Before everyone raises glasses to make their “the system worked” toasts, let’s remember…./1

The racism, nativism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and vicious social hatred/2

The lawlessness and disorder, the disinformation and lies, the vanishing norms of governance/3

The corruption and cronyism, the toxic rhetoric from the presidential bully pulpit, the dysfunctional and brutal public policies/4

The politicization of basic public health and the dismissal of science and expertise/5

Most pasmanda who are not familiar with the caste equations in muslim society often try and emulate Ashraf when they achieve social status through professional achievements.
(Thread)

I wish to narrate the story of my maternal Grand Father, who came from modest household of a cloth seller. Being prodigious in studies, he rose to become HoD Urdu and Persian Dept, Langat Singh College (Bihar University).

This brought him in close proximity with Ashraf intellectual class and they made every effort to discover his caste but since his name was caste neutral, it helped him conceal his identity.
When he was a fresh appointee, he once travelled to Gorakhpur with senior professors

and entire journey they kept cursing Ansaris. He did not utter a word.
When he finally became Professor and HoD, he was very vocally against Ashraf dominance and didnt cut them any slack. He gave them better than he got in his struggling years.

This earned him great many enemies. It became common parlance that if one sees my Granfather's face in morning that Ashraf wont get two meals a day. (Basically call him manhus) This is something advocated commonly against Pasmanda.

A few thoughts on food and land use 2021. This year, and throughout the decade ahead, the world has before it a remarkable obligation and opportunity to bring about a fairer, more inclusive, more sustainable and more resilient food and land use system.

Such a system would ensure that every human being has access to a healthy and nutritious diet; that all the world’s farmers and fishermen live dignified lives; and that the food system itself causes no further loss of biodiversity, no more climate change, and no more pandemics.

To achieve such a food and land use system would require concerted international effort – from governments, companies, farmer’s associations, scientists, and communities – akin in scale and ambition to the quest for a Covid-19 vaccine.

The good news is that a global pivot to more sustainable agriculture, healthier diets, & reduced food loss and waste – coupled with a major effort to protect and restore nature – would generate millions of jobs, as well as sustained economic growth and improved well-being.

To achieve these ambitious aims, action in four areas is urgently needed in 2021 and through the decade:
1.Increase flows of finance to fighting hunger. In the course of the past year alone, the number of acutely food insecure people in the world has risen to 690 million.

Today marks the establishment of the House of Lords International Agreements Committee as a freestanding Committee of Parliament. So here is a thread on treaty scrutiny in the House of Lords to celebrate the occasion 1/16/

Parliament has never been very good at scrutinising treaties. Bagehot noted the problem in 1872 in the second edition of his seminal work The English Constitution 2/16

I suspect the reasons for this are twofold: first the fact the negotiations of treaties are the responsibility of the Executive under the royal prerogative... 3/16

And second the UK’s dualist legal system - which means that international agreements do not take effect in domestic law until they have been enacted in domestic legislation. 4/16

This sounds like a safeguard. But in fact agreements tend to be signed before any legislation (if it is necessary) is brought before Parliament. So Parliamentarians are left with a rather binary choice... 5/16

I was involved in getting the #oxfordvaccine @JennerInstitute manufacturing process and consortium up and running. Here is a thread of why there is an issue with doses, with some science and #sciencepolicy. The EU looks in the wrong to me.

To make the vaccine, you need to grow up a huge volume of cells, they make the vaccine, then the vaccine is purified. The manufacturing process is new. It relies on elements used before, but each new process has its own parameters.

That means each manufacturing site has to on board the exact process and get it running. Usually this takes many months, but is being done urgently for COVID.

When you book manufacturing capacity, you are booking the manufacturing slot. It might take 2 weeks to make a batch of vaccine. With a new process, you always get the same vaccine, but the yield can vary.

Maybe a good yield is a million doses per run (in reality, it depends on how big your cell culture is). But maybe the first few runs only yield 250 thousand doses.

The news today from Washington signals the biggest victory in the field of #CollegeInPrison in decades. It’s a long time coming. This undoes the #94crimebill’s ban on #Pell Grants for incarcerated students. #PellRestoration #PELLYES
A thread.

Prior to the #94CrimeBill, college was common, even normal, in state and federal prisons across the country. The #Pell ban eviscerated college nearly

Since then, a small but growing number of privately funded programs helped keep the field alive. @BPIBard has been proud to be one of them, but we want to shout out our friends & fellow travelers at @MtTamCollege @HudsonLink & women in Bedford Hills who got so much of this going.

After years of advocacy, the critical moment was in 2015 when advocates convinced the Obama administration created Second Chance Pell, formally restoring college-in-prison to the CJR agenda. No one did more to make that happen than our allies @Vivian_Nixon_WW & @glennEmartin.

Just to say, there was one person in the federal government who carried this torch the whole way. That was our friend John Linton in the Dept of Ed, who we lost last year to pancreatic cancer. We love and miss him.

@paddua @USMarshalsHQ @SebGorka Remedy has been sought from both the Legislature and the Judiciary. Notice was given time and time again...people were given the opportunity to do the right thing. In every case they refused. What has not been used thus far to effect remedy is the Executive.

@USMarshalsHQ @SebGorka Donald Trump knew before he ever took office what needed to be done. He has quietly rooted out corruption in key positions and departments while manipulating the media since he took office...always talking loudly to keep people focused where he wanted them to look.

@USMarshalsHQ @SebGorka The pieces are now in place...Washington DC is occupied by 25,000 soldiers that the DEMOCRATS called in. Those soldiers answer to Donald J Trump and have been deputized as Federal Marshall's.

