Simon Frankel Pratt
@simonpratt.bsky.social
Political scientist at the University of Melbourne. Formerly of other places. Research: war, intelligence, innovation, and normative change in international politics. Cat paparazzo. He/Him 🇨🇦🏳️🌈✡️
Pinned
Well, I was in Istanbul recently and I photographed many cats. By popular demand, here are some of them.
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
When chatbots are given complete information on medical conditions, they typically spit out correct diagnoses and recommendations.
Actual patients, however, often describe their conditions with incomplete or irrelevant information and the chatbots cannot handle it.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Actual patients, however, often describe their conditions with incomplete or irrelevant information and the chatbots cannot handle it.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
February 11, 2026 at 2:16 PM
When chatbots are given complete information on medical conditions, they typically spit out correct diagnoses and recommendations.
Actual patients, however, often describe their conditions with incomplete or irrelevant information and the chatbots cannot handle it.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Actual patients, however, often describe their conditions with incomplete or irrelevant information and the chatbots cannot handle it.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
This is a really important story about how life is now for the Canadian ICC judge sanctioned by the US.
No credit cards, Amazon, etc.
Good news: Canadian, UK, and Dutch banks have maintained her accounts, but life is still very complicated.
apple.news/AEmVQG7hbQC-...
No credit cards, Amazon, etc.
Good news: Canadian, UK, and Dutch banks have maintained her accounts, but life is still very complicated.
apple.news/AEmVQG7hbQC-...
Canadian ICC judge says Trump's sanctions won't stop her from doing her job — The Canadian Press
When International Criminal Court judge Kimberly Prost goes on vacation, she
apple.news
February 11, 2026 at 12:23 PM
This is a really important story about how life is now for the Canadian ICC judge sanctioned by the US.
No credit cards, Amazon, etc.
Good news: Canadian, UK, and Dutch banks have maintained her accounts, but life is still very complicated.
apple.news/AEmVQG7hbQC-...
No credit cards, Amazon, etc.
Good news: Canadian, UK, and Dutch banks have maintained her accounts, but life is still very complicated.
apple.news/AEmVQG7hbQC-...
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
Some of my favorite international political cartoons from @cartoonmovement.com this week, by Matthew Fuller, @milbrathdraws.bsky.social, @karikaturalv.bsky.social and Franco Juri.
More cartoons: www.cartoonmovement.com
#PoliticalCartoons #PoliticalSatire #EditorialCartoons #CartoonMovement
More cartoons: www.cartoonmovement.com
#PoliticalCartoons #PoliticalSatire #EditorialCartoons #CartoonMovement
February 11, 2026 at 9:29 AM
Some of my favorite international political cartoons from @cartoonmovement.com this week, by Matthew Fuller, @milbrathdraws.bsky.social, @karikaturalv.bsky.social and Franco Juri.
More cartoons: www.cartoonmovement.com
#PoliticalCartoons #PoliticalSatire #EditorialCartoons #CartoonMovement
More cartoons: www.cartoonmovement.com
#PoliticalCartoons #PoliticalSatire #EditorialCartoons #CartoonMovement
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
Eleven years ago today on February 10, 2015, three young Muslims--23 year old Deah Barakat, 21 year old Yusor Abu-Salha, and 19 year old Razan Abu-Salha--were shot to death in their home, in what came to be known as the Chapel Hill Shooting.
Thinking of their loved ones today.
Thinking of their loved ones today.
February 11, 2026 at 3:39 AM
Eleven years ago today on February 10, 2015, three young Muslims--23 year old Deah Barakat, 21 year old Yusor Abu-Salha, and 19 year old Razan Abu-Salha--were shot to death in their home, in what came to be known as the Chapel Hill Shooting.
Thinking of their loved ones today.
Thinking of their loved ones today.
