Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

Stephen Collins

@stephencollins.bsky.social

Every ad now

[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.]

JANET:
Ugh...

LIZ:
What's up?

JANET:
I am so bored of cooking peas!

LIZ:
Have you tried...

AI peas?

JANET:
AI peas?

LIZ:
They're peas with AI!

[Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI].

LIZ:
Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas

JANET:
What

LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines]

Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas?

[Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it]

LIZ:

Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine

[Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas]

LIZ:
With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas!

JANET:
What

LIZ:
Shut up

LIZ:
Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow

From opening the bag of peas

to boiling the peas

to eating the peas

To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means.

JANET:
Is it really necessary to-

LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]:
THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET

[Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan:

AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas.

[Ends]

November 13, 2025 at 5:38 PM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

David

@zero-4.bsky.social

Chris Packham on the political shift on climate change: “It’s no secret that the fossil fuel companies are funding Reform and The Conservatives - that’s a fact. These people are either denying something extremely dangerous or they’re puppet-ing it for their paymasters”

#bbclaurak

November 9, 2025 at 9:57 AM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

Utterly shameful behaviour.

ChrisO_wiki @chriso-wiki.bsky.social · 10d

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️

November 9, 2025 at 11:32 AM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

Jessica D. M. 🇺🇦 🇦🇺 🇨🇦 🇵🇦 🇬🇱 🪃 🟧

@jessicaperthwa.bsky.social

Brilliant response

REV. PAUL 📎 @pauld444.bsky.social · 14d

November 5, 2025 at 11:39 PM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

Tact and Diplomacy 🇺🇦⭐️🇬🇱🇵🇸

@tactanddiplomacy.bsky.social

November 5, 2025 at 9:38 PM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

Utterly disgraceful behaviour from the US officials.

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 16d

This FT account of pure thuggishness of Trump representatives posing as diplomats has not appeared in US media anywhere, but is being widely circulated and reported in media in Europe, the UK and the Asia Pacific area. Be sure to read it all.

November 3, 2025 at 7:26 PM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

Dave Vetter

@davidrvetter.bsky.social

Private Eye nailing it.

A story in Private Eye, headlined "Minority representation on TV causes outrage". The article reads: "There has been widespread support for prominent Reform MP Sarah Pochin after she complained about the over-representation of minorities on television.

Said one angry viewer, "She's right. Every time you turn on the telly there's another Reform MP being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg."

She added, "I respect their way of life and their strange customs, but Reform MPs comprise only 0.7 percent of the House of Commons. Yet Nigel Farage is on Question Time more than Fiona Bruce."

"I'm not prejudiced. Some of my best friends are swivel-eyed loons, but enough is enough. There are too many people with angry red faces on television."

October 29, 2025 at 12:52 PM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

John Bull

@garius.bsky.social

Damn. RIP the absolute titan of British acting that was Prunella Scales.

I wrote this Fawlty Towers short story a while back as a tribute to her performance in it.

Shared in her memory.

No Pasarán

Some debts you can never repay Terry stepped out of the kitchen door into the cold, winter air. It was dawn. The sun was slowly rising over Torquay, casting beams of fresh sunlight across the façade o...

authory.com

October 28, 2025 at 9:20 PM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

Josiah Mortimer

@josiah.writes.news

This one is a big deal, in my view. Potentially marks an end to Thatcher-era deregulation of the buses across England. And it's the law as of last night: bylinetimes.com/2025/10/28/a...

1. London-Style Buses
The boringly-named Bus Services (No. 2) Bill became law on Monday night (27th October), enabling local transport authorities to implement franchising schemes for bus services in England – potentially reversing the decades-old deregulation of buses which opponents say has contributed to spiralling prices and worsening, reduced services while transport firms pay millions to shareholders.

But it will also end the (surprisingly recent) Conservative ban on councils setting up their own bus companies to directly compete with private firms.

Buses are the most frequently used form of public transport and are relied on by millions of people – disproportionately lower-income workers, young people, retirees and more.

Greater Manchester took up the opportunity of regulating buses by setting up the ‘Bee Network’, but the legal framework mayor Andy Burnham had to use to do it took years to utilise, and faced relentless challenge from transport firms. The new process is set to massively streamline it.

This bill won’t make the front pages, but if councils take up the opportunity, it could revolutionise this vital form of transport in England.

Cat Hobbs, director of pro-public ownership campaign We Own It, told Byline Times: “After 40 years of bus deregulation and privatisation, it’s fantastic that this government is making it easier to take back control of our buses,” though she also called for the ambition to be matched with extra funding to help make this a success.

Hobbs added: “It’s excellent news that the absurd ideological ban on new publicly owned bus companies, introduced under the last government, has now been reversed. Publicly owned bus companies like Lothian Buses and Reading Buses consistently win awards for their brilliant services.”

Transport for London-style transport in Cornwall, Leeds, and Newcastle, here we come?

