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Loren King

@lorenking.org
1.4K followers 952 following 654 posts

"Ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross" Dad, professor, marathon swimmer. Not nearly as smart as @kimdej.bsky.social @lorenking@mstdn.ca @lorenking.gander.social www.lorenking.org www.greatlakestrust.org

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Reposted by Loren King
Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 11h
I'm watching Buckaroo Bonzai for the first time since I saw it in the theater when it came out (!!) and am now convinced the reason they never made a sequel is because they ran out of money for drugs.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 29/09/2026
There’s no scientific basis to many of the public health concerns some critics have with solar development, an expert told ProPublica. “People try to come up with a rationale to justify their dislike of things they dislike for other reasons.” (Published April)
propublica.org
Unfounded Health Concerns Are Powering a Solar Backlash
Across the U.S., critics are pressuring public officials to stop or stall new solar projects, often citing unfounded health concerns.
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Loren King @lorenking.org · 28/09/2026
I support Wikipedia, where information is still human-created, fact-checked, and 100% free. donate.wikimedia.org
donate.wikimedia.org
Make your donation now - Wikimedia Foundation
Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia and other crucial free knowledge projects. Each year, the generosity of the 2% of readers who donate allows us to expand the reac...
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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The history of political thought is replete with contempt for these sycophantic power-seekers. Yet I know of no systematic examination of it. I wonder if someone has constructed a tradition of thought about the toady? Their apparent ever-presence in political history is a regularity worth comment.
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Matt McManus @mattpolprof.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
There is something so vulgar about the kind of conservative who came from a modest background, but strives to climb the same social hierarchies that once disadvantaged him by endlessly and shamelessly flattering those he now insists are our social betters.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The techbros don't want you to see this trailer. Pass it on.
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back to a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.” IT SAVES PUBLIC MONEY to house people.
thebetter.news
Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need - scoop.me
In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Why? The country applies the "Housing First" concept agains homelessness.
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Chris Neill 🐧 @chrisneill.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Excellent proposal to add jobs and therefore local economic activity to certain types of investments. </s>
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Daniel Munro @dkmunro.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Politics and Expertise. And Cats.
Black cat hovers over a copy of Zeynep Pamuk’s Politics and Expertise.
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Loren King @lorenking.org · 27/09/2026
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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 26/09/2026
A MORATORIUM ON DATA CENTERS SHOULDN’T EVEN BE IN QUESTION AT THIS POINT And we definitely need more reporting on this issue: HEAT Data centers devour electricity and water, dump heat into communities, and Big Tech is building them faster than lawmakers are dealing with the consequences.
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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Personally, I’d rather have healthy kids than mollycoddled millionaires
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“Removing or failing to build safe bike-lanes can affect much more than cyclists...” It undermines the success of cities, and the safety of people, in a lot of critical ways. “Lessons on what cities lose by giving in to car culture.” Via @momentummag.bsky.social momentummag.com/ontarios-bik...
People riding bikes in a painted bike-lane…
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
DoorDash spent $1.4M trying to stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming mayor. This week's historic $131.5M enforcement action against DoorDash for underpaying NYC delivery workers shows why. Yet another reminder that the only thing that can beat organized money is organized people.
theintercept.com
DoorDash Spent $1.4 Million Trying to Stop Mamdani From Becoming Mayor. Now We Know Why.
In a wage-theft settlement, DoorDash now has to pay its workers around 100 times what it spent trying to beat Zohran Mam
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Chris Brooke @chrisbrooke.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Prof. @josephinequinn.bsky.social's inaugural lecture, "Anarchical Antiquity", will be at 5pm on Thursday 8 October in the Old Divinity School Main Lecture Theatre, St John’s College, Cambridge. www.joh.cam.ac.uk/about-us/new...
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Daniel Munro @dkmunro.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Petition to replace “wrote” with “prompted” in any discussion about the use of AI in generating papers. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
washingtonpost.com
Using AI, a professor wrote 200 papers this year. Researchers are alarmed.
An online platform removed 257 papers written or co-written by the University of Chicago’s Nicholas Polson after other academics raised questions.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
My entire life I've heard centrists scolding leftist candidates with "oh, but how will we pay for all that? isn't your agenda unreasonable? shouldn't we run on a modest proposal for means-tested tax rebates?" Then Mamdani gets elected and makes it all look pretty easy. No wonder they hate him.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/09/2026
this is a genuinely crazy story
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Phil @philmarfisi.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"Unfortunately, the changes proposed Monday... allow the Carney government to do the same run around Canada’s environmental protections for species at risk, like the orcas, just without the public closely watching." Famously, nothing bad has befallen those who have crossed the orcas.
thestar.com
Althia Raj: Whatever good is in Mark Carney’s Building Canada Strong Act is poisoned by the toxic rest
The Mark Carney government frames this law as part of its “Canada Strong” plan — and frankly, some parts are good — but toxic with good is still bad.
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Daniel Munro @dkmunro.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
“We don’t need anything that Canada has.” - Donald J. Trump, super-genius, deal-maker, June 10, 2026
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Corey Atad @coreyatad.com · 22/09/2026
the greatest lesson of my political life was watching Rob Ford accrue power in Toronto because, i shit you not, when he was a city councillor you could call up his office about whatever small issues (potholes, permitting, etc) and he'd actually help you out
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Corey Atad @coreyatad.com · 22/09/2026
“If you are staring at an example of social disorder or social inefficiency, and the left refuses to explain either why it has happened or how they will fix it, then the right gets to point at someone in the immediate area and say, ‘That’s who did it.’” crazy how much Mamdani speaks my language
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Loren King @lorenking.org · 20/09/2026
Nothing to see here.
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Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
been thinkin about how robots are gonna kill us
Scratchy drawing of a two panel comic.
Panel 1: 
Titled:“How we thought robots would kill us”
A robot shoots a human to death with a gun. It screams “Die flesh sack”

