Hello new followers! Can I introduce you to some of @RSF_inter’s other priority cases? They all deserve much more attention and support! Thread.

#DaphneCaruanaGalizia was a courageous Maltese journalist assassinated by a car bomb near her home in October 2017. More than three years on, there’s still been no justice for Daphne or the extensive corruption she had uncovered. Some background here:

We are working to support her family’s campaign for #JusticeforDaphne. Follow @daphnefdtn, her sons @mcaruanagalizia, @acaruanagalizia & @pcaruanagalizia, her sisters @Corinne_Vella & @MandyMallia, and her niece @meg_mallia. @TheShiftNews is also an excellent resource.

For the best overview, listen to #DaphneCaruanaGalizia’s son @pcaruanagalizia’s incredibly moving podcast, My Mother’s Murder.

Christopher Allen was a 26 year-old freelance journalist, and dual US/UK national, who was killed covering the civil conflict in South Sudan in August 2017. More than three years on, there’s still been no investigation and no justice.

Breaking News Here a must see confession from a paid actor in tonight’s fresco playing everywhere @SidneyPowell1 @realDonaldTrump @GenFlynn @CodeMonkeyZ @LightworkerCain @Thomas1774Paine @BlancoSombrero @Qanon76 @VincentCrypt46 @Hulkanator11

A short thread on how face masks work, why we wear masks *to protect other people from ourselves* and not the other way around, & why wearing face-shields without a mask, masks with valves, or masks that hang open on the bottom or sides IS ACTUALLY DANGEROUS FOR EVERYONE ELSE...

I am going to start off by citing from a great paper by @trishgreenhalgh about the benefits of mask wearing, which you can read in full here:

Masks can work in 2 ways: protecting the wearer, & protecting other people from exhalations emitted by the wearer. Surgical grade masks are supposed to do both. They block out small particles emitted by the source, AND they filter those particles out from other emissions

For cloth masks, however, they are not so good at filtering out tiny particles which can contain viruses. But what they are good at doing is limiting the large droplets people give off when they breathe or cough – before they become aerosolised.

This means when you wear a cloth mask, the most important role that it plays is not protecting you from other people's exhalations but *protecting them from yours*. @trishgreenhalgh calls this 'source control' i.e. 'protects other people from droplets emitted by the wearer'

1) Top US intelligence expert on China explains how CCP combines spying with political influence operations by targeting "soft targets" like politicians. @neftimiades

2) The Chinese op against @ericswalwell "showed how the Chinese regime is willing to invest in the long game—targeting local officials who might become state or national representatives years down the line. It’s a strategy ... that 'can really be devastating to another country.'"

3) "By targeting politicians, Fang was gaining access to those who might shape the United States’ policies toward China.

"'When you have access to that, why do you need classified information?' @neftimiades said."

Some preliminary thoughts and questions about policing. All thoughts welcome, but especially thoughts from professional police officers, criminologists, sociologists, and people who've studied policing around the world:

I take as given that we need the police and will need them so long as the human species remains recognizably human. For any population x, some percentage will be dangerous predators, and without the police, we'll all be the prey.

We need the police. In principle, everyone should feel grateful to the men and women who do the difficult and dangerous work of finding and apprehending predators and bringing them before a court of law.

Yet in practice, it seems there's an immense public uneasiness with the police that it by no means confined to the US. The attacks on the police yesterday in France shocked and disgusted me. There's no possible justification for it.

Yet it's important to understand what the perpetrators were telling themselves about why they sought to kill the men who in principle protect them. The scenes represented a breakdown of some kind in both public trust and public discipline.

@6loss I think Stallman's politics is left and libertarian (where libertarian is "extreme liberal"). The intuition most of us had originally is that with enough freedom, the good drives out the bad. As you know, I think we might be discovering that that is "wrong" in some sense ... \1

But it's still a viable and attractive intuition.

And, yes, the GPL etc. is built on that. So freedom is more important than trying to constrain people to do good.
\2

Furthermore ... pragmatically, this appeal to pure freedom clearly engages and recruits more people than if Stallman had tried to use GPL to enforce his own wider political views. You have "right-libertarians" (ESR, or Lessig) on-board with GPL. \3

Finally, I think there is a question whether you could legally codify and enforce restrictions on use. GPL is all about hacking existing copyright law and its definition of "derivative". Because derivation is a well established legal idea, that bit is "easy". \4

Obviously other things like CC or GPL Affero start putting more restrictions (Eg. non-commercial, or "can't use the software on a server without sharing") which push the envelope a bit. I'm sure others have tried to put restrictions eg. "can't use for military" into licenses \5

1. Sat. 16 Jan. Rumor Mills Situation Report:

Conservative MP calls for nationwide rollout of vitamin D tablets, a Spanish region saw an 82% drop in covid deaths after handing out vitamin D.

