Category: Life

My Uncle’s Contribution To WWII – A B29 Pilot – Part 2, Pearl Harbor To Tokyo

This is part 2 of My Uncle’s WWII story of going from high school to a squadron leader who led the last raid over Tokyo in WWII

On December 7, 1943, I checked out as the first pilot on the four-engine B-24 bomber airplane. I was 20 years old. I was based in Orlando for almost a full year. Effective March 1, 1944, I was transferred to the 1st Bomb Squadron of the 9th Bomb Group at Brooksville, Florida, as were all non-combat-experienced personnel based at Pinecastle Army Air Base. I was then immediately transferred to the Second Air Force, Dalhart, Texas for further assignment. I flew as co-pilot on a B-17 for this transfer from Brooksville to Dalhart. It was the first time I had ever set foot in a B-17.

1 April 1944, I was transferred from the Second Air Force to the 505th Bomb Group (Very Heavy) of the 313th Bomb Wing (VH) based at Harvard Army Air Field, Nebraska. I was temporarily assigned (for approximately 30 days) to attend a “cadre training” school at the Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics in Orlando, Florida, before reporting to Nebraska. After I attended the 30-day school, I had seven days leave and married Margaret Baker on April 30, 1944, in Orlando. I then returned to my outfit in Nebraska.

May 13, 194,4 I was assigned to the 484th Bomb Squadron, 505th Bomb Group, 313th Bomb Wing. I was assigned a co-pilot named Frederick A. Kays Jr. and a Radio Operator named William G. Coyle. We did most of our flight training in B-17s because there was such a small number of B-29 airplane existent worldwide. I had my first ride in a B-29 on July 22, 1944. I checked out as the first pilot in the B-29 on September 8, 1944, when I was 21 years old. The B-29 was at that time the largest airplane in the skies…airline or military. Margaret and I lived in one of the Showboat Motel detached cottages in Hastings, Nebraska, approximately 30 miles from the Harvard Army Air Base. We had no car. Lieutenant Warren C. Shipp often drove me to and from the air base, but it was difficult for me because the Army scheduled training 24 hours per day.

While flying the return leg of a routine training flight from Harvard, Nebraska to Orlando and back to Harvard in a B-17, Lieutenant Otto Haas and I had an engine failure. We landed at the nearest Army airport, which was Nashville, Tennessee on September 10, 1944. On Sept. 18th, we got the B-17 back to Harvard, Neb. with a replacement engine installed. Our Commanding Officer was very provoked with our absence of nine days because the B-29 training program was such a high priority. We were totally unaware of the urgency of our B-29 training.

Five days later on September 23, 1944, I, and about 300 other men, were relieved from the 505th Bomb Group, 313th Bomb Wing assignment and transferred to the 236th AAF Base Unit Combat Crew Training School (VH)) Army Air Base Pyote, Texas. Our crew was to be trained there as a B-29 Replacement Crew. Margaret and I rode the train from Hastings, Nebraska to Pecos, Texas, where we rented a room with kitchen privileges with a real fine Texas family named Titus. It was at Pyote AAB that I first met the 10 other crew members whom I later took into combat on my crew. Effective January 8, 1945, I was granted 13 days leave, and Margaret and I rode the train from Pecos, Texas to our home in Orlando. I left her in Orlando when I returned to Pyote because I was soon to go overseas. We continued to fly training flights at Pyote, Texas until February 21, 1945, when our replacement crew was fully trained, and we then boarded another troop train for our transfer to a staging base, Army Air Field at Herington, Kansas, to be processed for overseas duty.

March 3, 1945, we boarded yet another troop train in Herington, Kansas for transfer to our intermediate assignment at Hamilton Field, San Francisco, California. In San Francisco, our crew waited a few days to catch a ride on a Military Air Transport Command C-54 transport airplane from San Francisco to Oahu, Hawaii, to Johnson Island to Kwajalein to Guam, sleeping en route at each stop, save Johnson Island, where the airplane was immediately refueled and departed.

Like all B-29 replacement crews, we were first sent to the island of Guam, because that was the site of XXI Bomber Command Headquarters. However, before we spent a night on Guam, we were assigned to the prestigious 73rd Bomb Wing (VH) on Saipan. We caught a C-46 Military Transport to Saipan, and then received Special Orders No. 65 from Headquarters APO 237 on Saipan dated March 14, 1945, assigning us to the 871st Squadron, 497th Bomb Group, 73rd Bomb Wing (VH) on Saipan. At that time, I did not realize what an honor it was to be a member of the pioneering and historic 73rd Wing. I was living among true heroes with those men. Even today some 50 years later, all B-29 men who served in the Pacific look with awe and admiration at the valiant 73rd Wing who stood alone on Saipan, and flew their missions against Japan for so many months. During our first evening on Saipan, we sat through our first enemy attack alarm when we experienced “condition red”, but saw no enemy airplanes.

Our first flight off Saipan was March 29, 1945. We flew several orientation flights, practice flights, test flights, and engine “slow time” flights before we went on our first combat mission April 13th, to Tokyo in a B-29 numbered A Square 52 and named “Teaser”. It was a night incendiary raid with 16,700 lbs. of bombs. Oddly enough, it was the first time I ever took off with my landing light turned on. Previously, I had been taught that landing lights were only used for landing. As was customary with each take off of the heavily overloaded B-29s, we skimmed the ocean for miles and miles always flying the first hour at less than 400 feet altitude on each mission! The loss of an engine in this precarious situation required immediate salvoing of the bomb load or a crash into the sea. The first B-29, which arrived in the Pacific, “Jolting Josie, the Pacific Pioneer” still lies in the ocean of the end of the runway at Saipan because she encountered this impossible situation.

The first time I landed at Iwo Jima was May 24, 1945, coming home from our 9th combat mission with the number 1 engine feathered due to a gradual loss of oil. The runway was unpaved clay at the time. We had foolishly gone over Tokyo on three engines the previous evening, with the approval of each of our crew members.

We flew our 13th combat mission to Tokyo on June 6, 1945, taking 14:10 hours. Some days later, we received word that we were to fly one of the first war-weary B-29s numbered A Square 43, named “Thunderhead”, to Kwajalein, Oahu, and Travis Field (it was then called Fairfield-Suisun airfield) at Sacramento, California. As we passed through Kwaj on June 14th, we learned that the very first crew to complete their 35 missions and return home in “Dauntless Dottie” (which led the first B-29 raid on Japan on November 24, 1944) had crashed on takeoff the preceding evening! What a shame! We were going home to attend a prestigious “lead crew school” for approximately 30 days at the Muroc AAB, California, which is now the celebrated Edwards Air Force Base. We were to report there on June 29th. Upon landing our B-29 at Fairfield-Suisun Fiel,d I immediately rode civilian airlines from San Francisco to Orlando to visit Margaret. That was the first time I ever rode in a commercial airplane, all DC-3s, flown by United, American, Delta, then Eastern. I was in Orlando approximately 8 days before I had to fly back to Muroc AAB, bumming rides on military airplanes (as was quite common by all military personnel during the War).

We finished our training at the lead crew school at Muroc AAB on July 31 and received orders to report to Hamilton Field on August 4, 1945, for transport back to our outfit on Saipan. Again, we rode the Military Air Transport Command C-54 to Hawaii, Johnson, Kwajalein, Guam, and Saipan. Note: on August 6th and 9th, the two atomic bombs were dropped while we were en route back to Saipa,n our second time.

Contrary to popular opinion, the war did not end after the two atomic bombs were dropped. The Japanese Army and Navy stood ready to defend the homeland from the invasion scheduled for November 1945. Exactly 916 different combat crews of the five different B-29 combat wings flew missions and dropped bombs on Japan after August 9th. (See: Resume 20th Air Force Missions, Library of Congress, published by Richard M Keenan, 1945). “Total surrender” was a difficult concept for the Japanese to accept. On the night of August 14-15t,h I flew my 14th and last combat mission when I led the last B-29 raid off Saipan. Earlier that morning, the pioneer 73rd Wing had sent a “maximum effort” of 161 airplanes to bomb Osaka, Japan. The 13 airplanes I was to lead on this last mission were those that were mechanically unable to go on the earlier Osaka raid, but had been repaired and returned to service since the max. The effort raid took off. It was composed of 1 airplane from the 500th Group, 1 from the 498th, 2 from the 499th, and 9 from my 497th. (However, 4 scratched, and 1 aborted). At the briefing, we were instructed that if my radio operator received a transmission that the Japanese government had capitulated, I was instructed to transmit on voice radio the message “UTAH, UTAH, UTAH” to the other airplanes on our raid. My radio operator never received a message of capitulation, so the voice message was not transmitted, and we all dropped our bombs as briefed.

THIS WAS THE VERY LAST MISSION OF THE WAR! It was XXI Bomber Command Mission Number 330, a night incendiary raid of 13:30 hours with 14,940 lbs of general-purpose bombs to Isesaki, Japan. Our time over the targets is recorded as 0108-0315. When we returned from that all-night mission, the “War Is Over!” proclaimed a huge sign in our 497th Group unit’s briefing-debriefing Quonset hut.

We flew three prisoner-of-war missions wherein we dropped food, clothing, and medical supplies to our prisoners in their prison camps. One of the conditions stipulated in the Japanese surrender was that they must clearly mark all of the Prisoners of War camps with a large red cross on the roof, or in the yard, so it could be seen by aircraft flying over. We flew to camps located in Formosa (now called Taiwan), Shikoku, and Tokyo. After dropping the POW supplies in Tokyo, we flew at approximately 500 feet over the remains of the city at our leisure, as did several other B-29 crews. The devastation of the city was unbelievable.

On October 2, 1945, our crew was assigned to be in the first group of airplanes to start home in Sunset Project #5. I flew airplane numbered A Square 47 named “Sweat’erOut” to Kwajalein, Oahu, and Fairfiel-Suisun Field at Sacramento, California landing on October 5, 1945. Approximately two hours out, we had to feather a prop because an engine was running out of oil. Accordingly, my last landing in a B-29 was a three-engine landing. That was my last flight in a United States Army B-29.

The entire military establishment was in a state of extreme confusion after the War ended. It had millions of men in uniform, and most wanted to get out, but not all. I elected to remain in the U.S.Army because I was married and had no skill other than knowing how to fly. I was given 45 days of Rest, Relaxation and Recuperation leave and told to report to my unit, the 73rd Bomb Wing (VH) at March Field, Riverside, California, on December 4, 1945. That date was extended to January 10, 1946. Orders were changed while I was on leave, and we were now told to report to McDill Field, Tampa, Florida, on January 10, 1946…but I didn’t get the change notice. Margaret and I bought our first car, a used one, from Holler Chevrolet on West Central Boulevard in Orlando. It was a 1942 black two-door Chevrolet Cabriolet. We drove it from home leave in Orlando to Riverside, California, carrying my brother John as far as White Sands, New Mexico, where he was to be stationed. We rented a bedroom living accommodation with an Indian family in Riverside, Calif. before I got the word that we should be in Tampa, Florida. We hopped in our car and drove rapidly back across the United States to Tampa.

to be continued

My Uncle’s Contribution To WWII – A B-29 Pilot

I recently posted a WordPress question asking whether I was patriotic. Unferth commented that I should write about my Uncle and my Father’s experience.

