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."

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It’s often claimed that “The Concept of Autogynephilia and the Typology of Male Gender Dysphoria” by @BlanchardPhD has been debunked.

I thought it would be interesting to see, at a basic level, how the concept and typology compares to the DSM-5.

A. The definition of AGP.

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B. Transvestism is often accompanied by AGP.

C. The presence of AGP in transvestism increases the likelihood of [developing] Gender Dysphoria.

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D. Gender Dysphoria (GD) in natal males is categorized as either early-onset or late-onset.

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E. Natal males with early-onset GD are almost always androphilic. The majority of natal males with late-onset GD are gynephilic; additionally, they frequently [have histories of] engaging in transvestic behavior with sexual excitement.

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F. In many cases of natal males with late-onset GD, transvestic behavior with sexual excitement is a precursor to their GD.

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

Re reopening schools, @BorisJohnson & @Keir_Starmer haven't thought this through: they just want too-early reopening 1/

Schools need to be made SAFE b4 reopening & that means more than giving teachers half of a vaccination. 2/

The stats & graphs are clear: Covid cases increased via schools after reopening in September & cases are now increasing in nurseries, left open since Xmas. 3/

Why hurt or kill more people by reopening schools too soon? We need to ensure safety FIRST. 4/

How to make schools SAFE? I’m not an expert but, unlike @BorisJohnson or @Keir_Starmer, I can apply commonsense. Here are my suggestions. 5/

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We had suspected that we have a number of families who were not on our usual radar who are really struggling, who are soldiering on and not claiming anything or asking for support through the usual channels... including not claiming FSM.

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We decided to phone every family today, just to check in.
15 calls in so far.. 8 families who need help. Who DESPERATELY need help. Food, mortgages, rent, petrol... many in fear of losing their house... jobs... marriages...

3/
Families telling their children that Santa is in quarantine because they can't afford presents...

4/
Parents in tears as they tell us that they haven't told anyone because they are desperately trying to keep it together, to manage... because they know that there are others who are 'so much more worse off than us'...

5/
We are taking immediate action... food parcels, gifts for the kids, signposting to financial support, getting them to sign up for FSM, giving them the 'free data' cards we got from Vodaphone, giving them the details (again) to the county council Winter Grant hub...

Unite the Union’s Executive Council meets tomorrow to receive a report on the union’s hugely over-budget Birmingham Conference Centre and Hotel Project. Here are ten questions that should be asked and answered:

1. What is the full cost up to the present date of Unite the Union’s Birmingham Conference Centre and Hotel project?

2. What will be the total and final cost of Unite the Union’s Birmingham Conference Centre and Hotel project when it is completed?

3. Who prepared the budget for the Unite’s Bham building project; what was the planned cost, timetable and completion date, how and when was this agreed by the union?

4. Who has approved subsequent increases in costs for Unite’s Bham building project, and how and when were these cost increases reported to the union’s Executive?

Whenever something bad happens, people talk about passing a raft of new laws to stop it when the problem is law enforcement actively ignores the laws we already have to address these problems, especially when the perpetrators are white and/or rich.

The problem is not a lack of laws, it's a lack of enforcement.

"More laws!" is a way of looking like they're doing something instead of addressing the elephant in the room, which is that more and more restrictive laws will only end up being weaponized against Black, poor, and other marginalized people.

Because white men, especially those with money and political power, will continue getting a slap on the wrist even when committing crimes that would get someone else a lifetime in prison or shot dead in the street.

Black activists have been pointing this out for years. The impetus behind "defund" was the recognition that white supremacy is baked into to the entire justice system and cannot be fixed without ripping it up by the roots.