@USMarshalsHQ @SebGorka Marshalls are authorized to make arrests without warrants for federal crimes committed in their presence or for which they have evidence. On January 6th, the whole world watched approximately 90% of our congress commit treason by knowingly certifying a fraudulent election.

@USMarshalsHQ @SebGorka Donald Trump went on camera before the American people and told us that he has tried every legal means to fix this problem. Right now a state of emergency exists in all 50 states and DC. The head of FEMA is a 26 year veteran who was ALSO just appointed acting secretary of DHS.

If you are still suffering from cognitive dissonance and can't seem to interpret what is going on around you, let me see if I can at least help you understand what is happening within broader evangelicalism and the Roman Catholic Church:

(2) The "church" is becoming the state church. The church that doesn't just obey the state and governmental authorities but that is incorporated into the state.

Ecumenism will be based upon subjective economic, social, and supranational policies: and you must believe.

(3) And along with this transition you must obey and do whatever the state tells you to do. This is now "loving thy neighbor". This is the new collective.

And you must hate the old nation, the old constitution, the old economy, the old ways.

You must embrace the new systems

Politics on social media creates echo chambers that result in people automatically being offended and easily being hurt by terms like "SJW", "libtard", "racist", "fascist", "sexist", etc...I've been scolded by users for saying certain words, even lately, but I've also gotten...

Lately, I've been thinking about Communities.

Thread 👇🏽

A community is where people with similar interests hang out. They feel a sense of identity. They feel at home.

In a community, people share common values. They feel identified.

When you build a community, you host the conversation. When you build and show you have an audience. It's not bad, but It's not great.

A community is a two-way avenue. An audience is a one-way street.

With a community you will get better feedback, and new ideas.

With an audience, you are going to push content not ideas.

You can't value your community on metrics. Each user will have a different experience. It's Subjective.

People hang out in a place because they are learning or they are having a good time. Aim to entertain or teach.

Build a space where people want to be.

🧵TERRIBLE NEWS IN KENTUCKY EVERYONE:

SB 9—the “Born Alive” bill enacted by the Republican-controlled legislature—is now law because @AndyBeshearKY failed to veto it.

That’s good news for forced birthers in Kentucky—not so much for pregnant people. #TeamLegal

The bill sat on Beshear’s desk for ten whole ass days. He could've vetoed it.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he just let it go into effect. And the cherry on top of the shit sundae? Today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

So that's fun.

So what exactly *is* the Born Alive law?

It is a fear-mongering and myth-making law based on THE LIE that abortion providers are somehow aborting newborns on the regular.

I don't know about you, but aborting a newborn is called murder or infanticide where I’m from.

Kentucky's "Born Alive" law is utter propaganda.

It is also a blatant attempt by Republican legislators to control how and when physicians provide abortion care as @heyitscalla pointed out in this piece for @RewireNewsGroup:

Kentucky’s “Born Alive” law (SB 9) requires a physician performing an abortion "to take all medically appropriate and reasonable steps to preserve the life and health of a born alive infant."

You can read the bill here:

Pelosi's mot that the chose "their whiteness over democracy" disappoints me. 1/

It disturbs me when liberals recourse to racism as a universal explanation for everything bad the right does. It's reductionist. And it's not to excuse the right and its racism to point this out... 2/

In fact, reducing everything bad the right believes and does to white supremacy limits our grasp of their terribleness: in most cases in's white supremacy PLUS (and in some cases, NOT white supremacy. Non-white conservative tradition deserve consideration on its own terms). /3

a major part of the PLUS is gender-based. In the late 1970s, the ideology that cohered the Christian right, and made them such a force in Reagan's coalition and beyond, was far more eliminationist rage against LGBT people than racism. /4

Most of the people traveling to DC to protest IRS rules on Christian schools in 1979, many of them former segregationists, were witnesses to their eliminationist rage against LGBT people (conspiracy theories held the IRS sought to force Christian schools to hire gay teachers). /5

Having a book out when the bookshops are shut and publicity tours aren't an option (except via zoom) is tough. Lockdowns favour big names over smaller or newer authors. But here are some amazing things you can do to help authors ride this out...

1) Review their books on amazon: it's most people's book search engine, and even more when there are no bookshops to browse or booksellers to ask... for example ahem...

2) TELL THEM you enjoyed their book. They may be feeling glum. You will 100% make their day.

3) If their book isn't out yet, preorder it! For eg this from @ldlapinski is coming in April. Most booksellers will be ordering smaller quantities than usual, this gives them a reason to order more! Also you might get a lovely package from @rshipbshop

Oops forgot a bridgerton gif for the last one. Enjoy this one.

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.

[THREAD] After all the pomp and circumstance of a POTUS being “installed” in a capital city that more closely resembled a garrison, we are left with the reality that for the next four years we must “resist” a political party that intends to“fundamentally transform” the USA.

I think Romans 14 helps us on the matter of wearing masks, though I am not saying that those who believe we should wear masks are weak in faith.

Remember in Romans 14 the strong believed they could eat foods that were unclean according to the OT (Lev. 11 & Deut. 14), and they also believed that the sabbath and special feast days were no longer mandatory.

The weak thought one should refrain from eating food deemed unclean in the OT and also believed the sabbath and other feasts should be observed.

Paul clearly agrees with the strong theologically. No food is unclean now that the new covenant has arrived and Christ has come (Rom. 14:14, 20). The feast and sabbath days are no longer required (Rom. 14:5–6).

Still, when with the weak, they should refrain from eating unclean foods out of love for their brothers and sisters who think differently.