Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 02/11/2021

An explanation of what is going on with the Salmond enquiry.

Alex Salmond was the leader of the SNP and was first minister of Scotland, but he stepped down from this position after the SNP failed to secure the Scottish Referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon took his place.

Nicola was basically Salmonds underling and he was her mentor. They were very close.

Everything after this point is all speculation/allegations, so take everything with a pinch of salt until the facts come out.

If the SNP ever allow them to come out.

A rift had been growing for many years between Salmond and Sturgeon as he felt she was not progressing enough towards an independent Scotland, probably because the party focuses mainly on woke bullshit and hate crime laws for memes.

Salmond hinted a return to the party.

Around about this time, with very convenient timing, Salmond got MeToo'd by several women within the SNP, this resulted in a massive police investigation, seriously huge, with the cops interviewing around 400 people.

Salmond was charged with several counts of sexual assault.

The case goes to trial, which results in Salmond being aquitted of all charges.

This is usually where such things would end, but it turns out this exposed everyone to a rabbit hole of alleged corruption within the SNP at it's highest levels.

breaking my social media fast, which may or may not exist anymore, to share something i found really really helpful from today's therapy sesh. i figured out why i (we?) have so much trouble celebrating our wins

so ive been in therapy for 100 years. still anxious, but im pretty sure i was born that way so i'll stay that way. still depressed too, which i thought id be cured of by now. aa few sessions ago we talked about what i think a return to health 'should' look like

initially i figured itd look like being the person i was before i got depressed. energetic, not needing pep talks to do shit like go outside, cooking everyday, working out at least 30 mins at least 3 days a week, calling my mom everyday, etc.

that session i realized that im a completely different person than i was before i got depressed. also the world has changed a lot & things are just done differently now. not allowing for those things had me reaching for shit that was impossible.

so i make some concessions but say that i *still* want to be able to do some things that i dont want to do. like i cant just sit on the couch and never move in the name of accepting who i am, which is A Bitch Who Don't Like To Move. i still want to be able to eve if i dont want

The media issue a scathing, well-documented look at how much money US Catholic dioceses raked in under Trump's pandemic relief initiative, and watch the response in Catholic circles, Catholic media, among many Catholic laity. /1

It's a variant of the VERY SAME response used repeatedly by Catholic leaders to exonerate top-level responsibility for priests abusing minors and going unpunished.

The typical gambit now being used to justify the lavish feeding at the Trump trough: /2

Well, maybe dioceses were grabby and did not need all that money — look at the assets they're sitting on already — but poor, struggling parishes needed that money.

As if a parish is somehow disconnected from a diocese …. As if a parish is not integrally tied to a diocese. /3

As I say, this is a variant of the argument often advanced by Catholic leaders to justify doing nothing when a priest is known to be abusing minors: Well, he's only a hired employee on a contract. What does he have to do with us, with the bishop, with the chancellor? /4

The whole Catholic governing system is set up in a way that totally integrates parishes with dioceses. No parish and no parish priest can possibly function with independence from diocesan structures. Let a parish/parish priest try that, and see how quick the reprisal is. /5

1) Dreaded thread on why I think the response to postcritique is so vitriolic. Short version: Because literary studies is a discipline in search of an application.

2) Before I go on, I'll say from the outset that many in lit studies explicitly reject the idea that the field *should* have an application. My opinion is that's fine if you want to do book clubs, but if you want an institution you can't ignore that difficult issue. But anyway...

3) The evidence by this point is overwhelming that when lit scholars talk about 'method' we're actually just talking about ourselves: 'ways of reading,' 'how we argue,' 'phenomenology of reading,' etc. etc.

4) David Kurnick nicely illustrates this phenomenon:

5) But none of this is method discussion. Talking about ourselves, how we approach our objects of study, our motives and objectives, our commitments, etc. would be the *beginning* of a method convo in every other discipline. In lit studies it's the *end*, or the whole convo!

The Fast and the Furious is a 2001 action film directed by Rob Cohen and starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, and Paul Walker. The Fast and the Furious is first film in the The Fast and the Furious franchise, distributed by Universal Pictures.

The film was released June 22, 2001 and grossed $207.3 million. In 2003, The Fast and the Furious was followed by the sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious.

Brian O'Conner is an undercover Los Angeles copwho aspires to become a detective.

