🧵THREAD 🧵As it's the start of a new year, there seems to be a lot more calls for freelance pitches about. If you're thinking of pitching for the first time, or wanted a refresher, here are some of the things I find useful. /1

First up, finding work – here's what I use to find calls for pitches each week. But you can easily search these yourself or set them up as columns in your TweetDeck. Use quote marks so it searches for the exact phrasing. /2

I also try to keep a note of places making call outs that I don't immediately have ideas for – they're probably going to be swamped fairly quickly, but now you know they have budget – and they'll be less swamped if you come back to them in a month with a belter of an idea. /3

In weird Covid times, this is also a really helpful spreadsheet from @studyhallxyz on who is and isn't accepting pitches atm. This kind of stuff is often just useful to give you ideas of places you didn't realise you could pitch. /4

If you can't find an editor's email address, my favourite tool is @EmailHunter which shows you the format of an email address at any organisation, so you can take a best guess. 50 free searches a month. /5

@guyyeomans @tazwake @DanielGDresner @ciaranmartinoxf @Tob1Leron @TheEPS1 1/ x Cc @DuncanChapple Long intake of breath as I realise I have recently started the wrong MSc....
@aj66inuk and I have been discussing that whilst the world has changed, some things have not. #Sabotage is an outdated concept unless you think that Cyber is an extension..

@tazwake @DanielGDresner @ciaranmartinoxf @Tob1Leron @TheEPS1 @DuncanChapple @aj66inuk 2/x an extension of what our former Cold War adversaries were trying to do to us. In 1982 Duncan Campbell spelled out where adversaries would try to attack us. But with Glasnost this became unfashionable and apparently unaffordable.

@tazwake @DanielGDresner @ciaranmartinoxf @Tob1Leron @TheEPS1 @DuncanChapple @aj66inuk 3/X Defector information in the public domain gave us some insights was to what the Warsaw Pact threat to our CNI might look like. Discussions with former adversaries, now Polish, (East) German and Czech allies wld be informative here.

@tazwake @DanielGDresner @ciaranmartinoxf @Tob1Leron @TheEPS1 @DuncanChapple @aj66inuk 4/X Believing there is a credible threat has always been our challenge here in UK. Understanding how a nation state adversary would come at us would be the next step.
It will be persistent, an adversary like the GRU will have been analysing our CNI for over 70 years

@tazwake @DanielGDresner @ciaranmartinoxf @Tob1Leron @TheEPS1 @DuncanChapple @aj66inuk 5/x They will have formed physical and logical plans to attack us. It some cases they may know our assets and our vulnerabilities better than we do. CARVER Shock is an old-school tool that gives an idea how they will come after us. You can apply

The problem with (and for) #SiliconValley is their lack of #entrepreneurship. Yes, really: they're bad at being entrepreneurs, at providing the entrepreneurial function in the economy. To put it differently, they are technology driven in their profit-seeking but not consumer

driven. The difference is monumental both for the economy and the companies, and this is why they're failing. No, failing doesn't mean they are necessarily losing money, but that their profits are short-term and that they are undermining their own market positions. The business

they are in is not sustainable. This goes way beyond the selling of eyeballs, which is the focus of Facebook, Twitter, Google, and others. As it's often said, if you are not the paying for the product you *are* the product. Facebook is selling you, and your future purchases, to

their advertisers. The service the company provides is to lure you in, keep you busy, and make sure you don't leave while they feed you ads and collect data on who you are. It's the same with Google's search, maps, etc. But my point is not this, but that the focus by these

technology companies, more broadly, is unentrepreneurial--that they have lost sight of the consumer and, therefore, the real value they facilitate. They're not entrepreneurial. This, in turn, explains their behavior in everything from attempting to steer, direct, if not censor

"Fail to prepare, prepare to fail" has gone from being an irritating statement trotted out on a training course to a description of the UK government's modus operandi. And as well as on covid restrictions we're seeing it in EU negotiations - deal or no-deal. And here's why... 1/

The UK's goal in EU negotiations is to declare victory / sovereignty. Sounds good. But the problem is that there will always be winners and losers in a big trade deal, because it covers everything and involves compromising with the other side. An immediate problem. 2/