Now onto a astrological point. The GREAT CONJUNCTION what a time to be alive‼️‼️ Dec 17th saturn move into Aquarius and Dec 19th Jupiter followed behind. Then finally these 2 giants planets will connect as exactly 0° Aquarius tomorrow. This will free the 3d world from us that has

[THREAD] There's a lot of talk about divisiveness and unity right now. The country is at a low point and if you take the politics out of it, it is an opportunity for each of us to take a hard look at how we contribute to both divisiveness and unity. I've been thinking about /1

all the times that I retweeted something snarky, posted a meme that reinforced stereotypes about 'the other side', used words that I would never say in front of my mother or my child, and generally just gave into visceral, knee-jerk reactions to things I disagreed with. /2

That's not to say there wasn't plenty of crap that deserved strong pushback and loud protesting. It's our role as citizens to not only elect our representatives but also hold them accountable. The vitriol is optional, and I chose it more often than not. I don't know if I can /3

really change, but it's clear to me that I should at least try not to make things worse. I am a very different person now compared to 2016, capable of a sort of hatred I'd reserved for very few people I personally knew who did things I considered unforgivable. Not this. /4

Not hatred for a group of strangers who oppose what I believe in, just as I oppose what they believe in. Some may be vile, despicable, truly dangerous people. Most are probably not. I have led a privileged life. Born in comfort from parents who encouraged critical thinking, /5

Dear all pl pay attention to this thread, I received an article on whatsapp sent by my friend @Qamarcheema Sahab, written by Major Adil (@soldierspeaks) about Sikhs & 1984 State Sponsered Genocide by the then @INCIndia Government, below are my observations and Questions.

Thank you for sharing @Qamarcheema.
Your Major needs a good reality check. His observation are devoid of facts and appear more like a propaganda. Is this guy appears to be disillusioned.

Questions to Adil:
•Name one Non Muslim Prime Minister in Pakistan.

• Name one Non Muslim President

• Name one Non Muslim Chief of Army Staff.

• Name one Non Muslim Corps Commander

• Name one Non Muslim Chief Minister of a Province

• Name one Non Muslim Governer of a Province

• Name one Non Muslim Policy Maker in Pakistan.

• Why are Non Muslim Businesses being targeted in Pakistan?

• Why are Non Muslim Girls abducted and forcefully married?

• Why are Non Muslim families deprived Basic Citizens Rights in Pakistan?

• Who is Mian Abdul Haq, AKA "Mian Mitthu" ? What's his role in Conversions

"Mitthu Mian", of Bharchundi Shareef Dargah is he not notorious for forced conversion and abduction? Was he not a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013?

You made him a law maker? Isn't that astonishing?

The most frustrating aspect of working in computational probability/statistics is that it's basically impossible to construct algorithms that actually return well-defined probabilistic quantities and this results in no end of chaos.

At best algorithms can return approximations with quantifiable error, but to understand when approximations are useful you have to learn enough math to understand the exact result and how the algorithmic approximation relates to that exact result. Many do not do this.

More commonly programmers project the heuristics that prove successful in other computing problems -- pattern matching, type consistency, unit testing, relying on compiler errors, etc -- but these test only the algorithm and not the relevance of the algorithm to a stats problem.

Unaware of these subtleties many end up conceptually replacing the algorithm for the output being approximated, assuming that algorithmic properties are inherent and well-defined features of the underlying probabilistic/statistical system.

Needless to say this generalizes...poorly. Even worse: without formal knowledge of what is being approximated the poor generalization performance itself is easy to ignore and naive applications drift ever so steadily away from any well-defined mathematical objective.

An online minor sexual abuse racket has been busted by the CBI today.
This is part of an ongoing investigation.
The leader of the gang was arrested from his house in Srinagar. He is being produced in court.
The racket operated and targeted minors online.

Thread begins.

CBI says that they have recently traced and arrested another accused from Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh on November 16.
The man is accused of sexually abusing at least 50 minors from the districts of Chitrakoot, Banda & Hamirpur (Uttar Pradesh).
Searches are on across India.

