President-elect Biden’s Thanksgiving address was an important moment in the rhetorical and moral life of the nation. The remarks themselves were well-constructed, graceful and serious of purpose – an act of responsible governance even before taking the oath. 1/

The president-elect’s speech also contrasted starkly with a president on a descending path of cynicism, destructiveness, desperation and self-delusion. We always knew it could come to this: A direct attack on the functioning and legitimacy of American democracy. 2/

The coup has already occurred in Trump’s mind. Can there be any doubt he would keep power by overturning a legitimate election? Can there be any question he would snuff out the democratic voice of the nation if he could? He is incompetent. But can we doubt his intention? 3/

It is the interpretive key to Trump: He is anti-American. He has no respect for the country’s institutions or values. He is ignorant of the nation’s story, dismissive of its conventions and unmoved by its romance. 4/

Trump sees politics the way a Machiavellian would in any country – as the pursuit of power, not the stewardship of certain truths. 5/

I've led a fortunate life, much to be thankful for. I've been to 80 countries. Wherever I went I was thankful I lived in the U.S. where evils like autocracies & theocracies were impossible. Since 2017, we've discovered that's not so. Today's SCOTUS decision underscores that.

If there is anything to be thankful for in it, it is the hope it will serve as a wake-up call to those who do not realize the threats that lie ahead. Recent elections have reminded us how important it is to wrest democracy out of the hands of the donor class that's seized it.

Our recent experiences have also made it painfully clear that our system contains deep imperfections that assure that a minority will have disproportionate power in our Senate, our electoral college and, thanks to the Senate, our courts.

Either we, the majority that elected our next president, will continue our activism & engagement & work to fix what's broken in that system or we will drift further toward the kind of dysfunctionality that has led to so much suffering around the planet.

Our work, in short, has just begun. Removing Trump was an essential step toward preserving our democracy. But it was just one of several such steps. Winning back the Senate, rebalancing the courts, changing our campaign finance and election laws, are all essential.

Bitcoin has no role in institutional or retail investors portfolios. It is not a currency: not an unit of account, not a scalable means of payment & is a highly volatile store of value. It is heavily manipulated: look at the investigation of  Bitfinex by US law enforcement. 1/n

See also the academic evidence that Tether is used to manipulate the Bitcoin market. And look at the recent indictment of BitMex and his criminal CEO & gang. It has no intrinsic value, it is not backed by any asset, it is not legal tender, it cannot be used to pay taxes. 2/n

Almost no merchant uses Bitcoin as its price volatility leads to market risk that any profit margin is wiped out before u can convert it back into fiat. Not scalable means of payments. It's toxic for the environment as POS hogs enormous amounts of energy & pollutes the earth. 3/n

Bitcoin is not an asset as it has ZERO intrinsic value. Assets do either provide an income or capital gains or utility or real use of some sort. Stocks, bonds, real estate, other assets provide both income (dividends, interest, rent) & capital gains & housing services for RE; 4/n

Gold/silver dont provide income but give capital gains, utility (jewelry) & used in industry.  BTC doesn't give income, has no other utility services (such as unit of account or means of payments) & provides only capital gains (or losses) based purely on speculative motives. 5/n

𝟭𝟬 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆

Have you been in a rut lately?

Do you need that extra boost to unleash all your creative powers?

Do you know it's there, but your creativity just won't come out?

Then here's 10 ways to fix your problem

𝟭) 𝗧𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗻𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗲

You can't get creative when you're drowning yourself in noise

Turn off your pc, stash your phone away & find a quiet place

You'll be much more creative

𝟮) 𝗦𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿

Sounds so simple, yet it's so important

Many have sleepless nights trying to have a creative breakthrough

When really they should go to bed early and let their creative breakthrough come to them in the morning

𝟯) 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲

Go to places that inspire you

Maybe you are inspired by nature, maybe by art museums, maybe by busy streets

The right places will make you feel 10x more creative

𝟰) 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲

Hang out with people that are creative & can inspire you

There's a reason why artists flock to paris & tech gurus flock to silicon valley

Iron sharpens iron, creatives sharpen creatives

Perfect mix of collaboration & competition

Summary of the Michigan Kraken release. Once again, Happy Thanksgiving, America!