October 28, 2025 at 10:50 AM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

Disgraceful behaviour from Turkish Airlines.

Rory Cellan-Jones @rorycj.bsky.social · 23d

www.facebook.com/share/p/19C1...
My friend Mark Mardell was chucked off his Turkish Airlines flight at the weekend because he had Parkinson’s and his son had asked for assistance for him. (He’s written about it as a public post on Facebook but the link is proving hard to share outside,)

October 27, 2025 at 8:34 AM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

Jings! Shocking is selling this short.

Alice Campos @ok-sure.bsky.social · 26d

Open the page. Scroll down to the timeline. Go through the timeline.

It’s… shocking

The White House Building

Every president since John Adams has occupied the White House, and the history of this building extends far beyond the construction of its walls. From the Ground Floor Corridor rooms, transformed from...

www.whitehouse.gov

October 24, 2025 at 4:35 PM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

This is happening right now. A perfect description from Bertrand Russell.

Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 28d

Betrand Russell:
"The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity.

The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent"
(by emotional excitement + terrorism)

highlighted text: "The rise of fascism brought about, in its early stages, an exactly opposite situation. Here it was the reactionaries who favoured freedom of organization and the progressives who opposed it. The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other. This technique is as old as the hills; it was practised in almost every Greek city, and the moderns have only enlarged its scale."

A fresh look at empiricism 1927-42 Freedom and Government by Bertrand Russell
https://russell.humanities.mcmaster.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/10-58.pdf

October 22, 2025 at 1:33 PM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

Otto English

@ottoenglish.bsky.social

The Red Shoes costume designer was German refugee Hein Heckroth.

The artist fled Nazi Germany with his Jewish wife Ada and daughter in 1935.

When war broke out and fears of a "Fifth Column" were spread in The Mail and Express in 1940, Heckroth was rounded up... and sent to Australia on HMT Dunera.

Crooked Marquee @crooked-marquee.bsky.social · 29d

Powell and Pressburger’s masterpiece – released on this day in 1948 – is a great romance, a great tragedy, a great dance movie, and a great backstage picture, all in one: crookedmarquee.com/classic-corn...

Classic Corner: The Red Shoes

Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 masterpiece is a great romance, a great tragedy, a great dance movie, and a great backstage picture.

crookedmarquee.com

October 21, 2025 at 10:25 PM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

www.instagram.com/reel/DPa8BYR...
Less flags, more bunting

Instagram

Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you're into with the people who get you.

www.instagram.com

October 21, 2025 at 1:59 PM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

This looks appalling, destruction of a historical building with no care or even competence.

Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 29d

It looks even worse by video 😢

October 21, 2025 at 10:11 AM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

Ellie Mae O'Hagan

@elliemaeohagan.bsky.social

je sais qui a cambriole la Louve

October 20, 2025 at 7:29 PM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

Jane

@localnotail.bsky.social

Asimov 1980 "Now we have a new slogan... : 'Don't trust the experts!'"
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States...
The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread... nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge"

image of 3 column Newsweek article “A Cult of Ignorance” by Isaac Asimov, January 21, 1980, p. 19.

Article alt-text shared over next 3 images doesn't completely fit to each so has been spread out

ISAAC ASIMOV/MY TUR

It's hard to quarrel with that ancient justification of the free press: "America's right to know." It seems almost cruel to ask, ingenuously, "America's right to know what, please? Science? Mathematics? Economics Foreign languages?"

None of those things, of course. In fact, one might well suppose that the popular feeling is that Americans are a lot better off without any of that tripe.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Politicians have routinely striven to speak the language of Shakespeare and Milton as ungrammatically as possible in order to avoid offending their audi-ences by appearing to have gone to school. Thus, Adlai Stevenson, who incautiously allowed intelligence and learning and wit to peep out of his speeches, found the American people flocking to a Presidential candidate who invented a version of the English language that was all his own and that has been the despair of satirists ever since.

George Wallace, in his speeches, had, as one of his prime targets, the "pointy-headed professor," and with what a roar of approval that phrase was always greeted by his pointy-headed audience.

BUZZWORDS: Now we have a new slogan on the part of the obscurantists: "Don't trust the experts!" Ten years ago, it was "Don't trust anyone over 30. But the shouters of that slogan found that the inevitable alchemy of the calendar converted them to the untrustworthiness of the over-30, and, apparently, they determined never to make that mistake again. "Don't Trust the Experts!" is absolutely safe. Nothing, neither the passing of time nor exposure to information, will convert these shouters to experts in any subject that might conceivably be useful.

We have a new buzzword, too, for anyone who admires competence, knowledge. earning and skill, and who wishes to spread around. People like that are called "elites".

That's the funniest buzzword ever invented because people who are not members of the intellectual elite don't know what an "elitist" is, or how to pronounce the word. As soon as someone shouts "elitist" it becomes clear that he or she is a closet elitist who is feeling guilty about having gone to school.