When he is tasked to stop hijackers led by Dominic Torettofrom stealing expensive electronics equipment off of trucks, Brian must choose between his obligation to the LAP and his friendship with Toretto after he becomes good friends with his family.

The film opens at a dockyard where a container is loaded onto the trailer of a semi-truck. The truck then departs the dockyard and one of the dock workers makes a phone call to an anonymous party on the other end, informing them on how to identify the truck.

Bellingcat and its investigative partners have established that Russian politician, Vladimir Kara Murza, was followed by a specialist FSB team prior to his suspected poisonings in 2015 and 2017.

Members of the same FSB team, some of whom have medical and chemical weapons backgrounds, tailed Alexey Navalny before he was poisoned with a Novichok substance in August 2020.

Kara-Murza is a well-known Russian politician, film-maker and an outspoken critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The circumstances around his suspected poisonings have long remained a mystery.

Travel details of FSB team members show they followed Kara-Murza on a campaign trip outside Moscow that ended less than 48 hours before his first poisoning incident in May 2015.

Kara-Murza recovered in the US before returning to Russia. Yet the same team began tailing him again just five months after he came back. He was poisoned for the second time in February 2017.

THREAD
The world is littered with hacks and quick fixes.

Magic routines, butter in our coffee, special supplements, exotic foods. All promising to transform our lives.

Nearly all of it is BS. Here are 12 science-backed "hacks" that actually work.

Read a Book.

An expert in their field has taken their vast knowledge and distilled it to what's most important. Writing forces you to make difficult decisions on what's important and what's not. Writing demands clarity. You're getting an expert's lifetime of work for $15.

Talk to people who know more.

The best way to "hack" knowledge? Have a conversation with those who are informed. They've done the hard part of figuring out of sorting through the mess of information AND making sense of it. Having a conversation brings clarity for application.

Show up, no matter what.

Day after day. Sit down to write. Get out to exercise. Whatever the task you're trying to master, just keep showing up.

If you show up enough, you'll get better.

Sleep.

Just getting your 8+ hours has enormous benefits from the psychological to physical. Sleep is when your body restores & grows with its highest output of growth hormones, & when your mind processes and coalesces information. Translating knowledge from superficial to deep

#UnEssentialHypertension

Having been placed on a SECOND blood pressure lowering drug a month ago, and reporting to the cardio some lightheadedness when I get up, and rather than discussing a dose or drug change being told to "stand up more slowly" has me working hard on 1/n

lowering BP and getting completely off the drugs.

First things first, I checked my median BP off drugs at two different weights, and sure enough, the more I weigh, the higher the home BP. At 186lbs, median BP is 144/88, max was 165/98. 2/n

Peaks (especially in the doctors office were labeled hypertensive crisis). At 162lbs, median BP is 124/79, max was 138/86. The question remains how high BP goes in the office (or at Red Cross) when I weigh less. 3/n

Weight goal is around 153, and I'm at 168± now, so primary objective is to reach goal weight and see if I can wean off the meds.

Second, sodium. I may be salt sensitive. I've added more sodium to my diet after reading a bunch on that and learning of some twitter peeps' 4/n

experiences. Ate light yesterday, took some extra salt, and gained nearly two pounds and my rings got tight. Next step is to reduce sodium load and see what happens.

Third, NO. I've been using a UVB light, and before the seasons turned getting decent sunlight. 5/n

Kangana's malady: An acute case of a right wing afflicted
===============================
I really feel sad for this lady. But it exposes a critical problem of a right wing mind. Of a life lived comparing.
Since she is in arts field. Let's take music which has distinct classes of

music e.g. Western classic or Hindustani/Carnatic Classical. A virtuoso in any one of these music forms will not seek to denigrate or compare one art against another. Actually, a good classical artiste won't even denigrate folk music. It is equally as hard to compose a great

bhakti poetry as it is to compose a spiritual shloka. One can find something mystical in both.
Art is really about losing oneself - An exploration melting into knowledge and finally into empathy and union. As you grow in an art form, you lose your identity even as humility grows.

