The stunning announcement of >$6B in philanthropic donations in one year by @mackenziescott deserves wider

Fine piece by @nkulish in the @nytimes that addresses some of the key

But this should be just the start.

Important first to put the $6B total in context. Total grantmaking in 2019 by @darrenwalker at the @FordFoundation was ~$350M. Total at @Hewlett_Found was ~$450M.

So @mackenziescott is ~15x some of the largest and most discussed foundations.

To the best of my knowledge, what we know about her philanthropy stems from a total of two posts on @Medium.

No address. No website. No known staff. We don't even know much about the entities she's using -- DAFs, LLCs, private

What's interesting about her philanthropy?

*Proves it's not that difficult to give away a billion dollars.
*No strings attached giving - all general operating support over multiple years
*No reporting requirements, AFAIK

Instacart is a great example of a company that as it exists today is a interim, not end state business. There will be opportunities to change that positioning, but they will face some critical choices ahead.

Supermarkets are built purposely in prominent locations to catch retail eye & the layout is designed to offer a wide range of SKUs while drawing attention to the highest margin and/or velocity ones.

1st problem: the supermarket's sprawling layout is suboptimally designed for efficiently picking & packing your order.

2nd problem: Instacart doesn't have perfect visibility into the SKUs at a given supermarket in a given day, so the inefficiency for a picker is twofold-can't find items, then have to wait for your approval for replacement goods before checking out.

So what is Instacart? The two things they do efficiently are:

1) own the customer & monetize the data that comes along w/ that.

2) Efficiently deliver last mile logistics.

(Thread)
1/ It doesn’t matter whether you’re black, white, brown, or anywhere in between- if you were born in America, you won the world lottery.

Our nation, which makes up under 5% of the world population, holds the vast majority of its wealth and power.

1. Another batch of submissions to the @Commonswomequ GRA inquiry have been published, including our own. We will link to some of the most interesting in this thread.

https://t.co/w0TAYjMCOn
"We recommend the removal of the term ‘gender’ when they actually mean ‘sex’...

2. from all official documents, and a public information campaign to do the same across the whole of the UK."

"We recommend anyone issued with a GRC is told very clearly that their sex has not changed, and they are not entitled to the rights of the opposite sex."

3. From a @MerchedCymru woman:
"I know of one school in Cardiff where the School, despite complaints to the School and Governors, have deliberately replaced single-sex provision with mixed-sex provision........done in the name of

4. Very interesting from Judge Paula Gray, the President of the GenderRecognition Panel:
"Panel induction training included talks by trans people, and we were addressed on the background to the...Act through an academic approach by Prof. Steven Whittle.

5. From @AnnMSinnott at the AEA:

"The law is clear but the same cannot be said for guidance on EA2010 from the EHRC nor from the GEO."
(Ms Sinnott is seeking judicial review of this guidance, see her profile for

1/ #TERF From my friend, Jodi Mae F. who understands #IDPol and what it does. This trans issue is not exempt, but part and parcel of it. It is a divisive tactic. THREAD!

We are live for the Kevin Clinesmith sentencing hearing.

Clinesmith is charged with altering an email - falsifying a document - in an effort to get the 4th Carter Page FISA warrant.

Judge Boasberg has entered the hearing.

Follow this thread for updates.

THREAD #Cascadia thinks green. We think we're they climate leader that we Can, Should and Must be. But despite promises + initiatives, #GHG emissions from #BritishColumbia, #Washington & #Oregon just keep rising. 1/9
#GtZ #PNW @INVW Viz by @compatibilism @grist

Today @INVW launched a year-long reporting project about #Cascadia's capacity to gear-up on climate action, get off fossil fuels, and slash carbon emissions... A deep dive on how 1 region can DECARBONIZE. 2/9
#GtZ #PNW #BritishColumbia @springshoeanimation

series Getting to Zero: Decarbonizing Cascadia opens with #BritishColumbia, #Washington & #Oregon's Lost Decade - How #Cascadia set some of North America's first and boldest #GHG targets, and failed to deliver.

