Thread: 1/10

What surviving my first bereaved Christmas taught me about handling Christmas in a pandemic:

Mindset: Christmas is nostalgia, tradition, togetherness. But it's also just one day. When things get tough tomorrow, remember this is a Friday & a big chicken dinner.

2/10

Expectations: Let yourself feel what you feel. It is beyond sh*t that people will be alone & that families are separated this Christmas. You don't have to pretend. It's ok to be sad, angry, resentful. Let yourself feel what you feel without expectation to feel otherwise.

3/10

No guilt: It's also ok to have fun on the day. To laugh, smile & enjoy lovely moments even though you miss a relative who can't be with you in order to keep safe from the virus. No guilt. Allow those moments. For you can hold both sadness & joy at the same time.

4/10

Chunk it down: This Christmas Day may feel very long when you're lonely for loved ones who are in another house. Think of the day in sections. Have a focus for each section. Focus only on the section in front of you. Breakfast. Walk. Video call loved ones. Dinner. Movie.

5/10

Allow for differences: Not everyone handles things the same, so don't judge others if they're dealing with the day differently to you tomorrow. Let everyone get through this strangest Christmas Day the best they can. Let everyone find their own way.

Vormithrax is basically the Lobos of Cataclysm. He plays the game with challenges that'd make it impossible for other people to survive even for a few minutes.

While his challenge runs are stunning, it is annoying that there *is* a meta.

In each, "normally I'd ___ but I can't do it so easily now, so ___"

What usually happens is someone watches a Cataclysm video, gets it, and then dies.

Then dies and dies and dies, having tons of fun in the process.

And then they learn the meta.

Grind slings to level crafting, search bushes to level survival. Make a knife spear. Stop making a knife spear, they nerfed it.

And before you know it, every game starts the same way. Like a video game, not an apocalypse simulator, or a story generator.

@bayareahausfrau @politico https://t.co/zPc5IqZug6

MKULTRA survivor shares how Pierre Trudeau @JustinTrudeau daddy sexually abused her on Mackinaw Island, Michigan

It began w/ her abuse as a child to Gerald R Ford “buying” her, her father was protected under the blanket of National Security + then...

@politico @JustinTrudeau the mind control program was used to control her.
#GuyVanderjagt abused her sexually + she was then dedicated to Sen. Robert Byrd to run operations of drug trafficking.
While in Nashville, TN she watched Sen Byrd on the Grand old Opry stage w/ Wayne Cox on the fiddle. After...

@politico @JustinTrudeau she was subjected to a occult blood ritual. She witnessed Wayne Cox murder a railroad bum at the then abandoned Nashville Railroad yard, and cut off his hands - this was Wayne Cox’s M.O he used the severed hands to reactivate The mercenaries running the drugs in South America...

@politico @JustinTrudeau to remember what he could do to them. #mindcontrol

Nashville and Branson were fronts to distribute + run drugs.

she was sexually abused by @BillClinton + @HillaryClinton when Billy was the Governor of Arkansas. in 1978 his drug trafficking was in full swing. ...

@politico @JustinTrudeau @BillClinton @HillaryClinton Bill wasn’t as much into women as he is men, so the abuse by him was limited.
Her abuse was more at the hands of Hillary, who like Bill, is bisexual w/ each having their primary preferences sexually. Cathy O’Brien succumbed to a new level of mind control under @HillaryClinton

The Twelve Days of Christmas - A Correspondence

By John Julius Norwich

(THREAD)

25th December

26th December

27th December

28th December

29th December

New: the U.K. is claiming victory over the EU in the Brexit talks. Let's take a closer look... 1/

.@EuroGuido has shared a `scorecard' of the negotiations, claiming Britain `won' 43% of the issues in the talks. EU won 17%, 40% were mutual compromise. Bear in mind, this is the British negotiating team marking its own work.. 2/

The key q is *how important* are the issues. Just tallying them up doesn't say much. If you won lots of small, low-impact areas, but lost in big areas important to your economy, that's what matters 3/

And at first glance, there are some important things missing for the UK. 1) No mutual recognition of conformity assessment. This means companies will have to pay to certify their products in both the UK and EU. Double regulation = double the cost 4/

We discussed the cost of bureaucracy duplication due to Brexit here 5/

#Thread When Mahabali Bali, who drew half the power of the enemy, faced Hanumanji.

The Ramayana has an interesting episode of the war of Hanuman and Bali. This passage offers many lessons. No matter how strong a person becomes, no matter how rich he should be, he should not boast.

Bali had the boon that whoever comes before him for war, half of his strength will be absorbed in Bali. On the basis of this boon, Bali beat the big warriors to dust.

Bali used to challenge people here and there. One day, he was screaming in the forest that who can beat me.

Hanumanji was doing penance in the same forest and was reciting the name of his adorable Lord Rama. Bali's shouting disrupted his austerity. He said to Bali, Vanar Raj you are very strong, no one can beat you, but why are you screaming like this?