Before he died, my Uncle sent this document. It’s long, so I’m going to break it over a couple of days so it is readable.

He went from high school to commanding a bomber fleet over Tokyo on the last mission of WWII.

Enjoy

THE WORLD WAR II EXPERIENCES OF JOSEPH A. SIMONDS.
649 Balmoral Road, Winter Park, FL 32789
Serial Number O-799083

Written August 3, 1992. The following was written for no specific purpose. I just thought I might set down a few dates and experiences for my own personal benefit. If the reader enjoys perusing this effort, the writer will be happy. Probably the two most significant events are 1) being on the initial flight into the Pinecastle Army Air Field in 1943, which is now called Orlando International Airport, and 2) flying the very last mission of World War II, dropping the last bombs on Japan.

I was born on January 14, 1923 in the General Hospital in Orlando, Florida. I graduated from the only high school in town, Orlando Senior High School, on Friday, June 6, 1941. I was 18 years old at the time. I enrolled as a freshman at the University of Florida the following September. While in High School, I had taken a couple of rides in an airplane. My first time aloft was in the back seat of a barnstorming Howard airplane from the Orlando Municipal airport. I don’t know in what year that occurred, but it was during the depression years. I enjoyed the flying experience, but I never thought I would ever go up in an airplane again. However, in High School, I joined a fraternity named Omega Xi (a very socially select small group), and one of the members, Mac Nangle, was a pilot. His father owned a side-by-side two-place Taylorcraft, which he kept on a private airport in his orange grove in western Orange County. Mac took me up two or three times. I’m not sure Mac had a pilot’s certificate, but he knew how to fly and had access to an airplane. Sadly, Mac was later killed during the war in an Army basic training aircraft in Oklahoma.

During this era, the people of the United States were about equally divided on the issue of World War II, which was going on in Europe. It had started in September of 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and conquered all of Europe except England. It had been underway for two years when I graduated from high school. In this country, I was among those who favored Isolationism, for I did not believe the U S should again fight in a European war.

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Japanese suddenly and secretly bombed Pearl Harbor. The entire world was shocked by this dastardly attack. The United States was thereby thrust into World War II. The exact moment I heard the news I was in a football uniform on the P.K. Younge School grounds in Gainesville, Florida, practicing for the annual football game between my Phi Delta Theta fraternity and the Sigma Nus. It was in the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house living room that I heard Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech the following day.

In early January 1942 I finished my first semester at the University of Florida and withdrew from school to join the military service. I only considered the Army Air Corps…never gave the Navy a thought.

March 30, 1942 I became an Aviation Cadet in the U.S. Army Air Corps. I was sworn in as a Private at the Orlando Air Base on March 30, 1942 with Serial Number 14052578. I was classified as “Private Unassigned” and sent to my home address in Orlando to await further orders. The pay of a Private was $21.00 per month.

On June 1st, I received a telegram ordering me to “active duty” and telling me to report to U.S. Army Camp Blanding, Starke, Florida on June 13, 1942. While there for only a day or two, we slept in square, eight-man canvas tents, sans uniforms.

June 15, 1942 I was appointed an Aviation Cadet and transferred to the Air Force Cadet Classification Center at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama. I rode in a private car owned and driven by Ralph L. Smathers of Orlando, from Camp Blanding to Maxwell Field with John Stonecipher, Jack Lee, and two other Orlando boys who were also newly appointed Aviation Cadets. At Maxwell Field, I was issued my Aviation Cadet uniforms and insignia. Also, there I took various tests to determine if I was to become a pilot, a navigator, or a bombardier. On June 26, 1942 I was classified as a pilot trainee, assigned to Class 43-C, and issued orders to report to the AAF Pre-Flight (Pilot) Training Center at Maxwell Field on July 10, 1942. Because we had a few days of freedom, we all climbed in Ralph Smather’s car and drove to Orlando to show off our new uniforms. Margaret’s mother was very impressed with the quality of my military uniform. I recall sitting on her front porch at 520 Anderson Street in Orlando as she examined my hat very carefully. She had, of course, already lost a son in the war when her middle child Joe Baker’s ship was sunk by a German submarine on May 25, 1942 in the Gulf of Mexico. He was probably Orlando’s first fatality of World War II. We drove back to Maxwell Field to report for duty on July 10, 1942. I spent approximately two months in Pre-Flight training at that base.

On September 9, 1942 after completing the Pre-Flight training I, along with about 180 other Cadets, was issued orders to report to The Civilian Elementary Flying School AAFTD, Southern Aviation School, Camden, South Carolina. I reported there on September 13, 1942. The “troop train” ride from Montgomery, Alabama, through Atlanta, Georgia to Camden, South Carolina was my first experience riding on a troop train. There were many such adventurous train rides to follow. When we arrived in Camden, South Carolina, about ten in the morning, we got off the train and looked up at the sky to find it filled with many, many PT -17 training airplanes. And we noted that many airplanes had differently colored lower wings on opposite sides of the airplane. Some were blue, some were yellow, and some were silver. Some airplanes had both wings the same color, but many did not. Before we left Camde,n we learned that the P T -17 has a “ground looping” characteristic which frequently caused the lower wing to be damaged, and therefore changed. It was obvious that the mechanics simply installed any new lower wing they had in inventory, no matter what the color.

On September 15, 1942 I took my first: 32 minute flying instructions in an Army airplane with my instructor Frank W. Poe 3rd (certificate number C-93789). The airplane was a primary trainer Stearmen PT-17. Woodruf Field at Camden, S.C. was a grass airport with no pavement at all. I loved it.

On October 2, 1942 I soloed in that airplane after having received 9:27 hours of dual instruction. My solo flight was from an auxiliary field located north of the main Camden airport, and lasted 20 minutes with several landings. On my first solo landing, I dragged the lower left wing along the ground, but the airplane went straight, and I avoided that dreaded “ground loop” for which this airplane was noted. I taxied to the side of the airport to a buildin,g and a mechanic came out to examine my airplane. I kept the engine running while he shook the lower wing up and down once or twice, then indicated to me that it was O.K. and I taxied out for some more landing practice. I flew 60:00 hours in this airplane at Camden, S.C., before I finished the course and was transferred from a Primary Flight school to a Basic Flight school.

I, along with approximately 140 other Cadets who had not yet “washed out,”, was transferred on November 16, 1942 to the AAF Basic Flying School, Cochran Field, Macon, Georgia. There, I flew the Vultee BT-13 basic trainer airplane for approximately 70:15 hours. I did my first night solo work here. My brother John, who was also in the Army based at Camp Blanding, Florida, somehow managed to visit me briefly while I was based at Cochran Field. This was the first Christmas I spent away from home, and I hardly left my barracks room on Christmas Day because there was no military activity, and I was a very blue aviation cadet.

On January 26, 1943 I was transferred to the United States Army Advanced Flying School at Turner Field, Albany, Georgia. While there, I flew Beechcraft AT-10 and Curtiss Wright AT-9 advanced twin-engine trainer-type airplanes.

On March 25, 1943 I graduated from the U.S. Army flying school at Turner Field, Albany, Georgia in Class 43-C with a grand total of 272 hours flying time. On that date, I was discharged from my assignment as an Aviation Cadet, Serial Number 14052578, and appointed a Second Lieutenant in the Army of the United States with a new Officer’s Serial Number O-799083.

My first Active Duty assignment was to report to the Army Air Force School of Applied Tactics, Bomb Department in my hometown of Orlando, Florida on March 27th 1943. Mother, Dad, and my sister Mary (who had ridden the train to attend my graduation) were delighted, as was I. I reported there and was assigned to the 5th Bomb Squadron, 9th Bomb Group Heavy, located on the Signal Hill portion of the Orlando Air Base. I was assigned to fly as co-pilot on four-engine B-24 bomber airplanes. Soon thereafter, on April 15, 1943 our entire Squadron was transferred from the Orlando Air Base to the new Pinecastle Army Air Field, at Pinecastle, Florida. That was the first day any airplanes ever landed at Pinecastle airfield. The first airplane to land was piloted by our Squadron Commanding Officer, Major Role E. Stone. I flew a little Piper L-4 “Grasshopper” Liaison observation airplane solo between the two airports. The air base was later renamed McCoy Air Force Base and later became the Orlando International Airport.

to be continued….

15 Things You Should Never Do to Your Introverted Partner

1. Don’t force them to socialize beyond their comfort level.

Introverts need downtime to recharge their energy. Forcing them to socialize beyond what feels comfortable for them can leave them feeling drained and exhausted. For example, if you guilt-trip your introverted partner into attending two big events in one weekend, they might end up feeling tired and stressed.

So, respect their boundaries and give them the time and space they need to recharge their energy. Maybe the two of you agree to drive separately so your partner can leave when their social battery is reaching empty. Or maybe they’ll sit this event out, but go to another one in the future that’s more important to you.

2. Don’t make them feel guilty for wanting to spend time alone.

Everyone needs downtime to recharge their energy and process their thoughts and emotions — especially introverts. When they want to be alone, it’s not about you. Introverts are simply wired differently than extroverts; you can read the science behind why introverts love alone time here.

Sometimes extroverts make off-hand comments that make introverts feel guilty: “Don’t you enjoy spending time with me?” or “I never have a problem hanging out with you, why is it so hard for you to do the same?” They don’t realize that saying these things can hurt their relationship.

If you find yourself doing this, try to understand your partner’s need for solitude and support them. If the two of you live together, you could help them create an “introvert zen zone” or sanctuary in your home — a place that they can retreat to as needed. 

3. Give them space when they’re in the middle of a task. 

When introverts are working on a task, like looking up information or meticulously planning the meals for the week, they tend to focus deeply. And many of them thrive when doing this deep work. Interrupting them when they’re in the middle of something can be frustrating for them. So, be patient and wait for a time when they’re more available. Or wait until they take a break and seek you out.

4. Don’t push them to be more talkative or expressive.

Introverts tend to express themselves a little differently than extroverts. For example, they might prefer writing a thoughtful text over having a face-to-face conversation about serious topics. They might be quiet in large groups, especially when they’re around people who they don’t know well (like a gathering of your extended relatives).

So, don’t push your partner to be more talkative or expressive than they’re comfortable with. Don’t say things like, “Why are you so quiet?” or “Come on, join the conversation, everyone’s waiting to hear from you.” Believe me, they’ll talk when they’re ready. Usually, this will happen around close friends and loved ones.

5. Don’t assume they’re not interested in spending time with you just because they enjoy different activities.

Introverts often prefer spending time alone or with small groups rather than with many people at once. But… they are still interested in spending time with you. Otherwise, they would not be with you!

Keep in mind that they may enjoy more low-key introvert-friendly activities, such as walking, watching a movie, or having a quiet dinner together vs. checking out the bustling new restaurant. Please don’t take their preference for more peaceful activities as a lack of interest in spending time with you.

6. Don’t criticize them for not being more outgoing. 

Similar to #4, criticizing your introverted partner for not being more social can be hurtful and make them feel inadequate. Introversion is a healthy personality trait that cannot be changed. Yes, your partner can grow and learn — perhaps they need to learn to communicate better — but introversion is in their DNA, so they’ll always have a general preference for quiet and calm. Expecting someone to act against their true nature is unfair.