COUNT I
Defendants Violated the Elections and Electors Clauses and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

1. I am thankful that at 12pm 1/20 the powers of the prez will be removed from the most dangerous person who has ever held them. I am thankful for the many wonderful fellow Americans from across the spectrum that joined me to help get him out & save America from authoritarianism

2. I am thankful for each & every person that had to make a hard decision, stay silent & normalize this man & his party's actions- which mirror so closely actions taken by other leaders & parties as they moved to consolidate power at the expense of democracy (as documented so

3. clearly by @anneapplebaum's book Twilight of Democracy) bc their lock on power is threatened. Those of us that took a holistic look at events in the U.S., the scope of the Right's propaganda network, and the lengths to which GOP influencers (electeds & media) were willing to

4. go to manipulate public opinion and knew without a shadow of a doubt that we were facing a five alarm fire. Trump, as dumb & self-sabotaging as he is, does one thing perfectly well- manipulate public opinion. Trump fully understands that public opinion flows from the top-down,

5. and that when you control the information diet of a group of people, as the Right is controlled, that manipulation level reaches profound levels. By the time Trump came down the golden escalator in May of 2015- the Republican electorate was primed for someone like him to come

A Thanksgiving story to warm your pluralistic hearts:

It was the early 1990s, the days before Washington DC had meters in taxis. A famine was raging in Somalia. And I was working in my first job out of college: a brief stint working for an organization that focused on the Middle East peace process.

I was heading to my parents’ house. I was standing in front of a mailbox near my office. I was holding a stack of papers with Hebrew writing on them. I hailed a cab.

I was aware that on the mailbox behind me was a large sign from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals with an image of a turkey and the words: “Thanksgiving is Murder on Turkeys.”

It was the period right around Thanksgiving.

A cab pulled up, and I got in the front seat—because in the days before metered cabs in DC, drivers were allowed to pick up more than one fare, and someone else was already occupying the back seat.

#gratitude thread 1/12
“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” Voltaire
#grateful for classics @CIIS_SF

#gratitude thread 2/12
“When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.” Vietnamese Proverb @BreneBrown
@grateful for cultures

#gratitude thread 3/12
“Got no checkbooks, got no banks, still I’d like to express my thanks. I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.” Irving Berlin @PolarisInsight
#grateful for music

#gratitude thread 4/12
"For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to fever.” Charlotte Bronte #grateful for literature @Drug_Researcher

#gratitude thread 5/12
“No duty is more urgent than giving thanks.” James Allen #grateful for "As a Man Thinketh" (legendary book) @Chacruna_net

In today's final session, we are discussing the "Geopolitics of Europe and European Defence" with @Isabelle_kumar (@euronews), the French Minister of State for European Affairs @CBeaune, and experts from the TEPSA network

Here are the best bits⤵️

/THREAD

"It feels like Europe is at a watershed moment, when we look at all the crises we face. I will ask each of our speakers asking where we think Europe is today"

- @Isabelle_kumar, from @euronews

/2

French Minister of State for European Affairs @CBeaune is the first to speak, clarifying the French perspective of European Security: "Our aim is not to go out of the existing frameworks, the idea is to get the tools to act - ultimately - when we need to act"

/3

"It is clear that in the next years we will have to recognise that the US itself goes beyond President Trump. It is prudent to have frameworks for action which are independent of the White House"

- @CBeaune, French Minister of State for European Affairs @francediplo

/4

"We need to start with common budgetary tools at the EU level. Already we have funds to co-finance research in this area"

- @CBeaune, French Minister of State for European Affairs @francediplo

/5

Alright. I've got that out of my system. Happy Thanksgiving and back to work here with a Early Black Friday pallet cleansing mega thread with a Cornucopia of thoughts on 2021. First, precious metals aren't dead. Yes, Bitcoin is stealing gold's thunder as a... /1

