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Phil

@voicesfromthestars.bsky.social
133 followers 219 following 354 posts

" 'What are you doing?' 'Listening,' I said. 'To what?' 'To the voices of the stars,' although more accurately I meant the voices from the stars."

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Reposted by Phil
Chris Tomlinson @cltomlinson.bsky.social · 6h
The Girls’ State girls know they’re inheriting a mess. Conservatives are deporting their friends, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers are overheating the planet, and liberals and conservatives both are selling out to Big Tech. They want to be change agents: www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columni... #txlege
houstonchronicle.com
Young Texans are fed up with hate. They're ready to lead a more diverse Texas.
Texas' future leaders are coming of age in a more diverse state, with different ideas about politics, identity and what leadership should look like.
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Maryn McKenna @marynmck.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Fake. USDA. Seals. Used by an NC meat processing plant on 83.5 TONS of meat. Produced entirely outside the federal inspection system, according to news reports. We are pretty close to The Jungle (second ed.) now, no? www.scrippsnews.com/life/recalls...
scrippsnews.com
Interactive: Meat recall linked to fake USDA labels
Pork, beef and goat products are being recalled after a company allegedly used fake USDA inspection labels. Explore our interactive guide to see which products are affected and what to look for.
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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Rumor has it that this is the story that got Politico banned from the White House.
politico.com
Hill investigates after F-35 parts diverted to Hong Kong
The incident raises the possibility that top secret weapons technology may have been exposed to a foreign adversary — including China.
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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This reminds me of Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet colonel who disobeyed orders when a technological warning system told him that the US had fired nuclear missiles. He distrusted the machines, waited, and investigated. As a result, he prevented nuclear war. AI makes rash, deadly mistakes more likely.
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Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Not good, OpenAI. "Read this NYTimes" article.. "Summarize" this NYTimes article... (NYT content in red). /3
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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 14/09/2026
Election-season trading on prediction markets, including in this fall's biggest races, is skyrocketing while states fight to outlaw the platforms as unlicensed casinos and begin to worry about how high-stakes odds will affect American democracy in unpredictable ways. to.pbs.org/3SyUtVF
to.pbs.org
2026's elections could test how skyrocketing trading on prediction markets affects races and results
Officials' fears revolve around the fear that pervasive financial incentives will further damage confidence in elections and democracy if Americans think they're influencing the outcome.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Equatorial Guinea is a dictatorship run by the same man since 1978, with his children running large portions of the state now. We paid this dictatorship millions of dollars to let us deport random people there. Our money was used for this inhumanity.
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Caitlin McGlade @caitmcglade.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I, the only data reporter at the Charlotte Observer, am among the McClatchy layoffs in the bloodbath today. The HR person asked me not to talk about it! AMA. Anyway, here’s a link to one of my most important stories this year. www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/a...
charlotteobserver.com
A Black teen found hanged near Charlotte church was a suicide, police say. Questions remain
In May, 16-year-old Juliana Nzita was found dead in a Charlotte churchyard. CMPD called it a suicide. Her family isn’t so sure.
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kelly jensen @heykellyjensen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The only data reporter at a major metropolitan newspaper, gone. This story repeats itself multiple times a week. This is why we are where we are, and it's why information and facts will continue to wither whole censorship and mis/dis information will continue to flourish.
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Phil @voicesfromthestars.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
They’re calling it “The Enshittificene”
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Thom Hartmann @hartmannreport.com · 07/09/2026
For decades, reporters have treated hours-long voting lines as a “normal” feature of Election Day instead of investigating why some Americans consistently face greater barriers to the ballot… hartmannreport.com/p/has-the-me...
hartmannreport.com
Has the Media Normalized the GOP’s Voter Suppression Right Before Our Very Eyes?
For decades, reporters have treated hours-long voting lines as a “normal” feature of Election Day instead of investigating why some Americans consistently face greater barriers to the ballot…
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Steve Rattner @steverattner.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The Strait of Hormuz is still closed.