Instead of criticizing them, appreciate them for who they are. You fell in love with them for a reason, right? 

7. Don’t assume their quietness means they’re mad or bored. 

For some people, sitting quietly side by side might seem boring or uncomfortable. However, for introverts, this situation often has a different feel. Silence doesn’t necessarily signify discomfort or boredom; rather, it’s a space where introverts feel at ease. Allow your introverted partner to just be, to relax quietly in your company. It’s a meaningful way to connect and show understanding of their needs.

8. Don’t assume they’re not enjoying themselves just because they’re not showing it outwardly. 

Similar to the point above, don’t assume your introverted partner is not having a good time just because they’re not expressing it as much as you may be. They just might prefer to express themselves in quieter, more subtle ways. 

9. Don’t expect them to be the life of the party. 

Introverts might be uncomfortable being the center of attention and entertaining others. Don’t expect them to be the life of the party or continuously make small talk, if you, say, have guests in your shared home or go away with friends for the weekend. Instead, appreciate their presence and the contributions they make in their own way. If you have a dinner party, for instance, they might be great at listening attentively to guests and making sure everyone is comfortable. 

10. Don’t assume they’re not interested in making friends or meeting new people. 

Just because someone is an introvert doesn’t mean they don’t want to make friends or meet new people. They just might prefer to do so in smaller settings or through shared interests rather than in large social gatherings. Introverts don’t consider everyone to be their friend (as extroverts might), and that’s okay!

11. Don’t make them feel abnormal for being an introvert. 

Introversion is not weird or abnormal. Plus, 30 to 50 percent of the population may be introverted, so it’s hardly rare!

Think about the strengths your introverted partner brings to your relationship. For example, they might be excellent listeners, offering you their undivided attention when you talk about your day. They often think deeply before speaking, which means their words and advice are usually well-considered and insightful. Introverts also tend to enjoy meaningful one-on-one conversations, which can strengthen the emotional connection in your relationship. And, their love of quiet, low-key environments can create a peaceful, calming atmosphere at home.

12. Don’t guilt them into participating in activities that require a lot of small talk. 

Making introverts participate in activities that require a lot of small talk can be overwhelming and exhausting for them. Allow them to join in their own way or for them to opt-out altogether. Respect their boundaries and preferences. After all, you two can find other activities that appeal to both of you. And the two of you do not have to do everything together.

13. Don’t expect them to be as spontaneous as you might be. 

Introverts may not be as spontaneous as extroverts, and that’s perfectly fine. They may prefer to plan activities (they’re great planners!) and take time to thoroughly consider all the options. Don’t expect them to be more spontaneous than they’re comfortable with. That can be your department.

14. Don’t assume they’re not good communicators just because they’re introverted. 

Introverts may not communicate in the same way as extroverts, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good communicators. In fact, they can be pros at reading body language, noticing subtle changes in someone’s facial expression or tone of voice, which helps them understand unspoken feelings or concerns. Introverts are also typically good at written communication; they may craft you well-articulated texts or love letters.

15. Don’t judge them if they need to be alone after a social event.

After social events, introverts might need to be alone to recharge their batteries. So, don’t expect them to be up for another social event immediately after a big party or gathering. Or, they might not want to go out for dinner right after a day filled with meetings and socializing at work.

Again, don’t take their need for alone time as a sign of rejection or disinterest. Instead, give them this time, and know they’ll have more energy afterwards.

Source

Stuff I Noticed Driving Between States

While I was traversing a couple of states last week, I noticed a couple of trends.

First, Truckers were a lot more aggressive and less cautious than before. They used to be afraid to lose their license, but with California giving Commercial licenses to illegals, I was getting cut off, pulled out in front of me without a signal, and the aggressiveness was disturbing.

I used to be able to count on them staying in the right lane and only coming out to pass really slow people, then going back into their lane. A lot of drivers did do this and when thanking them with a wave, they were Americans who were veteran drivers, probably with hundreds of thousands of miles under their belt.

When I got cut off, I was about to give the driver the Italian what’s a matter you with my hand (not the finger, the whole hand), and they clearly weren’t American-looking. That’s when the pattern was revealed to me

The next thing I noticed was a similar erratic driving style, then read this:

After multiple recent deadly car crashes across the United States involving illegal aliens, Florida has changed its driver test policy to require all prospective drivers to take the test in English.

“All driver license knowledge and skills testing will be conducted in English” for both non-commercial and commercial driver’s licenses, according to the new policy.

This is common sense to keep the American people SAFE!

Whether you’re driving a sedan or a big rig, you need to be able to read the rules of the road and communicate with law enforcement pic.twitter.com/DX1pVKV8ED— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) February 9, 2026

I wasn’t in Florida, so I guessed they weren’t from America.

The other thing I noticed is the willingness of people to trust a piece of shit car that smoked like a big green egg cooker on an interstate trip. I saw one car and remarked, they ain’t gonna make it. Sure enough, two exits later, they were pulling off as their unmaintained car broke down.

It sucks to be stuck on a highway a long way from home, with no water or food, and your transportation gives out.

I was in the big storm that hit so they coulda froze to death also. I drove on ice at one point for 10 miles.

There are some people we need to get off the road, or give them driving lessons.

At least learn English so you can read the signs.

For the record, I also got passed by a cool ass Ferrari that my truck didn’t stand a chance of catching up to so I could catch a look. It sounded great, though.

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Cars

2026 Dodge Charger Sixpack First Test: Is This Muscle Car Buff Enough?

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Rare Mercedes Is Peak ’90s Magic, but It Costs More Than a New AMG

11 Classic Car Investments That Could Reap Big Rewards – and not a one of them is an EV, but bad ass engines in some

Da Yoots are strong with the stupid

Woman Gets A Credit Card. Then She Finds Out How It Really Works Months Later: ‘This Is A Lot More Common Than People Think’

Boys vs Girls

Boys vs. Girls – and neither will be or act like the other, no matter what you cut off or chemically try to change

Speaking of Reality: Men Are Not Women – like the Olympic boxer who admitted he was a man and beat the hell out of the women

Climate Hoax

OUTRAGE: American Bald Eagle Killed in Minnesota by ‘Clean Energy’ Wind Turbine – The Details Are Horrific – they are all made in China and kill thousands of birds and bats. They can never pay for themselves over their life.

Super bowl

The Medal of Honor Hero Who Quietly Made the Super Bowl Possible

Meteors

These Are The World’s 12 Largest Impact Craters

Birth Rates

This Is Where Birth Rates Are Highest In The US

Restauarants

Woman Cuts Into Steak At New Mexico Restaurant. Ew, Why Does It Look Like That?: ‘I Don’t Send Food Back Often, But That Is 1000% Going Back’

Anti-Ice

ICE Humilates Far-Left Boston Mayor Michelle Wu in EPIC Fashion – How did the people of Boston vote this nut in?

mRNA

mRNA Shots Classified as Weapons of Mass Destruction in New Tennessee Bill – You should never mess with your DNA

IQ

Gen Z Just Broke the IQ Wheel – first gerneration to not get smarter

Monica Lewinsky

Decades Later, Monica Lewinsky Says Bill Clinton Fallout Still Haunts Her – and for Bill Clinton, it was a pump and dump with a courtesy hummer

Different Headlines: Homeless Die In NYC Under Mamdini Collectivism; Volvo Sales Crash Without EV Subsidies; The Sick People Who Were In The Epstein Club Named; Know Your Drink Speak When Ordering In a Bar; Darwin Award Again at Olive Garden; Ranking The 13 Deadliest Animals On Planet Earth; The 16 Most Jacked Players In NFL History; Brittany Mahomes Makes Return To SI Swimsuit Edition As 2026 Digital Cover Model (Videos); Penis PED Rumors Have Winter Olympics on Edge……and more

NYC

Homeless Die Under Mamdani’s ‘Warmth of Collectivism’ – Communism has never succeeded anytime in history

Cars

“Challenging External Environment”: Volvo Crashes Most On Record After Earnings Miss – again, cuts in EV subsidies kills sales

Health

These Are America’s Healthiest States – See where you rank

Energy In Germany

Germany Faces Gas Shortage Crisis: Industry Demands Strategic Reserve – It is remarkable that Germany has largely ignored fundamental questions of energy market design and the security of grids with baseload energy for years—a consequence of ideologically driven decisions. Trump warned them not to do it, but did they listen? FAFO

Nobel Prize

Riot-Torn Minneapolis Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize – Trump stopped 7 wars in a year, yet they’ve given one to Obama for not doing anything and now this. What a joke it’s become

Darwin Awards

The Latest ‘Olive Garden Suicide’ is Hands Down the Most Horrific Way to Die – why would you ever do that?

Sick Elitest People

They Are All Part of One Big Club and You Should Be Thankful That You Aren’t in It – Gates, Clintons, Rothschilds, Royals. All of them were people that did things normal people wouldn’t think of doing. They’ll all get away with it until their meeting with Satan, because it takes that kind of moral pertritude to do what they did.

Liberal Women

Women Overwhelmingly Value Equity and Emotional Safety Over the Pursuit of Truth, Academic Freedom [VIDEO] – The world isn’t equal, and never has been. Read the Epstein story above and you’ll see how different people are. We were made to struggle to overcome and learn. Life is tough, on everyone. I understand them wanting to prioritze emotional safety, but it’s just not going to happen, because it never has. Butch up and get tougher. That’s the way life is

How to order a drink and not mess up

Arizona Man Orders His Drink ‘Tall.’ Then A Bartender Calls Him Out For Not Knowing What That Really Meant – dumbass

Deadliest Animals

Ranking The 13 Deadliest Animals On Planet Earth

Football

The 16 Most Jacked Players In NFL History

Brittany Mahomes Makes Return To SI Swimsuit Edition As 2026 Digital Cover Model (Videos)

Olympics

Penis PED Rumors Have Winter Olympics on Edge – dickin’ around again

Covid Was Planned Out – Bill Gates

6 Years Later And I Am, Still Extremely Angry About The Hoax, And Now I Find THIS? – everyday, this prick gets worse

Climate Hoax

A Brilliant Take on Cows, Methane, and Climate

The Dems Knew The 2020 Election Was Stolen, But The Consequences Were 12 Years Of Trump Instead Of Being Done In 8

They did everything they could to get rid of him. There were impeachments, illegal raids on his house (that found nothing), a massive amount of lawsuits, a fake pandemic, a fake January 6th Insurrection, 2 assassination attempts, lawfare, and Russiagate.

They were trying to prevent him from finding out the illegal activities and money laundering of the deep state. He wasn’t one of theirs that they could control and be his puppeteer, like they did with Biden.

What they didn’t realize was that they could have been done with him in 2024. It was very short-sighted by the uni-party, deepstate, and anti-American politicians who vie for power and money in Washington. Instead, they threw their gauntlet at preventing him from running and winning in 2024.

The result? Four more years of Trump, while he was still relevant in the four useless years of the Biden presidency.

He is now dismantling even more of their power, like US Aid, the UN, the WHO, the Climate Hoax and the other lies.

My wife’s relatives live in Scandinavia. I had to cut them off from social media because they believed the news, which also hate Trump and spewed stuff I couldn’t stomach anymore. I’m laughing at them getting a triple serving of Trump instead of this being the presidency of someone else, and Trump would have served his 4 years.

