1. .Military Intelligence Contact Update: He confirmed many of Mr. Fleming's sources and said that over the weekend much happened to keep the RV/GCR roll out going ushering in the gold-standard (Judy Shelton confirmed by the Senate Banking Committee to the Fed board last...

It's true that a sufficiently high UBI could serve as an alternative to a $15 minimum wage, but I personally would prefer a combo of both plus a 4-day 32-hour week. Let's pay people more for work, support all unpaid work, and distribute employment and leisure time more equitably.

What the left needs to be honest about in regards to a $15 min wage is that although the overall effects will likely be positive, there will be impacts like reduced hours to compensate. Let's lean into that by leaving the 5-day 40-hour week behind. Every weekend should be 3 days.

It's also likely that a higher min wage will increase automation. Great! Let's do that! But that means less employment for humans. 4-day weeks share the available employment better, and universal basic income makes automation literally work for

UBI makes sure that micro-level responses to a higher minimum wage don't reduce people's total incomes if hours drop, or drop incomes to zero. For that person who can't find a job to pay them $15/hr, they can have $1500/mo vs $0. And unpaid workers would have $1500/mo vs $0 too.

If all we did was redefine full-time as 32 hours, businesses would need to pay more per hour so that employees got paid the same for less time. That would distribute leisure time better and I think raise productivity, but it wouldn't raise total incomes, which need to be raised.

One simple thing we pointed out in the what to expect when you're electing report for EIP was really embracing experts talking about "how such things usually turn out". I don't think people understand the difference this makes. https://t.co/mWUVCR4Pbz

We value experts b/c they are careful when commenting on things they don't have the full picture on. And that's good. But one thing I've found in my deep dive into the electoral disinformation flows is that expertise arrives *days* after all the disinfoverse explanations go viral

So the expertise that should be making us smarter socially doesn't really help. As I looked through reporting and thought about my own experience being interviewed it occurred to me that so often we're asked "What is this thing likely to be?" and that makes us skittish.

The true answer to "What is this thing likely to be?" is a mess of really dubious percentages requiring lots of inputs. And the uncertainty we express just makes it look like truth might be unknowable. People are bad at comprehending likelihoods.

On the other hand, ask an expert "How have similar things in the past turned out? and you'll not only get a more helpful answer, you'll get a STORY -- a narrative that can actually compete with other narratives.

For years, I distrusted sidewalks. I grew up in Athens, where sidewalks are cramped, cracked, or just missing. I learned to walk on the street, something I had to “un-learn” after moving overseas. But I spent time in Athens recently, and it all came back. A thread—on sidewalks.

First rule: sidewalks are *not* for pedestrians. They function chiefly as overflow parking. If there is enough space on the sidewalk, a car or motorcycle will appear. Vehicles win—every time. (Photos taken around Alimos and Palaio Faliro.)

The next barrier is the trash can. The urban planner has often firmed its place on the sidewalk with this little insert. Good luck squeezing past these guys.

And, of course, these obstacles exist alongside others (e.g. trees, poles, etc.). Combined, they are a formidable barrier—like a poorly played game of Tetris. The committed pedestrian might pull off the slalom required, but most will simply walk on the street. Easier that way.

The indifference towards the pedestrian extends to every non-car user. I often saw bikers on the tram path—the only way to move seamlessly along the coast. Or they risked their lives to ride alongside cars. The bottom line is this: unless you’re in a car, get out of the way.

1/ I’ve been letting my kids watch some of the news since the event they inadvertently witnessed on tv two weeks ago. I want them to see some parts, so that they always remember. Comments are welcome here. I have no idea what the magic potion is for parenting.

2/ I pool my students every year. Ask them to tell me what they remember about the 9/11 attacks. It’s been sad and informative for me personally - the differences in time zones, regions, country location, nationalities, ethnicities, races, religions, & especially age perspective.

3/ I’m grateful to start each semester that way. To hear the personal experiences of my students. Because it provides a foundation for how I try to teach that particular course. I’m old, but at least I am smart enough to know that I don’t know much, and I’m always learning.

4/ and if my students are too young to remember 9/11, then I ask them if it has affected them personally - their families and their loved ones. What I’ve observed about that tragic event, through the eyes of my students, is that the attack has rippled through generations.

5/ Like that horrible day, the only thing I am grateful for is that I have witnessed the events with my own eyes. So that I can remember, and try to explain it to others. And so that my kids will remember, and talk to me about it. But I am so heartsick with what I’ve seen.

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Keunggulan Menggunakan Layanan Towing Mobil Surabaya – Tegal

Dalam jasa pengiriman mobil, dikenal beberapa metode pengiriman yang berbeda-beda, salah satunya adalah dengan cara towing derek atau towing mobil. Anda bisa menggunakan Jasa Towing Surabaya – Tegal yang kami tawarkan sebagai cara pengiriman mobil yang aman.

Terdapat berbagai hal yang menjadi keunggulan dalam menggunakan metode towing ini, diantaranya ialah :

1. Keamanannya Lebih Bagus

Banyak orang yang belum tahu metode towing mobil dan kami menjadikan layanan towing ini sebagai salah satu layanan unggulan yang kami tawarkan. Sistem pengiriman kendaraan menggunakan towing memang lebih aman.

Sistem kerjanya ialah menempatkan mobil yang akan dikirim tepat di bagian truk towing yang aman, maka dari itu bisa Anda jadikan pilihan untuk mengirimkan mobil Surabaya – Tegal yang terjamin keamanannya.

