BC SOCIETY
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

Alright, time to stop ignoring the J6 discourse...

It is necessary to confront the Proud Boys because the Proud Boys are only coming to DC to fight "antifa," and if there are no antifascists there, they will simply assault whoever they determine is "antifa."

 Because the Proud Boys are racist, sexist homophobes, this generally ends up being racial, ethnic, or sexual minorities.

This happens and the police allow this to happen. Some form of pushback is necessary.
The Proud Boys exist only to create violence. They are not a drinking club, they are a militant political wing of the Republican Party, and their mission is to generate a cultural notion of right wing immunity.
This is the violent obverse of the same coin that has the Republican Party's other immunities on the reverse: the ability to tamper with elections, engage in financial fraud, ignore the Constitution, and in general participate in corruption.
However, while the Proud Boys must be confronted, we must also recognize that their entire raison d'être is that antifa also shows up to face this confrontation.
Therefore, we can hold two positions simultaneously:

- that it is necesssary to confront the acute, instantaneous threat the Proud Boys represent;
- that the sustained, cumulative threat is not mitigated by these instantaneous confrontations.
For the past three+ years people have been fighting the Proud Boys from Charlottesville to Portland and everyplace in between.

While this helps safeguard those communities in those moments, there is no outcome-based lens in which this represents sustained progress
Progress is not represented as a sum of parts. Fighting off the Proud Boys one day does very little to discourage them from coming back another day, despite it being necessary to fight them off in the first place.
Proud Boys and their affiliates have been fought, arrested, stabbed, shot, and killed at events, but this has not dampened their enthusiasm to commit more violence.

And, as I said, not showing up will also not dampen that enthusiam, either.
What we need is a more comprehensive strategy for addressing the threat of fascist street violence that exists in the moments in between their actions.

Some of this exists--doxing campaigns and other activism does have some effect, but it is not enough.
So we cannot claim the threat is gone if antifascists don't show up. That would be catastrophic.

But also we cannot claim that showing up is winning, even when that moment is won.
The Alt-Right was devastated partly because people showed up to oppose them in the streets, but also partly because of numerous arrests, doxes, and immense lawsuits.
The Alt-Right also found the idea of dominating their enemies fun, but it turned out a bunch of pencil-neck twenty-somethings couldn't dominate so much in the street.
It stopped being fun for them when their crows of 12 attendees didn't meet their vision of grandeur AND they went and got their asses kicked anyways and then got arrested for doing a terrorism, and then got sued to oblivion.
For the Proud Boys, they enjoy the street combat. So to fight the Proud Boys we need not just a strategy for J6, but a strategy for J7 and beyond.
Anyhow, the Proud Boys have changed very little since I covered them and their violence a couple years ago for PRA:

https://t.co/bgSaceID4i

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Emily of the State
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@EmilyGorcenski
Ok so there’s a conspiracy theory going around that this woman was faking her injury with an onion.

This is likely false. Onions are a folk remedy for pepper spray.


The theory, which has some merit, is that since onions make you cry, it helps flush the irritants from your eyes with natural tears.

However, this is not recommended as a treatment for pepper spray and is ultimately not very effective.

Pepper spray, tear gas, mace, CN, HC, and other agents are best removed with a flush of water or, if you have the proper mixture, saline. Nothing else.

We do not do chemistry in our eyeballs. We are not putting chemicals in our eyes. We are not putting produce in our eyes. We are removing the chemicals with safe, neutral water.
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Emily of the State
Emily of the State
@EmilyGorcenski
This is premature, but I want to walk you though why some of the charges coming through are incredible significant. This is one of the recently unsealed complaints.


1512(b) is a very, very strong crime. Section 1512 is about obstruction of the administration of justice. The statute is supposedly about disrupting court proceedings, but it's broader. The way it's written, Congressional Proceedings count.

The statutory maximum for a single violation of 1512(b) is 20 years in prison. That's a lot. Most related federal crimes—231 civil disorder, 2101 riots—are only 5 years on the top end.

But that's not all.

See, federal sentencing is done via a complicated formula that computes sentencing guidelines.

Sentencing guidelines are based on the statute, the elements of the criminal offense, and the defendant's criminal history. It also factors in things like if the defendant takes responsibility, and takes a plea deal, etc.
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Emily G
Emily G
@EmilyGorcenski
Having spent a lot of time over the past several years thinking about and studying ethics in technology, the more I am convinced that the discussions about ethics in technology have a major, irreconcilable blind spot.