He got stronger in between terms and came down harder on the swamp.

I’m laughing at all of them hating each day they wake up, and Trump has succeeded at everything from lowering food prices, lowering inflation, bringing more peace around the world and defying the global power machine.

I don’t get to see it, but I know the Europeans on my wife’s side must be seething. It’s schadenfreude for me, but after decades of marriage, which gave me decades of America-bashing by them is very funny and just deserved, just like it is to the media, the swamp, and the other retards in government.

NBADJT

Different Headlines: Why Travel Sucks, Resaon 1098; High School Coach Kicks Gets Ass Kicked; Hellcat Owners Got Swindled; The Most Reliable Cars of 2026 Ranked; Chili’s Serves Used Blue Cheese Sauce; How To Reduce Your Risk Of Cancer; How Expansive Was The Roman Empire (Mapped)?; Hacking the Anti-Ice Website and Gave All The Names Behind it to the FBI; The Most Dangerous Gym In The Country……and more

Travel

Woman Flies From Florida To Arizona. The She Recommends Another Passenger Seek Medical Help After Hearing Him: ‘Mind Your Business’

Why Dating Sucks

Puka Nacua Shoots His Shot At Sydney Sweeney After She Detailed What She’s Looking For In A Man – So you have everything you need, why ruin a guys life since you are so self-sufficient? Don’t forget, you won’t be hot forever.

Sportsmanship

North Carolina High School Basketball Game Ends With Brawl After Losing Player Decks Rival Coach

HOA RipOff

‘Where Is That Extra $2,000 Going?’: South Carolina Woman Asks How Her HOA Dues Will Be Spent After They Go Up. Then The Board Members Have A Shocking Response

Health

Reducing Your Risk For Cancer With Physical Activity

Celebtards

Lady Gaga Cries to a Foreign Audience About How Mean It Is for Trump, ICE to Enforce Immigration Laws

Cars

This Manual V8 Supercar Is German, Italian, and American All at Once – a new supercar

They Overpaid, Thinking Their Dodge Hellcats Were Limited, Judge Says That’s on You

Ranked: The Most Reliable Car Brands in 2026

How Big Was The Roman Empire?

Mapped: The Maximum Extent of the Roman Empire in 117 Ad

Communism

Lying Mamdani Invents Budget Emergency to Justify Massive Tax Hikes – and so it begins

Gyms

Why this New Jersey gym is known as the ‘most dangerous gym in America’

Restaurants

Chili’s Customer Gets Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce With Her Meal. Then She Sees A Sign That It’s Already Been Used – disgusting

Florida Woman Collects Dozens Of Fallen Frozen Iguanas To Have Them Cooked And Eaten As Snacks Amid Cold Front – Not my first choice of meat

Anti-Ice

 Hackers Ruin Anti-ICE Website’s Day — In Hilarious Fashion – they gave the names of all the website coders to the FBI

Nasa

NASA Begins a Practice Countdown for Its First Moonshot with Astronauts in More than 50 Years – Apollo 13, part 2. Everything about this mission has been flaky so far. I have a bad feeling about this

Different Headlines: Mountain Lion Captured In The Middle Of San Francisco;Millennials Are Sharing The Liquor From Back In The Day That They Will Never Drink Again; It’s Difficult To Sell Bras And Win An Oscar; 70% of Real Estate Agents Sold Nothing Despite Canada’s Population Boom; 1968 Dodge Charger R/T For Sale; 9 Heaviest Players In NFL History;How Modern Diets Are Failing Our Skeletons….and more

Restaurant Lying, again

California Influencer Claims Mexican Restaurant Refused To Serve Her. Then The Owner Posts The Receipts Of Her Lying In 4K: ‘I Love When Restaurants Clap Back’ – caught you, you twat.

Nature

Mountain Lion Captured In The Middle Of San Francisco After Viral Video Caught It Prowling The Streets – don’t pet the cat

Drinking

‘Calling All Millennials’: Millennials Are Sharing The Liquor From Back In The Day That They Will Never Drink Again. Their Answers Will Turn Your Stomach – Well, they are Millennials. My answer? Southern Comfort

An Oregon Brewery Has Whipped Up A Beer Made With Bear Poop – pretty sure I wouldn’t drink this either

Olympics

The 8 Athletes Who Have Competed In The Most Winter Olympics

Boobs

It’s Difficult To Sell Bras And Win An Oscar — So What, Exactly, Is Sydney Sweeney’s Endgame?

Illegals

Multiple Polls Show Majority of Americans Want All Illegals Deported – It’s that our lose our country

Darwin Awards

16-Year-Old Girl, Woman Die in Separate Sledding Incidents — Police Arrest 2 People

Canada

70% of Real Estate Agents Sold Nothing Despite Canada’s Population Boom – they don’t want to be killed by the government

Celebtards

Marvel’s ‘Fantastic Four’ Star Pedro Pascal Pushes National Strike to Protest Trump’s Illegal Alien Crackdown: “Shut It Down” – I’m tired of people who pretend for a living to try and tell us what we should believe. STFU and act, it’s all you’re qualified for. Look above where most Americans want the illegals out. Maybe you should go with them

Football

The 9 Heaviest Players in NFL History – That’s a lot of food to get this big

EU

Europe Cannot and Never Will Be Able to Compete With the United States – Enjoy your high taxes for crappy services and your immigration problem. America isn’t your enemy, Islam is

Health

How Modern Diets Are Failing Our Skeletons – I guess you are what you eat

Cars

1968 Dodge Charger R/T

440 CI V-8, Automatic

Posting Light Today

First, we made it through the storm with little damage. Others weren’t as lucky.

Worse, as you read this, I’m likely on the table for my Colonoscopy, so I’m not really gonna feel like posting much.

How do you go to med school and say, I want to look at butholes all day and shove a camera up their colon? I guess it must pay really well.

About The Ice Storm And Me

I’m going to be in the middle of the Ice storm. There is no telling what will happen as the storm could affect me power wise.

If you don’t see any posts, you know what happened.

I will point out that this is a good reason to have a diesel truck instead of an electric car.

I tested my generator, and it’s working. I have plenty of ethanol-free gas.

I wish the best for those who, like me, will be in the mess.

If that isn’t bad enough, I have a colonoscopy scheduled for early this week. It may or may not happen, but I’d like to get it behind me, pardon the pun.

May God bless us all.

Best Of Introvert Meme’s – Part 6

Here are some of the posts that got a lot of clicks. Some are funny, all are true, and every introvert will look at it and say yep. I see myself in most of these

Introvert Meme’s

Introvert Meme’s

Introvert Meme’s – Good One’s Today

Introvert Meme’s

Different Headlines: Celebtards on Display Again; Inflation at Half the Biden Rate, Lowest Since ’21; 2017 Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta Hits The Auction Block – 96 Miles, 1 of 210 Produced, 6.3L/949 HP Hybrid-Drive V-12; Confessions of a Recovering Liberal White Woman; Mother of the year…..and more

Hollywood Asshole

 An Open Letter to Mark Ruffalo – one of the most outspoken, over pampered and least educated of the bunch. Him, Deniro, Springsteen and Rosie are the leading TDS tards. This guy is also lying a lot. It’s too bad as I like the Avengers, just not in real life

Iran

At least 12,000 killed in Iran crackdown as blackout deepens – This isn’t going to end well

Dilbert

R.I.P. – Dilbert Creator and Early Trump Supporter Scott Adams Passes Away at 68 – too bad. I worked with people at IBM who worked with him, Alice, Wally and the pointy haired boss at Pc Bell

Economy

Inflation Holds at Nearly Half Biden Era Rate, ‘Core’ Rate Lowest Since March 2021

Artificial Intelligence

Even Meta and Microsoft Engineers Ditch Company AI for Claude – because ChatGPT/OpenAI, Gemini and most of the rest of the AI engines are crap. I can’t personally vouch for Claude, but I know the others are as biased as Google is

College Sports

8 Of The Largest Individual College Sports Donations In 2025 – It seems like a better use of the money to put it towards academics, as much as I like watching sports. We’d be graduating less retards that way

Guy Stuff

Looking For Evidence That Dudes Rock? Here Is The World Record For Farthest Golf Shot Landed Into A Moving Car – I still throw stuff behind my back and add difficulty to any sports stuff to make the victory sweeter.

The 11 Teams Responsible For The Longest Playoff Losing Streaks In NFL History

Climate Hoax

Axios: ‘The world’s great climate collapse’: ‘The climate agenda’s fall from grace over the past year has been stunning — in speed, scale & scope’ – you can only tell a lie so long, and then you are the boy who cried wolf. I’m looking at you Al Gore

Defying the Law

 Bill Clinton Defies Epstein Subpoena, Risking Contempt Of Congress – So what? They aren’t going to do anything and can’t throw him in jail. He’s making a mockery of Congress. In a way, he’s also admitting guilt as a pedo by not going

Our Current Bane of Existance

 Confessions of a Recovering Liberal White Woman – Worse than Karens, they are mentally ill and are oug to hurt families, the country and ultimately themselves. How do we rid our lives from these creatures.

Cars

2017 Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta – 96 Miles, 1 of 210 Produced, 6.3L/949 HP Hybrid-Drive V-12

so bad it’s not even legal to drive on the street.

Muslim Rape Gangs

Islam’s Rape Gangs — As Instructed in the Mosques – these guys all look related. This is reason 956 why we shouldn’t let them in.

Mother of the year

California mom convicted of murder for letting toddler drown while she chatted with men on dating apps… – look a that alcohol blood level

Different Headlines: Foods That can Transform your skin; Insect food business just went bankrupt; 1000 cars Burned in France; California Signs Bill To Pay Reparations, but doesn’t have the money; 69 Yenko Nova, 1 of 38 ever produced; Michael Schumachers Maiden winning Car for sale…..and more

Health

15 Vitamin C Rich Foods That Can Radically Transform Your Skin

Lung Cancer? Alarming Study Finds Ultra-Processed Foods Are Even Worse Than Previously Thought

World Domination Starts To Crumble

Surprise! $600 Million Insect Protein Animal Feed Business Just Went Bankrupt – Yeah, I wasn’t going to eat that either. Pass the steak and bacon, please. Oh, and the WEF can kiss my ass

Immigrants

More Than 1,000 Cars Burned in France, as New Year’s Eve “Celebrations” in Europe Turn Into a “Fireworks War” Between Migrants and Police – when you let them in from their shithole country, it turns yours into a shithole

Culture-Enriching Ruction in the Piazza Duomo – the Olympics are in Milan in a month. They’ve invaded there also

LOL: French Influencer Wanted To Mock American Institutions… But Is Falling In Love With America Instead

California

San Francisco Mayor Signs Reparations Bill, Admits There’s No Money to Pay Them – We all remember the great contribution California played in the Civil War, and the plantations that dominated the landscape there in the 1800’s. Forking idiots

Energy

High Electricity Prices Are a Choice Blue States Make Every Day

Climate Hoax

The 2023 climate event revealed the greatest failure of climate science – Because it’s really only about trashing America and fleecing the US Government for money

2025

14 good things that happened in 2025

Anti-White Racism

40-Year Harvard Professor Pens Mic-Drop Indictment Of Institutional Anti-White Racism

History Lessons on the life of a Country

The Lifespan Of A Country – as you might have guessed, a lot of the good part is over. By this method, we’re nearing the end.