"Don't be evil"
February 11, 2026 at 2:33 AM
"Don't be evil"
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
Increasing autism rates over the last 25 years may just be kids with mild forms getting diagnosed. Rates of moderate to severe impairment due to autism have actually fallen slightly.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
![The autistic community is a large, growing, and heterogeneous population, and there is a need for improved methods to describe their diverse needs. Measures of adaptive functioning collected through public health surveillance may provide valuable information on functioning and support needs at a population level. We aimed to use adaptive behavior and cognitive scores abstracted from health and educational records to describe trends over time in the population prevalence of autism by adaptive level and co-occurrence of intellectual disability (ID). Using data from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, years 2000 to 2016, we estimated the prevalence of autism per 1000 8-year-old children by four levels of adaptive challenges (moderate to profound, mild, borderline, or none) and by co-occurrence of ID. The prevalence of autism with mild, borderline, or no significant adaptive challenges increased between 2000 and 2016, from 5.1 per 1000 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 4.6–5.5) to 17.6 (95% CI: 17.1–18.1) while the prevalence of autism with moderate to profound challenges decreased slightly, from 1.5 (95% CI: 1.2–1.7) to 1.2 (95% CI: 1.1–1.4). The prevalence increase was greater for autism without co-occurring ID than for autism with co-occurring ID. The increase in autism prevalence between 2000 and 2016 was confined to autism with milder phenotypes. This trend could indicate improved identification of milder forms of autism over time. It is possible that increased access to therapies that improve intellectual and adaptive functioning of children diagnosed with autism also contributed to the trends.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:j76trmiofvaxxpvx2vnb2vwf/bafkreibeoudvh2b4ifuiqq7pmnzwg6y6n3caschubukvo6kzqcfn2kdf5i@jpeg)
February 10, 2026 at 11:26 PM
Increasing autism rates over the last 25 years may just be kids with mild forms getting diagnosed. Rates of moderate to severe impairment due to autism have actually fallen slightly.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
I genuinely cannot believe the degree to which we are pissing away this generational breakthrough, even given the fuckmuppets who are involved www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
FDA declines to review Moderna's mRNA flu shot
Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Food and Drug Administration has taken an aggressive stance against mRNA technology.
www.nbcnews.com
February 10, 2026 at 11:32 PM
I genuinely cannot believe the degree to which we are pissing away this generational breakthrough, even given the fuckmuppets who are involved www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
Will Starmer step down or will he consign the UK to the leadership of a PM Farage in a futile attempt to preserve his position?
"Sir Keir is the most unpopular British prime minister since records began" www.economist.com/britain/2026...
February 10, 2026 at 3:42 AM
Will Starmer step down or will he consign the UK to the leadership of a PM Farage in a futile attempt to preserve his position?
I've been watching the videos of the NSW police response to the protests in Sydney of Herzog's visit. Needless to say, they show a shockingly disproportionate use of force by police. Setting aside the wisdom or appropriateness of inviting Herzog at all, no context justifies what these videos depict.
February 10, 2026 at 3:41 AM
I've been watching the videos of the NSW police response to the protests in Sydney of Herzog's visit. Needless to say, they show a shockingly disproportionate use of force by police. Setting aside the wisdom or appropriateness of inviting Herzog at all, no context justifies what these videos depict.
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
It is. The Jewish Musuem in Prague has a collection of children's drawings from the Terezin ghetto. It was the worst thing I've seen in my life.
“Collection of Handwritten Letters from Children in Detention Center” sounds like an exhibit in the Holocaust Museum.
1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.
Hundreds of kids are still detained.
We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
Hundreds of kids are still detained.
We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
February 9, 2026 at 8:12 PM
It is. The Jewish Musuem in Prague has a collection of children's drawings from the Terezin ghetto. It was the worst thing I've seen in my life.
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
The main purpose of these webinars on cybersecurity are, of course, to shift blame to staff in the event of a breach rather than to actually build resilience - 'staff were trained, therefore must have been negligent rather than ignorant'.
my cybersecurity webinar
you receive email seeking password from criminal@crime.com, do you:
a) provide password
b) provide password while also stabbing your own eyeball with rusty used syringe
c) phone a friend
d) forward to IT and do not give password
Yes, d was correct, now you are cybersecure!
you receive email seeking password from criminal@crime.com, do you:
a) provide password
b) provide password while also stabbing your own eyeball with rusty used syringe
c) phone a friend
d) forward to IT and do not give password
Yes, d was correct, now you are cybersecure!