Polls show 2/3 of Republicans believe the insurrection was a false flag operation, which is psychologically no different than believing the Earth is flat or that highly evolved dinosaurs who survived the asteroid now control world governments from a secret base on the moon. 1/10

Humans are motivated reasoners, and all conspiracy theories begin with a motivation stronger than the pursuit of accuracy (often a fear of authority or sense of powerlessness), in this case, the motivation is to assuage cognitive dissonance in service of reputation management. 2/

The events at the Capitol formed two competing attitudes in the brains of many Republicans: [It is good to be a Trump supporter ]/ [Trump supporters seem like bad people.] That dissonance can be assuaged by simply believing that the people who did this aren't Trump supporters. 3/

Once committed to a dissonance-reducing causal narrative, one gets trapped in The Conspiratorial Loop -- all evidence to the contrary is part of the conspiracy, and any lack of evidence is part of a coverup. There is no bottom-up escape, only top-down via metacognition. 4/10

The good news it that you can encourage that metacognition in others. The most important thing is to avoid facts, abstractions, and conclusions. Focus on the other person’s processing instead. In psychology they call it “technique rebuttal” as opposed to “topic rebuttal." 5/10

PRUs and AP - A thread on the impact of the current situation....
Let’s start by saying that I don’t want us to be closed to any child at all, I want every pupil in accessing their education; but I want that to be done safely for children, staff and the wider community...

When the government announced a delay to pupils returning to school PRUs and AP were not included; then organisations like @prusapuk and beyond applied pressure to have this rolled back, we can now work with parents for the first week. Whatever that means...

Here’s a few of the reasons why PRUs and APs must be treated equally:
Firstly, the view that all of our pupils are somehow vulnerable at home is disrespectful to our families. They did amazingly during the first lockdown and would do the same again; the same as any other family!

IT access is an issue, but we have had good engagement with online learning when bubbles have closed and this shouldn’t, in my view, be used as a balance against safety and health! There are ways around it....

My experience is that we have a higher number of families living in 3 generation households than many mainstreams; pupils with elderly grandparents living with them! Protecting these families is crucial to protecting lives and the NHS capacity.

1. "The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves;...

Astrology in Tibet and its influences, follow the thread below:

1. Tibetan Astrology is a diverse and complex phenomenon. Tibet, as an ancient kingdom of monarchical regime before the invasion and Chinese domination in itself, was isolated due to its location inaccessible by the predominantly mountainous relief.

2. Tibet received many influences from other peoples, as it was parallel to the "Silk Road", which went from Europe (in the Italic Peninsula), crossed the Mediterranean, and reached China. It received a predominant influence from Vedic culture due to Buddhism and, amalgamating +

3. the local shamanic culture and its local religion later suppressed to conversion (the ancient Bön, currently the tradition "Yungdrung Bön"), also incorporated Chinese elements of Astronomy, Astrology and Medicine Traditional Chinese.

4. The fact is that, roughly speaking, Tibetan Astrology is not unified, but composed of three systems that work in parallel:

Remembering Vaclav Havel

"The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world?"

#WomenWontWheesht

"I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions."

"That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be."

"If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life."

Got yer pronouns on yer profile and in yer email signatures, boys and girls?

Don't want tae be accused a being *disloyal* dae ye!

Got get on, keep that salary coming in. Wullnae daere upset the wee plooky ranty tyrannical 15 year auld son a the boss, eh!

#WomenWontWheesht

THREAD
We have been sent these screenshots from a Facebook group of teachers unofficially affiliated with a major union.

We are disturbed to see this misinformation and lack of understanding of safeguarding being circulated.

We agree that it is important for school staff to be mindful of any trans-identified student in their care, suffering from mental distress (or any students experiencing mental distress for whatever reason).

We understand that the #KeiraBell case will have caused distress to some, especially given the dangerous narrative being irresponsibly pushed that this will make children suicidal and was an attack on their rights, not an action to safeguard and protect them.

The opening paragraph displays bias and a lack of knowledge of latest scientific discussions.
This latest critique casts serious doubts on ‘affirmation’ and “Puberty blockers” being in children’s best

There have been many calls for reviews. The review headed by @Hilary_Cass is finally getting underway. We are awaiting to see what is revealed, particularly in regards to the causes of the exponential rise of young girls wishing to identify as boys.

When she was a child, her dream was to be an artist. She would chew her lip, and grip her crayon far too tightly as she tried to stay within the lines.

“Be practical,” her father said.

“Enjoy art in your spare time. Work hard. Then, maybe someday.”

Maybe someday. 1/

She puts on the vest that completes her uniform. At her last job she had a name badge, but not here.

Just the words “ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES” in block letters.

Her granddaughter once asked her if that meant she was saving the environment.

“Sort of, mija,” she laughed. 2/

She has been “Janitorial Staff,” “Hospital Housekeeping,” and “Cleaning Crew” over the years.

The job remains the same.

She gets the equipment ready on her cart. She is detail-oriented. Everything in its place.

The little walkie-talkie on her cart crackles to life. 3/

Her first assignment is a room cleaning.

It will be the first of many.

She is often under immense time pressure, as rooms must be cleaned before a new patient can use them.

It’s a time-consuming process, even though she has become extremely efficient at it.

Laborious. 4/

She makes her way into the elevator, maneuvering her equipment cart and the trash container on wheels.

There are two other people on the elevator. She says “good morning.”

One nods hello. The other doesn’t.

She’s learned not to expect thanks, but a hello would be nice. 5/