Bias In Colleges

Yale No Longer Has A Single Republican Professor Across 27 Departments – well, don’t waste your money sending your kids there unless they have a job lined up with a Yale alumni.

Why the Media is a Joke

Mainstream Media Responds to Nick Shirley

Cars

1969 Chevrolet Yenko Nova

L72 427/450 HP V-8, 4-Speed, 1 of 38 Produced

Round-up: Schumacher’s maiden race-winning F1 car on sale for first time

12 Reasons to Celebrate Introverts on World Introvert Day (Jan. 2)

Why We Should Celebrate Introverts By Jenn Granneman

1. Introverts really know their stuff.

I have an introverted friend who is basically a walking encyclopedia of Celtic myth. For example, if you ask him about the hero Cú Chulainn, he can not only tell you how he died, but also what kind of chariot he drove around in. Listening to him talk, I’ve found myself thinking, “Wow, he really knows his stuff!”

That’s because many introverts love learning and adding to their vast stores of specialized knowledge. It’s no surprise they often become experts in their field.

2. Introverts are problem-solvers and idea generators.

Introverts tend to gravitate toward working alone. Rather than chatting in the break room, we’re often the ones sitting at our desks, quietly turning ideas over and over in our minds. And there’s a big benefit to this. When you’re with other people, your brain is forced to multitask. Even if you’re not talking with someone, part of your attention is occupied just by their mere presence, research suggests.

When you’re alone, you can clear your mind and focus your thoughts. All this deep, concentrated thinking can lead to novel solutions and brilliant ideas. Working alone can even lead to more ideas. “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas,” according to psychologist Keith Sawyer.

So forget the brainstorming group. Take a cue from introverts and spend some time in solitude.

3. Give up? Not yet.

Speaking of problem-solving, introverts tend to stick with problems longer — well past when everyone else has moved on to another topic or gone home for the day. Albert Einstein, the world-renowned physicist who developed the theory of relativity, was probably an introvert. He said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

4. Introverts make better team players than extroverts over the long run.

Corinne Bendersky and her colleagues found that while extroverts make great first impressions, they may disappoint us over time when they’re part of a team. Their “value and reputation at work diminish over time,” explains Bendersky. “On a team, you’re expected to work hard and contribute a lot. But they’re often poor listeners, and they don’t collaborate.”

Ouch.

Introverts, on the other hand, may work harder on a team because they tend to be conscientious; they don’t want to be seen as not pulling their weight. So, while companies may initially be attracted to extroverts, bosses should remember that introverts pack a powerful (yet understated) punch.

5. Introverts are capable of incredible depth and intimacy in their relationships.

We “quiet ones” have a penchant for quality, one-on-one time and deep conversations. Instead of talking about the weather or what you did this weekend, we want to peek into your inner world. What have you learned lately? How are your ideas evolving? How are you really? When you have an introvert in your life, you may experience emotional intimacy like never before.

6. Introverts know the power of words.

As the nickname suggests, we “quiet ones” tend to listen more than we talk and think carefully before we speak. We try to choose our words thoughtfully because we understand that once said, words can’t be retracted or easily forgotten.

7. Introverts are low maintenance.

You can leave an introvert alone for hours (or even days!), and we’ll be content to do our own thing. No need to constantly text us, check in on us, or “babysit” us.

Why? Because introverts tend to be self-starters, and many of us are drawn to working quietly and steadily on our own. In fact, you’ll probably only hear from us if we have a problem we can’t fix (and believe me, we’ve tried solving it a dozen times before coming to you). Similarly, we don’t need constant praise, gold stars, and shoutouts in the company newsletter (although sure, those things are appreciated). If we’re working hard, we’re likely drawing motivation from within.

8. Introverts can be the calm in the center of the storm.

Reserved and often self-contained, introverts are known for exuding calm — even when there’s a storm raging inside us. We’re often the ones quietly creating an action plan while everyone else is stressing over the company’s latest policy change. And in this way, our methodical approach to chaos benefits everyone.

9. Introverts “get” you.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, solitude can actually help you connect better with others. Why? Because spending time alone — which introverts love — may enhance our empathy, especially for people outside our typical social group, according to research. Being alone often involves reflecting on our actions, beliefs, and experiences, which helps us develop a deeper understanding and stronger empathy for others.

10. Introverts look before they leap.

Compared to extroverts, introverts generally prefer a slower, more deliberate pace of life, and this difference stems from the way our brains are wired. Many of us hate rushing into things; whenever possible, we take time to consider all potential outcomes before making a decision. This applies to our careers, personal lives, and relationships.

For example, one study found that extroverts may jump into a new relationship more quickly than introverts. An Katrien Sodermans and her colleagues revealed that divorced extroverts were more likely than divorced introverts to remarry quickly. While this isn’t always the case, hastily made decisions — such as committing to a new relationship before fully healing from the last one — can sometimes lead to regret later on.

11. Introverts create worlds inside their heads — and help create the world we live in.

Introverts are artists, actors, musicians, entertainers, writers, and more. Famous creative introverts include Lady Gaga (she has said, “I generally really keep to myself and I am focused on my music.”), Bob Dylan, Meryl Streep, Lorde, Audrey Hepburn, and more. David Bowie is also thought to have been an introvert; experts believe he coped with his anxiety and introverted nature by developing various stage personas. Even the “King of Rock and Roll,” Elvis Presley, was described by his friends as a “loner” and “introverted.”

There are so many famous creative introverts that it’s impossible to name them all here! Just a few more examples include Steven Spielberg, Shonda Rhimes, David Letterman, Harrison Ford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Elton John, Emma Watson, and Tom Hanks… the list could go on.

12. Who runs the world? Introverts.

When we think of leadership, especially in the corporate world, words like “bold,” “overconfident,” and “selfish” may come to mind. But there’s a different kind of leader emerging: the quiet one. Today, about 40 percent of executives describe themselves as introverts, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

Gates believes that introverts can make great leaders because they know the value of being alone and focusing deeply. Speaking at an event in 2013, he said, “I think introverts can do quite well. If you’re clever you can learn to get the benefits of being an introvert, which might be, say, being willing to go off for a few days and think about a tough problem, read everything you can, push yourself very hard to think out on the edge of that area.”

Other introverted leaders include Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama, Jill Biden, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln — and many others — as well as many of our greatest U.S. presidents.

Yes, introverts may be the quiet ones who eat lunch alone. They may also be the ones curled up at home with a good book, avoiding the party. But introverts are so much more than that. They are artists, visionaries, and leaders who bring quiet strength and understand the power of the inner journey.

Today — and every day — they deserve to be celebrated.

Source

So everyone celebrate together, separately, and alone. I disagree that Jill Biden and Barack Obama were leaders. They were power hungry people who shouldn’t be celebrated.

What makes you feel nostalgic?

What makes you feel nostalgic?

Songs, without a doubt. I can hear a song and go back to the room I was in and the person I was with, not to mention how I felt.

Here’s an example or two.

I hear Come Monday by Jimmy Buffet, and it’s 3:00 in the afternoon. I’m at work at the Winter Park Towers, my first job. I was mopping the floor after lunch. I was 15 at the time, and I recall the 4-top by the window overlooking Lake Berry. My Uncle lived on that lake, and I could see his house

Here’s another. I was laying the wood to a girl named Leila in her bedroom in Coral Gables, Florida, at 24 years old. She was a cologne girl who sprayed you at the escalator in the Department Store where I worked. Apparently, she had already decided she was going to do me well before I knew it, and she did.

I was always able to control busting a nut and had been going at it with her clock radio playing music. Then Layla, by Eric Clapton came on. On the downstroke, she said it was her song because it was her name. I decided I would keep going until the end of the song just because it was long. We went at it like big dogs, which was unusual as she had a special talent with her mouth that was outstanding. It starts off with a hairband for a ponytail, if you need a reference. She even performed that on me in my office one afternoon. What a good sport.

If either of those songs comes on, I go right back to that time of life.

There are a million more, but I won’t bore you with the rest of my life. Plus, everyone has their own.

Different Headlines: Battle Of the Sexes turns out they way You’d Think it should; Backpack soaked in Piss on a plane; 6 superfoods to Rewind your age; LeBron Is a Dick; California Toilet to tap water doesn’t Turn out as planned; Alpine a Challenger to Porsche And Ferrari?….and more

Battle of the sexes

Aryna Sabalenka Sparks Outrage By Losing ‘Battle Of The Sexes’ Tennis Match Despite Unequal Advantage – even with help, it wasn’t close. Maybe we can finally admit men and women aren’t equal. It kind of takes the stuffing out of the ‘equal pay for equal play’ concept. It’s not even close.

Health

Rewind Your Age Naturally: The Secret Lies In 6 Superfoods

The Hidden Heavy Metals Damaging Your Brain… And Where They Come From

Cars

Alpine Plans to Challenge Porsche and Ferrari With New Sports Cars

Disgusting Calilfornia

Commiefornia’s ‘Toilet to Tap’ Water: Industrial Grift at Scale Exposed by Citizen Journalist – go ahead and drink the shit water. You’re practically Mexico now anyway. Has Newsome succeeded at anything other than being elected?

Population Movement

More Floridians, Californians Moving to Texas Than Reverse – I get both. California is about as bad as Illinois, and no one is from Florida. They moved there from other states. Plus, both have tourists who ruin everything for the locals. The drivers in Florida don’t know how. I don’t miss living there.

Sticks and Stones may break my bones

Elon Musk Nails It: “Just Stop Caring Whether They Call You Racist or Not – The best part about it is that it’s so overused, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson can’t use it for extortion anymore.

BLM and the Lying Media

Black Lives Matter? The Accused Serial Killer You Have Likely Never Heard Of – if he or any of the victims were white, they’d be all over it. For now, crickets

Anti-Americanism

LeBron James Under Fire For Practicing Golf Swing During National Anthem – It wasn’t the Chinese National Anthem so it doesn’t count. His legacy won’t be good except in stats. He makes himself unlikable.

Flying Sucks

Florida Woman Gets Off Flight. Then She Sees What Happened To Her Carry-On Luggage: ‘Who Deprives Their Child From Using The Bathroom?’ – just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, this happens

2025 Births by Country

All Of The World’s Births In 2025 In One Giant Chart – not good news for the future. A bunch of new terrorists, tech support call center workers, and camel humpers

Rare Earth reserves visualized

Visualizing The World’s Rare Earth Reserves

These are the best countries at reading

These Are The Best Countries At Reading – I have 2-5 books going at all times

PR Losers of 2025

The 3 Biggest PR Losers of 2025 (Poor Tim Walz Only Made the Honorable Mention List!) – There was a lot to choose from

Slaying the Dragon

Florida Man Captured A 153-Pound Invasive Burmese Python And It Looks Like He Slayed A Dragon – it reminds me of a girlfriend who wasn’t as big, but vicious nonetheless.

New Year’s Resolution Farce

It seems that the majority start out the year with some new life changing commitment (or last year’s rehashed that didn’t get done, so they’re going to make it this year). This is going to sound a bit negative, but I’m just calling a spade a spade. I’ve been around long enough to see the pattern of how this works.

I wrote about how quickly people abandon their resolutions a while back. It tells me just how committed people really are, or are they just giving lip service to fit in with the crowd?

