Thread .... 👇👇👇

Situation Update, Dec. 11th – DoD de-fangs the CIA, 305th intel proves foreign interference, SCOTUS maneuvers

Quick Thread on the Gut Microbiome

Hippocrates said: “All disease begins in the gut.”
While there is significant truth to this, in my personal view of health, it is a little more complex, but it is largely true.

The gut affects the rest of the body, being the gateway to what is absorbed, via the gut-brain axis (directly affects the brain), and due to the metabolism, absorption, detoxification and immune system (70% is in the gut) which takes place/resides in the gut, etc.

This is why it is so critical to take care of our gut health, because once it is negatively affected, it may never be the same again. What affects the gut microbiome? There are over 100,000 trillion microorganisms working together in the gut.

There are 10x more bacterial cells than human cells. Usually, we focus on the bacteria, although there are other species.

Currently, out gut microbiome is less diverse than historically, which can have a negative impact on our health as various species have distinct functions (metabolizing food, producing vitamins like B12 – which we have lost, among other functions).

1/ How many times have u been told that ‘Imposter syndrome’ is an internal problem? That it’s your responsibility to make it go away from your mind. That it’s entirely a figment of your own imagination. Well I don’t think so, but the journey to this conclusion has been painful 🧵

2/ Let’s start with the definition of Imposter syndrome: it’s basically those feelings of inadequacy & doubt in your abilities to do the things that you’ve proved successful in doing by virtue of your achievements & qualifications. This in turn affects your confidence to do them.

3/We’re told women, particularly those from minoritised backgrounds, have this more intensely though it can affect anyone. I’ve certainly felt it throughout my life intensifying at times of stress and overload. But is it entirely internally triggered? Well, this is the narrative.

4/ You go to courses, you read articles, you speak to mentors and what they usually tell you is that it’s all in your mind. Perhaps triggered by your social upbringing & cultural background. So you must work on it. But I’ve realised recently that it’s not just that.

5/ Some people in your surroundings trigger this, to be fair to them perhaps unconsciously. They may have in their minds a stereotype of you that is inadequate & incapable of achieving what you’ve achieved in reality. So they do or say things that trigger the feeling in you..

The Pandemic has got me thinking. On TV, people of the future are always very comfortable with data. They collect it. They analyze it. They adjust their strategies in real time. Not in days or hours or minutes but often literally in SECONDS.🧵👇

They run simulations of different outcomes. The simulations aren't always right but they seem to put them in the ballpark of what's reasonable. People take the simulations and data seriously. They factor them into their planning.

Even when the future government is evil, it's still smart. Even when the future government is rigid and uncreative in how it responds to stuff, it's responses are still logically related to the assumptions it has made, the data it has collected and the analyses it has performed.

Unfortunately, our civilization is NOT THAT. We collect data but usually haphazardly and in ways that make it hard to draw any conclusions. It often takes a long time for us to make sense of data. Politicians often throw out the numbers completely.

We don't seem to care what the probability of various outcomes are. We don't seem to use probabilities when making decisions. Perhaps, you're thinking about the election predictions and about how they were close but not quite right.

Reactionaries are like, "ah, I see that you post constantly and passionately about minimum wage, but riddle me this: have you considered that some people I don't respect or care about might benefit from this?"

I love it when a thought occurs to someone a century after everyone with a brain thought about it and quickly explained why it's irrelevant or false.

Ah, but did you know that human beings who are of high school age also are compelled by social structure to mortgage the time they have in this life to perform labor to survive, from which wealthy people extract profit??? #gotcha

I find it very clarifying to think about min. wage not as the lowest amount you're owed for your labor but the lowest amount you're owed just for giving your employer that time, even if you're standing around. Your time alive is also what they are buying from you.

This is useful in part because it negates skill-based labor objections, which are garbage anyway, but anything that reframes the conversation as a human right and not a job-based right is good.

Me: “Ugh, I really need to clear this area but there’s so much shit on it that all needs to be put 40 different places. This too much.”

Adderall Me: “I ain’t got time for this shit.” *Uses arm to knock everything not breakable onto the floor* “Clear.” 🤣🤣🤣 #ADDcheckin

Now for someone who doesn’t have #ADHD you might find what I did odd. All I did was move the mess from one spot to another.

And you’re right.

But my brain *really* wants to organize this area. So because of that I will actually do it. I can tackle the mess later... #ADDcheckin

I’ve learned one particular hack for my brain but it still needs adderall to kick it off. Once the feeling overwhelms you of focus—a need to get shit done—I don’t let my indecisiveness slow me down. Non-adderall me will try to brainstorm a solution for 6 weeks & get nothing done.