Panel 2:
Titled “How robots will actually kill us”
A MediBot is injecting something into a humans arm. The bot says “Whooops. I injected you with cancer instead of insulin. That’s on me”
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
1) Every damn things he's built without Congressional authorization gets demolished on the first day. 2) Christ, he's like a 7-year old. "Oh yeah? Well MY arch is going to be a FORTRESS with GUNS and DRONES and LASERS, you'll be able to CONTROL THE WHOLE CITY from there."
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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Love to have my traffic circle triumphal arch go up in a giant secondary explosion if a bus crashes into it (ask the Greeks about the parthenon)
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Loren King @lorenking.org · 19/09/2026
It's easy to forget (because he has) that JD Vance has been on Bluesky for over fifteen months now, and his presence here is just as gut-churningly cringe-inducing as his live appearances. Maybe Peter Thiel will start paying him *not* to appear anywhere?
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Phil @philmarfisi.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
A highlight reel of Chantal Hebert's best one-liners as a Heritage Minute would go so hard
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
READ THIS: How Amsterdam became the bicycle capital of the world. In the 1960s, Dutch cities saw cars as the transport of the future. It took the intolerable toll of child traffic deaths —and fierce activism— to turn #Amsterdam into the urban biking nirvana of today. It took vision and leadership.
theguardian.com
How Amsterdam became the bicycle capital of the world
In the 1960s, Dutch cities were increasingly in thrall to motorists, with the car seen as the transport of the future. It took the intolerable toll of child traffic deaths – and fierce activism – to t...
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
@thefireorg.bsky.social

FIRE
@TheFIREorg
When the White House opens its doors to the press, it must comply with the First Amendment. The president is as free as any other person to criticize media coverage. But he can’t ban outlets from the White House just because he doesn’t like their reporting or commentary. Press credentials aren’t a reward for loyalty to the government. A free, even adversarial, press is a sign of our country’s strength. The public deserves to hear about its government from independent voices, not just its leader’s loyalists and allies.
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Daniel Munro @dkmunro.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Global science and innovation is a lot of countries and companies realizing they’re pretty capable, in a few cases even better off, when the U.S. freezes them out.
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Phil @philmarfisi.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Superb work from @dougsaunders.bsky.social on deconstructing what an "associate membership" will (and won't) look like. TL;DR: we will not get the type of integration that some are hoping (or fearing!) for, but there are some perks - like Aussie style 4 year work permits - that'd be worth pursuing.
theglobeandmail.com
If Canada joins the European Union show, it will only be from the upper balcony
It might be disappointing to some Canadians – or maybe a relief – but ‘associate membership’ to the EU doesn’t look like it would change much of anything
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Chris Neill 🐧 @chrisneill.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Airplane-with-red-dots.jpg
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 14/09/2026
Look at this photo we found from Donald Trump Jr.’s lavish Bahamas wedding. Can you spot the Russian oligarch close to Putin who bankrolled the event? 🧵
A group photo shows about 35 people, including Donald Trump Jr.; his wife, Bettina Anderson; Ivanka Trump; Jared Kushner; Tiffany Trump; and Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev.