“If you are neutral in the face of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” as Desmond Tutu summarized.

Our discussion about eliminating bias in AI is an aggressive march towards neutrality. Our measure of fairness is a line drawn too early.

Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to eliminate bias in AI. Maybe we should be designing for bias in the favor of the oppressed. Worth thinking about.

Should we be eliminating power dynamics or inverting power dynamics? If we try to scrub power dynamics from a system too early in a neatly bounded space, we just let those power dynamics to creep back in, or we need those boundaries to be impenetrable.

My next ethics talk may just be a single slide that says REVOLUTION
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Emily of the State
Emily of the State
@EmilyGorcenski
I know we’re all enamored with the new Christmas tradition of blowing up an entire city block on Christmas Day, so I must join the chorus of concerned folks who worry that if we don’t provide a forum for people who want to blow up city blocks, a vital Xmas tradition will be lost.

If we don‘t let angry white men blow up city blocks, then we will lose so many other vital liberties. How can you connect with other people exploring gender, if your city blocks aren’t blowing up?

I’m here today to honor those dead in the latest Target mass shooting, a tragic but necessary cost of our freedoms, without their sacrifice we might not be able to express displeasure at our cable companies.

^ this is what y’all sound like

The digital freedom movement has not proposed a single solution for dealing with Nazi murder and has essentially decided that that is not its problem.
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Emily of the State
Emily of the State
@EmilyGorcenski
Here's the challenge with disrupting militia plots: most militia dudes are Dunning-Kruger levels of incompetent, but not Dunning-Kruger levels of dangerous.

So the problem is that militia culture is wrapped up in this sort of virtue signalling nonstop. It's all around trying to project yourself as a leader, a military expert, a tactical master, based entirely on what you've read in Tom Clancy novels

So a militia might say things like, alright, here's the plan. We're gonna get 1000 guys, and we're gonna set up a barricade at each of the three entrances to the statehouse, and then we're gonna neutralize the security forces.

Super scary stuff! Just one problem.

Where are they gonna get 1000 guys? How are they going to implement a Command and Control structure for 1000 guys? What are they gonna make the barricades out of?

This requires a high-level of coordination and logistics support that they really just don't actually have the talent or network for. Let alone that the number of guys they claim is always a factor of 100 larger than the number of guys who actually guy.
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Nearly a year ago, the Tablighi Jamaat controversy took over India’s media. Around 3,500 foreign nationals had visited India to attend the Tablighi Jamaat event at the Nizamuddin Markaz Mosque in Delhi.

With the lockdown being announced on March 24, 2020, several attendees had moved to different parts of the country to attend smaller gatherings in local mosques.

Around 960 foreign nationals were held at quarantine and in states like UP, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc. were sent straight to prison.

There was an outpour of Anti-Muslim bigotry in much of Indian news media with this event where it ramped up its demonisation of the community.

For weeks, the attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat event were named the “super-spreaders” of COVID and in several cases, Maulana Mohammad Saad was called a terrorist and “the maulana of death”.
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1/OK, I should really write another thread about university-centric regional development, because I think people often make some (very understandable) mistakes when thinking about this issue.

2/The biggest myth, I think, is that universities help regions by educating locals as undergraduates.

Skeptics of universities say: "But most of the people who graduate end up leaving."

3/In fact, most of what a university does for a regional economy is NOT about educating local kids.

Educating local kids is good for the nation, but doesn't help a region much.

The way a university helps a region is through

4/Undergraduates usually leave town after graduation.

But university RESEARCH pulls in OTHER smart people from other regions, and they stay there.

Here's a paper showing that this is the main way universities increase a region's human capital:

5/Research also pulls in business investment.

Companies want to partner with university labs, so they can commercialize the technologies the labs produce. So they invest in the labs, and sometimes they even put their offices in the town.
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Twitter Data
Twitter Data
@TwitterData
r u abbreving less rn?

Since the switch to 280 characters a year ago, we've seen an increase in people writing out full words and phrases.


All about the please and thank you.

With 280 characters, people are saying 'please' (+54%) and ‘thank you’ (+22%) more.

