ATROCIOUS big pharma price gouging of insulin:

This crying mother can’t afford the $1000 for her son’s insulin.

📌yet, it only costs pharma $5 to produce.

📌Insulin was invented 100 years ago by Fred Banting—who donated patent for $1 to make it free for all.

Let that sink in.

2) Insulin is one of the most disgusting cases of price gouging ever.

America has long taken a free market approach to pharmaceuticals.
Drug companies haggle separately over drug prices with a variety of private insurers across the

3) “Meanwhile, Medicare, the government health program for those over age 65 — it’s also the nation’s largest buyer of drugs—is barred from negotiating drug prices. That gives pharma more leverage, and it leads to the kind of price surges of EpiPens, opioid antidotes, & insulin.”

4) In 2018:
Johnson & Johnson CEO made $30M
Pfizer CEO made $28M
Merck CEO made $18M
Eli Lilly CEO made $16M
Gilead CEO made $16M

Meanwhile:

📌Americans spent $535B on Rx drugs

📌1/4 of diabetics rationed insulin to survive

📌500K Americans went bankrupt from medical bills.

5) What’s the right price patients should pay for medications? ZERO dollars, because no copay ==> more patients get their medicine ==> saves lives and saves money. Copays decrease adherence, and copays hurt patients who actually need them.

okay so here's a snippet of what you missed on #neurodiverse TikTok yesterday; there was two things happening at once and they intersected so it got confusing

both things basically involved autistic tiktok vs ADHD tiktok which probably got really confusing for the people who are diagnosed as both. One issue was around gatekeeping and lateral ableism, and the other a more serious issue around research ethics vs. grassroots understanding

I know ppl on both sides of the research ethics debate & it's being dealt w already so I don't want to comment more on what happened there; let's just say that there are a lot of exciting and scientific things that eager ADHD folx are learning that COULD deepen our understanding

of neurodiverse physiological and metabolic practices but these are purely hypothetical and as neurodiverse people seeking to understand ourselves, we get excited, we info-dump and it becomes more of a question about when do you have responsibility as a content creator to clarify

and make sure your audience understands what you are saying and what you are NOT saying about things that have been scientifically proven to be related to ADHD?

That's probably as clear as mud but that's all I wanna say about that: onto the other thing!

National Guard Gearing Up At Washington D.C. Capitol

#WashingtonDC

0/ I’m tired of hearing about observability replacing monitoring. It’s not going to, and that’s because it shouldn’t.

Observability will not _replace_ monitoring, it will _augment_ monitoring.

Here’s a thread about observability, and how monitoring can evolve to fit in: 👇

1/ Let’s start with the diagram (above) illustrating the anatomy of observability. There are three layers:

I. (Open)Telemetry: acquire high-quality data with minimal effort
II. Storage: “Stats over time” and “Transactions over time”
III. Benefits: *solve actual problems*

2/ The direction for “Telemetry” is simple: @opentelemetry.

(This is the (only) place where the so-called "three pillars” come in, by the way. If you think you’ve solved the observability problem by collecting traces, metrics, and logs, you’re about to be disappointed. :-/ )

3/ The answer for “Storage” depends on your workload, but we’ve learned that it’s glib to expect a data platform to support observability with *just* a TSDB or *just* a transaction/trace/logging DB. And also that “cost profiling and control” is a core platform feature.

4/ But what about “Benefits”? There’s all of that business about Control Theory (too academic) and “unknown unknowns” (too abstract). And “three pillars” which is complete BS, per the above (it’s just “the three pillars of telemetry,” at best).

The House is now beginning two hours of debate on the article of impeachment charging President Trump with "incitement of insurrection."

Pelosi is the first speaker.

"He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love," Pelosi says. She says that removing Trump from office is "a constitutional remedy to make sure the republic is safe from this man."

Pelosi says the rioters "were not patriots," they were "domestic terrorists."

She asks House members, looking at the GOP side: "I ask you to search your souls and answer this question: is the president's war on democracy in keeping with the Constitution?"