February 9, 2026 at 9:04 AM
The main purpose of these webinars on cybersecurity are, of course, to shift blame to staff in the event of a breach rather than to actually build resilience - 'staff were trained, therefore must have been negligent rather than ignorant'.
my cybersecurity webinar
you receive email seeking password from criminal@crime.com, do you:
a) provide password
b) provide password while also stabbing your own eyeball with rusty used syringe
c) phone a friend
d) forward to IT and do not give password
Yes, d was correct, now you are cybersecure!
you receive email seeking password from criminal@crime.com, do you:
a) provide password
b) provide password while also stabbing your own eyeball with rusty used syringe
c) phone a friend
d) forward to IT and do not give password
Yes, d was correct, now you are cybersecure!
February 9, 2026 at 6:22 AM
my cybersecurity webinar
you receive email seeking password from criminal@crime.com, do you:
a) provide password
b) provide password while also stabbing your own eyeball with rusty used syringe
c) phone a friend
d) forward to IT and do not give password
Yes, d was correct, now you are cybersecure!
you receive email seeking password from criminal@crime.com, do you:
a) provide password
b) provide password while also stabbing your own eyeball with rusty used syringe
c) phone a friend
d) forward to IT and do not give password
Yes, d was correct, now you are cybersecure!
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
Clocking into the Discourse Factory, sighing resignedly when I read my card and see that today I must politely discuss the nigger biomass problem with user DeltaForce1488. Another day as a neoliberal on X, the everything app.
this interaction (about me!) says everything you need to know about the Bay Area neolibs
February 8, 2026 at 2:58 PM
Clocking into the Discourse Factory, sighing resignedly when I read my card and see that today I must politely discuss the nigger biomass problem with user DeltaForce1488. Another day as a neoliberal on X, the everything app.
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
If you're a business owner who fires someone you have assigned to an overseas job and you don't buy them a plane ticket home you should actually go to prison
Former Washington Post journalists have launched a GoFundMe to help repatriate fired staff members who are effectively stranded in foreign countries.
One of the richest men in the world fired them from the paper and didn’t even pay to ensure they got home.
Abolish the billionaire class:
One of the richest men in the world fired them from the paper and didn’t even pay to ensure they got home.
Abolish the billionaire class:
Donate to Support for Washington Post international employees, organized by Michelle Lee
Among the hundreds of journalists laid off by The Washington Post on … Michelle Lee needs your support for Support for Washington Post international employees
www.gofundme.com
February 8, 2026 at 1:44 PM
If you're a business owner who fires someone you have assigned to an overseas job and you don't buy them a plane ticket home you should actually go to prison
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
kind of funny that an olympian said they are here to represent "compassion, respect, and love for others" and some people automatically knew that was a statement against them
February 7, 2026 at 10:25 PM
kind of funny that an olympian said they are here to represent "compassion, respect, and love for others" and some people automatically knew that was a statement against them
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
Iran sentences Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi to 7 more years in prison
www.latimes.com/world-nation...
www.latimes.com/world-nation...
Iran sentences Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi to 7 more years in prison
Iran has sentenced Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to more than seven more years in prison, as Tehran's foreign minister strikes a hard-line tone against U.S. threats of military force.
www.latimes.com
February 8, 2026 at 6:17 PM
Iran sentences Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi to 7 more years in prison
www.latimes.com/world-nation...
www.latimes.com/world-nation...
This is both the secret and the curse of fascism
And there is a version of traditional conservatism that encourages this: volunteerism, sports, church, family, ways of being something in the world. One of the poisonous things about MAGA is how it chokes off this stuff in favor of an inchoate sense of rage and worship of the mighty.
February 9, 2026 at 5:34 AM
This is both the secret and the curse of fascism
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
LLM companies make the academic dishonesty equivalent of heroin, and we do not have academic honesty equivalents of methadone yet
February 8, 2026 at 7:10 PM
LLM companies make the academic dishonesty equivalent of heroin, and we do not have academic honesty equivalents of methadone yet
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
the work @bellingcat.com is doing in Minneapolis is essential. I spoke with @eoghanmacguire.bsky.social about the site's U.S. strategy
www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/in-m...
www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/in-m...
