Our inability to introduce remote learning during a global pandemic is a social problem.

A decade of austerity has left families without the means to own adequate devices, and some can’t even afford broadband.

Scoff all you like, but it is reality I’m afraid. 1/10

It wasn’t long ago @GavinWilliamson was promising help for poorer families, so their children could access the necessary equipment to learn from home and no child is left behind.

How did that go? Do I even need to ask?

Another huge failure from the fireplace flogger. 2/10

“Whatever it takes”, they said.

I’ll stick my neck out here and call that bullshit. Utter hogwash.

“Whatever it takes to ensure our friends get HUUUUGE PPE contracts” - that would be accurate. 3/10

Remote learning is far from ideal.

I understand the difficulties, but as I say, this is a failure of government.

Life preservation has to come first.

My child isn’t a guinea pig. 4/10

They will not have an adequate test and trace system in schools, and let’s not pretend otherwise. Schools are not prepared for it. It’s a ludicrous and desperate proposition.

@michaelgove is confident schools will stay open.

He might not like experts, but SAGE disagree. 5/10

Lots of folks say “you must be brave” when they find out I work in the ER.

It’s true that I don’t (usually) get upset at the sight of blood. But there are plenty of things that scare me.

A non-exhaustive list of things this emergency physician is afraid of:

Choking

Because I’ve seen a child choke on a hot dog or grape that wasn’t cut lengthwise.

Door slamming

Because I’ve had to repair way too many fingertip amputations in little kids.

Throwing sticks

Because one time I saw a kiddo lose their eye after an innocent game with a sibling.

Jumping on the trampoline with your dog

Because...just don’t do it. It’s a bad idea.

I got the following text this morning. Here was my reply:

1. Tell them that you love them, aren’t ashamed of them, and that this is something that you have had to overcome. Tell them they can do the same.

2. Tell them that porn is bad for them spiritually, physically, and relationally. And then explain how.


3. Tell them that you are going to set up “speed bumps” to help them when they’re tempt but it comes down to their desire to live with integrity. Those speed bumps are:

a. Filters (on devices & IP)
b. Screens only in shared spaces
c. Weekly check ups: Have you looked at porn of any form this week?

4. Ask them to identify the a) the times that are most tempted and b) the things that seem to trigger the desire to look at porn.

5. Show them ways to deal with stress that are productive: bible reading, prayer, running, pushups, developing a skill, etc.

6. Remind them again that you love them, that porn makes you weak, & living a lie is hell. Let them know that you won’t look down on them if they stumble & they need to let you know so you can conquer it together: "You can overcome this. You can have a good conscience. Fight!"

Here's the best argument for expanding & thereby repairing the Supreme Court. Over the past 2 decades, starting with Bush v. Gore, the court's conservative majority has pursued an aggressive agenda to keep Republicans in power & Republicans in turn appointed conservative justices

This has skewed our political system & improperly increased the number of conservative justices. Those justices have skewed the system to preserve GOP control in Tuesday's Census decision, Citizens United & Shelby County v. Holder (overturning Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act) AND

in Gill v. Whitford (upholds outrageous GOP gerrymandering in Wisconsin) and in cases upholding strict voter ID laws & other partisan GOP maneuvers.

There's a strong argument that the GOP has improperly gotten three SCOTUS seats that should have gone to Democratic appointees.

Bush v. Gore was essentially a 5-4 judicial coup that awarded the presidency to George W. Bush. Bush appointed two justices (Roberts & Alito) & if Gore had been president for Bush's two terms, those vacancies would have been filled by Democratic appointees

Republicans stole a seat by not considering Merrick Garland. So there's a strong case that GOP presidents filled 3 vacancies that Democrats should have filled. This created today's 5-4 conservative majority when there'd be a 7-2 liberal majority if Democrats filled those seats.

“Jim Crow” originated from the name of a black character from early- and mid- 19th century American theater. Crows are black birds, and “Crow” was the surname of a stock fictional black character, who was almost always played onstage by a white man, wearing blackface makeup.

Due to the prevalence of this character, "Jim Crow" became a derogatory term for people of African descent. From the late 1800s, the name came to signify the social and legal segregation of black Americans from white —a synonym for racial segregation, particularly in the South.

The laws were created by white southerners to enforce racial segregation across the South from the 1870s to the 1960s. Under the system, “whites only” and “colored” signs proliferated across the South at water fountains, restrooms, bus waiting areas, theaters, pools, and schools.