Take fish, on which apparently talks are stuck. No deal means we regain full control of our waters. Victory! And sell the fish where? EU tariffs and checks. Not victory. So share waters? But then, defeat! Point being, if you don't explain, the result will disappoint. 3/

We don't want the EU setting our rules and regulations. So minimal sovereignty provisions. No-deal and victory! But then what about the car manufacturers no longer viable? Ok, compromise. But then no win on sovereignty, or perhaps call it "freedom clauses"... 4/

Northern Ireland, customs checks, rules of origin, security cooperation and so on... all inevitably to require compromise. But if your game was all about victory and sovereignty, then what? Not make a decision perhaps? 5/

The Global elite including bankers, politicians, scientists, royalty, presenters, CEOs, Billionaires and millionaires are pushing an agenda , let’s call it a story so complex it degrades over time and leaves many rabbit holes and loop holes in between the ‘whole story’.

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1⃣
The $600 Trojan Horse
1. $300,000,000 for Migrant and Refugee Assistance
2 $10,000 per person for student loan bailout
3. $100,000,000 to NASA, because, who knows why
4. $20,000,000,000 to the USPS, because why not
5. $300,000,000 to the Endowment for the Arts why stop here

Today’s GDP release, and in particular how the economy has adapted, a thread.👇

After 6 months of growth, the economy started shrinking again in November as tighter restrictions were in place. (Though there were variations across Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.) (1/n)

The economy shrank by 2.6% in November. In normal times this would be a significant downturn, but it is much smaller than the falls seen with the first restrictions in the spring: April GDP fell by around 20%. In that sense it is good news. But why the smaller fall? (2/n)

Firstly, some industries remain very depressed. Airlines (air transport in the chart) for example, were operating at very low levels in October so there wasn’t much further for their output to fall. This is different from the picture in Mar/Apr. (3/n)

The same is true, though perhaps less pronounced, for bars/restaurants and other parts of the service sector. (4/n)

Key Highlights from the Union Budget 2021, as presented by the Hon’ble Finance Minister.

Direct Taxes -
• Vivad Se Viswas Scheme Last Date of filing extended to 28th February 2021.
• Citizens of age 75 years and above who have only Pension and Interest income – Need not file👇

Income Tax Returns
• Re-opening of Assessment to reduced to 3 years from 6 years. Only where evidence of concealment of income of Rs. 50 lakhs or more – re-opening can be made up to 10 years & only with the approval of Pr.CCIT.
👇

• Reducing Litigation for small taxpayers – Constitution of Faceless Dispute Resolution Panel for people with Total Income up to Rs.50 lakh and disputed income of Rs.10 lakh
• Income Tax Appellate Tribunal to become Faceless – Only electronic communication will be done
👇

• Relaxation to NRIs – Rules to remove hardship of Double Taxation
• Tax Audit Limit to be increased to Rs.10 crores from Rs.5 crores for those having less than 5% cash transactions
• Dividend Tax- Dividend will be exempt from TDS. Advance tax liability on dividend income
👇

will arise only after the declaration or payment of the dividend. For Foreign Investors – a lower treaty rate benefit will be given.
• Affordable Housing – Additional Interest deduction (Sec 80EEA) of Rs.1.5 lakhs to be extended for loans taken till 31st March 2022.
👇

The French Govt has adopted its draft law on “strengthening Republican values” which has already provoked so much anger – & distortion, frankly – in parts of Muslim world & US media. At least now we can have a debate on what’s actually in the bill. Some thoughts post presser 1/

The text mentions no religion by name & will apply to all faiths but the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, presenting the law at a presser this afternoon, made it clear that “radical Islamism” – not Islam - was the intended target 2/

“This text is not aimed at any religion or at the Muslim religion specifically,” Castex said . “It’s a law of emancipation from religious fanaticism.” 3/

One person’s “fanaticism” is, of course, another person’s “devout faith”.  Parts of the draft law may be open to question or quibbling. But there is nothing, imo, that can be fairly described as an attack on Islam itself. 4/

Crucially, the Fr Govt has (after weeks of silence) remembered another key part of Macron’s speech in October which promised this new law. There will be new action - including more social housing, more widely spread - to relieve pressure on the struggling, multi-racial suburbs 5/

I think one way of looking at the economic pathologies of our society, without using words like 'capitalism' and 'rentiership', is to talk about inequities in the distribution of risk. Some have more taste for risk than others, sure, but risk is not distributed on this basis.