...currency alternative but it's not going away as a dollar hedge though I see Bitcoin likely to outperform gold in 2021. That said, gold could be up over 50% by the end of next year as Yellen and Powell (Jack and Jill) are climbing the stimulus hills. Meanwhile.. /2

...silver really should kill it next year. Solar is heating up, not just with Biden's win, but globally, & with pent up demand unleashed as lockdowns either relax or get tossed aside via polite revolts. Industry is going to boom and with globalists back in business so are... /3

...green energy and rare earth metals. Yeah, looking at you $MP on rare earths and - dare I say it - $AG and miners might have their year come summer of 2021. Specs are going to sniff that out in January so look for December tea leaves on the metals. No shame in buying $SLV... /4

....but I really like playing options for it. Speaking of lockdowns, no I promised to behave, I think the by-product of lockdowns ending is that the torturous path of a decade plus of "deflation" (in name only really) dies in a supernova heat death of feels good man spending. /5

If you want to know what the Trump administration has been about, then read this list of ‘midnight regulations’ that they’re trying to implement in their final days in office. I’ll post a few of them below.

The Trump administration is expected to move forward plans to make families of noncitizen immigrants ineligible for subsidized housing.

The Trump administration is expected to move forward plans to increase the speed at which chickens may be slaughtered by putting workers at higher risk of amputations.

The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to allow 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds to operate long haul trucks even though those age groups are generally much more likely to have accidents.

The Trump administration is moving forward with plans allow federally subsidized homeless shelters to exclude transgender people.

1/ The SCOTUS decision in favor of the "religious freedom" to gather in large groups despite the pandemic is part of a larger effort to elevate so called religious liberty above all other freedoms, but not in the way most agree with...

2/ Most everyone would agree that people's right to worship as they see fit should be protected, to believe as they wish, free from persecution, etc. That is not what this is, or what other religious liberty cases are about...

3/ These cases are about elevating the rights of persons claiming to be acting on the basis of religious belief, to engage in activity that injures others, without consequence. So here it means the right to worship in large groups even if it endangers public health...

4/ In other cases it means the right to discriminate against customers if you have a 'religious objection' to their sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. And what's especially disturbing is the real endgame, which few talk about...

5/ This is really about gutting civil rights protections. If you ask virtually any right wing conservative jurist, or commentator or politician, they will admit, if you push, that they don't think civil rights law should ever have applied to private businesses...

I recently submitted my PhD dissertation titled "Illiberalism Beyond Borders. Dissecting Russian and Turkish External Influence in Bosnia and Georgia" at @FU_Berlin. Interested in what I found? Read this thread ⬇️

To begin with, I hypothesise that illiberal external influence (IEX) is more likely to contribute to the contestation of #democracy in a given polity when it appears in the context of a favorable domestic environment and the absence of liberal external counterpressure.

I particularly scrutinise the role of domestic elites in facilitating/obstructing IEX, based on findings by J. Tolstrup, @otansey, R. Vanderhill et al. I also look at how liberal ext. counterpressure can help prevent a major contribution of IEX to the contestation of #democracy.

Between 2016-2018, I conducted 95 interviews in #Tbilisi, #Moscow, #Sarajevo & #BanjaLuka (thx to all interlocutors!). Given the increasingly unfree environment in Turkey, I didn't dare to make a trip to Ankara, but talked to local experts about Turkish IEX in BiH & Georgia.

In #Bosnia, #Ankara has engaged in illiberal sponsorship of the Party of Democratic Action for many years. However, in both Bosnia and #Georgia, Ankara mostly exerted illiberal external influence after the 2016 coup attempt, following which it exerted pressure on the rule of law.

Math action like drill and practice help a kid increasing great mental number aptitudes. In addition, if the training is done regularly through playing around, youngsters effectively get acquainted with numbers.

These days, we have various online numerical exercises implied for kids and the adults the same. Instructors, guardians and youngsters have various games and number drill exercises close by.