In Minneapolis and other U.S. cities, Bellingcat supplements local news by “zooming in with a forensic lens”
Partnerships with local news outlets help "bring our stories to the audiences who need to see them most."
www.niemanlab.org
January 26, 2026 at 11:34 PM
the work @bellingcat.com is doing in Minneapolis is essential. I spoke with @eoghanmacguire.bsky.social about the site's U.S. strategy
www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/in-m...
www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/in-m...
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
Helped out inadvertently by China here too - Sino-Japanese relations have been spiraling for months after Beijing went on its usual spitting fit over her comments on Taiwan and it seems only to have pushed her numbers up.
welp, IF she can keep her ultraconservative coalition together within the LDP, Japanese LGBT rights advances have likely been set back by another decade. siiiigh. (also, so wonderful that Tokyo has another WW2 revisionist in the seat of power cuz she's super old school like that.)
Japan's Sanae Takaichi wins a supermajority after gambling on a snap election
The Japanese leader's election gambit, fueled by the power of her personality and some unlikely help from young voters consumed by “Sanamania,” appears to have paid off.
www.nbcnews.com
February 8, 2026 at 8:39 PM
Helped out inadvertently by China here too - Sino-Japanese relations have been spiraling for months after Beijing went on its usual spitting fit over her comments on Taiwan and it seems only to have pushed her numbers up.
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
“For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh. We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick.”
Conditions in a San Diego concentration camp, via message hurled out in a bottle.
Conditions in a San Diego concentration camp, via message hurled out in a bottle.
![“Good afternoon. My name is [redacted] and my wife and I have been at OMDC since April 15 2025,” reads a handwritten note, wrapped around a lotion bottle that was thrown by a man held captive inside the Otay Mesa Detention Center (OMDC) on Sunday.
“It’s cold here all the time and the food is poor,” the missive continues. “For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh. We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:tgw3d4hvw3x5ijrxax7lg26u/bafkreiet46krrk7ovnqxsd6vr7ogw2lgame43jsqw25u2ygi5el5i5toom@jpeg)
February 8, 2026 at 1:29 PM
“For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh. We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick.”
Conditions in a San Diego concentration camp, via message hurled out in a bottle.
Conditions in a San Diego concentration camp, via message hurled out in a bottle.
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
A former OneBC staffer previously participated in a Spaces call with the leaders of white nationalist/"Canadian nationalist" organizations.
They talked about deporting 10 million people and joked about throwing "millions of Punjabis" into the sea. 1/3 thetyee.ca/News/2026/02...
They talked about deporting 10 million people and joked about throwing "millions of Punjabis" into the sea. 1/3 thetyee.ca/News/2026/02...
Inside the Far-Right Push to Influence Canadian Political Parties | The Tyee
A conference call shows a political operative with past Conservative connections advising several white nationalist groups.
thetyee.ca
February 6, 2026 at 4:07 PM
A former OneBC staffer previously participated in a Spaces call with the leaders of white nationalist/"Canadian nationalist" organizations.
They talked about deporting 10 million people and joked about throwing "millions of Punjabis" into the sea. 1/3 thetyee.ca/News/2026/02...
They talked about deporting 10 million people and joked about throwing "millions of Punjabis" into the sea. 1/3 thetyee.ca/News/2026/02...
Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
My theory that AI maximalists don’t know how to use a computer remains undefeated so far
February 8, 2026 at 9:46 PM
My theory that AI maximalists don’t know how to use a computer remains undefeated so far
This is the end of history we deserve, if not the one we need
Every young person sentence online reads like this to me now:
"Bro entered low-stim flow state doing a 10 min grocery rotation and got mogged by a friendly neighborhood cat 💀 Is proximity-maxxing essentials while touch-grass-pilled more optimal than suburb-meta carbrained bulk errands?"
"Bro entered low-stim flow state doing a 10 min grocery rotation and got mogged by a friendly neighborhood cat 💀 Is proximity-maxxing essentials while touch-grass-pilled more optimal than suburb-meta carbrained bulk errands?"
February 8, 2026 at 11:29 AM
This is the end of history we deserve, if not the one we need