Little Pipe Cay/Lux Hospitality Bahamas; Laura Gordon Photography via Instagram; Laura Gordon Photography
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Daniel Munro @dkmunro.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Losing a war, running up the price of gas and other goods, North Korea good, Canada bad, kids in concentration camps, ripping up the Constitution. It’s amazing that any of these mid-term races are close. But, hey, it’s not my republic to keep.
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
dooo iiiiiiittttt www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...
euronews.com
Canada eyes ‘associate member’ status with EU amid US tensions
Carney reportedly seeks ‘associate’ EU membership as Ottawa-Washington ties hit fresh low. He will address the European Parliament next week. #EuropeNews
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Dr. Genevieve Eastabrook, MD FRCSC (she/her) @placentadoc.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Findings of new study – released as fuel prices for motor vehicles soar internationally – include fatality rates dropping, per 10 million trips, by 88% in Paris, 82% in London and 62% in New York City Meanwhile in Ontario…Doug Ford is demanding that bike lanes are removed! 😱
newsroom.taylorandfrancisgroup.com
Post-pandemic cycling boom in major cities, as cyclist safety improved thanks to more and better cycling infrastructure - Taylor & Francis Newsroom
Cycling in some of the world’s largest cities has continued to increase since the pandemic, thanks to safer and improved infrastructure which is also leading to a drop in fatality rates. Tracking data...
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Holly Hoye 🇨🇦 @hollyhoye.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
If we aren’t doing this everywhere, what are we even doing? Annual Toronto dog swim before they close down the outdoor pools for the season:
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I know that the United States elected Trump twice, one time even sort of on purpose, but I'll still pick Brexit as the most eyes-wide-open act of willful national self-destruction in my lifetime.
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Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 13/09/2026
A Social Democrat-led coalition is currently projected to retake power in Sweden while the ascendant far-right Sweden Democrats are seeing dropping support
theguardian.com
Sweden election: exit polls project centre-left government and bad night for the far-right – live
Initial projections put centre-left opposition bloc at 51.3%, with 46.8% for rightwing parties; result worse than expected for far right Sweden Democrats
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 13/09/2026
I should be inured to it by now but stories like this continue to just fucking infuriate me. The people in our society with the most wealth, the most social & institutional capital, were the *weakest* in the face of Trump's authoritarianism. Utterly cowardly and contemptible.
nybooks.com
The Dartmouth Exception | Jacob Weisberg
Among its peers in the Ivy League, Dartmouth was perfectly positioned to resist Trump’s attack on higher education. It chose not to.
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Phil @philmarfisi.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I have had one bad large corporate landlord in the past. In contrast, I've had multiple bad holding company/solo landlords that were all local. Corporate landlords can be good and bad. Local landlords can be good and bad. We valorize the latter too much.
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Chris Neill 🐧 @chrisneill.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Nice to see a memorial to Leanne Holland Brown, who was killed by a drunk driver while out for a lunchtime walk, on the sidewalk right outside a school. Would be nicer if there were some effort to improve pedestrian safety in the vicinity. kitchener.citynews.ca/2026/09/11/r...
kitchener.citynews.ca
Roadside memorial sign for Leanne Holland Brown unveiled in Waterloo
Leanne Holland Brown continues to be remembered as a titan of empathy, wisdom and positivity, whose life was cut short by an impaired driver when she was struck and killed while walking on the sidewal...
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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
My brother in Christ, when they say the work they are doing has a 10% chance of causing human extinction within the next 10 years, they ARE enemies.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Page One. @wsj.com
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Loren King @lorenking.org · 11/09/2026
I think Peter makes a really good case here, but I worry that, in our age of distortion and disinformation, and absurd excesses of wealth (bearers of which seem happy to let liberal democracy burn), fixing parties and reforming electoral systems may not be enough. www.thestar.com/gift-redeem?...
Alberta separatism reflects a basic problem in how political parties and our electoral process work, writes Peter MacLeod. 

By Peter MacLeod, Contributor

Peter MacLeod is co-author of Democracy’s Second Act: Why Politics Needs the Public, and principal of the democracy organization, MASS LBP.

The morning after Alberta’s referendum, assuming federalists prevail, Canadians everywhere will breathe a collective sigh of relief. The constitutional crisis that wasn’t will be filed away alongside so many other brushes with national disunity. Before long, our attention will drift elsewhere.

If it does, Canada will have missed one of its last opportunities to understand how imperilled the country’s democratic system has become.

Put aside your priors: Alberta’s referendum is not only a story about long-standing western grievances. It is also a story about how seriously wrong things can go when previously mainstream political parties get hollowed out, then hijacked, and when an electoral system designed for another age no longer delivers moderate, popular governments, but radicalism.Often the case for electoral reform is based on fairness and more accurately translating vote share into seats. A more urgent case may be stability and containment: let political currents appear in public, in proportion to their support, rather than encouraging them to find power through the narrow internal channels of weakened brokerage parties.

If federalists win in Alberta, relief will be understandable. A failed separation referendum would spare the country years of legal, political and social strain.

But it should not allow us to mistake survival for health.

Alberta may be giving Canada an early view of a problem that extends well beyond provincial borders. The institutions through which democratic societies organize disagreement have become smaller, thinner and less representative than the electorates they aspire to govern.
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
You do my dad's legacy and the legacy of all these victims no honor by using this tragedy to spread hate," he said. "I've had to grow up and spend the past 25 years seeing people use it to hate on our Muslim brothers and sisters, to hate on people who don't look like them."
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Loren King @lorenking.org · 11/09/2026
Evergreen post, these days.
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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
It is amusing watching some of the MAGA influencers on X arguing how great it would be to just hand $5,000 cash to people in homeless shelters, get them on their feet with first month's rent for an apt -- "Democrats would never have thought of this" 🤦‍♂️ PARTY OF FREE E̶N̶T̶E̶R̶P̶R̶I̶S̶E̶ LUNCH
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 08/09/2026
For a certain kind of white man, there is no fear more primal than the fear that the people they have abused will gain power and treat them the same way.
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