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Phil Szostak @philszostak.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
“‘Anyone can come up with a bunch of “interesting things that happen in sequence”. But if there's no emotional undercurrent, if there's nothing holding it up, it's just empty spectacle.’” 2/2 From The Q&A with @yogoldsmith.bsky.social: Andor S2 Q&A - Tom Bissell - Episodes 10-12, May 13, 2025
podcasts.apple.com
Andor S2 Q&A - Tom Bissell - Episodes 10-12
Podcast Episode · The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith · May 14, 2025 · 1 sec
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Rebecca John @rebeccajohn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
As Shell faces a landmark climate lawsuit, "confidential" documents from the 1960s show British scientist James Lovelock warning executives of the risks of burning fossil fuels. See his June 1966 memo published in full for the first time with my latest for @desmog.com
desmog.com
The Lovelock Papers: Shell’s Hidden Climate Knowledge Under Scrutiny as Court Battle Looms
“What seems to be important,” wrote the visionary British scientist, James Lovelock, in June 1966, is “the almost certain fact that the climate is worsening and the probability that the combustion of ...
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Katherine Stiles @katherinestiles.org · 31/08/2026
· #AcademicSky · The loss of 111,000 international students in the school year that has just begun will cost the United States US$3.4 billion and almost 40,000 jobs, says a new study from NAFSA: Association of International Educators and JB International, a US-based education management company.
universityworldnews.com
US$3.4 billion loss from drop in international students
The loss of 111,000 international students in the school year that has just begun will cost the United States US$3.4 billion and almost 40,000 job...
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Ruth Zakarin @ruthz.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Every single damn day men kill their family members, including an incident just last week where a man in MT killed 8 members of his family — 4 of them children. But you barely heard a peep about it in the national conversation. Men killing their families is so common there’s a name for it… 1/
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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
They're deliberately allowing an iconic and historic DC landmark to fall into disrepair so they can justify tearing it down
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Dr Surekha Davies, Historical Monster Consultant (she/her) @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
This they are! Haz written some books in which the politics of maps features (especially my first book), but here's an essay about how ideas about geography and identity collide: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...
latimes.com
Contributor: What 'America' meant before 1776, and who 'Americans' are today
The label is often wielded now to exclude brown people, but these two continents have been a melting pot since long before the U.S. was founded.
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Dr Surekha Davies, Historical Monster Consultant (she/her) @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
"We abandon the body and what it learns by being in the world ... at our peril. By touching, looking, listening, smelling, and even tasting (undergrad geology and grownup gastronautery), we don’t just gather “data”, that soulless word that flattens everything that can’t be described in numbers." 2/
buttondown.com
Basement adventures showed me why ChatGPT can only ever be garbage.
In The British Library. Photo by Surekha Davies. Hallo readers, First, a news flash: Join me for a virtual book launch for HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY...
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Philip Obaji Jr. @philipobaji.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Russia is engineering a migration crisis for Europe via the West African. Disinfo on local radio & media pushes desperate people north through Niger toward Libya. Wagner trucks move migrants to smugglers; their militias then help load boats across the Mediterranean. Time to act.
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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Like seriously? You'll get a ticket for glancing at your phone on the road, but this is OK? Why is your dashboard fighting for your attention like this? NEEDLESSLY? You're operating heavy machinery!!
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Peter Tubbs @petertubbs.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
www.agriculture.com/partners-sum...
agriculture.com
Summit Sold Its Midwest Pipeline as a Carbon Solution. Now, It’ll Be Used for Fossil Fuels.
For four years, battles over private property rights have gridlocked state legislatures across the Midwest and stalled plans for a pipeline to transport liquified carbon dioxide from ethanol plants in...
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Peter Tubbs @petertubbs.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
My most recent story- Egg company finds growth by spreading risk: www.iowapbs.org/shows/mtom/m...
iowapbs.org
Rapid growth in pastured eggs using hundreds of farms
Vital Farms has found rapids growth in specialty eggs by working with hundreds of farms across the "Grazing Belt".
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Peter Tubbs @petertubbs.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
My story from last week: Indoor farming company finding profits by limiting variables www.iowapbs.org/shows/mtom/m...
iowapbs.org
Indoor Farm Limits Variables to Maximize Yields
Indoor farm limits variables to maximize yields as we profile 80 Acres Farms in Ohio.
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 03/09/2026
What if post-Trump America is even *worse*? 1/
A nuclear mushroom cloud wearing a giant Trump wig. A decaying American flag fills the sky behind it.