Laws made this segregation possible. In 1896, the Supreme Court declared Jim Crow segregation legal in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. The Court ruled that “separate but equal” accommodations African Americans were permitted under the U.S. Constitution.

There was also a subtler, social dimension which required that blacks demonstrate subservience and inferiority to whites at all times. A black man who succeeded in business might find his shop burned to the ground by white lunatics.

1. "How Much of Gen Z Will Be Unmarried at 40?" *More than 40%*, according to one new demographic projection. If true, would be catastrophic for American family life, fertility, & economic inequality.

@RAVerBruggen on that new @UMich study: https://t.co/tIFOkf30Xl @FamStudies

Age has nothing to do with delivery of good governance.. Yahaya Bello, Bukola Saraki, ORJI Uzor Kalu, Tunde Fashola, Rotimi Amaechi were all in their early/mid 40s when they became governors, we know what their report cards says as regards their performance...
There was a time

We had a speaker at the national assembly who was in his 30s, single and very eloquent...He didn't pass any meaningful bill as regards the problems we have today...If you elect the so called angels in political offices today, will you also terminate the appointments of your

Parents, family members, husbands, wives and friends who are also stealing in the ministries that they work? It's really a difficult thing to do..The problem we are faced today isn't institutional but foundational...
Some of u abroad who see some of us that Partisan

As traitors, always wishing the worse for us and having a mindset that we will call you to our rescue are just ignorant and unnecessarily dramatic!
We can't change or take charge of these political offices from outside!
The US have better candidates than Trump and Biden, they

Both belong to parties that we have all known since we were born..The UK has the labour and the conservatives..If you feel we are not doing it well here, fucking come back home and take charge! I wouldn't be intimidated because of my partisanship! I will support my party and

How do you compare the understanding of a generation that was propelled into protest by the music of Bob Marley,Peter Tosh Okosun and Fela to the one ravaged by the music of Wizkid,Badoo😁 and Naira Marley? A child that say his father is not rich and said his mother doesn’t have

money,na there him dey now. Nobody taught me history, I was 20 when I read Obafemi Awolowo biography,Das Capital by Karl Max at 23 and became a Marxist later to become a social democrat at 26 after reading Awolowo’s trilogy. You don’t even know your history and you are washing

your dirty mouth on your elders. We were on the street as kids in secondary school in 1978 when Segun Okeowo led Nigerian student against the Obasanjo regime,we did the SAP riot against IMF Conditionalities,we fought IBB to a standstill. We are not begging for recognition😁😁you

you are only exhibiting your foolishness and ignorance. The fact that you can’t wine and dine at a protest venue across Nigeria,the price was paid by the blood of a generation. Do you know Beeko-Ransome Kuti, Olisa-Agbakoba, Ayo Obe, Segun Mayegun and many others who got this?

The day I lost interest in this generation was when they started comparing Burna Boy to Fela Anikulapo! Fela didn’t become a legend because of weed,it was his intellectual depth that made him one. Do something for your generation and stop blame game,fight your fight,I fought mine

Reflecting on the discussion over School Exclusions, it's struck me that many see the concept of Abolition as like "Reform, only better". My experience of running a prison segregation unit has informed my view of how wrong this is. And so... A THREAD 1/

Firstly, updating laptop prevents a blog post, but I may get to that later, if so, I'll link below. To begin: A few years ago, I took over the senior management position in a prison that had departmental responsibility for the prison's Segregation Unit 2/

A Segregation unit is essentially a small living unit within a prison, where people can be taken for the purposes of punishment, or separation from the general population for safety reasons. 3/

When I took over the function, there were normally 12-16 residents, and almost never fewer. There are rules around how/why you can segregate people, which are too much for twitter, but for our purposes, we'll use the two main "themes"- Punishment and Safety 4/

People can be segregated as a punishment after an Adjudication, or held for the good order and discipline of the prison. (See the parallels with the school exclusions debate?) Segregation is not the only punishment available from Adjudication, but is often seen as the top one 5/

1. "The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves;...

There are so many things as a GP that we cannot access day to day since the NHS focused on Covid in March. The list is endless, my patients have suffered... These are not real patients, but real scenarios I have faced since March. Imagine....

A thread about panic buying and stockpiling outrage. Availability (or lack thereof) of products in supermarkets is a complex and multi-layered issue.