Jim Jordan now says Democrats want to "cancel the president," one week to the day since insurrectionists attacked the Capitol.

He says Dems are "canceling the president and anyone who disagrees with them" - right after he said Liz Cheney should step down for voting to impeach.

GOP Rep. Tom McClintock is saying that all Trump did is give "a fiery speech to a group of partisans," and that most of the protesters on Wednesday were peaceful. He calls impeachment "petty, vindictive and gratuitous." His speech was met with scattered applause from Republicans.

In a few years the bar moved from saying that children weren’t undergoing irreversible procedures, to arguing in The New Yorker that children should get to sterilize themselves for life without regard to the “arbitrary historical boundaries of

Among those of us with left-of-center political ideals, it’s only radical feminists who will now stand up and say that it’s wrong to sterilize children because they’re different, or unhappy. It’s only conservatives who will platform us to say

Where are the other organizations that claim to represent lesbian and bisexual women, saying that these girls don’t need mastectomies? Where are the gay men’s groups standing up for the wholeness of these boys? Why are they abandoning their responsibilities?

Where are the groups for those on the autism spectrum, standing up to say that it’s completely typical for autistic young people to have social fit difficulties and be unhappy about this, as well as to obsessively perseverate on special interests?

Why are news outlets who’ve made their bones reporting on previous medical scandals ignoring the sterilization of these children? Whether they’re LGB, autistic, or caught up in social contagions because they self-diagnosed from a YouTube overdose in a vulnerable moment?

Here is a special thread introducing our series on “The Making of the Islamic World.” It offers 10 episodes about the transformation of Islamicate societies between the 7th and 17th centuries. You can find the series page here: https://t.co/7mL9eWmMmz

This is Chris Gratien posting. I created this series during Fall 2020 for my students as asynchronous material supported by readings and discussion. This is going to be a long thread, but it will be a great shortcut for those looking to make similar use of these materials.

There are two items worth pointing out: 1. This is an overview of the political, social, and cultural history of Islamicate societies. It does not deal with the origins of Islam or many theological questions. It does discuss Islam’s spread and the transformation of Islamic law.

2. This is the first part of a two-part sequence that takes the history of the Islamic world into the present. It emphasizes developments and themes that have particular relevance for later periods.

This is really a multivocal narrative of Islamic history. We feature over 20 scholars from almost as many institutions. Many of those who worked on it, myself included, study the early modern and modern era but have teaching obligations that take us further back in history.

Pelosi: "The President of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion, against our common country. He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love."

Pelosi: "They were domestic terrorists and justice must prevail. But they did not appear out of a vacuum. They were sent here, sent here by the president, with words such as a cry to 'fight like hell.' Words matter. Truth matters. Accountability matters."

who wants to tell him?

"They want to cancel the president" -- Jim Jordan

Rep. McClintock (R) is out here arguing that Trump's speech encouraging a riot was "freedom of speech"

Jim jordan opening sentence proves that he will say nothing substantial on these articles of impeachment. He will, instead, be a bloviating blowhard, repeating over and over again the same obfuscatory talking points from December 2019.

Which is exactly why republicans chose him.

Republicans seem not to understand that Lincoln's failure to convict every single general and officer of the confederacy is part of why we're where we are, today.

What are Republicans playing at, reserving all their time? Gonna go all at once, after the Democrats speak, trying to get the last word?

Oop, there they are, calling for "unity," again

Guess today is the day for Ken Buck to just stand up and lie a lot.

Can someone push back on this?

https://t.co/LjpdlHa0C7 is getting a good face-lift.
Samples now have variant tables with annotation on their impact to the gene.
There is also an IGV integration. You need IGV installed locally but the Start|Jump links will open up you BAM file in IGV.

You must have IGV open and then click the start link.
The sample's BAM will show up for viewing in IGV.
Once open, you can use the jump link to move swiftly around to each variant. This is a variant in THCAS.

You can jump to other variants in the same gene. In this case we have one non-synonymous variant in phase with a synonymous variant in THCAS.

Cannabinoid synthase genes are cute but some folks can answer those questions with HPLC.
How about flowering genes?

