For years, I distrusted sidewalks. I grew up in Athens, where sidewalks are cramped, cracked, or just missing. I learned to walk on the street, something I had to “un-learn” after moving overseas. But I spent time in Athens recently, and it all came back. A thread—on sidewalks.

First rule: sidewalks are *not* for pedestrians. They function chiefly as overflow parking. If there is enough space on the sidewalk, a car or motorcycle will appear. Vehicles win—every time. (Photos taken around Alimos and Palaio Faliro.)

The next barrier is the trash can. The urban planner has often firmed its place on the sidewalk with this little insert. Good luck squeezing past these guys.

And, of course, these obstacles exist alongside others (e.g. trees, poles, etc.). Combined, they are a formidable barrier—like a poorly played game of Tetris. The committed pedestrian might pull off the slalom required, but most will simply walk on the street. Easier that way.

The indifference towards the pedestrian extends to every non-car user. I often saw bikers on the tram path—the only way to move seamlessly along the coast. Or they risked their lives to ride alongside cars. The bottom line is this: unless you’re in a car, get out of the way.

🙏 Are you a sheep or Judas goats. “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;& He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.”
Matthew 25:32-33 🇺🇸 sheep;🇨🇳 goat

THREAD on conspiracy theories & attachment.
I keep seeing frustrated social media posts asking why people believe conspiracy theories. Answer: It gives a sense of control - includng belonging, predictability & safety. It's emotional regulation. Here's research to unpack that.

2. "Participants with an 'ambivalent attachment style' were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories....The findings add further evidence that attachment not only influences how a person interacts with others, but also influences world views."

3. "People have a strong need to feel positive abt the groups they belong, such as their nationality, political party & religious group. A conviction that others conspire against one's group is more likely to emerge when the group feels undervalued." 2019

4. "Conspiracy theories are consequential as they have a real impact on people's health, relationships, and safety. They are emotional given that negative emotions and not rational deliberations cause conspiracy beliefs."

5. "Ostracized participants were more likely to endorse conspiracy beliefs related to political issues. Moreover, heightened vulnerability mediated the link between ostracism and conspiracy beliefs."

(THREAD) Quarantine Act - we should all know what we are dealing with

1/ The devil is in the details. The first couple of sentences raise a red flag.

A communicable disease need to pose "a risk of significant harm to public health"

How is significant defined? Do the covid deaths meet that bar?

2/ While looking for a definition of significant harm to public health I found this gem!

2007 Jun 19:

"When I trained in public health, some 25 years ago, quarantine had fallen into disrepute because of the widespread perception that it did not work"

3/ "Mass quarantine gained further currency when it was adopted as a control strategy against severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Now, quarantine is re-entrenched in the mainstream of public health theory such that it is being proposed as a measure to fight pandemic

4/ "The Control of Communicable Disease Manual4 provides an authoritative summary of control measures for more than 150 infectious diseases of public health concern."

Okay folks, you all have been very kind over the last few days. I promise this account hasn't been highjacked. There's a lot going on & evangelical proximity to it is maddening.

But I promised you a thread about cancel culture, socioeconomics, & vocation.

First, let me say that I believe peer pressure & shunning happens in every social group. I believe the group can rally against the individual to force them comply w/ established norms & established powers. It is feature of human community.

So I don't disbelieve that something akin to "cancel culture" exists. But living in & ministering in working class spaces, I've never understood the emotion attached to popular iteration.

Sure, we talk about political correctness & the pressure to not say things, but the cancel culture narrative always felt imported somehow. Like, it wasn't organic to the way we moved thru the world.

So it's always puzzled me. The emotion that is. The fear. The panic of the woke mob coming for your job. Why is it framed this way? None of this made sense to me until I started mixing more w/ mid-upper class conservatives, particularly Xians.

5th and Park Ave, apparently a group has gathered and some of them have lasers. Starting to march.

23:23

People are spray painting buildings at 5th and Park, possibly the Justice Center.
23:26

Police have observed several instances of graffiti and damage to property with this group.

Fireworks at 5th and Park, and more spray painting. 23:30

Medical Examiner's office was just tagged (graffiti). 23:33

1/Officers, veterans, undoubtedly active duty folks, have fallen prey to propaganda. The military is a reflection of society, and as such, we get these weak-minded individuals. It cannot overshadow those who serve, have served honorably.

I'll tell you a story about new years

when I was 19 one day I woke up and there was a hole in the knee of my jeans and when I got up to walk my hip began clicking with each step, a problem that would continue for years,

and I didn't know how long I had been asleep, which is to say, passed out, knocked out, I had a vague memory of the drugs I'd taken just before vanishing into the darkness but that was it. I spent weeks asking people what day it was

calling people up from a pay phone -- "Can you tell me what day it is?" And them, audibly upset, sad, worried: "John, you called and asked me this five minutes ago" "I know but please. I think it will help"

but it didn't help, nothing helped. my brain had taken a hard hit from something somehow. I would leave the apartment to look at the newspaper machine to see what the date was. I thought if I could keep that straight maybe I'd be OK.