Basically, it's not just people being cunts. 1/

CHANGING BEHAVIOUR. Many people acquire food from non-supermarket sources. Cafes, work canteens, restaurants, delis, service stations etc. 2/

When this decreases significantly, it takes a relatively small proportion of people in an area to buy one extra meal at the supermarket, to affect supply. 3/

BIGGER BASKETS. There are a LOT of people who shop 'little and often', buying only what they need for that day/possibly the next. The govt is now asking people to limit their trips, meaning products which would take a week to leave shelves will now be bought on a single trip. 4/

Again, it only takes a small proportion of people making this change to affect supply.

SPACE ON SHELF. It sounds obvious, but some products take up more space on shelf. Compare a tin of soup with an 18 pack of toilet roll. 5/

If women knew how they carried the divine letters they carried, they would understand why dark groups made so much effort to break the marriage tradition. The hymen of women is not only for health and hygiene purposes.

Especially as it is thought in the eastern parts of the world, it has nothing to do with honor. Every woman has a divine letter with her virginity. This divine letter is in the first sexual experience after a true spiritual marriage, in the presence of God, in sickness-health, ..

good day-bad day, until death separates them (without any earthly condition), in the first sexual experience that takes place after a true spiritual marriage, where they are promised to be with each other for their spiritual development.

During the opening of the membrane, its seal is opened with the first drop of blood flowing. This blood is the only divinely allowed blood. All other bloodshed violates divine laws. When there is no marriage, that is, when the oath is not given before God,

the divine protection is removed and this letter is destroyed by the dark beings. This is why the peoples of Europe were taken to unmarried partnerships, polygamy, youth madnesses, and these were normalized, especially for the destruction of the sacred letters of great importance

One simple thing we pointed out in the what to expect when you're electing report for EIP was really embracing experts talking about "how such things usually turn out". I don't think people understand the difference this makes. https://t.co/mWUVCR4Pbz

We value experts b/c they are careful when commenting on things they don't have the full picture on. And that's good. But one thing I've found in my deep dive into the electoral disinformation flows is that expertise arrives *days* after all the disinfoverse explanations go viral

So the expertise that should be making us smarter socially doesn't really help. As I looked through reporting and thought about my own experience being interviewed it occurred to me that so often we're asked "What is this thing likely to be?" and that makes us skittish.

The true answer to "What is this thing likely to be?" is a mess of really dubious percentages requiring lots of inputs. And the uncertainty we express just makes it look like truth might be unknowable. People are bad at comprehending likelihoods.

On the other hand, ask an expert "How have similar things in the past turned out? and you'll not only get a more helpful answer, you'll get a STORY -- a narrative that can actually compete with other narratives.

I think there's a lot of general confusion over that "conservatism" is.

First, it's not "evil" or even "bad". It's a legitimate political philosophy that boils down to minimal possible intervention in society, including but not limited to the economy.

Liberals and moreso progressives, believe that the state can/should if not "engineer" society, exercise its power to shape society and use its machinery to level the playing field. To address inequalities that arise from an insufficiently regulated free market system.

If you buy into the notion that these are the primary, functional differences between liberalism and conservativism, you cannot escape the conclusion that a part of the reason for the rise of the hard right is the "gains" made by the liberals towards their "better society" goals.

These liberal "gains" include state intervention in free speech, reduction of personal property rights and freedoms, so-called political correctness, identity politics, redistribution of wealth via taxation and a slew of other things cheered by the left and reviled by the right.

Every time there is a gain that the left cheers, the right moves a little further right and gets a little more angry.

Every time the right gains or undoes something the left feels a deep existential angst and loss of optimism.

I believe very strongly we need to start tolerating one another more, making space for one another, working hard to bridge the divide. It's a theme I've been on about for a while. And I get push-back - often very indignant and heated. Sometimes outright accusatory. #cdnpoli 1/16

A point I keep trying to make, with varying degrees of success, is no matter how much other people may bug you, even disgust you, they're simply not going to disappear tomorrow. So we need to live together. It's not a question of if, it's only a question of how. #cdnpoli 2/16

The response I've never understood is the purist one. I refuse to live with X. I make no allowance for Y. How dare you (turning the question back on me) even imply we should tolerate Z. That's offensive. They are wrong and we are right. It's simple. No compromises. #cdnpoli 3/16

I consider purists to be comically self-indulgent. I've even started arguments over it. I recognize the attraction of purity. It feels great to stand firm on principle and uphold what's right. The question I return to is - now what? They're still here, as are we. #cdnpoli 4/16

What I forget, sometimes, is I view this as a political problem and not everyone does, even when talking about politics. They hear me say we need to live with the "other side" and imagine I mean make friends with them, date them, go bowling with them. That isn't it. #cdnpoli 5/16