Yes, #Cascadia's economies expanded 26 percent after the Great Recession. But so did #California. It had policies to guide economic growth - particularly to temper growing emissions from cars and trucks. #BC #WA & #OR did not. 4/9
@INVW #GtZ #PNW

All year we'll be exploring the people, policies and firms working to finally start transforming #Cascadia into the climate fighter its residents expect and need. It's an ambitious reporting project, nearly unique in its cross-border US-Canadian focus. 5/9
#GtZ #PNW

This thread is for all the #girls still in dilemma if they should go on protest or not. YOU MUST. We are celebrating Women Farmer’s day at all protest sites- Singhu, Tikri & other 6 on 18th Jan and your presence is must.
Allow me to give you first hand guide to this protest

I have been here since Dec and I came alone by train. Got down at Bahadurgarh Rly station, took auto for 20/- and reached Tikri Border. At the station itself you will find people in large numbers moving to protest site and that would be enough energy to survive for next few days

For shelter, you can go to Khalsa aid or others too, there will be a lot of choice and you don’t have to worry about absolutely anything. For food, I mean it’s all over the news. You might have to control yourself around so many langars with such delicacies🥺

Sanitation is still a challenge but manageable. More washrooms are being added everyday but you have to wait in mornings. Period products are available and medical camps are put up on 150-200m distance. Doctors are available in their vans and hospital has also been setup.🤗

Women are given preference everywhere in the protest! (Yay)
You don’t have to join long lines of Langar. The babas won’t let you wait, they will call you the moment they see you and give you food. The men in long lines won’t be able to do anything about it. You will feel happy😀

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 every MAJOR comic in New York City was doing NOTHING but 9/11 jokes and crushing.

Patrice O'Neal did a bit about how he kept buying cheap leather jackets because the Arab vendors were having an "I didn't do it" sale.

A Syrian comic named Hood would go onstage, announce that he would like to open his set by doing something in the name of ALLAH, and he'd open his jacket to reveal a DYNAMITE VEST strapped to his chest.

The joke KILLED, figuratively. And it showed me how comedy has the ability to take the power away from unimaginable torments for a few seconds at a time. It unites people who don't agree on an issue by pointing out universal truths we HAVE accepted on the issue.

Patrice's joke about Arabs feeling persecuted spoke honestly about the mood at the time. Hood's dynamite vest joke, however insane, played on a suspicion that nobody would ever admit to feeling today because they'd be called racist.

Long, VERY LONG thread👇👇👇:

1- Reflections on yesterday’s storming of the Capitol, and the responsibility borne by the sensationalist inflammatory indecent dishonest Media of the 21st century for those events, their clones, their antecedents, and their aftermath.

2- To be fair, 21st century media are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they suffer a paucity of old-style journalists & beat-reporters; on the other hand they face stiff competition & “news” overkill from new forms of media, what the French call GAFTA;

3- that is to say Google Apple Facebook Twitter Amazon and 24-hour news channels etc.) Thus the Media today are no more than glittering (that is to say cheap vulgar bling bling) platforms for sensationalism, scoops, “citizen journalism,” oversimplifications, jingles, slogans,

4- punchlines, shock-jock “fast-food” type of opinion (not to say opinionated) journalism and talk-show-type “reporting” at the expense of substantive probing investigative journalism and transmission of knowledge.

5- In this world of superficiality, where the “honor” of being a journalist (or for that matter a cognoscenti) is given to those who don’t deserve it, EVERYONE becomes an expert, a pundit, an analyst, an interpreter, a philosopher…

Tomorrow is Inauguration Day. I pray that it is peaceful and that it is not a continuation of what occurred on January 6th. I won't argue the merits of it. I can't imagine for a moment what the possible outcome could have been for even going to the Capitol. 1/

I watched as pastors were maligned, even condemned if they did not vote Trump. To attach one's own salvation to a vote. Shame on you and your damnable lies for adding to the stress and propping up a bullying culture because someone else thought and voted differently than you.2/

We will not forget still others who told Christians that they were not Christians if they voted "Democratic". It wasn't just John MacArthur, I assure you, but as he continued his campaign for Trump on every conservative outlet that would have him he emboldened other pastors

to neglect and even supplant "teaching of the Word" for political rhetoric. You were there, you saw. Republicans want us to move forward and "heal". Sweep it under the rug and "move on". Only wait, there's still this "COVID thing" (Dec. 20th-John MacArthur called it) we 4/

have to continue to ignore. "There's no pandemic". Perhaps you didn't hear John MacArthur continue that same mantra "What pandemic?" as he stood there, 30 pounds lighter, and looking quite ill still. As others have said, "it's not the MacArthur I recognize", or maybe you 5/

“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know I’m not blonde.” – Dolly Parton. #BOTD ready for a thread. #DollyParton

One of Dolly Parton's earliest singles (which she didn't write) was "Dumb Blonde." She knew going in who she was, what she wanted to look like, how she was perceived, and she was never anybody's fool about it. #DollyParton

I love Dolly Parton's stuff with Porter Wagoner. (I love her in duets, in general - but these, in particular, have an intensity and sincerity you can feel.) Here they are performing "We Found It". Heart-piercing. #DollyParton

Speaking of Dolly and Porter, the Drunk History episode about this collaboration and breakup ... is hysterical. He loves her so much. He slaps the table at the end! I love people who care this much about things.