Well, here are 5 Of The Worst New Year’s Resolutions And Why They Are Destined To Fail.

Oh, I see them crowding the gym in January. By March and sometimes February, it’s back to normal. They get in the way, and I can look at them and know who’s going to make it or not in January. Oh, they have on their new gym suit and sneakers, but that will be in the back of the closet in weeks.

This goes along with losing weight. With GLP-1 shots and pills now, it’s easier to be the Jetsons and take a pill rather than put in the work.

I’ve got news for you. It will come back to haunt you after 50. You can’t get youth back. You have to fight off health issues your whole life. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s hard work that takes tenacity.

The same goes for eating healthier. It’s hard to do. You have to make your own meal to know what is in it. I’ve noticed the trend of having food delivered from a restaurant. They make it tasty, but as unhealthy as you’d imagine. People take the path of least resistance, so they stop making their own food and start ordering pretty quickly, or go out to eat. You pay more to be less healthy.

I don’t have a lot to say about the travel. It sucks worse each year. I try not to fly anymore because the whole experience isn’t worth it. There isn’t much I have to see, either people or places that would make me want to suffer the current airline experience. They cram more people into smaller seats, making fewer arrivals/departures on time. The planes are dirty and are alarmingly less reliable.

What I will say is people get over hyped about escaping, more than they really want to go somewhere new. The introvert in me doesn’t make me want to visit anyone, but that’s me. If they are in driving distance, I’ll consider the minimal time I have to suffer seeing them.

Learning a new skill? That probably lasts shorter than going to the gym. I bet DuoLingo has a ton of new accounts next week that get abandoned shortly because it’s hard work to learn a new language.

Passion

To commit to anything, you have to have a passion for it. Otherwise, you’ll go through the motions until you’re bored. Then, it gets shelved. It’s a pattern I’ve noticed my whole life, not just with this, but at work, at home or any other activity that sounds good. I love it when they do something because everyone is doing it, possibly the worst reason anyone should try anything. Do it because you want to and you have a better chance of making it.

Maybe some will get scared into better health because of a near death experience. Even then, a lot won’t. It has to come from within. I have a brother-in-law and a son-in-law who both have life-threatening conditions. They eat and drink like there is no tomorrow.

Commitment

Pretty soon, I see the same people at the gym that I saw in November and December. They are the ones who really are going to stick with it. A New Year’s Commitment is as good as a wooden nickel. If you are there in August, I’ll believe you’ll be there in February.

The fat people I see either at Walmart or my family’s get-togethers need to put down the fork and the wine glass, not take a shot. Their health is falling apart because of the life decisions they made 30 years ago.

That means they failed 30 times on New Year’s Resolutions.

It’s why I call BS on this tradition. If you are really committed, you’ll already be doing it.

As for me, I’m not doing anything other than staying committed to being healthy and working out. I’m not getting any younger and even healthy habits won’t stave off the inevitable. I can prolong it, but I’ll be in better shape to enjoy it.

So what are your New Year’s resolutions? Let me know if you make it to the summer.

Oh and PS, please don’t get a pet. That isn’t a resolution. It’s a 10-15 year commitment to an animal’s life, not your convenience or TikTok account. If you aren’t really going to love it above yourself, just don’t do it.

Different Headlines: Lying About Your Weight Could Cost Your Life; People Don’t know Shit About History; Maine Stops $1 Million in Medicare Fraud; DEI The most Toxic Ideology Ever; 1970 Pontiac Goat (GTO) Judge To Cross The Block….and more

Lying

Ohio Woman Lies About Her Weight At iFLY. Then She Quickly Realizes Why She Shouldn’t Have: ‘I Almost Took The Instructor Out’ – put down the fried chicken

Air Travel Sucks

‘What’s The Purpose Of Emergency Exits If We Can’t Use Them?’: American Airlines Customer Lands At Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Then The Cabin Door Gets Jammed – just another reason I hate flying

Nigerian Murderers

Trump Launches ‘Powerful, Deadly Strike Against ISIS Terrorist Scum’ in Nigeria – it’s not nice to kill Christians

Islam

India: Muslim Man Kills Wife, Minor Daughter for Not Wearing Burqa – and this is what we’ll get if we don’t stop it now

criminals

Stop Giving Liberals Tax Money – they will misuse it, waste it on pork and enrich themselves. That says nothing for then using it to help our country

Fraud

Maine suspends Medicaid payments to Somali charity after audits uncover more than $1M in fraud… – is anybody else tired of these grifters yet? Are they related to the Nigerian princes that have 9 million to send you? Get ’em out, now and take Omar with you

DEI

Victor Davis Hanson: DEI Is the Most ‘Toxic Ideology’ We’ve Ever Experienced – a bunch of grifters trying for free money and not working. Tired of this bunch also. They haven’t helped any black people in need, only their own wallets

Educational Bias

Shock: Student Exposes Instructor’s Anti White Comments – DEI in action. These instructors are poisoning the students. Look, if you hate the country, GTF out.

Climate Hoax

E&E News: “The Paris Agreement at 10: What the World has Achieved” – it made money for the people running it, but nothing for the environment and they knew it the whole time

Europe

Escobar: Europe’s Elites Pay For The Privilege Of Losing Conflict – on the wrong side of everything right now. They are has been instead of world leaders because of their lack of good leadership.

History

Should Be Obvious But Most People Don’t Know Shit About History

Cars

1970 Pontiac GTO Judge Ram Air IV Convertible

400/370 HP V-8, 1 of 24 Produced with 4-Speed

Different Headlines: Golf Cart Babes, How Much Do They Make?; What do Bored Flight Attendents Ask for?; Dumbass Crook Robs Store On Shop with a Cop day; The War on White Men Is Real….and more

Golf Cart Babes

Phoenix Beverage Cart Girl Hits The Course On A Sunday. Then She Shares How Much She Takes Home In Tips: ‘I’m A Hustler Too’

Flight Attendendents Who are Bored

​​Chicago Flight Attendant Has PSA For Passengers Who Take Long Flights. She Says Other Flight Attendants Will Want To Put Her On A ‘No-Fly’ List For It: ‘I Have To Speak My Truth’ – It sounds like she is one of the few that has a brain and wants to actually do something. Most are robots who just want your order to be behind them as they hate their job serving cokes in the air, like a waitress, then a janitor.

Education

Metropolitan State U. of Denver Rejects Standard American English in the Name of ‘Anti-Racism’ – They don’t even realize they are the racists. The rest of us just want to be left alone and treated like humans. So do the students have to ax a question bruh? No wonder the kids are stupid with having this to deal with. Go to a real school that teaches you how to prepare for life.

Crime

Chronic Crook Picked Single Worst Day of Entire Year to Rob Store, Gets Classic Christmas Comeuppance – what a dumbass, who raised this person to be like this?

U.S. Murder Rate Experiences Largest Drop on Record — Nearly 20 Percent Decline in Last Year – get rid of the illegals that Biden let in and good things happen.

A sticky situation

Post-Christmas Disaster: How 26 Million Pounds of Molasses Killed or Injured 170 in the Streets of Boston in 1919 – how long were they cleaning this up?

Why America is not a Muslim Shithole

JD Vance “Always a Christian Nation” Christian Language in America’s Founding Documents

FAFO

DEVELOPING: ICE Agents in Maryland Open Fire on Driver Who Attempts to Run Them Over – They shot him

Racism

The War on White Men Is Real—Here’s the Proof – everyone hates number one and tries to take him down. Man up and don’t take this PC crap. Be the real man that made this country great. Don’t listen to the SJW BS saying we did anything but build the greatest country and help the most people around the world.

I just read that Europe will look up at the moon and know they’ve never been there and will never go, unless it is on an American spaceship.

Artificial Intelligence

Woman Suffers “AI Psychosis” From Obsessively Generating AI Images of Herself – figures it would be a liberal white woman. It’s our biggest problem right now

Order up 72 more Virgins, Israel Got another Quds Leader

Cars

2016 Lamborghini Aventador Pirelli Edition

6.5L/691 HP V-12, Automatic, 1 of 88 Produced

5 Survival Tips For Introverts Attending Large Events (plus my bonus)

5 Survival Tips for Introverts Attending Big, Crowded Events

ByEllie Matama December 19, 2025

An introvert walks through a crowded event

Big events or parties can become overwhelming for us introverts, so look for little ways to maintain your energy.

I have no problem socializing with my family or close friends. I am comfortable doing so because I have known them for a long time, and I interact with them just a few at a time. There’s no having-to-get-to-know-you period.

But it’s an entirely different matter to attend big, crowded gatherings where almost everyone is a stranger (hello, holiday parties or awkward job-related networking events). Sure, for a short amount of time, I can make small talk. Of course, I need to recharge my energy afterward.

Yet, in everyday life, social interactions are required. The good news is there are plenty of things you can do to maintain your energy as an introvert when you have to attend a crowded event. 

How Introverts Can Survive Crowded Events

1. Arrive early so you can pick the best spot.

One study found that about 20 percent of employees regularly arrive late to work. If you are an introvert, you can’t afford to be late for an event because people will notice your tardiness (hello, suddenly being the center of attention!). In addition, you may have to engage in unnecessary awkward interactions as you make your way to an available seat. Plus, you may have to explain your lateness later, which will further drain whatever energy you have left.

So arrive early and be prepared to stay for a while. When you arrive early, you can choose the best seat or standing spot for your needs. That way, you can still be alone among the crowd.

For example, find a seat or table on the fringes or near the back, which will enable you to move freely without having to ask people to move whenever you need to get out (i.e., escape to the bathroom). You could also choose a spot near the exit for the same purpose. 

2. Go with a “human shield,” a.k.a. your favorite extrovert or outgoing introvert.

As an introvert, you may find it challenging to interact with many people at once. But some people you know may actually like doing so. Your family members, friends, or your significant other may be more outgoing — and they may thrive in crowded situations. See if they’re willing to go to the event with you. This will enable you to talk less, since they will happily do most of the talking for you.

Or, you can go to the event with a colleague who enjoys socializing. There’s no shame in using them as a “human shield” while representing your company or department. While they schmooze with everyone, you can thoughtfully listen and pick up points for discussion later on (i.e., at the next company meeting).  

And, speaking of talking less…

3. Embrace your listening skills.

Remember: As an introvert, listening is one of your superpowers. We speak about 125 to 175 words a minute, but we’re able to listen to about 450 words a minute. Therefore, you’ll learn more by listening than by talking a lot. Also, when you aren’t talking, you can pay more attention to people’s body language, which can offer more information about their state of mind than what they actually say.

Plus, people feel understood and cared for when someone listens to them. So you may make a great first impression just by listening!

Once you’ve absorbed everything they’ve said, take the time to process it before adding your thoughts. That way, you’ll have something valuable to say based on all your gathered information.

Want to feel more at ease in social situations?

Discover the secrets to enjoying fun, meaningful conversations. Know exactly what to say — even if you’re introverted, shy, or socially anxious. Feel less drained and have more energy while socializing.

4. Look for small groups talking about topics you care about.

Even at the most crowded events, small groups tend to form because people with similar interests gravitate toward one another. That’s great news for introverts, as you’ll feel more at home if the topic is one you’re passionate about. Even if the group is talking about something similar to a topic you want to bring up, now’s your chance to change the subject to that one instead. And, when interacting in a small group, you won’t get socially burned out as quickly.

