1/23 We haven't had a lot to celebrate during this pandemic. But achieving the milestone of offering vaccine to the over 70s, health and care workers and the most clinically vulnerable just before target date is a huge cause for celebration, given the scale of the achievement.

2/23 When Margaret Keenan got her first jab in Coventry on December 8th last year, who’d have thought that, by Valentine’s Day, we’d have vaccinated over fourteen million people across the UK in just ten short weeks? Amazing, extraordinary and truly, really, world class!

3/23 I’ve been struck by how much joy and relief has been brought to those doing the vaccinations and those receiving them. A GP told me yesterday that nothing had given him greater pleasure in his long career. And that the patient's relief was sometimes overwhelming.

4/23 It's vital to recognise the extraordinary contribution of the staff and volunteers who have made this happen. One of my close family had their jab yesterday and was in awe of the volunteer standing outside in the freezing cold for a four hour shift meeting and greeting.

5/23 What I wanted to share in this thread was the slightly untold story of some of the extraordinary challenges the NHS has had to overcome to deliver this target. Requiring superhuman effort from NHS leaders and staff, way beyond the call of duty. Five challenges set out below.

[QT: INDIA, THE GOLD STANDARD OF CLASS]
1/28
Some time last week, an American shared this on LinkedIn. A neutral (note the 3rd-person verbiage) observation of the goings-on in our capital with a legit @AP thumbnail. Of course India had to descend on him like an avalanche of poop.

2/28
This is a quick thread of some of the worst responses out there, just to illustrate the obvious, which in one way makes the exercise pointless. At the same time, such loss of a demography's class must never be out of the spotlight. So am doing it anyway.

3/28
Just before we start, here's a small bummer: I've redacted all identifying information even though it's all in public domain. This is to avoid any inadvertent code violation; Twitter doesn't seem to like doxing and neither do I.

So here we go.

4/28
1. Corporate affairs general manager at a Japanese auto heavyweight.
2. DB architect with a Silicon Valley giant. Sum total of his argument? Farmer leaders lean Left. Interestingly, also disses the IAC shindig the biggest benefactor of which was the party in power today.

5/28
Here's another, this time no less than the COO of one of the biggest electronics retail chains in India. From his English, to his demeanor, to his self-entitlement, tweet naming one thing that isn't oozing class.

RISHI ASHTAVAKRA(DEVAL)

Those who are well versed in our ancient scriptures must definitely have come across the name of Ashtavakra Muni. Who was he and what is the story behind his body getting crooked from all sides.

Muni Asit was the son of Pracheta Rishi.

He was childless and this caused a lot of worry to him. But an Akashvani assured him that he should go to Shivji to get all his
worries nullified.

So he along with his wife go to Shivji and after paying him obeisance start singing Shivji's praises.

He describes Shiv as the one who is beyond any other thing, whose glory has no words to describe. After this the couple stands with folded hands in front of Rudradev. The strotras sung in praise of Shiv possess magical qualities even today.

Shiv gets satisfied by them soon and is ready to grant a boon.

Shiva told him that, he very well knew what the Muni desired. He then gives him the "Sansaar Vijay' mantra and asks him to keep reciting it. The Isht devi would come at an appropriate time and fulfill his wish.

Asit Muni kept reciting this mantra for hundred years. The Devi appeared and granted him the boon of a son as a Shivansh. A son was born and was named as Deval. He grew upto be a great scholar well versed and a handsome young man. Asit Muni got him married to Ratnamalavati.

1/ A thread [1/2]about your NHS pensions, tax & the age discrmination “McCloud” case👇

OK this is complicated stuff, Im going to take you through it step by step. But its important, and will affect your pension, so buckle up and pay attention!

Please share & RT/share awareness

2/ To understand “McCloud” let's rewind to yesteryear- you gave a lifetime of public service & (deservingly) got a good “final salary” pension.

Broadly in 1995 (or “legacy”) pension scheme, each year you got 1/80th of your “final salary” as a pension & 3/80th a tax free lump sum

3/ Back in yesteryear, pensions cost 5 or 6% gross salary. For example you worked 37 years & final salary £120k, pension= 37/80ths x £120k=£55,500. You would get this at normal retirement age- 60yrs & it would be index linked to inflation, plus a lump sum (3/80ths) of £166,500

4/ So roll on 2006-08 & government were worried about affordability of the scheme. Life expectancy was increasing so people were in retirement longer. So they made the scheme more expensive & introduced a new “2008” section for new entrants. The 08 scheme removed the lump sum

5/ Existing 95 members had a “choice” to move to ‘08’ scheme. It had a higher retirement age (65) but paid a higher “accrual rate” (60ths not 80ths). Rather than “final salary” (best of last 3 yrs) it was based on a more complicated “reckonable” pay based on best 3/10 yrs pay.

Good Saturday Morning Chart Fans!

Will I have to learn to draw vertical lines with no slope? Let's have a look!

DJIA Channel Check

Transports. Same pattern as we saw in the fall.

Utes.

SPX Channel Check

1) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Senate Trial today
 
What is expected to be the final day of President Trump’s second impeachment trial will begin at 10 am et today. We anticipate a final vote on the guilt or innocence of the former President as early as midday.

1. It is not illegal in the U.K. to wear clothes described as for the opposite sex.

2.The GRA, the sex-role stereotype recognition Act, does not serve to right a legislative injustice but rather to entrench a world-view.