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Starre Vartan @starrevartan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
$1 invested in journalism can generate more than $100 in public savings through reclaimed funds, improved public services and reduced corruption. Incredible stats in this report: www.unesco.org/en/articles/...
unesco.org
New report reveals global evidence of independent journalism’s
A new global evidence review commissioned by UNESCO in partnership with IFPIM and DW Akademie, demonstrates that free and independent media has a profound and positive impact on societies globally.
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Rachel Rees @rachel-rees.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
As honoured as I am to see that The Times has picked up my Chagos article practically *word for word*, including my hard-gotten quotes, I’d prefer some credit — or for everyone to read my original FT piece! free link to read the evidently enviable article below (cheaper than a Times sub!) 🌴
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Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
This change grants Commerce political appointees veto power over data and research releases by scientists and statisticians at NOAA, NIST, Census, and BEA.
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David Brauer @dbrauer.net · 15/03/2026
Absolutely gutting story on Annunciation parents pouring their souls into enlightening legislators, knowing they’d the GOP brick wall. But the piece contains one of the most horrifying paragraphs an American parent could read; it will stay with me: www.startribune.com/in-living-ro... (gift)
From the Star Tribune: “The damage to Harper's body was so severe, we were not allowed to see her, hold her, or be with her body ever again," [her mother] said. "And then, months later, as the pews were removed from that church, more of her remains were found. We had to cremate our daughter a second time. Imagine receiving that
phone call. And then tell me, what is this gun for? Hunting?
There are other tools. Home defense? There are other tools.
What is this one for?"
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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 28/08/2026
It isn’t a coincidence that many rich countries are accelerating policies to reduce immigration at the same time we are witnessing more natural disasters supercharged by climate change.
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
So being pro-labor, pro-education for the poorest, pro-vaccine, and pro-LGBTQIA is a “neutral” position🤔
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kelly jensen @heykellyjensen.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Missouri lawmakers just cut the state portion of funding for theirs. Again: this is the CHEAPEST MEANS by which children in the state get access to books they can keep. It is being cut because these politicians are cruel, ignorant, and hate children learning. www.kcur.org/education/20...
kcur.org
Budget cuts mean some Missouri kids won't get free books through Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
Missouri lawmakers cut the Imagination Library's budget for the upcoming fiscal year by more than half — from about $6 million to $2 million. The state education department said it won't have the mone...
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kelly jensen @heykellyjensen.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Remember how I said we needed to pay attention to politicians choosing to cut Imagination Library? bookriot.com/dollys-imagi...
bookriot.com
The Battle Over Funding Imagination Library Grows: Book Censorship News, April 17, 2026
What is the Imagination Library and why are states across the US removing it from their state budgets?
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Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
I've updated my document that tackles four of the common arguments used to encourage teachers to use AI. I hope this will be helpful to those educators wanting to push back on AI mania.
docs.google.com
Resisting School AI Mania Help Sheet
Help Sheet: Resisting AI Mania in Schools K-12 educators are under increasing pressure to use—and have students use—a wide range of AI tools. (The term “AI” is used loosely here, just as it is by man...
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m@thew @tweetpotato314.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
coworker told me about how when he was a kid he was digging holes in his backyard looking for dinosaur bones but only found part of an old cowboy boot before his mom made him stop she said he was tearing up the yard but it sounds to me like she murdered a cowboy
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Shannon Heffernan @shannonheffernan.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
A judge ordered a 1-year-old, with no lawyer, to file an asylum application. A private company, accused of torture, received a contract to track down unaccompanied children. The govt. considers plans to build a new shelter for 3000 immigrant kids. www.themarshallproject.org/2026/08/22/t...
themarshallproject.org
How Trump and ICE’s Latest Tactics Target Immigrant Children
Officials claim to target the “worst of the worst.” But several agencies are now focusing on tracking and detaining children.