A compilation of Dolly singing "Seeker" on different occasions. it's one of my favorites. #DollyParton

Back to work. Kids back to school (in the next room). Tough for them.

Didn't see many people or do much over Christmas, obviously, but so nice to have some time to wind down.

2021 has got to be a big year for climate. Some thoughts: 1/11

Of course COP26 is *the* big climate happening. Crucial chance to step up global co-operation. With a Biden-led Whitehouse, that's very possible.

But in terms of wider outreach, I worry that COPspeak galvanises climate wonks & no-one else. Big engagement challenges here... 2/11

For business, it's about putting some flesh on those much-welcomed net zero pledges which have sprung up everywhere. Many companies are over-reliant on carbon removals, which is hidden in the 'net' bit of net zero.

Now that many businesses and governments have strong stated climate ambitions, it's a tough job - and one that will probably fall to NGOs and campaigners - to scrutinise plans, and separate bluff from genuine action. 4/11

For government, it's about looking across the whole economy, understanding that climate policy is investment policy, infrastructure policy, tax policy (I could go on). And that covid recovery is also climate policy. 5/11

Hello everyone arguing about the #minimumwage! Someday I'll post a thread about the evidence our @UW team compiled in Seattle.

Today let's talk about hours.

Raise the wage on most low-paying jobs & workers still don't have enough to live on. Because they can't get enough hours.

The graph above is based on data from WA: one of only 4 states that collects systematic data on hours worked. It shows information for anyone earning under $11/hr in 2014-15, when the minimum wage was no more than $9.47.

The data have some important limitations:

-No information on gig/contractor employment
-No "informal" employment
-No jobs outside WA

However if a worker is holding 2+ job we can "see" all of them and include them all in calculating how many hours they work.

The median low wage worker works ~800 hours per year.

With a $15 minimum wage, working 800 hours/year, your annual income works out to $12,000.

That's below the poverty line for a single person, and less than half the poverty line for a family of 4.

Whereas if you could get full time hours (2,000/year) your income would be $30k.

The problem with low wage work (aside from low wages): these jobs tend to be unstable, seasonal, or offered by employers that need a large workforce for a limited number of hours per week.

Since the minimum wage is specified in dollars/hour, it can't guarantee a living income.

Pastors who grew up in dysfunctional families also share a crushing sense of responsibility.

We learned early on that if we performed like we should, we could control our environment, prevent catastrophes, & temporarily "fix" our circumstances. Now, we do this in ministry. 1/

We take responsibility for everything out of, ironically, an over-inflated sense of importance to the situation-"if I don't do it, it will all fall apart." This is part of why we gain a sense of significance from ministry-we are doing what always gave us purpose-fixing things. 2/

However, in ministry this means:

1) we struggle to share responsibility b/c we have never experienced a collaborative environment. So we take on more than is truly possible and set ourselves up to fail, which, not surprisingly, deals us an even deeper emotional blow. 3/

When we fail, we cannot see that the problem was not our inability, but the amount of pressure we put on ourselves and our unwillingness to share the load. 4/

2) We have difficulty trusting responsibility to those around us. It's easier, even safer, to do it ourselves. This is both b/c of our sense of "control" over the situation, & our fear of being let down by another's promises. This undermines the productivity of the whole team. 5/

So... I arrived for carer's vaccine appointment this morning, fully in line with rules as I have a contract arranged via the council themselves. I was told the rules had changed over the weekend and anyone looking after only one person was no longer eligible.

"You're joking me, right?" I say. No, sympathetically she says she has been told this very morning (it's 0805) that the rules had changed at the weekend and I cannot have the vaccine. I'm not usually lost for words. I manage not to swear (v impressive for me).

I say I am lost for words but can I please see a manager, explaining I am the sole carer for an 88-year-old disabled woman with a heart condition and no vaccination. I plead for an exception. She is kind but firm: I am not eligible but she will fetch a manager.

I explain again to the manager, who takes one look at my contract and immediately confirms that I AM eligible. There IS a rule change, but it relates to people claiming carer's allowance, not to those with a formal contract to care for someone.

So I get that some confusion is inevitable in an operation of this scale, but clearly there are people out there who legitimately booked appointments as carers on the basis of carers' allowance and the rules have changed over the weekend. It will be devastating when they arrive.