South African science was crucial in helping UK discover its new variants; but then the UK govt claimed (wrongly) that the SA variant is more transmissible. No evidence to support this, according to @krisp_news

From the Times article: SA scientists "were the first to recognize the importance of a genetic change in the spike protein, something that allows the virus to attach more easily to human cells, making it more infectious than the original version."

The SA discovery was shared on Dec 4 over the WHO’s Covid-19 Evolution Working Group. “Our British colleagues were able to go back to their own databases and interrogate them as a result of the work we shared,” Richard Lessells, an infectious diseases specialist at Krisp, said.

More from the Times article by @janeflan: "While working on a much smaller budget than their British colleagues, the South African team, experienced with work on HIV, have the skills to decode the genome of viruses."

"They started work on samples of the Covid-19 virus soon after the first cases reached South Africa in March. In October they identified the first example that had changed significantly."

1. Like Nnamdi Azikiwe, Patrice Lumumba was the independence leader & the first Prime Minister of the DRC. He was a pan-Africanist, an African nationalist, & the casualty of the US-Soviet Cold War. He was first deposed by Mobutu Sese Seko in 1960, with support from US & Belgium.

2. Then assassinated in 1961 by a firing squad, under the command of Tshombe Katagan regime. A mutiny broke out in the army shortly after Congolese Independence. Lumunba had requested aid from US & Belgium, to stop the “Katangan secessionists” that had risen from the mutiny.

3. Both US & Belgium refused, prompting Lumumba to turn to an unlikely foe - The Soviets.

This provoked the United States, & Belgium (US ally). The Katangan secessionists carried on with support from Anglo-Belgian mining company, & a large contingent of Belgian military chiefs.

4. Katangan army was quickly organized & trained by Belgium. Mercenaries of various nationalities were equally engaged. In the end, the DRC was engulfed in a conflict - the CONGOLESE CRISIS as we know it today. It is arguably an exact replica of the Biafran Genocide in Nigeria.

5. Belgium officially apologized for its role in Lumumba’s assassination in 2002. Mobutu went on to seize power for himself in a second coup in 1965. He received massive military, diplomatic & economic support from the US, France & Belgium.

As @AndrewSparrow at the @guardian points out, Johnson led Vote Leave and then wrote the following in the Telegraph after the referendum result. Line by line analysis of the key part?: /1

"I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe, and always will be."

Well, he can't change geography, but the centre of gravity in politics and economics in Europe is not in the UK, and the UK is relegated to the periphery with a very limited relationship to the EU. /2

"There will still be intense and intensifying European cooperation and partnership in a huge number of fields: the arts, the sciences, the universities, and on improving the environment."

No: no partnership and none will intensify. Env only because EU insistence on LPF? /3

"EU citizens living in this country will have their rights fully protected, and the same goes for British citizens living in the EU."

No: 'settled status' not the same for EU citizens and Windrush-type scandal expected. /4

"British people will still be able to go and work in the EU; to live; to travel; to study; to buy homes and to settle down."

No: free movement ('proudly') ended. Short visits only, visas for work, massive bureaucracy. Only Brits with a 2nd nationality keep the benefits. /5

The Boxing Day Test match is two days away, so I suppose it is better to tell the tale of the greatest Boxing Day cricket the world has ever seen.

That happened in 1953, at Ellis Park, Johannesburg (the photograph is from another match).

Warning:
+

I often get carried away even while reading this, let alone writing. There may be overdose of emotions.

First, as usual, some context.

Despite playing Test cricket for over two decades, New Zealand were yet to win their first Test match.
+

Jack Cheetham, on the other hand, was turning South African cricket around.

They had drawn the 2-2 in Australia and had won 1-0 in New Zealand.

And they won the first Test of this series, at Durban, by an innings.
+

The South African attack already consisted of swing bowler David Ironside, the untiring Anton Murray, Hugh Tayfield.

Arguably the greatest South African spinner, Tayfield still holds the record for the most consecutive dot balls in a Test (Bapu Nadkarni does not hold this).
+

And in Durban, they had drafted in Neil Adcock.

Standing at six foot six and gifted with long arms, Adcock could make the ball take off even from a good length.

And he was quick.

The first South African to take 100 Test wickets, he would finish with a bowling average of 21.
+

'Twas the night before Christmas, and try though they may
Not a token was mooning, not even AAVE
Market buys getting sent by the apes without care
In hopes that new all-time highs soon would be there

Our traders were summoned post-haste from their beds
While visions of making bank danced in their heads
SBF in his sweatshirt, and I in my tee
Had just downed something we're gonna label "coffee"

And amongst all the chaos, amongst disarray
Amongst the red numbers borne out of the fray
From all of the carnage arose one big loser
A coin with a regulatory accuser

For days, XRP has been in the gutter
Because of the claims from Jay Clayton the FUDder
U.S. folks had to spew their positions before
The exchanges could manage to shutter the door

Exchanges like Coinbase -- they threw up their hands
What to do when your government comes with the bans?
To delist or restrict? Or just pause for a while?
It was clear they'd react -- that's Coinbase's style

In my book, American Oligarchs, I write extensively about Charlie Kushner. In the 1990's he was an ambitious real estate developer on the rise. Like Donald Trump, he found that political contributions enhanced his status, power, and money 1/

He began giving enormous amounts to Democrats. He gave over $3 million to New Jersey Democrats when Jim McGreevey was running for NJ Gov -- about the same as Enron gave to George W. Bush 2/

Bill Clinton came to his office in Livingston, as did Al Gore. But it turned out some of those attention-getting contributions were illegal, made in the name of others, including some of his family members.