THANKS!!!!

💬💬💬

280 characters later, there are more ? and replies to Tweets. More room, more conversations!
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For those of us suffering & dying in Texas, the sociopathy of @GOP that leads to an astonishing lack of concern about our lives by evil folk like @GregAbbott_TX @GovernorPerry @TuckerCarlson @DanCrenshawTX et al who blatantly lie about what’s happening...1

...just to score political points - and protect the profits of energy companies - is almost incomprehensible. These are people who would claim Social Security caused 9/11 if it was convenient. What caused this catastrophe is vast vast majority from gas, then coal/nuclear...2

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George Monbiot
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I’ve just finished some research about the use of biosolids (human sewage sludge) as farm manure. The results will keep me awake at night.
¾ of biosolids in the UK are spread on farmland. The rules about what it can contain are not fit for purpose. Please read and share this 🧵

Biosolids typically contain a wide range of synthetic chemicals, including antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, personal care products, microplastics and persistant organic pollutants, among them “forever chemicals”. Yet testing is restricted to a small number of contaminants.

Spreading them across the land means spreading them through the foodchain and the ecosystem. There’s plenty of evidence of uptake of many of these chemicals by crops, earthworms and other soil animals, and of large-scale antibiotic resistance developing among soil bacteria.

When soil is blown or washed off the land, these chemicals enter the air and water. Some seep into groundwater. We're likely to eat, drink and breathe them. It’s hard to say what the health thresholds are, or what the combined impact of this cocktail of synthetics might be.

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On digging a beautiful Vigraham of Murugan was found, but lower portion was very rough. So he called a great sculptor to soften it. Everyone was shocked to see that on the first chisel the vigraham bleeded.


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The first area to focus on is diversity. This has become a dogma in the tech world, and despite the fact that tech is one of the most meritocratic industries in the world, there are constant efforts to promote diversity at the expense of fairness, merit and competency. Examples:

USC's Interactive Media & Games Division cancels all-star panel that included top-tier game developers who were invited to share their experiences with students. Why? Because there were no women on the

ElectronConf is a conf which chooses presenters based on blind auditions; the identity, gender, and race of the speaker is not known to the selection team. The results of that merit-based approach was an all-male panel. So they cancelled the conference.

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Temple is known as Sabarimala of Women

Thiruvairanikulam Mahadeva Temple is situated on the banks of the Periyar River. Siva Temple has a separate sannidhi for Parvathi Devi which will be open only for 12 days a year


The Nadathurappu Mahothsavam happens every year on Malayalam month of Dhanu. On opening day, a grand procession starting from Akavoor Mana carries the ornaments of Devi to the temple. Swayamvara Archana is the main pooja here to clear the obstacle in marriages.
Legend is that 👇


Vigraham existed in another place called Iranikulam. A Namboodiri of Sreemoolanagaram used to visit the Iranikulam temple regularly. Akavoor Chathan, a boatman will take him to the Iranikulam temple and back. Because of Bhakthi of Namboodiri, Shiva traveled with him to his place.


Akavoor Chathan identified Siva chaitanyam and their family built a temple here. Parvati devi herself will cook Nevidyam here for Shiva, which was witnessed by a priest. Devi was angry at this and decided to leave the place. But when the priest offered his sincere apology👇


Devi blessed him and told that she will be present here 12 days in a year. Thus the period which begins from Thiruvathirai Day in Dhanu is known as the Nadathurappu festival.
Temple Nada opens today night.
Picture credit: Google.
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1/OK, I should really write another thread about university-centric regional development, because I think people often make some (very understandable) mistakes when thinking about this issue.

2/The biggest myth, I think, is that universities help regions by educating locals as undergraduates.

Skeptics of universities say: "But most of the people who graduate end up leaving."

3/In fact, most of what a university does for a regional economy is NOT about educating local kids.

Educating local kids is good for the nation, but doesn't help a region much.

The way a university helps a region is through

4/Undergraduates usually leave town after graduation.

But university RESEARCH pulls in OTHER smart people from other regions, and they stay there.

Here's a paper showing that this is the main way universities increase a region's human capital:

5/Research also pulls in business investment.

Companies want to partner with university labs, so they can commercialize the technologies the labs produce. So they invest in the labs, and sometimes they even put their offices in the town.
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