In the UK, so much of our political troubles come from the growth in the landlord class, who if nothing else, wield disproportionate power relative to their social worth: at one and the same time claim to be martyrs to the risk of investment, and demand these risks be minimised.

Of course, it's possible to make claims like this: e.g., nurses have every right to claim that they shoulder not merely more risk than most, but far more risk than is strictly necessary. The pandemic has made this brutally obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.

However one chooses to tally up compensation for this social role, be it financial, social, or some other privilege, it's pretty obvious that every last 'essential worker' is shouldering more societal risk than most non-essential workers compensated far better than they.

The way this trade off gets (implicitly) articulated as 'pay vs. purpose' is one of the enduring insights of @davidgraeber's Bullshit Jobs. Yet there are many essential workers who don't even get the illusion of purpose in compensation for personal risk (e.g., warehouse staff).

Originally posted Jan 5th - https://t.co/Vim3JlOtlZ

FULTON CO.

We're looking at "book votes." That is, people who are marked as having voted in the voter rolls. This is how Floyd County was detected - you had an excess of voters in the book vs. what was recorded on machines.

Jan 5th I mapped the book votes visually at a precinct level and found curious correlations that bears public scrutiny.

Screencaps are not from a public site, but underlying data given is real, public, and verifiable.

We'll be taking a precinct-by-precinct look at Fulton county excess votes. Excess meaning more recorded votes than book.

Fulton has 10K+ excess votes. This has been blamed on stale record keeping. At a precinct level, there are 14700 "excess" votes and 3900 "missing" votes.

This is a precinct map of Fulton County. There'll be a lot of data, so refer to these maps over and over until you understand. Here, the red and yellow/orange areas are where the most excess votes are (by ratio).

And for background context - this is a map showing where Trump votes are. This is a *relative* coloring not an absolute coloring (otherwise it'd be all blue). Fulton is strongly Democratic so the red areas are actually like 55% Trump at best whereas the blue areas are <5% Trump.

1) Get used to the following term: “budget reconciliation.”

This is the special parliamentary process President Biden and Congressional Democrats plan to use to advance the next coronavirus relief package. It will likely take a few weeks just to move such a COVID-19 measure.

2) But an understanding of the process may shed light on the policy – and the political realities of Capitol Hill.

President Biden and Democrats in Congress have long memories about how Republicans responded to big legislative initiatives in 2009.

3) The country reeled after the financial crisis. But many Republicans made a pact to reject a stimulus package to help boost the economy. Later that year and in early 2010, Republicans also voted nearly in lockstep against Obamacare.

4) Right or wrong, Democrats felt they waited for Republicans to help out. But were met with blockades and political opposition at every turn. Democrats are wary that they can count on GOP support this year. They still feel the sting of 12 years ago.

5) And that’s why Democrats may go it mostly alone on their next COVID-19 relief measure.

That’s where budget reconciliation kicks in.

Republicans are already complaining that Democrats aren’t working with them on the next COVID bill.

Thread on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact:

1. In August, 1939, Stalin called on the UK and France to form an anti-fascist alliance. It was only after they rejected this proposal that the USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to buy time in order to prepare for the war.

2. Getting sick and tired of gentrified "leftists" claiming that Stalin and Hitler "divided up Poland." What it meant was that either side crossing the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San would be seen as an invasion of the other country.

3. By the time the USSR entered Poland, the Polish government was already in exile and thus there was no Polish state. The Red Army's entry into Poland was therefore not an invasion.

4. Furthermore, the Polish government-in-exile declared war on Germany when it invaded Poland, but did not declare war on the Soviet Union when the Red Army entered. Additionally, the Polish Army was ordered to not fight the Soviets.

5. France had a mutual defense treaty with Poland, but it did not declare war on the Soviet Union. Another funny thing that people seem to forget is that prior to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a bunch of countries signed similar agreements with the Germany: UK, France, POLAND, etc