All roads lead to genomics

Dido Harding’s was chair of Genomics England

Palantir rptdly taught #CambridgeAnalytica to scrape data

Is the #NHSDataGrab really about about population-wide genomic data?

Complete control?

Bell-Curve eugenicist’s wet dream?
“We could close our eyes & pretend that contrary to all the evidence, #Palantir is a rights-respecting company or we can call this façade what it is: another company placing profit over people, no matter the human cost.” Michael Kleinman, @amnestyusa
The #NHSDataGrab has been underway since Oct 2020 (see Tweet👇)

Why was it ignored for the last 8 months?

News editors, journalists & politicians appeared to be unwilling to report it

It’s great that the #PalantirPlan is now getting wide coverage, but are we already too late?
Also ignored by the media has been #GenomeUK, launched quietly in Sept 2020

This 10-year strategy puts genomics at the heart of the NHS & at the heart of the entire programme for govt

It was launched on a Saturday (bizarre!) with zero coverage or fanfare
We already know that Big Tech mine & sell our data, but the new frontier lies not in our consumer behaviour, but in our biological selves

People like Cummings & #Palantir’s Peter Thiel believe that our fates lie in our genes, not in the stars

But who controls that fate?
Advances in genetics have huge potential social & cost benefits

Genome editing of somatic cells isn’t passed from one generation to the next

But germline genome editing can pass changes to future generations & could reshape human beings & our societies.

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More from @StefSimanowitz

5 Jun
Tweet from 8 months ago👇on how the govt was sharing our private NHS health data for “life science research” (genomics) with private companies

Now, NHS Digital is “refusing to rule out #Palantir being involved in the datastore from the GP data grab"

I call it the #PalantirPlan. Image
2/. The NHS is the most trusted brand in UK

#CambridgeAnalytica is the least trusted

Yet #Palantir - who rptdly taught Cambridge Analytica how to scrape data - run the NHS #COVID data store along with #FacultyAI, a company that worked for LeaveEU/Cummings & also has links to CA
3/. A year ago, Blair’s ex-Chief of staff – someone who knows about political skulduggery – wrote:

“This looks like the beginning of a rolling coup. It starts with the civil service then moves on to the judiciary & the media”

A coup for health data?

A coup for genomic data?
Read 5 tweets
3 Jun
1/. My heart broke a little this morning

“The northern white rhino - which survived 55 million years & saw ice ages, earthquakes, meteor strikes & bore testament to innumerable historical changes - could not survive humans” @VertigoWarrior

This rhino is now functionally extinct Image
2/. It’s because we love this planet so much, that we weep at its destruction

To be honest, my heart breaks a little every day

But it also fills with joy

Our hearts are designed that way

They're built to break & they're built to fill with joy, each day
3/. In 1944, Churchill described Nazi atrocities as "a crime without a name"

Soon after, the term 'genocide' was coined

Is it time to recognise ‘ecocide’ as an intl crime?

Is it time for all of us to start getting ACTIVE to protect our fragile planet?
Read 11 tweets
31 May
1/. On Friday, @amnesty marked its 60th anniversary

Whilst researching our “best bits”, I stumbled on an incredible archive of sketches & performances from the Secret Policeman’s Ball

Naked Dance (1982) with @JohnCleese, Graham Chapman & Tim Brook-Taylor
2/. “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like!”

@montypython’s Last Supper sketch with Ade Edmondson & @JohnCleese (1989) #SecretPolicemansBall
3/. The cast list for the #SecreTPolicemansBall reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of comedy greats

Here John Bird, @JohnCleese & Rowan Atkinson abuse the @LondonPalladium audience in 1982

On stage are Alan Bennett, @PamelaStephensn, @EricIdle, Graham Chapman etc
Read 5 tweets
29 May
You may know that Hippos kill more humans than any other African animal

You may know they can run at speeds of 25mph

But have you ever seen how fast they can swim?

Footage (via @LembaniTraveler) shows a hippo chasing a boat on Lake Victoria, Zambia
Some of you have spotted the deliberate mistake above👆

It is Lake Kariba, not Lake Victoria!

I got confused because they call the waterfall there “Victoria Falls” after a dead British Queen

It’s original name is Mosi-oa-Tunya, (“smoke that thunders”).
Thanks also to those pointing out that hippos are, in fact, only the 3rd deadliest animal in Africa

The biggest killer is the mosquito

The 2nd biggest is the human

Also hippos don’t “swim” so much as push off the lake bed so you’re safer in deeper water
Read 7 tweets
26 May
1/. When far-right activists descended on a French Alp town in 2018 to prevent refugees & migrants crossing the border, residents joined forces to stop them

7 of them - the #Briançon7 - were convicted under anti-smuggling laws!

Tmw, they're back in court
amnesty.org/en/latest/news… Image
2/. The far-right group, Génération Identitaire, who blocked the mountain were banned in France last March after the govt found that it was a private militia & incites "discrimination, hatred & violence"

But Generation Identity are still active elsewhere
3/. Generation Identity - part of the far-right Identitarian Movement & whose members have been described as “hipster fascists” - has been banned on Facebook

But they & other neo-Nazi groups are recruiting predominantly online & have done for some time. abc.net.au/news/2021-03-2…
Read 5 tweets
26 May
1/. All the claims about our preparations & how everything was in order were basically completely hollow, but we didn’t figure this out until the back end of February”

#Cummings claims he was lied to by Hancock & others about the preparedness for COVID

These were not “mistakes”
2/. “Lots of COBRA meetings are just a bunch of PowerPoints & not very useful”

#Cummings explains why he didn’t bother to attend any of the 5 Crucial COBRA meetings in Feb 2020 & didn’t advise @BorisJohnson to attend either

He sent ‘his friend’ 33-year-old Ben Warner, instead.
3/. #Cummings has referred to Ben Warner a dozen times

Ben isn’t an epidemiologist, virologist or public health expert

His 2014 thesis was “Engineering the properties of magnetic molecules through the interaction with the surface

#Cummings has now mentioned his brother, Marc👇
Read 13 tweets

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