This #MLKDay—a week after the white supremacist attack on the Capitol—I wanted to share some of Dr. King's words that’ve given me strength over the years, that helped me through my own death threats, & that inform how we should respond to the insurrection.

Re: Loving your enemies: "Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act … [but also] we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy…. We must in strength & humility meet hate with love."

Full

Radical love doesn’t mean accepting defeat or ignoring an evil act. It's fighting for justice with love in our hearts. That’s what brought me to become a civil rights attorney, how I responded to my own death threats, & how we must respond to white supremacist insurrection.

We must reject disingenuous calls for unity that seek to ignore the evil acts perpetrated at the capitol, calls for unity that put false labels on those evil acts, or calls for unity that seek to hide those responsible from justice and history.

But we must also rise over our raw emotions & recognize that reflexively acting on those emotions will only make matters worse. Now is not the time for retributive justice. It's time for restorative justice, for addressing the underlying causes of the crime — white supremacy.

Ideology matters, folks. I've been publicly calling Republicans a fascist party bc their only consistent ideological position is white power. Their 180° reversals on debt & national security underscore the point & make them especially dangerous. No "compromise" will fix this.

I am deeply worried that white Dems, & white folks more broadly, don't understand this point—that our national religion of whiteness will lead white Americans to embrace a neo-redemptionist politics. Nothing could be more dangerous.

The original politics of "redemption" came after the Civil War when white Americans from #bothsides found common cause in white power—suppressing migrant, white women's, & especially Black rights. This "reunion" of Rebel & U.S. soldiers at Gettysburg is a classic of the genre.

The term itself—"redemption"—comes from the white paramilitary units who sought to "redeem" their states from "Negro rule" by murdering their political opponents, especially Black southerners.

Lots of quibbling on this point, but as a historian of this movement, I think it would be correct to call theirs a proto-fascist movement.

🙏 Are you a sheep or Judas goats. “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;& He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.”
Matthew 25:32-33 🇺🇸 sheep;🇨🇳 goat

THREAD on conspiracy theories & attachment.
I keep seeing frustrated social media posts asking why people believe conspiracy theories. Answer: It gives a sense of control - includng belonging, predictability & safety. It's emotional regulation. Here's research to unpack that.

2. "Participants with an 'ambivalent attachment style' were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories....The findings add further evidence that attachment not only influences how a person interacts with others, but also influences world views."

3. "People have a strong need to feel positive abt the groups they belong, such as their nationality, political party & religious group. A conviction that others conspire against one's group is more likely to emerge when the group feels undervalued." 2019

4. "Conspiracy theories are consequential as they have a real impact on people's health, relationships, and safety. They are emotional given that negative emotions and not rational deliberations cause conspiracy beliefs."

5. "Ostracized participants were more likely to endorse conspiracy beliefs related to political issues. Moreover, heightened vulnerability mediated the link between ostracism and conspiracy beliefs."

I've also noticed that it's often that cheating is what women do when they don't want a divorce but, for a ridiculous number of reasons (most of which are probably ad hoc rationals) are upset.

>Why did you cheat?
>"I don't want to feel equal I want to feel special and I want dick."

>Don't you have a dick?
>"Oh he's so wonderful, so sweet, so kind. He is the greatest man in the world...but, I'm bored."

Welcome to the void.

And so the older study that concluded that "Women cheat because they love their husbands" is only getting more "correct".

This is not a world I was made for.

Ten years.
That's it.

Dogg Comms Thread

Finally starting a thread after noticing all the strange Dog Comms

1)

(THREAD) Quarantine Act - we should all know what we are dealing with

1/ The devil is in the details. The first couple of sentences raise a red flag.

A communicable disease need to pose "a risk of significant harm to public health"

How is significant defined? Do the covid deaths meet that bar?

2/ While looking for a definition of significant harm to public health I found this gem!

2007 Jun 19:

"When I trained in public health, some 25 years ago, quarantine had fallen into disrepute because of the widespread perception that it did not work"

3/ "Mass quarantine gained further currency when it was adopted as a control strategy against severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Now, quarantine is re-entrenched in the mainstream of public health theory such that it is being proposed as a measure to fight pandemic

4/ "The Control of Communicable Disease Manual4 provides an authoritative summary of control measures for more than 150 infectious diseases of public health concern."

There are so many things as a GP that we cannot access day to day since the NHS focused on Covid in March. The list is endless, my patients have suffered... These are not real patients, but real scenarios I have faced since March. Imagine....

Okay folks, you all have been very kind over the last few days. I promise this account hasn't been highjacked. There's a lot going on & evangelical proximity to it is maddening.

But I promised you a thread about cancel culture, socioeconomics, & vocation.

First, let me say that I believe peer pressure & shunning happens in every social group. I believe the group can rally against the individual to force them comply w/ established norms & established powers. It is feature of human community.

So I don't disbelieve that something akin to "cancel culture" exists. But living in & ministering in working class spaces, I've never understood the emotion attached to popular iteration.

Sure, we talk about political correctness & the pressure to not say things, but the cancel culture narrative always felt imported somehow. Like, it wasn't organic to the way we moved thru the world.

So it's always puzzled me. The emotion that is. The fear. The panic of the woke mob coming for your job. Why is it framed this way? None of this made sense to me until I started mixing more w/ mid-upper class conservatives, particularly Xians.