5. Block out the noise.

As an introvert, there may be times when you can’t take all the noise, small talk, or all the people anymore. But you also can’t leave the event… yet. In that case, you need a way to block out the noise.

You can do this in many ways: Listen to music or an audiobook (or just put on your earbuds to make it look like you’re listening to something or on a call; they’ll still help tune out some of the noise!); make an actual call; or excuse yourself to “step outside for a moment.” If you’re worried that these things will make you seem aloof or antisocial, remember that most people aren’t looking at you, anyway, and won’t even notice.

Yes, I know, having to attend crowded events and make small talk can be a nightmare for introverts. However, the more prepared you are, the more you’ll preserve your energy.

Source

Here’s my bonus: say no and don’t go. You won’t miss much, and your life will be better for it

Different Headlines: Naked Guy Steals Cop Car; Serial Number 4 Cuda His the Auction Block; Bartender Hears ESPN Announcer bragging about Cheating; Lot’s of College Bowl Stats; Top Male Faces by Aesthetic Surgeon; Lower Gas Prices To Save $500 Million This Christmas;

Crime and Disgusting

For the Love of Everything Decent, Put Some Clothes on if You’re Going to Steal a Patrol Vehicle

Cheaters Who Work For ESPN

‘He Announces For ESPN’: Denver Bartender Overhears Customer’s Vulgar Conversation. Then She Looks Him Up Online

Football

James Madison Has An Expensive Secret Weapon Fueling Its College Football Playoff Run – pay to play

The 17 Players Who Won The Heisman Trophy And A National Championship In The Same Season

10 Of The Greatest Individual Bowl Game Performances In College Football History

Best Men’s Faces

Dr. Douglas S. Steinbrech, Leading Male Aesthetic Surgeon, Reveals Top 10 Most Requested Male Faces of 2025 – I knew it wasn’t me

DNA

DARPA Is Working on Synthesizing DNA With Light and the Luciferian Parallels Cannot Be Ignored – they were in on Covid and the Jab also. They also invented the internet. None of that is very good

Health

New Study Reveals Prediabetes Remission Cuts Heart Disease Risk by Over 50%

Five Years Too Late: NIH-Funded Stanford Scientists Finally Admit mRNA COVID Vaccines Can Cause Myocarditis

Economy

Lower Gas Prices to Save Drivers $500M Christmas Week – NBADJT

War On White Men

Apple kicked off the WAR on white men… – and we will pay for this. The world needs men.

The Media Backs up the Anti-White Wing of the Democrat Party

Islam

Babylon Bee: Groundbreaking New Study Finds Islamophobia May Be Partially Caused by Muslims Killing People All the Time

 All of France is a No Go Zone Now – France is fucked. Islam has taken the French out of France

Food supply

‘I Can Only Get My Chicken at Costco’: Florida Chef Says There’s a Reason Chicken Tastes Like ‘Rubber Bands’ Now

Cars

What Happened to Jaguar?

Ford Retreats From EVs After Billions in Losses – nobody wants them either

1970 Plymouth Cuda Convertible Pilot Car

The First V-Code Cuda Convertible Produced, Serial No. 4 – it’s rare, but I bet the hemi-cuda’s go for more

EU Backing Down Off 2035 ICE Vehicle Ban – Because the EU is retarded to believe in it in the first place. Get back to reality.

Crime AT BARS

‘It Means Someone Not Safe Is Near You’: Applebee’s Customer Asks For Water. Then The Bartender Gives Her Something Unexpected

Rare Earth Minerals

Utah’s Desert Yields Rare Earths Motherlode, Challenging China’s Grip on Critical Minerals

Masculinity

Erasing Masculinity Has Created a Generation in Crisis – Men have saved the world time an again. It’s why the feminists want to try and erase it. We have to stop these PC SJW.

Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.

Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.

I don’t care what people say about me. I can be the nicest person on earth, or one of the biggest assholes. I treat people accordingly. It depends on you.

I’m always the same, so if I’m not nice to you, look in the mirror to understand why.

They say in 3 generations, no one remembers you anyway, so who cares what they say about me?

So in conclusion, it’s not important to me what people say about me. I gave up caring about that in high school.

Kids Games When We Used To Play Outside, Red Rover, Smear The Queer

Last night, the left lost their minds when Bijan Robinsin commented on his play as it related to a game we played as kids. He called it smear the queer, but we knew it as kill the man with the ball. He had to walk it back, but I know he didn’t mean it.

If you grew up before video games and actually played outside without a helmet, it was great fun. If you don’t know it, look it up. It will be a good education for you on why our generation tried harder at most things. The struggle was real, like real life, everyone against you.

Another good game was Red Rover. It’s where you line up kids in 2 groups, holding each other by the arms, and pick someone from the other side to run and try to break the hold. Red rover, red rover, send x (next victim) on over. In reality, it was a way to clothesline a kid from the other side, also great fun.

We also played war, kick the can, and baseball, where a parked car served as 3rd base. The game would stop for a while if a car came through, but there weren’t as many back then.

And then there is dodgeball. That’s where you’d hit the girls and the fat kids first. Nothing beats a good shot to the face though. That’s the real score

If you didn’t have a ball, there was kick the can.

Sometimes it was stickball. Kids from NY know that one well.

Life was easier back then, and we didn’t need a Switch or Xbox to play video games. Our moms kicked us out of the house, and we made stuff up.

If there were not enough other kids, you could climb a tree or throw something for the dog to chase. I grew up in an old tangerine farm so that is what we had, way before tennis balls were dog toys.

We moved on to paper football

Oh, to be young again.

Name your top three pet peeves.

Name your top three pet peeves.

Unless you are new here, you know I’m an introvert. That puts small talk at the top of the list. It’s usually meaningless and content free. It’s irritating to listen to. Talk to me about something deep that stirs my intelligence and/or emotions, or has great content, then I’ll want to engage.

Next, big crowds. I usually avoid it unless it’s impossible. Sometimes a small crowd is big if they are people I don’t want to be around (like family gatherings).

I look for the first excuse to not go, or leave early if I have to. If I’m stuck in an auditorium, I’m by the exit so I can leave.

Finally, internet arguments. You can be the top expert in a field, write a thoughtful piece that is fully documented with facts, and the first comment is: bullshit. You can say almost anything, and people will find a way to argue about it. See a few posts below on commenting.

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What’s your favorite cartoon?

What’s your favorite cartoon?

Without a doubt, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, and the old Jonny Quest.

Everything I know about opera on Jeopardy, I learned from Bugs. I like all of the Looney Tunes, especially when they break the new lines of political correctness. Road Runner/Coyote, Pepe’ Le Pew, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, all were better than anything on today. Who could forget Michigan J. Frog, a classic.

Here are the censored 11 they can’t show today

As for Tom and Jerry, the Tex Avery ones are clearly the best. Cat Fishin’, Touche’ Pussy Cat, Pecos Pest, and Spike and Tike are some of the better ones.

Only the original Jonny Quest shows were good. They were far ahead of their time and very creative. The Invisible Monster and the Robot Spy were two of my favorite episodes. After that, the series wasn’t very good. Later in life, I found them on Sunday morning. I’d do a wake and bake and enjoy my childhood all over.

A point of interest is that Tim Matheson is the original voice of Jonny. You may know him better as Otter in Animal House.

I even named one of my dogs Bandit after the cartoon. She was a boxer and is still in my blog, way back in the early years

Feminism And The Dearth Of Children

I wrote about the callousness of females in dating, how they think they deserve everything, and then can have a family, but that is not how things work out for the best if you look at history.

It turns out that Children are the measure of a Society.

“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.” These words, attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, echo like a warning bell across generations. They are not merely poetic, they are prophetic. If we dare to measure our society by this standard, we must confront a painful truth: we are failing.

At the heart of this failure lies the collapse of the nuclear family. Once the cornerstone of civilization, the family, father, mother, and children bound by love and duty, has been systematically dismantled. In its place, we find broken homes, single-parent households, and blended families struggling to find emotional equilibrium. The consequences are not abstract, they are measurable, generational, and devastating.

As Ronald Reagan once said, “The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish.” When that cornerstone crumbles, so too does the moral architecture built upon it.

Today, the majority of children are raised without both biological parents. Fatherlessness has become a defining feature of modern childhood. Studies consistently link father absence to increased rates of poverty, incarceration, substance abuse, and suicide. Children raised in single-parent or stepparent homes often face emotional instability, identity confusion, and a longing for roots that were never planted.

Feminism takes a lot of the blame:

The takeaway? Messing with nature has unintended, adverse consequences. Legions of females are practically cultists. Many are as barren as the Sahara.

Basic biology: young women are hardwired to bear children. Yet, that simple fact is shrugged off by progressives. Instead of having kids, too many females are adopting malignant social causes.

“Manmade” climate change is one such cause, as Weinstein cites. Woke ideology is another. Socialism? Mamdani won the NYC mayorship in no small measure thanks to younger voters, particularly younger women, who backed him lopsidedly. What about “fascist” Charlie Kirk’s assassination? Left-leaning females were in the forefront, cheering Kirk’s murder on social media. Not only is that creepy, but it exposes a growing social pathology.

Government has become a spouse substitute for self-proclaimed empowered females. Government may provide some protection — in terms of a social safety net — though little in the way of emotional sustenance and meaning.

A feminist tenet is that not only can women do anything that men do but do it better — and do it without men. In a common-sense world, that’s good for laughs.

Eschewing nature and evolutionary development are conceits. The interdependence — the complementary nature — of the male-female bond are dismissed. Humans are putty. Gender is assigned at birth. Differences between the sexes? Only if feminists care to assert female superiority. Do hardcore feminists despise men? Appears so.

Source

Go to the first link in this post and you’ll see why feminism has made women ruin themselves and now our society

Another Reason I Don’t Want To Fly, Study Of Pilots Who Got The Covid Jab Are More Prone To Heart Problems

Not that flying hasn’t been on a trend that sucks worse every time, now it’s coming out that the jab is harder on the hearts of pilots than others, and they are having problems. The last thing I need is a pilot who has died suddenly in the cockpit.

A couple of excerpts and then the whole story:

Well, what I learned is scientifically proven that pilots are suffering myocarditis and pericarditis at rates higher than what the CDC said the natural average should be for those who took the vaccine, and considerably higher.

Walker worries that pilots are already at increased risk for blood clots at flight altitudes— and that’s also one of the risks of Covid vaccines. She’s trying to get her study under the nose of important members of Congress and the FAA to address.

Story:

As air travel soars, lingering fears about Covid vaccine side effects cast a shadow over aviation safety. Passengers wonder if their vaccinated pilots could face sudden mid-air health crises. A 2022 survey revealed 23% U.S. commercial and military pilots reported adverse effects, including heart inflammation, which can trigger sudden death. Sherry Walker, a researcher and a captain at a major airline, warns that official responses have sidestepped concerns, leaving critical questions about pilot health unanswered.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Sherry Walker: So it dawned on me that if we don’t get true scientific study, if we don’t get to the bottom of the issue, then that could harm my industry, which obviously I enjoy flying and I make a living at it. And if there is a problem, we’re allowing these people to suffer in silence.