CBI isn't revealing how they got to know about these rackets but sources confirm that they got to know about them while pursuing an "ongoing case" which is under investigation.
A huge cache of data in pen drives, laptops, external hard drives have been recovered from both accused

The accused in Uttar Pradesh used to sell the pornographic material online on dark web. The transactions have been traced.
The man in Srinagar had a conduit, a woman, in Washington DC, and both used to engage in blackmailing minor girls from the USA with incriminating materials.

As per CBI: The accused's partner is living in Washington DC.
"The accused was allegedly operating through his wife, who had agreed to be involved in Master - Slave relationship with the accused and on his direction, she allegedly exploited multiple minors, recorded these abuses"

It’s frightening slash amazing to watch what topics men can write and speak on, whilst people defend their right to free speech versus which topics women can’t write and speak on whilst people call for them to be killed, sacked, silenced and abused.

Misogyny is alive and well.

Male academics and theorists: Black people have smaller brains. Women need their wombs ripping out. People with disabilities should be locked up. Kill female foetuses. Women bring rape on themselves

World: wow that’s so insightful and thought provoking, we should totally listen

Female academics and theorists: we need to have clear discussions about topics which are controversial, and women need to be able to talk freely and openly about theories and policies without fear of violence or death

World: shut the fuck up you ugly stupid c*nt k1ll yourself

Like we are literally STILL platforming men from all different disciplines who pushed some of the most dangerous and abusive practices, theories and thoughts about groups of people and no one is saying shit. No one is removing them from curriculums or calling for their deaths

But all hell breaks loose when a woman says she has a view on a highly debated and contested theory.

Sorry but I’m not seeing men get silenced, sacked, threatened or abused for arguing about theories. Even the pro-paedophile academics get an easier time than female academics

⭐️ What We Learned ⭐️

1: 2020, a thread. Like everyone, B4B faced countless curve-balls in 2020. Here are some things we learned, that helped us increase our influence in the toughest year we have lived through /

2: Act quickly: As Covid fears grew, we had a contingency plan ready by March 2, long before lockdown was a threat. By March 12, work from home was a thing, and on March 15 we closed the office completely /

3: Put the team first: In a crisis, you need the team more than ever. We got our staff from overseas back home early, trialled work-from-home early, put health (inc mental health) and working policies in place early, so everyone was clear what was happening /

4: Use the tech. Our team was already using Zoom, Slack and various other tools but they really came into their own to do the heavy lifting of working remotely, before the Covid nervousness became a full-blown crisis /

5: Keep the team vibe: Daily team Zooms – a huddle to get things going in the morning, an update in the afternoon, & always a willingness to use some of the time for social chit-chat & the small-talk that we take for granted in an office. /

Lots of upset Hollywood Stalinists calling my representatives and demanding to know why they still represent me.

This is how they work, people.

But since I'm already rich, they can't hurt me. It's the aspiring artists they destroy, either mentally, by making them afraid 1/

I've gotten questions about whether to emphasize U-6 as the "true unemployment rate". It is currently 11.1%.

I don't because I think the concept doesn't add much, it misses how unusually bad the labor market is now, is analytically flawed, and can be misleading.

Thread:

The official unemployment rate is 6.3%. It is unemployed (people looking for work) divided by the labor force (working or looking for work).

U-6 is 11.1%, it adds in "marginally attached" (discouraged workers & would take a job if it came along) and involuntary part-time.

DOESN'T ADD MUCH. U-6 is one of several alternative unemployment concepts produced monthly by the BLS. They are all useful to look at. But they also all pretty much up and down together so they rarely tell much of a different story.

MISSES HOW UNUSUALLY BAD THE LABOR MARKET IS NOW. The last time U-6 was around 11.1% the unemployment rate was 5.7%. If anything based on historic relationships U-6 makes the labor market seem bad (like in 2015) but not terrible (like in 2012).

The reason is that a large part of U-6 is part time for economic reasons (aka involuntary part time). This is up but actually not up an unusually large amount given the increase in unemployment. We've seen a lot of jobs lost but people with jobs, on average, working longer.