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Tim Skellett Profile picture
Tim Skellett
@Gurdur
Me: interests: #scicomm, books, gardening, philosophy, science journalism, photography, #nature, #travel, #DiscWorld, and so on.
4 subscribers
Nov 10 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
1/n Let's deal with a few *facts* here. On 10/6 2023, 06. October, the Gaza Strip was self-governing. It had a higher standard of living than the Egyptians bordering the southern Gazan border. Its rulers were billionaires. Hamas *owned* ≈10% of all land.
nypost.com/2023/11/07/new… 2/n Pre-10/6 2023, *despite* a ruinously incompetent, dicatorial admin by Hms, Gaza was doing economically quite well, owing to the huge subsidies poured in by the West (Gaza per capita was the most heavily donor-funded place on Earth).
2021:
Oct 12 • 54 tweets • 12 min read
1/n Just a thread for myself, in preparation for something.
Oct 15, 2023
2/n It's not just weaselwords, it's also a set of two completely false claims that "primarily as a civilian healthcare facility, making those buildings a protected civilian location". First claim is the "primarily".
Sep 30 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1/n I want you all to think very hard about this. "The modern economy rests upon a single road" in the Appalachians, and you didn't know that.
#NCRealTime
Image 2/ A 2018 WIRED piece about Spruce Pine, #NorthCarolina:
archive.ph/JGtCb
Apr 27 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
1/n A short history of the #flu. This will be another very slow thread, but with several points. "In a typical year, 5~15% of the population contracts #influenza. There are 3~5 million severe cases annually, with up to 650,000 respiratory-related deaths globally each year". 2/n There are four main branches of the flu:

Influenza A (alphainfluenzavirus): infects 🐦‍⬛🦆, 🐕,🐈‍⬛, 🦇,🐖, 🐎, 🐄, 🦭, ferrets, 👱❗️.
—
B (betainfluenzavirus): 👱❗️, ferrets, 🐖 , 🦭.
—
C (gammainfluenzavirus): 👱❗️, 🐖.
—
D (deltainfluenzavirus): , 🐖, 🐄.
Mar 14 • 30 tweets • 6 min read
1/n Let me talk about Rebecca Watson for a while. It's history-time. As observed here, she came in for a lot of flak in #ElevatorGate; but fewer know why so few showed her much sympathy at the time, even the semi-anti-Dawkins types like me.
cc.@MPMacLachlan, @JamesPurple77 @MPMacLachlan @JamesPurple77 2/ Rebecca Watson started off her online life on the (then very large) Skeptics community bulletin-board. She was well-known there as principally a vivacious semi-troll. Few if any took her seriously as a person, but for the most part she was liked or at least tolerated.
Jan 29 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
1/n I said in my previous thread that @IlhanMN's remarks in her speech were incendiary, and that in different ways inside Minnesota, in the USA, and in Africa. To explain why is going to need some background history.

@IlhanMN 2/n #Somalia's a failed state kept alive by foreign troops (most Kenyan, battling Al-Shabaab terrorists) & foreign money (👋 USA; >3 billion $ since 2006). Below:
Yellow= #Somaliland, de facto independent nation;
pale red= notional control by #Somalia govt;
dark grey= Al Shabaab Image
Jan 29 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
1/ #IlhanOmar, @IlhanMN, made a speech the other day, which blew up in a big way. Below is an excerpt with English subtitles. This is the first of my threads explaining why it's important to you too, and what all the problems with it are. First up's the sheer scope of the fracas 2/n Just how big this all is is shown by the lobbying firm @batten_von in the USA that acts for Somalia. First, they put out a statement distancing themselves (& by implication, #Somalia) from #IlhanOmar, & disavowing her. The disclaimers are wild:
Image
Jan 16 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
1/n Previously under Jack, quite a lot of women were banned from Twitter just for saying men can't become women. Bluntly, given the circumstances, it's more than possible that under Jack the Hamas-freaks would have gotten acceptance similar to the TRA's, with predictable results 2/n The racist, anti-Israel 'progressives' enjoy wide-spread acceptance in the USA, so it's quite possible if we had the previous Twitter regime life here would be even harder for the sane and the pro-Israel, @EladNehorai.
Oct 9, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1/n I'm going to do a thread with some facts that are relevant. Hamas previously had the support of the Gaza Strip population, despite Hamas' explicitly genocidal platform of wiping out Israel. How much support now? Who knows. Hamas doesn't allow free elections. 2/ Nonetheless, we can be sure of a couple of things. Up till Israel's reaction today, Hamas still had the support of a sizeable proportion of the Gazan population. You get what you asked for.
Sep 7, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1/n Today we do people living on some foreign planet. There seem quite a few. We discuss several. One guy, he tells me he thinks it's a valid idea to shoot it out with conscription officers if they come a'knockin' on his door, & I'm left thinking, lolwut 2/n Then someone who thinks normal PiV sex is a man masturbating with a woman's body, & thus heterosexual sex should be boycotted. Such a wrong idea, quite twisted, marking an alienation from nature. Sure, be gay or asexual, but leave others alone. 🙄
Jul 22, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
1/n I got asked why I paid for Twitter Blue. I've pretty much said it all before, but here's a thread summing up my reasons. 2/ I can respect the opinion of those like @Tracinski, who just doesn't find (AFAIK) all that much value in Twitter for himself. One man's fish is another man's poisson. For me, Twitter has a high value; it and SubStack are the only social-media I use now.
Jul 15, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
1/n Quite often, I see claims that no so-called "gender-affirming" operations are being carried out on minors (under 18) in the USA. A more subtle, & more cynically dishonest, claim is to state the numbers are so small as to mean no laws should be made against that. 2/n Interesting to see some numbers from the USA, where much effort is made to stop numbers being reported.
"at least 776 mastectomies were performed in the United States on patients ages 13 to 17 with a gender dysphoria diagnosis from 2019 to 2021"
https://t.co/Mbqdrz8623 https://t.co/Bj21H6d6Syreuters.com/investigates/s…
twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Image
Jul 6, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
1/n Today I was informed by email from the town-council legal guardian for @NellHitchens that she had died yesterday in hospital. I checked, but no phone message, SMS or voice mail, from the hospital was there for me.
#NellHitchens.
cc.@TripeUK @NellHitchens @TripeUK 2/n AFAIK, she has a brother somewhere in upper northern Germany. I have no contact with him, nor contact details. AFAIK, he never visited her in hospital, all these past 3 years. I assume the town-council legal guardian and/or the hospital will inform him of his sister's death.
May 10, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I have several books by Matthew Hughes, all inspired by Jack Vance, but I don't yet have "The Gist Hunter and Other Stories". Thanks for the tip!
Yes, Jack Vance is one of my all-time top-fav's. Yes, I have every single damn book of his, even the pseudonym ones I do indeed need to collect more @MichaelSwanwick. Eventually I will.

