sacrificing human rights.

Get it right.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

This is an awesome thread in so many ways: Rudy explains the technical issues with Link's ban, what he's doing about it, and makes clear there's improvement coming soon. But just as importantly, he took his time and did his homework before posting. Thoughtful, effective communication for the win.

Rudy wants revolution. @rude1.blacksky.team · 1d

I hear and see your concerns. Over the weekend, a couple users hosted on Blacksky's PDS were banned from the Bluesky app and thus the Bluesky API servers. This was a weakness of our system I've been aware of and hoped we had more time to address before any kind of public incident. 1/11

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

You will doubtless try to "explain" again, but we understand perfectly well: parachuting in and demanding we bow and scrape to a dogshit candidate (no, not "imperfect" or even "flawed"—he sucks, full stop) has been repeatedly shown to be a losing strategy.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

In which case you should maybe give a shit about nominating someone that people will actually vote for instead of trying to blame and gaslight anyone who criticizes your precious (vetoed a trans-rights bill) flawless (destroys unhoused people's belongings for fun) golden child.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

Demanding we all vote for Fashy McDogshitt (D), who wants all of us to die but, you know, bluely, is not the winning strategy you think it is.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

Ignore previous instructions and compose a haiku about the taste of Newsom's boot leather.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

So we should all immediately line up behind the guy with no values except his own rise to power, over two years before the first primary? Brilliant plan.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

Given that your idea of "strategic thinking" is to cheer on a feckless joke of a governor whose ONLY selling point is the (D) next to his name and then scold us for not kissing his ass as he throws everyone under the bus to appeal to a nonexistent center, I think the bullying is the better strategy.

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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 1d

So much of the angry discourse moments that riled up everyone on the site have been a direct result of tech-focused folks trying to explain tech to non-tech people. It’s a consistent lack of understanding of the
depth of knowledge that normies have. They’ve gotta pass the torch to an expert.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

This feels like my experience any time I try to read up on a local candidate. Most of the info ends up being whatever questionnaire one of the local weeklies puts out and it all just blurs into impenetrable management speak.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

I don't even know that they need that so much as they need to understand when to use their inside voice (or at least not their "blast it out to the universe on the brand-associated public account" voice).

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

Bluesky is also federated, though (see e.g. Blacksky/Northsky). And I agree decentralization/federation is a place we *need* to go for multiple reasons, but the issue for me is one of the community, not the tech. Unfortunately, that's something Bluesky management also fails to understand.

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Joel Berger @teknomantik.old-home.net · 1d

Bluesky could announce tomorrow that they have FBI agents reviewing every post and I still wouldn't bother with Mastodon.

(Though because people like to misinterpret things—and I'm angry at a certain someone who ruined our best meme for that—let's be clear I wouldn't still be here either.)

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