3/

His brother sued Charles Kushner. A young and ambitious Republican prosecutor, Christopher J. Christie, began investigating, a standard white collar prosecution...of a big supporter of the NJ Gov. It probably would have been quietly adjudicated, except...

4/

Charlie concluded the whole thing was a hit job cooked up by his siblings & Christie. So Charlie hired an East Orange cop to procure a sex worker to entrap his brother-in-law. Charlie held on to the tape a while. Then, grand jury letters started to go out.

5/

Dealing with Losses.

Perfectionists are often motivated by avoidance. The need to avoid unpleasant emotional experiences. Traders who seek the perfect system are also likely to be motivated by the need to avoid unpleasant experiences.

With trading losses, the only pain that you will suffer is the emotional reaction to a loss. If you concentrate on avoiding losses rather than on maximizing your overall gain, you are unlikely to succeed at trading.

Traders may all incur the same loss but suffer vastly different emotional responses. A lot depends on their past experiences not only while trading but in the broader arena of life.

More competitive u are, More uncomfortable u are about taking loss. From an early age, we programmed to compete, to win, to accomplish, to be top of the class, to always be right & to succeed at whatever we set out to do. Losses are equated with losing to be avoided at all costs.

Newcomers to trading often start off with a string of positive experiences. Unfamiliar with the basics of money management, they are often over-confident and prepared to bet large amounts of their capital in the expectation of further gains.

Can’t get over Dr. Susan Moore’s death.

It’s on my mind heavy.

Being sick is bad enough - fatigue, pain, shortness of breath. I imagine that to be a member of the majority caste in this country is to be able to just be sick. To be able to focus energy on getting well and maybe (because medical capitalism) how to pay.

There is so much more on the minds of Black patients - considering if the hospital you go to will treat you well (or at all). To have to, in the midst of the emotional and cytokine storm of infection, muster strength to fight for adequate care. To trade rest for diligence.

To have to calculate how a care provider might interpret how you express emotion & pain-too calm & you must be lying, too hysterical & you might invite the non-therapeutic intervention of armed security guards

To second guess fully disclosing your living situation, finances, diet and ability to afford and adhere to medications because of the potential consequences of the judgement that might follow.

1/ 🚨BREAKING: Lawsuit filed today against educational agencies, teachers, principal, & CEO responsible for hosting workshops requiring children to make public professions about their racial, sexual, gender & religious identities, some of which were singled out for interrogation.

2/ Educators directed the plaintiff "to reveal his identities in a controlled, yet non-private setting, to scrutiny and official labeling," and are "coercing him to accept and affirm politicized and discriminatory principles and statements that he cannot in conscience affirm."

3/ The educators "repeatedly threatened William Clark with material harm including a failing grade and non-graduation if he failed to comply with their requirements."

4/ Plaintiffs claim that the educators' "coercive and intrusive behavior compelled William Clark’s protected speech and invaded his privacy, violating his constitutional rights under the First Amendment and his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment."

5/ The new curriculum, based on Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality, was done stealthily: "The generic name and syllabi provided to parents remained the same," and "parents were not made aware of the ideological turn in the curriculum."

WHY TRUMP IS
THE JAMES BOND
WE NEED AND HOPE FOR

There is a reason so many people see @POTUS @realDonaldTrump as a mythic, heroic #Agent007 character...

Watch and listen...

1/

He is taking hit after hit, and always re-emerges a savvy winner...

But TRUMP is SO much more...

2/

The DIABOLICAL vote tabulation #fraude proves that GREAT FORCES are against him.

And us.

3/

WEDNESDAY 23rd

UK-FRANCE DEAL
-Last night the government announced the deal agreed with France to reopen the border and allow freight to travel through

-The deal is based on mass testing of lorry drivers, 150-200 military personnel are being deployed to give lateral flow tests to hauliers in Kent
-Lorry drivers get their results in 20-30 minutes, they’ll then get a text message, allowing them proceed to France

-It appears Macron backed down on a demand to make the lorry drivers have more accurate PCR tests, which take 24 hours to give a result
-A government official says the PM was “full of praise” for how Transport Secretary Grant Shapps handled the crisis 💕

-It is expected to take days to clear the backlog and hauliers are still being asked not to come to port
-Rail, air and sea services will resume on Wednesday morning, all those travelling from the UK to France will need to show a negative test taken within the previous 72 hours

ABOUT THOSE LATERAL FLOW TESTS
-“The government shelved plans to open rapid-turnaround test centres across England amid concerns about the accuracy of their results”
-“Directors of public health had concerns about the potential false reassurance to those testing negative.” 😬