You start seeing beauty all around. A great saint in one religion sees greatness in another religion too. Such a person is indeed a virtuoso.
The problem with a right wing mind is that it needs control and a sense of power. They resemble the angry executives who populate our

corporate office hiding their incompetence behind arrogance and anger. That's the cowardice that Mohua Moitra talks about. They compare, compete, denigrate others (Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise) and then create their own competition field (Padma Award) and in the worst case may be

I know you’ve all been waiting for my thread on today’s @DHSCgovuk White Paper https://t.co/lrNsuFoCum
and the accompanying recommendations from @NHSEngland https://t.co/810SaS9euc Wait no longer 😀 1/9

2/9 I’m not trying to cover everything in the documents but here are some thoughts on things others might not focus on so much. Good to see consistent messages about the strategic roles of the voluntary sector and local government. Detailed work needed to bring that alive.

3/9 Very pleased to see issues core to @RichmondGroup14 priorities at the centre of the challenges the White Paper aims to address: namely the growing needs of people with long-term and multiple conditions, the role of mental health in that mix and the impact of Covid on that.

4/9 White Paper rightly acknowledges that a new legal framework is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for integration and improvement. Culture, behaviour, relationships and leadership will be what make the most difference, though a better governance platform will help.

5/9 Important clarity in both the White Paper and @NHSEngland FAQs document that voluntary sector provision retains a key role as part of the planned changes to competition and procurement.

(1/11) This term, I’ve taught a seminar @IslamicSt_UniFR called “Little Ice Ages and Mighty Microbes. What Environmental History Can Tell Us about the #MiddleEast”. These are some of the things that I’ve learned. A thread. #twitterstorians #environmentalhistory

(2/11) The Arab invasion of #Iran led to a cotton boom – until the 11th century. Then a “big chill” made agriculture detract. Leading Sunni scholars moved elsewhere &bimportant madrasas closed. This helped to eventually convert Iran into Shi’i-majority lands in the 16th century.

(3/11) The “golden age” of the Ottoman Empire saw the conquest of Egypt. With grain (incl. rats/fleas) now being shipped in huge quantities from Alexandria to #Istanbul, the capital became a constant “plague hub” (which, in turn, dramatically increased Ottoman medical knowledge).

(4/11) At the same time, several #Ottoman provinces were already operating at the ecological limit while still being forced to provide Istanbul with animals. When the Little Ice Age hit these semiarid areas in the late 16th century, significant rebellions & crises ensued.

(5/11) Not only humans suffered but animals, too. Epizootics killed livestock in 18th century #Egypt, which made peasants become more dependent on large landholders. Consequently, “changes in nature of rural labor degraded the lives of both beast and man.”

STAR WARS GENOCIDE THREAD: If you're a Mandalorian fan you are no doubt aware that @ginacarano was fired by Disney for explaining on Twitter how the same sort of behavior Democrats are engaging now in resulted in the holocaust. The left-wing mob wasted no time proving her right.

We are today attending the virtual hearing for #AllisonBailey’s claim against Stonewall & Garden Court Chambers.

Discussions on redactions in papers.

Ben Cooper QC for @BluskyeAllison arguing against redactions.

#AllisonBailey

#AllisonBailey

Ben Cooper trying to establish communications between individuals at Stonewall & individuals at Garden Court Chambers. Arguing names of individuals is relevant and they put in public domain.

#AllisonBailey

Robin Moira White arguing private Facebook group is not public domain.

#AllisonBailey

Ben Cooper QC discussing individuals who had made complaints to Garden Court Chambers. Discussion is can these individuals be publicly named or should they be redacted in papers. These individuals have connections with Stonewall.

Just because.

Here's an interesting story about a man you've almost certainly heard of, think you know stuff about, but probably weren't taught any of the good, funny, ludicrous stuff that makes it really interesting.

It's long. You might hate it. I'll take that chance...

In 1588, Spain launched a huge fleet with the aim of overthrowing Elizabeth I and conquering England (sorry Britain, I'm taking about the "it's still just England" era).

At least in part, they did this to stop our pirates from being such a monumental pain in their arse...

As the 130 Spanish ships approached our coast, the English packed our most ancient and decrepit boats with junk, set them on fire, and shoved them into the Spanish lines.

The Armada scattered, and the weather took care of the rest, driving them towards the Dutch coast...

Thus, the great military achievement of the Elizabethan era was settled by a combination of a typical English summer, and an aquatic bin fire.

But somebody had to come out of it a hero, and that somebody was Sir Francis Drake...

The things you know about Drake are practically all false: he didn’t finish his game of bowls before being bothered to defeat the Spanish – that story didn’t appear until some 40 years after the events, and bad weather kept in in Plymouth: not fannying around with ball games...