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Phil @voicesfromthestars.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Out there using AI to build an academy of mid
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
A professor writes: (Jason Stanley) The problem is that journalists failed to do basic journalism. Not a single reporter seems to have checked’ Jason Arday’s citations. The ‘quantifiable metrics’ of his work. Prof Stanley did: ‘Arday is easily comparable to the leading scholars in the field’
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Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Here‘s the real story from @nafeez.bsky.social The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday bylinetimes.com/2026/08/18/t...
bylinetimes.com
The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday
The media's coverage of the academic's life was fuelled by the campaign of an established far-right network
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Patrick "Inverted Vibe Curve" Blanchfield @patblanchfield.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
RE: The Atlantic, a few months after this issue a guy in El Paso went on a rampage targeting people he thought looked "Mexican"; he shot 45 and killed 23. when I read some journalists lines from his manifesto and Frum's essay and asked them who wrote which, they couldn't tell, I couldn't blame them
its a cover image of an april 2019 atlantic mag. a neon light bulb american flag signals no vacancy like a roadside motel. under the flag is a headline for david frum's cover story "How much immigration is too much?"
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
There’s been surprisingly little about how we are in the very last years of living memory of service in WW2.
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Marketplace @marketplace.org · 14/08/2026
For the first time since World War II, the country’s debt is actually larger than the economy itself. Driven by surging federal spending, the government has already borrowed almost $2 trillion in fiscal year 2026 and is on track to borrow even more before the year is over.
marketplace.org
This year's budget deficit has almost reached $2 trillion. It's not over yet.
The U.S. has already surpassed its 2025 budget deficit with about a month and a half left to go in its fiscal year. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the government is on track to borrow m...
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Paul Blinkhorn @paulblinkhorn.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Last night was baseball's "field of dreams" game, an homage to a movie revolving around men banned for life from baseball for match-fixing on behalf of gambling syndicates, brought to you by *checks notes* the gambling company Fanduel. Why DO people think Americans don't understand irony? :)
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
The Arctic is warming >2x the global average. So naturally, the response is to defund the scientists documenting it. “I don’t like the evidence, therefore we should stop collecting it” is an increasingly familiar political strategy for dealing with climate change. eos.org/research-and...
eos.org
Government Pulls Funding for the Arctic Report Card - Eos
The Trump administration is pulling funding from NOAA’s Arctic Report Card, an annual, peer-reviewed report about the state of the region, which is warming more quickly than anywhere else on Earth.
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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
“At immigration court for detained children in New York City on Wednesday, a boy named Diego represented himself in front of the judge, Lisa Ling.” "I don’t know how to do it,” he said about an asylum form he was asked to fill out in English. “I don’t know if you can help me fill it out.”
documentedny.com
11 Years Old. In Immigration Court. Alone. No Lawyer.
More children than ever before are being forced to face immigration judges by themselves without legal representation, advocates say.
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
“Why is climate action so difficult?” Mainly because the people who benefit most from not acting just made $93 billion, about $700,000 per minute, in three months. www.theguardian.com/business/ng-...
theguardian.com
Revealed: major oil firms make $93bn profits amid war and climate crisis
Iran conflict windfall over three months reignites calls for companies ‘cashing in on human misery’ to pay for environmental damage
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andrew van dam @andrewvandam.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
citizens for joe kennedy 1988 still churnin' out six-figure investment returns! wild stuff from @markalfred.bsky.social www.notus.org/money/stock-...
Former Democratic Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II of Massachusetts, the elder brother of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has maintained his personal campaign committee — “Citizens For Joe Kennedy 1988” — as a de facto investment vehicle for more than 25 years after leaving office.

As Kennedy racked up “dividend income, interest income, quarterly portfolio appreciation, and capital gains,” the campaign repeatedly assured federal regulators in recent years that any expenses would be “for legal and accounting purposes in connection with keeping the committee open.”

The campaign, which did not respond to a request for comment, regularly pulls in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in investment income.

As of July 30, Kennedy’s old committee reported having more than $1.3 million in its account — after earning more than $129,000 between April 1 and June 30 from investments with Goldman Sachs, according to FEC records.Former Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, seen in 2024, continues to earn passive income through his technically active congressional campaign account despite him not serving in Congress since the late 1990s. Steven Senne/AP
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Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
theguardian.com
Daphne Caruana Galizia was investigating suspected corruption when killed, jury told
Journalist’s son says his mother was examining leak from Electrogas, part owned by Yorgen Fenech who is on trial
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