This is the news no one wants to hear – but it's important.

We always knew there would be cases and clusters. We have plans and systems in place to deal with precisely this scenario – and those are already well underway.

But I just wanted to give everyone a quick update and make sure you've all got the most up-to-date info – and what will change as a result:

As of this afternoon, there are 8 locally acquired cases in Victoria.

All 8 are safely isolating, as are their close contacts.

The public health team worked through the night to track their movements and get a list of exposure sites together.

This is live on the DHHS website and will be updated frequently, so please take a couple of minutes to have a look.

If you visited any of the locations listed you'll need to get tested as soon as possible and isolate until you get your results. Please don't delay it.

That's the nuts and bolts of where we're at.

Here's what's happening next:

As of 5pm this evening some new measures will be in place to make sure everyone stays safe tonight – and in the days to come.

The private gathering limit will be reduced from 30 to 15.

That means a maximum of 15 guests in your home, not including babies under 12 months.

1/ End of year thread: in December 2019 I found out I was selected to be a 2020-2021 Public Scholar @Concordia. Though My tenure wouldn't start until May (when I started this Mega thread). I decided to start sharing more of my research in January 2020.

Here is a reminder of some of the failings in the past 12 months that have led to so many infections & deaths-

1.The PM missed 5 cobra meetings at start
2. The Government ignored warnings about pandemic preparations
3. They allowed ppe stockpiles to run down (1/10)

4. Delayed lockdown number one
5. Delayed lockdown number two
6.Delayed lockdown number three
7. Ignored Sage advice on a circuit break lockdown for 6 weeks
8.Allowed people to enter the UK without checks
9.Stopped contract tracing in March (2/10)

10. Discharged people into care homes without testing
11.Allowed ppe to be exported
12. Ignored WHO advice to “test test test”
13. Couldn’t track how many people were being tested each day
14.Didn’t require private testing companies to report results to local councils (3/10)

15. Created an app that notification to self isolate from didn’t count for claiming a self isolation payment
16. Recommended face coverings in May but didn’t make it compulsory until July
17.Didn’t join cross Eu ppe procurement (4/10)

18. Handed contact tracing to private companies with no record
19. Handed ppe contracts to companies with no record
20.Failed to support people to self isolate
21.Brought in scheme of support for self isolation that only 1 in 8 people qualify for (5/10)

1 - Today marks the fifth anniversary of the mass sexual attacks in Cologne.

Around 1000 Muslim men, most of whom had only arrived in Germany a few months before, claiming to be refugees, subjected 100s of German women celebrating New Years Eve to savage racial + sexual assault

2 - Working in groups, the men systematically encircled and separated their prey – the white, Christian women that their religion and culture deem racially and religiously inferior – from their

3 - Once isolated, they tore at their clothes and groped them.

They stuck their fingers up their vaginas and anuses, and inside their bras.

They shot fireworks at them.

They robbed them.

Some were raped.

4 - It took days for the attacks to come to public attention as the authorities and media scrambled to downplay or lie about them.

The truth came out on social media + when the scale could no longer be denied, they tried very hard to pretend that it was nothing to do with Islam

5 - Some of the most revolting excuses came from feminists – those ‘wh*res for Islam’ that @patcondell so aptly describes - insisting it was all about ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘patriarchy’ and all the other meaningless mantras they use.

If you're currently working in Retail and you'd like a change in career but you're not sure where to go, I encourage you to check out a career in Tech. How you might go about doing that? Check the thread below for a quick guide for Retail workers to transition into Tech.

Before we actually get started it's important to get an idea of what your value proposition is. A Value Prop is a summary of what you do best and what you bring to the table as a professional. Break your skills down into two categories. Subject Matter Expertise & Transfer Skills.

Subject Matter Expertise (SME) refers to the retail knowledge you've gained over your time in that space. Things like Major players in the industry, trends, customer feedback, and experience. For example, I used to work at Future Shop (Canada's version of Best Buy)

When I was in Uni in their Entertainment and Games section, the knowledge I gained about the Games and Entertainment industry just by working retail was unreal and at the times felt useless. But I was wrong, understanding an industry is to understand what appeals to consumers.

And if you know what appeals to consumers, you know what it takes for them to buy from that industry. That's important. Next, I'd figure out what my transferable skills are. Skills that I can take with me no matter where I go or an easier way to think about them is as

[1/x] Happy to announce the publication of “RETROFIT DECARBONIZATION of COAL POWER” (open access https://t.co/JxrMtLS9gf, @energies_mdpi). A riveting 39-page article (+ 44p S.I.), obviously makes for excellent holiday/wknd reading :) Here's an attempt at a tweet-summary-thread!