All right, then, forget my ingenuous question. America's right to know does not include knowledge of elitist subjects. America's right to know involves something we might express vaguely as "what's going on." America has the right to know "what's going on" in the courts, in Congress, in the White House, in industrial councils, in the regulatory agencies, in labor unions in the seats of the mighty, generally.

Very good, I'm for that, too. But how are you going to let people know all that?

Grant us a free press, and a corps of independent and fearless investigative re-porters, comes the cry, and we can be sure that the people will know.

Yes, provided they can read!

As it happens, reading is one of those elitist subjects I have been talking about, and the American public, by and large, in their distrust of experts and in their con tempt for pointy-headed professors, can't read and don't read.

To be sure, the average American can sign his name more or less legibly, and can make out the sports headlines - but how many nonelitist Americans can, without undue difficulty, read as many as a thousand consecutive words of small print, some of which may be trisyllabic?

Moreover, the situation is growing worse. Reading scores in the schools decline steadily. The highway signs, which used to represent elementary misreading lessons ("Go Slo." "Xroad") are steadily being replaced by little pictures to make them internationally legible and incidentally to help those who know how to drive a car but, not being poin…

Again, in television commercials, there are frequent printed messages. Well, keep your eyes on them and you'll find out that no advertiser ever believes that anyone but an occasional elitist can read that print. To ensure that more than this mandarin minority gets the message, every word of it is spoken out loud by the announcer.

HONEST EFFORT: If that is so, then how have Americans got the right to know? Grant that there are certain publications that make an honest effort to tell the public what they should know, but ask yourselves how many actually read them. There are 200 million Americans who have inhabited schoolrooms at some time in their lives and who will admit that they know how to read (provided you promise not to use their names and shame them before their neighbors), but most decent periodicals believe they are doing amazingly well if they have circulations of half a million. It may be that only I per cent - or less- of Americans make a stab at exercising their right to know. And if they try to do anything on that basis they are quite likely to be accused of being elitists.

I contend that the slogan "America's right to know" is a meaningless one when we have an ignorant population, and that the function of a free press is virtually zero when hardly anyone can read. What shall we do about it?

We might begin by asking ourselves whether ignorance is so wonderful after all, and whether it makes sense to denounce "elitism"

I believe that every human being with a physically normal brain can learn a great deal and can be surprisingly intellectual. I believe that what we badly need is social approval of learning and social rewards for learning

We can all be members of the intellectual elite and then, and only then, will a phrase like "America's right to know" and, indeed, any true concept of democracy, have any meaning

Asimov, a professor of biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine, the author of 212 books, most of them for the general public

October 16, 2025 at 7:52 AM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

Alex Andreou

@sturdyalex.bsky.social

It's quite depressing that I wrote this, warning about the elevation of Farage to the top table by TV executives, eleven years ago.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Leaders’ TV debates: middle-aged, rich, white men telling us what’s what, again | Alex Andreou

Alex Andreou: Excluding the Greens and other parties in favour of Ukip will leave the election debates devoid of even a modicum of diversity

www.theguardian.com

October 18, 2025 at 3:34 PM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

Excellent 🧵

Coates is Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · Oct 15

It’s the 111th anniversary today of the birth of Harry Rée, who was a teacher and conscientious objector when the Second World War broke out, and by the time it ended, when he was 31, had invented ‘blackmail sabotage’ and got a DSO, an OBE, a Croix de Guerre, and a Medaille de la Resistance

b/w photo of a man in socks and sandals, jacket, short and jumper, in front of a wall with a bike leaning on it, and with a pipe in his mouth. If you wanted one image to sum up the word ‘nonchalant’, this would be it

October 15, 2025 at 4:33 PM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

Love all of these.

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · Oct 15

THREAD. When my parents' cat Bridget went missing, my dad, to try to ease his worry, painted her on a variety of historical adventures. These soon multiplied. Significantly.

After much nagging, he has had some postcards printed of this brilliant series:
michaelcoxmoredaysthansausages.bigcartel.com

Bridget Hangs Out With The Hunters In The Snow

October 15, 2025 at 7:50 AM

Reposted by Carol Bell 📎

David Oliver

@mancunianmedic.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Soaring bills are the gift that keeps on giving for Reform. Shame Labour doesn’t have the guts to do anything about them | Mathew Lawrence

A cost of living crisis is not inevitable if there is the will to stop companies extracting profits from Britain’s essential services, says Mathew Lawrence of the Common Wealth thinktank

www.theguardian.com

October 14, 2025 at 2:37 PM

Carol Bell 📎

@carolofthebells.bsky.social

This 👇

Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · Oct 12

Private equity wrecked UK high street, says Iceland Foods boss

PE model - low wages, cut staff/investment, high debt, profiteering, tax abuse.

PE devoured Debenhams, Maplin, Byron Burger, Cath Kidson, Comet, Flybe, Poundworld, Toys R Us.

Controls care homes, vets, supermarkets.
archive.ph/tJVkV