When I was young one of the reasons why I was berated & called lazy so often was because on occasion I would do some Herculean feat w/ ease but wouldn’t do my homework or clean my room for weeks.

Because I didn’t *WANT* to. It’s a key issue in the ADD brain. A want is needed.

And to the uninitiated all that sounds like is “You just wanna do what you wanna do. You aint slick.”

But its not that simple. We can desperately want to get something done, know we need to & still can’t do it. Maybe under extreme pressure of a deadline but often not even.

I know my opinion doesn’t count for much. I’m a faceless name on Twitter (for valid reasons I won’t dilute this message with). However I have been massively affected by what has taken place over the last few days in Scotland and I wanted to air my feelings around this. 1/

We are being told that sex and gender are interchangeable by many and that changing the wording within the amazing Forensic Medical Services Bill makes no difference to the services survivors receive.

We are told this as though we haven’t been privy to the raging debate 2/

around it for the last few years. In years past people often replaced sex with gender to appease sensibilities around sex. This was an accepted practice because it caused no real concerns or issues in regard to the actual protected characteristic of sex. 3/

However, in more recent times gender is no longer used in the same way. Gender is not defined in law but it is being conflated with sex to the extent that people are suggesting that they mean the same thing. They do not and the law agrees that they don’t. 4/

There appears to have been policy capture at the highest levels, within our government, LA’s, NHS and other orgs. These places have made preemptive assumptions on advice from lobby groups that they proudly display champion badges for and pay thousands of pounds to each year. 5/

It’s time for T+2 to go. (1/9)

Last week we saw the impact the two-day trade settlement period has on investors and ultimately the entire American financial system. Clearinghouse deposit requirements skyrocketed overnight. (2/9)

People were unable to buy some securities they wanted. Investors were angry and concerned, an unintended byproduct of the antiquated settlement process. (3/9)

The 2-day period to settle trades exposes investors and the industry to unnecessary risk and is ripe for change. (4/9)

Investors are left waiting for their trades to clear, and the clearing brokers have their proprietary cash locked up, until the settlement is final days after the trade. (5/9)

So much cultural criticism boils down to chewing on the strange result of popular genre chum--guilty pleasure stuff--being taken more seriously than it was really designed for or capable of sustaining.

Im thinking about the furors around American Dirt, Bridgerton, and WW84, which, in different ways, are all objects meant to be consumed for pleasure without thinking too much about why and how. And then you think about them and you're like "wow, this sucks."

Scads of thrillers as bad or worse than American Dirt are published constantly, and no one but their readers notices, but THIS one got lots of "serious" attention, so it was held to real literary standards and eviscerated.

Bridgerton is an adaptation of romance novels--not serious alt-history--but when claims for the progressive work it was doing were made, lots of folks were like "wow, this seems pretty silly and kinda careless?"

And the conversation around WW84 is fascinating because of the strange way "comic book movie" is simultaneously "stupid goofy fun, not supposed to make sense" and "this is an allegory for America under Trump" (doubly vexed by the "saving cinema!" role WW84 was slotted into)

I seek the Lord God Almighty, the King of the hosts of heaven. Lord I beseech you to pour out your military upon our earth and specifically throughout the United States of America. Send your generals to do your work in our land. Take down every stronghold of our enemy...

1/ The “No Surprises Act” is deeply flawed. It should not advance in its current form. Work must continue to reach a meaningful remedy to “surprise medical bills” #SMB that keeps patients out of the middle and provides balance.

Here are several concerns w/ the current proposal:

2/ The proposal should require that the initial “interim payment” made by the insurer for out-of-network services be considered the plan’s offer for IDR, to incentivize the insurer to pay a fair initial reimbursement.

But, the proposal does not.

3/ The proposal should allow the IDR process to consider UCR and an independent charge-based database. Lest it be a form of price-fixing by insurers since the qualifying payment is indexed to the insurer-set in-network median rate (w/CPIU adjustment).

But, the proposal does not.

4/ The proposal should avoid a complex administrative burden that threatens practice viability and leads to consolidation and higher healthcare costs for patients. Cost effective independent physician practice provides patients choice.

But, the proposal does not.

5/ The proposal should explicitly prohibit the IDR process from considering Medicare, Medicaid, and other public payer rates. These are well known to be below the cost of providing care and these programs are not implicated by the #SMB provisions.

But, the proposal does not.