[2/x] Out of ~2 TWe of coal power plant capacity, more than half is less than 14 years old. Can this infrastructure play a role in decarbonized power systems or must it all be stranded? We try to look at ALL options in this work, supported by @EnvDefenseEuro & Rodel Foundation.

[3/x] Capacity-averaged age of all coal power in operation today is ~18 years. Committed emissions from existing and under-construction coal power is ~300 GTCO2-eq (294 is our central estimate, IEA say ~328). Each new 1 GW-plant commits to ~0.2 GT additionally.

[4/x] We define the term RETROFIT DECARBONIZATION to include _anything_ done to keep existing some coal plant equipment in operation (>5 % of org. plant capex), approx. maintaining its function (>50 % of org. annual generation) while eliminating emissions (<50 gCO2-eq/kWh).

[5/x] Many retrofit options were assessed (some shown here). Emissions reqs. put tough pressure on biomass & CCS. Putting wind & solar at former coal sites is a great idea, but power dens. diff. mean they don't qualify as retrofit decarb. What really works? Geothermal & Nuclear!

@danielpunkass Fair warning, this might get long:

The most obvious aspect is that the time drawn out supposedly "teaching" was really not worth it in proportion to the simplicity of the task.

The first thing I noticed reading that thread was that she was already hungry at the beginning.

That would have been my first clue to go, okay, hm, maybe another time. You could always demonstrate the use of the can opener (observation is one really great way to learn, after all!) for the child, and then get into the mechanics once tummies were filled.

Let's say we missed that chance, though, and were deep into the question-and-answer session. At that point there's a good chance I would think 'Well, there's no going back now' and let my stubbornness see this through, as OP did in his thread.

But that's very much based on *my* reactions and urges as an adult, not what is best for the child. This might be a cultural difference, but in New Zealand (where I live) we try to put the child first.

The OP's daughter clearly communicated her needs (and her frustration) -

sighs, asking politely, rolling her eyes, removing herself from the situation to avoid esclation... When those were ignored, she had to resort to yelling and tears (fair enough, if you ask me!). It really sucks that the adult in the situation decided to steamroll ahead,

For 2021 I'd like it if we stopped accusing people of racism for saying a Black person is articulate

For 2021 I'd like everyone to admit peas, outside of their delicious pod, are disgusting and not food.

For 2021 I'd like everyone to admit that the Patriots are the cheatingest franchise in the history of all pro sports and probably had Putin hack their opponents.

For 2021 I'd like it if everyone admitted REO Speedwagon and Journey are the same terrible band invented as a sick joke to annoy me

For 2021 I Really Can't Wait to go see live music but I guess imma have to wait though

Any thinking that the only way forward is to sweep all of this criminality, treason, & genocide-by-pandemic under the rug - without investigation & punishment - with the application of our laws as equally to the most powerful as we’ve done to the most vulnerable... is madness. /1

2/ It’s the madness of blind belief in the nation’s “exceptionalism”.

The language of “America is the greatest nation...” is always wielded by those who inherit the power to hold a criminal predecessor to account, but fail to do so.

They’re in a self-defeating belief loop...

3/...that actually damages the core of what makes America exceptional in the first place.

It’s cowardice.

We’re not angry children, who are just wailing about vengeance from our own place of grievance.

We are America itself. And we were near mortally wounded.

4/ The election was triage. A rush of action at the scene of massive crash site. The jaws of life were used, tourniquets applied, and the body placed in the ambulance - on its way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Now, we need a series of surgeries (investigations) to survive, and...

5/... a long rehab just to get ambulatory again.

It will likely take 30 yrs to restore the damage done by these criminal traitors. And I’m not talking about just steering a ship in one party’s direction over another. That’s the kind of false flag whining that conservatives do...

Everyone in church knew him. He was a difficult man and would make boast of this.

“Even Pastor sef know say I stubborn”. He once boasted.

“Sir, you can’t reason with my husband! Many have tried including Pastor and he hasn’t changed”. His wife said.

He had a drinking problem; that much was evident. His eyes always looking beady.

Even with the AC in church, he would sweat like someone who was running a marathon.

He had an easy smile but at the edge of that smile was a man with a fierce temper.

He would beat his wife and send her out of the home. His teenage sons never wanted to be around him and he knew this so he made life difficult for them.

Several times have the Pastor, a wonderful and kind hearted man, done to entreat him speaking love to him.

Yet, he persisted.

One-day, the church had a new Men’s fellowship leader, one who had the heart for men whom have missed or failed to understand their sonship in Christ.

He paid him a visit one evening and they got talking about the Holy Spirit.

He paid attention.

The brother, with the Spirit of God upon him started operating in the gift of word of knowledge.

He revealed things to him that even his wife didn’t know. He watched as this brother shared his life’s experience going through life without the Holy Spirit.