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Tim Skellett Profile picture
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5 Dec, 15 tweets, 5 min read
1/n A thread for those who don't know me well yet. When I cover science, medicine or COVID_19, I don't do feel-good stuff, and *especially* I don't do "Hide or obscure inconvenient stuff for the good of the proles". I do facts instead. Here follow a few examples.
2/ A long while back, I did a thread on breastfeeding, a very important topic in Africa, because of marketing campaigns for baby-formula, + that many women there see baby-formula as a status symbol, breast-feeding being only for the poor.
3/ I was astonished to get flamed by a tweep. The tweep kept going on about "my body, my choice". That's not my problem, that's your own choice, but it was *irrelevant* to that *usually* breast-feeding is >much< better for the infant than baby-formula.
4/ In essence, the tweep demanded that I didn't say usually breast-feeding is much better for the infant than baby-formula, because some don't want to. But that's not my problem, not my choice to make. I just do the facts, you do what you like with them.

5/ Another case; recently I had to Block a tweep. I didn't want to, but the tweep demanded it. The tweep kept going on about unemployment in the USA, because pandemic. He literally tweeted, "just let them die", & kept bitching every time I tweeted on COVID_19.
Too bad for him.
6/ Today someone did a blog post on how *in practice* it's inescapable there will be deaths, mutilations and alien invasions *falsely* attributed to the new anti-COVID_19 vaccines, **solely because of the many millions who will get vaccinated**.
7/ A few weeks back, I had a small flame-war with a *medico* of all people, who wanted all vaccine safety-trials cut short, & the vaccines rolled out like the day before yesterday. I pointed out safety-trials exist *for good reasons*.
8/ In other words: on the new anti-COVID_19 vaccines, I will stick very closely to the truth. The good vaccines are FAR better for you than COVID_19 itself, and of course extremely better if you get vaccinated so you don't transmit COVID_19 to those much more vulnerable.
9/ I'll also examine history of vaccines, *including why safety-trials + follow-up are vital*. I happily look at the Cutter incident, etc.. But I repeat: the good vaccines (so far, Pfizer & Moderna) are FAR better than the disease, COVID_19.
10/ And I won't pretend a thing. We all know there are shills, quacks and scammers who will loudly blame vaccines in general for everything from autism to scabies to aliens. They exist. Also existing are honest but wrong attributions of harm to vaccines.
11/ A few days back, I got blamed for wrongly scaring pregnant women. Wut? It was a weird flame, on the basis of me mentioning, very quietly, a paper on the 1918 flu pandemic. You want scared? 1 out of every 100 pregnant women dying of COVID_19, then.
12/ We have no idea yet what the truly long-term effects (longer than 2 years) of COVID_19 are. The 1918 flu is a completely different virus, so we can only guess what *might* happen. But those possible effects matter.

13/ When I tweet, I'm not only tweeting for you. I'm also tweeting for people in Tanzania who simply cannot afford to see a doctor. Similar people in South America. Thus, many of my tweets are all about DIY self-help where "see a doc" is NOT possible.
14/ When I tweet, I'm not only tweeting with you, but also to medicos, researchers, other scientists, electricians, plumbers, at least one bloke who does motorbike parts, and eventually, through others, to peasant farmers in arid districts.

15/ I don't demand you to change your tweeting style to suit me. Likewise, I *do* expect you to understand my own position. Including that I do NOT do feel-good "hide the facts from the plebs because whatever". What you do with the facts is up to you.

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More from @Gurdur

Tim Skellett Profile picture
5 Dec
This is a bizarre & wholly wrong condemnation of the young #KeiraBell, who was badly advised, allowed to go through unnecessary surgery & medical treatment, & who now points out how badly advised she was.
Yes, #KeiraBell *dared* to go to court to protest malpractice and bad advice. Too bad if you don't like that, the UK still manages to be somewhere where a person can go to court to redress wrongs. Suck it up, get over it.

I still can't get over the other tweeter who wanted Biden to go in and muscle the UK into ignoring its own High Court judgment. I mean, seriously, what planet are people living on?
Read 4 tweets
Tim Skellett Profile picture
5 Dec
1/n I was asked my thoughts on the video below (sound on! Watch in full), not sure why. But here are some of my thoughts, in a thread. It's about Los Angeles, where Eric Garcetti is mayor, in CA, where Gavin Newsom (D) is governor.
cc.@CathyYoung63
2/n This is not a simple matter, & I will be very rude to anyone trying to be simplistic about it all. My very first reaction is, of course she's right to protest. I myself would under those circumstances. Confronted with both loss of livelihood AND with gross inconsistency.
3/n The abhorrent way the USA as a whole (many US states in particular) simply left a great deal of its own citizens in the lurch, that's well-known. As too that this will mean a further widening of the abyss between the well-off & the poor, cue @Chris_arnade. But that's not all.
Read 20 tweets
Tim Skellett Profile picture
5 Dec
1/n On a very different level, for those suffering at the moment, I offer the example of Port Hedland, West Australia. The entire town was a *rusty red* in colour, and it's one of the more depressing ones I've ever been in.
cc.@ChrisSidwells, @jdpoc:

2/n The entire region back then of the huge Pilbarra had a *total* of 22,000 people living throughout it, plus another 22,000 in its one town, Port Hedland. Which was very *red*.

3/n Most buildings in Port Hedland were built of depressing cinder block (because of the occasional tropical cyclone), and the light grey had all turned red because of iron-ore dust. Port Hedland exists largely just only to transfer iron-ore (plus other ores and salt) to ships.
Read 6 tweets
Tim Skellett Profile picture
4 Dec
Sichenthaltensschmerz
Can't move without some meddlesome fact-checker. Betrachtungsqual.

I might. Lewis Carroll invented, all by himself, at least 22 words still in common use in English. I feel maybe I could do the same for German.

Read 13 tweets
Tim Skellett Profile picture
3 Dec
1/n Kim Stanley Robinson is a very interesting science-fiction writer. He's also only all too obviously caught in a rut, and shows the weaknesses in his thinking in a stereotyped way.

He's definitely 'political', but in that weird way the US 'left' are.
2/n For example, Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR) centered one story (in his Three Californias Trilogy, 1984~1990) around the "5%'ers", *a decade* before everyone there started nattering about the 1%.

3/n Another of KSR's stories in the Three Californias trilogy was, to me, a bizarrely exaggerated guilt, "blame America" theme, where some unknown foe has nuclear-bombed the USA into pre-1850 tech, and the USA ... just accepts that??!

Read 5 tweets
Tim Skellett Profile picture
3 Dec
Pretty exhausted today, so some things I might leave till tomorrow, we'll see. In the meantime, some of my old photos. Theme is butterflies and moths. This is a glasswing, Greta oto,
This is an Atlas moth, fresh out of its cocoon, drying out its wings, gathering its strength to live its new life as a moth, after the life of being a caterpillar. My old photo
Another photo of mine of that Atlas moth, resting on its old cocoon
Read 11 tweets

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