May 10, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1/n This is more of a private thread, so only tweeps can reply, but it also has hints for those of y'all who want to convert anyone to something.

First up, never use the phrase, "Genuine question". That's a dead giveaway 95% of the time that you're lying. twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2/ If you want to ask someone question, ask them. Don't dismiss the answers you get given {subtweet!}. Don't go to town arguing against the answers given if it's not vital. I'm sometimes guilty of the last myself.

Above all, respect matters of personal taste
(unless important).
May 10, 2023 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
1/ I was asked by a friend what the current state of #COVID19 is, in practical terms. So I'll add to this thread slowly over time.
First off, every country will get 3 or 4 waves a year. It never was, and won't become any time soon, a seasonal virus.
nature.com/articles/d4158… 2/ People still dying from #COVID19, everywhere at least ten times the usual death-toll from the flu. As-of-the-moment average death-toll from covid is estimated at 140 to 190 a day for the USA; keep in mind that's an under-estimate (b/c under-reporting) cdc.gov/coronavirus/20… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
May 8, 2023 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
I'm watching a movie called "Fall - Fear Reaches New Heights". This is like an arachnophobe watching a movie all about spiders, chockabloc full of spiders, over-brimming with spiders. I would be happier with the spiders. I can handle spiders. Depths are a different matter. Spiders don't give me vertigo.
May 8, 2023 • 26 tweets • 10 min read
1/n This is a worthy opinion, but I'm going to disagree with this strongly, in a complex way, with some examples from my own experience. First off, the "weak" part is a moral judgment, not a physical one; I grant the difference can get vague, which raises its own problems. 2/n The actual situation at hand is Jordan Neely. The scene of his death is as yet inadequately documented; according to eye-witnesses, he burst into a subway carriage, threatening passengers. He was physically restrained by Daniel Penny & others. Neely died. That much is clear
Apr 28, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1st point of that paper just inadequately rehashes old ground, i.e. any injection can be viewed as physical assault: covered routinely in med ethics & ed, no?
2nd point seems mere emo over-extension, claiming thusly all mandates are like sexual harassment i.e. you can argue/state that if someone really wants to refuse a vaccination, they have a right to.

You're on far more shaky, illegitimate ground if you then contend that means vaccination-refusers are not liable to effects of mandates (e.g. employment in #healthcare work)
Apr 28, 2023 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
The entire slogan about parents not 'owning' their children is a bogus duplicity, relying on ambiguity. As for shocking behavior, claiming that minors *need* health-harming medications and destructive surgeries to 'be themselves' is magnitudes more shocking. Reminder: this operation:
— was inherently highly dangerous
— at the same time as completely unnecessary;
— used a risky procedure because of previous puberty-blockers;
— would have had an unsatisfactory outcome even if successful;
— caused his death.
twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Apr 27, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
"Hi, this is my first arrival in this city & I don't have any friend around. I wanna seek a man of maturity w/ a sense of humor. I saw your profiles and tweets & thought you might be the one whom I am looking for".

No. First off, even my best friends will tell you flat out that I have absolutely no maturity. Me and maturity are like opposing anti-particles.

Second, I have no sense of humor whatsoever. None. Nada. Zilch. Also, I am extremely boring.