3. The sex-role stereotype recognition Act, this creed is one where women’s oppression is natural and desired, same-sex attraction is bigotry which can be unlearnt and individual men get to define reality based on their

4. The notion of sex-role discomfort disorder (gender dysphoria) presupposes that sex-role stereotypes are innate to all of us and is based on woo woo. Do you agree with Benjamin:

5. We need to stop approving their ideology and the idea that if you are uncomfortable with discrimination then you have a mental

NEW:
BBC has seen the official internal management data for the new post Brexit freight border - roll on roll off lorry outbound flows to EU now at 98% of last February - though was 73% in January... officials say “back to normal”...

That is reference to lorry flow rates - which is what Cabinet Office key committees most concerned about post Brexit in terms of knock on social impact for supplies of everything. Government now confident its “reasonable worst case scenario” of 7k lorries in kent won’t happen...

That is not same as saying trade has normalised - drawing on multiple sources - ferry manifests, Kent checks, french official data - the level of empty lorries on the short straits is around 50%, and was normally around 30%... ...

traffic here was 67% normal in Jan - 82% in feb

Combining those and you get to around 2000 fewer laden export trucks a day in January, still notable fall now. Officials say much was displaced into last year by stockpilers. On other hand French transport sources suggest the higher value Tunnel export empties more like 50-60%

Officials have been tracking the commodity codes on the ferry manifests and have distinguished between freight flows hit so far in 2021 by general COVID downturn - eg clothing and apparel, and post Brexit transition - agriculture, food and groupage

Ever wondered how the JVM debugger 'Evaluate' feature works in IDEs? Long ago I thought that the Java debug interface (JDI) actually allows you to specify the expression and get back its value.

However, this is not quite possible: there's no Java language compiler inside the JVM. When the process is paused JDI allows you to read or write any variables and fields or even execute an existing method with given arguments. But nothing like addition or multiplication.

On the other hand, #IntelliJIDEA debugger allows you to evaluate even statements! You can write there `for`, `if`, `while`, `switch` - whatever. You can even declare local variables. So how this works?

The answer is simple: IDEA debugger has a built-in interpreter for Java! If you access an existing variable or a field, call a method or instantiate an object, it queries JDI. Otherwise, IDE itself does all the calculations.

The amusing thing is that debugger authors didn't bother to make it as strict as Java itself, so the language inside the interpreter is a much more permissive version of Java. For example, you don't need to initialize variables there! Default values like 0 are used automatically.

A lot of women get in touch to ask me about #coercivecontrol and come to the conclusion that their partner is controlling, but not abusive enough that they want to leave.

So when is the right time to leave?

A THREAD

Is it when he calls you an ugly bitch the first time?
Or do you wait for him to call you it again?
Or do you wait until he has so completely undermined your sense of self worth that you don’t think you can leave?

Is it when he says that no one will love you like he does?

Or do you wait until he says that no one else COULD love you.

Or that you are unloveable?

Do you leave when he says he likes women to be women?

Or do you wait until he says you are fat and unless you lose weight, he will divorce you?

Do you leave when he pushes you into the wall and then claims he lost control because you made him so jealous?

Or do you wait until you no longer go anywhere, for fear of making him jealous?

#NHSwhitepaper Thread:

Contrary to some of the headlines, the reforms are NOT the
‘end of privatisation’

(Will explain below)

The white paper wants to reverse legislation that mandated competitive tendering, which meant every contract had to be put out ‘to the market’....

1/

Which was a nuisance
Created unnecessary beurocracy And wasted a lot of money

This legislation was brought in under Cameron’s coalition government

(Against the advice of the unions, health think tanks, royal colleges...basically everyone)

2/

The @ONS have decided that it's no longer possible to ask people simply what their sex is, even though this has been asked in every census since forever. Women have used the resulting data to prove that we face ongoing and widespread discrimination, at large and small scales 1/10

The people making decisions about the census, however, have been persuaded that some (unknown number of) people won't respond to the census at all if they have to answer this very basic factual question. 2/10

They have therefore changed the guidance so that an unknown number of people are advised to answer it according to their 'official documents' - which may contradict each other. Since it's easily possible to change the sex marker on a passport or driving licence 3/10

just by asking for it to be changed, this guidance effectively means that (an unknown number of) people unhappy about their biological sex are advised to answer the sex question however they choose. 4/10

The most immediately damaging impact of this decision will be on trans people. It means the opportunity to gather robust data from the new gender identity question in the same census is lost. We will not be able to tell how many trans people are male or female. 5/10

So, I know it's the weekend but if I don't say all this I may burst.

A thread for those who think school days should be extended and holidays shortened to make up for 'lost learning'.

The narrative of 'lost learning' is based on the myth that in-school learning is the be-all-and-end-all for all pupils at all times. It isn't. Not all pupils engage all day in school. Not all pupils complete every task set every day, in school or as part of home learning

Part of a teacher's job, and one that we do hourly, is to assess where pupils are along a progression of learning. When they reach a milestone we challenge and extend, where we think revision and consolidation of previous learning is needed we plan and deliver that.

What we don't do when there is revision and consolidation required is declare that any child's life chances are lost. We seek support in school, at home and when necessary from our colleagues in education and third-sector partners.

When a child misses schooling through illness, family circumstance, war, refugee status, any non-attendance, we don't write off their life chances, we don't make them work longer hours and shorten holidays. We take a holistic approach to the support needed and work to meet that.

Some of the remaining prominent Hindu temples & Hindu Maths of Barisal, Bangladesh.

1. Mukunda Das Kalibari - The most famous Kali Temple in Barisal. It was built by poet Mukunda Das a big Shakta & a great poet of Bengal.

2. Pasanamayi Kali Temple.

3. Shree Shree Kali & Shitala Mata Temple.

4. Ramkrishna Math Barisal.

5. Shri Shankar Math - This Math was the hub of all revolutionary activities of Anushilan Samiti in Barisal. The Math was a safe refuge for revolutionaries.