This sample has a disruptive in frame deletion on a late flowering gene. And it's very rare in the population.

Looks to be heterozygous....
But its never this simple in cannabis.

Let's look at what other damaging variations it has.

When you do media training for TV interviews, you learn some of the tactics for avoiding difficult questions. I'm speaking about
- deflection
- bridging
- deferring
These skills are key when you face high-level interviews on media.

Deflection is usually the easiest.

Q: Didn't you say Bitcoin was going to keep rising to $100k?
A: That's one thing I actually wanted to talk about. We are pretty rigorous with our research. In fact, recently, we upgraded our research platform with an AI System...

Bridging as the name implies means you connect from the question and move away to what you want to focus on. The emphasis on connecting the question to your answer is the key difference with deflection, which takes a sharp turn away from the question right from the beginning.

Q: Categorically, do you believe Nigeria can solve its power issue?
A: Categorically speaking, Nigeria's problem with power needs a proper definition. Is it Generation or transmission or tariffs? or Financing or a lack of political will? I think if we take the telecoms ndustry...

Deferring is the default practice for non-comms people when faced with a question about their company or a subject they don't want to talk about. This involves notifying the interviewer that there is someone better equipped to answer and that your response does not represent..

Tulips, the #Bitcoin of the 17th century

How a pandemic, FOMO, and speculation made a flower worth the same as a mansion

/THREAD/

1/ During the beginning of the 1630s in the Netherlands, tulips were difficult to cultivate and preserve.

This made them a luxury good reserved for the rich and affluent of the upper class living in mansions with big gardens.

2/ The tulip market was not organized nor regulated, as other trades, which made it easy for professional growers to enter it.
Due to the international trade expansion, the growers starting cultivating rare varieties, to achieve higher prices.

3/ The biggest change occurred when florists used tulip bulbs as speculative assets.

The market expansion led to forward bulb-purchase contracts, thus enabling trading during the entire year, and not just during the summer months when tulips bloom.

4/ Easy loans and credit for forward contract purchases led many to enter the market since not much capital was required.

People from the lower economic class (maids, servants, craftsmen) could not resist the temptation for some quick profits and entered the speculative market.

Adam McNeil, 34, rents out entire laundromats to allow Black Philly moms to do their family's clothes for free, and he gave away 25,000 diapers, 2 fridges and 2 sets of washers & dryers to Black Philly moms in the last six months alone (a thread):

Here’s the thing about about McNeil's program, SistaTalkPHL: It doesn’t have a fancy executive board or big donors — it’s just got McNeil, his unemployment checks, and donations from people who believe in his grassroots work.

McNeil himself has a hell of a story, having spent nearly a decade of his life in prison and having survived getting into a near-death car wreck.

"I have taken so much in my life," he told me. "Now, I just want to give."

Due to space constraints, I had to cut a section of McNeil's story out that I felt was very powerful. I'd like to share it here.

McNeil never got to meet his dad, who was imprisoned for most of his life.

While McNeil himself was serving time at the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale he realized a guy he ran around in Philly with, who was in the same prison, was his half brother on his father’s side.

Not ok: “humans can’t change sex”
Ok:

Not ok: “women menstruate”
Ok:

Not ok: “only women have a cervix”
Ok:

Not ok: “my life was shaped by being female”
Ok:

Not ok: “pregnant women”
Ok:

🧵 For those who have been as interested as I am in the discussion about Congress using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against Trump, this is a thread of scholarly commentary on the subject. Please feel free to add additional links.

Historian Eric Foner was among the first to suggest using it and he later wrote up his argument in the WaPo here:

Two legal scholars, Gerald Magliocca and Bruce Ackerman also argued that using section 3 may be more effective than impeachment:

In the @nytimes, @brianbeutler and @deepakguptalaw say it section 3 should be used as a compliment to impeachment.

Political scientist and professor of law Mark Graber makes the case that section 3 can be invoked by legislation passed after Trump leaves office, which would also "retroactively void any action taken by President Trump after January 6, 2021."