One little push-pull I'm running into is that I'm selecting quality securities that appreciate; the "Active Satellite", but I'm sizing positions smaller for risk mgmt. Desire to increase size is there, but it has to be balanced into the overall picture & the portfolio as a WHOLE.

Generally, a normal #ActII #Center investing portfolio is tailored to the individual, but there are some broad principles that I've applied across portfolios. "Passive Plus" generally has a Passive Core & Active Satellite construction with a broad diversified asset allocation.

The Passive Core is usually around 75-80% of the portfolio consisting of low-cost tax efficient index ETF's covering most equity asset classes (Large Core, Large Value, Mid Core, Mid Value, Small Core, Small Value, EM, Int'l LG/SM) w/exposure to ALL at ALL TIMES.

One caveat to the "Passive Core" is that I use (held passively) a very small number of actively managed mutual funds within that 80% of the portfolio. These are GROWTH funds that worth the small extra expense & I have one manager for US Large and Small US Growth & Int'l Large

This part of the portfolio is truly "Core". It doesn't move. It doesn't get sold aside from rebalancing. It didn't get sold in the depths of March. There is a possibility these positions will be in place for decades. The asset quilt changes every year, so we are exposed to ALL

But I wanna share a thing on why I hardly consult.

Few months after my first ancestral initiation, I tried to consult with someone. The person didn't get back to me for whatever reason. I too didn't probe because their silence felt like a message to me. So I didn't probe them and I eventually let it go.

A while later, the things I wanted to consult about revealed themselves in various ways. I literally mean various ways. So I eventually got SOME clarity. At some point this person I wanted to consult with me told me they had actually missed my enquiry.

At that point I didn't feel the need to consult anymore following the events that had taken place in my life and my receiving clarity through those events.

Through all this I was able to learn how my guides communicate and the pattern with which they work.

So I got to know them better and understand our connection better.

So when we say be patient, it's real guys. It's not to shove you off, you really need to get comfortable with waiting certain things out. And it's important to know that inside patience, there are things for you

The republican speeches today are familiar to any abuse survivor.

"I hate that you made me hit you. I've never hit anyone before, so that's how awful you've been to me to make me do that. And the way you keep pushing this, it feels like you're trying to make me go there again."

CW Nightmare

In the torn out belly of an old, sprawling hotel, I found myself investigating strange happenings in the fledgling restaurant that sprouted in the blasted ruin.

Swarthy men gutted the collapse, using every nail & timber to build the eatery and it's long tables.
1🧵

I swear to have seen a spider, large as a dinner plate, with an ape-like face and twitching human fingers for legs, ground down to bloody points. But only a flash witnessed in a broken pane of glass. The bike thing was some illusion. A twisting of light and color, nothing more.

It was then , in the darkening hours of the day, that six young travelers entered, seating themselves at the single large feast table. Colorful, happy, bawdy souls in all, they seemed unaffected by the haze of terror that lingered among the workmen.
3🧵

I found no sign of mold or damp, gas or chemical, any phenomenon to explain the various sightings.
The matron, dutiful and mild in manner, brought the travelers beer, soft pretzels, and honey butter - leaving them to chitter and indulge.
4 🧵

The workmen, in the growing dark, left as quickly as a flock of larks, in one writing mass at the foreman's whistle. Unashamed in their obvious terror. Each man nodded to me, the stranger, in quiet gratitude and sorrowful fancy, as I dared to remain after dark.
5 🧵

IMHO, this article — https://t.co/wLiWDOZrvm — is an important corrective to fatalism about the new strain. As in, "welp, there are probably already at least a handful of cases of the new strain already here, so no matter what we do now, it's gonna spread." Not necessarily so.

"10 to 20 percent of infected people may be responsible for...80 to 90 percent of transmission."

"An early run of bad [or good!] luck...can produce dramatically different outcomes."

New Zealand had 277 separate introductions; only 19% of them led to more than 1 additional case.

That's all referring to the original COVID strain, but I haven't read anything suggesting that the same pattern doesn't apply to the new variant. Not sure if we know yet, but it's at least possible a lot of people don't spread it (while the few that do, spread it *A LOT* a lot).

Here's what we know, or think we know:

* The new variant is here, with probably at least a handful of undetected cases.

* The new variant is so wildly contagious that, once it gains a foothold, cases WILL spike.

* Cases stopped rising steeply around Nov. 10 (by onset day).

It seems like 1 of 2 things is true:

1) New variant arrived in October or earlier, and helped cause our November spike. We then reined it in, without even realizing it was here.

2) New-variant community spread is low-level thus far, at least thru ~Xmas. No superspreaders yet.