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I've made some allusions to how embarrassingly smug and lazy Kyle "I went to Yale" Smith's series is. We're two (short) posts in and it's still difficult to find substantive criticisms underneath an onslaught of purple prose and obvious contempt for community colleges.


The main allegations of his post are that Dr. Biden isn't a great writer and that she didn't do what Smith considers an adequate amount of work to justify her degree. It isn't shocking that he'd avoid substantive critique, as he lacks the expertise to make it.

In the paragraph below 👇, Smith takes Biden's citation pattern – for a potted, perfunctory history of community colleges (which isn't intended to be anything else) – as evidence that she couldn't be bothered to do the reading.


Did he bother to look at the books? At least check their tables of contents? One can find some basic information online. Cohen & Brawer (2003) appears to be a standard textbook on community colleges (cited 5400+ times). The page ranges reflect... relevant parts of the text.


I couldn't find a TOC with pagination for Witt et al., but here's a summary of the contents 👇. Again, given the substance the page ranges aren't terribly surprising, especially since she cites a different source for her *two sentences* on the pre-crash 1920s.
1. Predictably, and I say this to no denigration of PC Young’s experience, your article is written to inflame. It could have appeared in DailyMail.
You seek only to outrage; not to inform. While I cannot hope to do so with @barristersecret’s finesse I will attempt to add balance.


2. The law requires the sentencing judge to adhere to the Sentencing Guidelines. This is an exercise in balancing a multitude of relevant factors.
Immediately, therefore, this means that your claim the offender escaped custody “thanks to glowing character references” is false.

3. The exercise begins, therefore, with the Guideline for the offence that has resulted in a conviction. If that offence is not serious enough for the facts then that is the fault of the CPS, not the judge, who cannot sentence more severely than for what is before him/her.

4. Offences have a max. sentence in law, and the Guidelines indicate a starting point, and range. While it is the law that judges must have regard to the Guidelines, they may go outside of the range (at either end) where circumstances so justify, but if they do they must say why.

5. PC Young’s attacker was convicted of ABH. For that offence, there are 9 stages to the sentencing process, beginning, as always, with determining the offence category which is a combination of offender culpability, and the harm caused.
This is a good article that makes valid points. However, I would really like academics to cite the entire history of experimentation and harm to the Black body beyond the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. 1/


See: More than Tuskegee: Understanding Mistrust about Research Participation
Scharff, Mathews, Jackson, Hoffsuemmer, Martin, and Edwards 2/

Our community collectively witnesses racial disparities in health research and care and are collectively re-traumatized by them. As we speak, we see the contrast between #COVID19 outcomes like this 3/:

And #COVID19 outcomes like this 4/:

Gaining the trust of our community requires more than racial parity in medical and research personnel and increasing opportunities for African American researchers. The misdiagnoses, the lack of support, and harm to Black autistic people and their families are lifelong. 5/
Ok #ygk, I have a serious thread coming to end this series.

Part 3 of 3 focuses on what happens to people after they turn away from the church.

Most said they were shunned, excommunicated, and defamed by their former friends, even by some of their family members when they left.


In part 1, I described how people’s whole lives played out at the church.
https://t.co/TiqrkjJONI

After leaving, they had to relearn how to live.

They never listened “secular” music or watched certain movies, some were even told to boycott Starbucks, because it supports Pride

Going back into the "real world" made one former member feel like she was "losing her mind."

Also, part 3 shows the extreme fear that some people had after leaving.

One person said she worried she would literally be struck by lighting if she spoke badly about the church. #ygk
THREAD: (1/10) There are a range of ambitious recommendations in @theCCCuk Sixth Carbon Budget to deliver 78% reduction in UK territorial emissions between 1990 and 2035 #PlantheWorldWeNeed Some thoughts from the RTPI in this thread... https://t.co/a1iLQ3UMTO


2/10 Recovery: The RTPI's #PlantheWorldWeNeed campaign demonstrates how planning will play a key role in supporting @theCCCuk recommendations, ensuring a sustainable, inclusive and green recovery from the pandemic
https://t.co/b7NX25m30j


3/10 Investment: @theCCCuk recommends additional investment of ÂŁ50bn annually. The RTPI proposes Green Growth Boards to guide investment needed for zero carbon at a strategic scale https://t.co/9GLui8Ll0q


4/10 Transport: @theCCCuk recommends switch to electric vehicles by 2030. Planning will be key in rolling out charging infrastructure but first we must reduce travel demand and increase sustainable travel. Look out for RTPI paper in January on planning for zero carbon transport


5/10 Energy: @theCCCuk recommends #netzero electricity by 2035. Planning is key to guide development of low carbon infrastructure. Technological solutions must be coupled with ambitious measures to reduce energy demand @UWEBristol @TLPblog @Regen_insight
https://t.co/uBZoz77MxF
I've been wanting to do a thread on this and you gave me an excuse. Buckle in, boys!


You guys know I'm part of Collapse Gang and 2020 has certainly been a year of the kind of vindication I really didn't want to see this early.


I've been expecting something along the lines of the "Descending staircase" of the Tainter Model and 2020 seems like one of those periods where the step down is happening.

Eventually, things will hit a point where they'll stabilise and a sort of normalcy will return.

Only there'll be a bunch of stuff that just can't be done any more and we all just have to get used to that.

We're already seeing ham-handed attempts to set public expectations.

The "Great Reset" isn't so much a conspiracy theory as a pisspoor exercise in expectations management to get people to accept "Yeah we lost the capability to do these things you grew up with and we're NEVER getting it back, at least not this side of a new dark age"