She says she devised the Oklahoma State Pilot Study and brought it to a large industry meeting in 2021.

Walker: I walked around for four days with a QR code and a T-shirt that said “Oklahoma State Pilot Study” on it and begged and pleaded. And then I listened to the stories of the people who knew somebody. So we went from about a hundred surveys to 1,422 responses shortly thereafter.

Sharyl: What did you learn?

Walker: Well, what I learned is scientifically proven that pilots are suffering myocarditis and pericarditis at rates higher than what the CDC said the natural average should be for those who took the vaccine and considerably higher.

Sharyl: What kinds of stories or anecdotes did you hear?

Walker: Well, a lot of pilots or the latter category, “oh my gosh, I’m having issues with my heart.” One dear friend and I said, “you need to ground yourself. You need to go to the doctor now.” “Oh, I can’t because then I can’t feed my kids and this and that.” And so, so we learned a lot of that.

Sharyl: Did you get vaccinated?

Walker: No.

Sharyl: How did you manage to avoid it working as a commercial pilot?

Walker: It was a company mandate and my husband, myself, 2000 other employees of my company and put in religious and or medical accommodation requests, and then we were effectively terminated. And then we went to court and in February of 22, the fifth circuit reversed and we were called back to work. By then the contractor mandate and the OSHA mandates had fallen in the courts. So the pandemic was effectively over and we all went back to work.

Sharyl: In the big picture, what do you think this tells us?

Walker: So what I proposed in my study was, additional oversight, some congressional requirements to allow, mandate that the FAA take a look at this, ask the question of pilots, “are you vaccinated or unvaccinated?” Not because we wanna stop pilots from flying, but those frontline doctors that can treat or can recognize problems in advance can educate the pilot and say, “Hey, if you did and you see this, you might want to consider that.” So, but it’s all, you know, heads in the sand right now.

Sharyl (on-camera): Walker worries that pilots are already at increased risk for blood clots at flight altitudes— and that’s also one of the risks of Covid vaccines. She’s trying to get her study under the nose of important members of Congress and the FAA to address.

Watch video here.

Source

Why Guys Are Having Trouble Finding Girls To Date, Or How Would It Be If Men And Women’s Roles Were Reversed

I noticed this article, and will give credit to the author if I can find out who wrote it.

“Beautiful girls in big cities are now directly and indirectly offered sex more than 1,000 times a month from men on the internet, in bars, on the streets, and within their social circles. If a girl has a basic internet profile, spends time on social networking, and goes out twice a week, I guarantee that she is offered more cock than even the most famous women of the past. A girl is not interested in 99% of the men who offer her sex, but try to imagine the effect on your psychology if 1,000 women a month were trying to have sex with you.

What kind of person would that make you? I can tell you what I would be like if I were getting over 1,000 sex offers every month: I’d be spoiled rotten, thinking that I deserved all those women just because I existed. I’d be flaky, canceling dates often, because I’d constantly be unsure whether I was getting the “best” possible girl. I’d be bitchy to women who didn’t read my mind and failed to treat me exactly the way I wanted, because don’t they know that I could sleep with hundreds of other women any time I wanted? I’d be moody, always dependent on the reactions I get from women.

If I received less attention one weekend than usual, I’d throw a temper tantrum and demand immediate satisfaction. I’d also get bored easily. With so many women constantly trying to entertain me, I wouldn’t be able to tolerate five minutes with a boring girl who didn’t jump through hoops to make me laugh. Lastly, I’d be primed to value novelty more than stability. I’d become addicted to experiencing one new girl after the next, and believe excitement and fun were worth more than stability and commitment. My attention span would morph into that of a small child. Haven’t I just described the modern woman? While a large part of who we are is shaped by our genetics, environment plays a huge role, and when your environment is getting nonstop attention from thousands of people trying to have sex with you, your personality and even your humanity will become degraded, making it hard for you to connect meaningfully with anyone.”

They have become entitled because they have a snatch. They don’t realize that their sexual market value is over by about 35. That’s right about when men realize that pussy is pussy and no one has a golden one. It’s about how much shit you are willing to put up with while you’re getting it.

As they say, for every gorgeous girl you see, there’s at least one guy who is so tired of her that he won’t sleep with her.

As my friend Rick said, the fucking you get isn’t worth the fucking you get.

23 Little Things Introverts Are Thankful for Anytime of the Year

“Waking up early or staying up late, when no one else is around. Peace. Silence. Bliss.”

Turkey. Pumpkin pie. Awkwardly chatting with Great Aunt Gladys. If you live in the U.S., you’re probably celebrating Thanksgiving. Inevitably, at some point, you’ll be asked to name something you’re thankful for. With that spirit in mind, here are 23 things introverts are generally thankful for — anytime of the year. What would you add to this list?

1. Coming home and finding the house unexpectedly empty. There’s nothing better than sneaking in a few hours (or even minutes) of unexpected solitude. Time to relax. Time to decompress. No obligatory, “How was your day?” Just space and freedom to be yourself. Ahhhh…

2. When your friend cancels on you at the last minute, and you kind of wanted to stay home anyway. This is just like #1: unexpected solitude.

3. Getting a Saturday afternoon to yourself. Perhaps even better than a few moments of unexpected solitude is knowing that you have hours and hours of alone time ahead of you.

4. Finding out that the party/event/meeting is ending earlier than you thought. Sure, introverts can socialize and even be leaders in the workplace. But for many of us, those things don’t come naturally. “Peopling” is a skill we’ve had to learn — kind of like learning a foreign language. And we all know how mentally exhausting it can be to speak a language you’re not entirely comfortable with. Any time spent away from the group (and in our natural inward “habitat”) is something we’re thankful for.

5. Discovering a good book that you can’t put down. Books (along with movies, music, and art) transport introverts to the place we love the most: the energizing world of ideas and imagination.

6. Having a meaningful conversation. How are you a different person today than you were five years ago? What’s on your mind lately? Do aliens exist? In our fast-paced society that values polite chitchat over substance, deep conversations don’t happen often. Yet it’s these meaningful interactions that nourish introverts and provide us with an antidote to social burnout. Something to be thankful for, indeed.

7. Meeting a fellow introvert who “gets” it. Or an extrovert who “gets” it by respecting your need for space and solitude. Feeling understood by another human being is about as magical as it gets.

8. When there’s a dog or cat at the party. Saved! (From small talk with humans, that is.)

9. Headphones. Pop on a pair when you’re in a public space — like a bus, airplane, coffee shop, or at your desk — and you signal to others that you’re not in the mood to chat. Hallelujah!

10. Arriving on your own to a party so you can leave whenever you want. For introverts, hell is being trapped somewhere surrounded by noise and people. Having an escape mechanism is key.

11. When someone says, “How are you?” and really means it. See #6.

12. When you don’t have to make awkward small talk. For some reason, people find silence awkward. So we strike up conversations about the weather with strangers in elevators. Or we erupt with a cheery, “How’s it going?” when we pass someone we barely know in the hallway at work. When introverts can get through the day with minimal chitchat, we’re thankful.

13. Waking up early or staying up late, when no one else is around. Peace. Silence. Bliss.

14. Downtime after a busy day. Socializing isn’t the only thing that drains introverts. Any kind of incoming stimulation, such as noise, time pressure, or activity, gets tiring. After a busy day, when we don’t have to do one more thing, we’re thankful.

15. A weekend with no social plans. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be doing anything. We’ll make our own plans. Introvert plans. Plans to read in bed. To binge watch our favorite show. To lounge around the house.

16. Self-checkout lanes, drive-throughs, food delivery, and online shopping. No, introverts don’t hate people. But we do try to minimize our “people” intake, because each interaction drains our limited social energy — especially the kind of surface-level interactions that usually take place in restaurants and stores.

17. Having to go to a store but unexpectedly finding it not busy. If you can’t do #16, this is the next best thing.

18. Time to think before responding. Many introverts struggle with word retrieval, because our brains may rely more on long-term memory than short-term memory (extroverts do the opposite). For this reason, we may have a hard time putting our thoughts into words, especially when we’re put on the spot in a meeting, on a first date, or when called on in class. We’re thankful for people who give us a few pressure-free moments to collect our thoughts before demanding an answer.

19. Texting. Similar to #18, introverts tend to feel more comfortable expressing themselves in writing than speaking. That’s because writing uses different pathways in the brain, which seem to flow more fluently for introverts. We’re thankful for every time we can send a text message instead of making a phone call.

20. Public spaces that are actually quiet. When parks, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, buses, and trains are chill, we’re thankful.

21. When you get to do your thing, uninterrupted. Alone time isn’t just about being alone. For many introverts, it’s a way to reconnect with our passions, hobbies, and artistic pursuits. It’s when we do deep, concentrated work. When our alone time is fragmented by other obligations (or interruptions from loved ones), introverts can get stressed. A long stretch of unbroken time to do our thing is something we’re immensely thankful for.

22. Your favorite beverage, a cozy blanket, and your favorite show. Alone.

23. “Me” time. Doing whatever relaxes you, energizes you, and brings you joy. 

Source

What are your feelings about eating meat?

What are your feelings about eating meat?

Of course I do. We were made to get nutrition from omnivorous sources. When younger, I harvested my own meat and vegetables, and took care of 60 animals for every one that fed my family.

Now, I eat only organic, unprocessed foods. After all, you are eating what your meal ate. It is for cardiovascular reasons.

Your body requires specific energy sources that vegetables alone cannot provide.

If I meet a vegan cat lady, I will know it’s a red flag for an unhealthy person, both in mind and body. Stay away from these people, very far away.

It’s better than eating the insects the WEF want us to eat, pricks.

Introvert Thanksgiving Nightmare

Introverts hate being put on the spot, icebreakers, and networking events. My Brother in law (who I nicknamed Flounder from Animal House) did this to me on one of the 2 worst Thanksgivings I’ve had. He was at the other one also. I mumbled some answer when I should have just passed and felt awkward the whole meal.

Holiday Heart – And How To Avoid It

This was written by Dr. Philip Ovadia. A link to contact him is provided below

Some doctors dub it “holiday heart.” Others refer to it as HHS. But no matter what you call it, the data is clear: more people die of heart attacks during the holidays than any other season.

Research in Sweden found a 15% increase in heart attacks for the winter holidays, with a spike of 37% on Christmas Eve. It’s especially high risk for people over 75, those with diabetes, or anyone who’s suffered from cardiovascular disease.

Please know that I’m not saying this to scare you. I just want you to enjoy the holidays without sabotaging your metabolic health.

Knowing your risks is half the battle.

So here’s what you should know, plus how to keep your heart in check.

Reducing your heart health risks during the holiday season

Does the holiday season inherently raise your risks for heart disease? No. But does it become more difficult to manage risk and avoid metabolically unhealthy practices? Most definitely.

Fortunately, there’s quite a bit you can still control.

Let’s take a look at some of the risk factors below.

Cut sugar

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize sugar intake climbs during the holidays. Between the cakes, cookies, and pies, it’s hard to say no to the comforts of the season. It may be harder on those with existing metabolic conditions. One study following diabetics in the post-holiday season found that glycemia and lipids do increase after the festivities are over.

But as we know, sugar consumption does no favors for the heart. High consumption is directly linked with heart failure, diabetes, stroke risk, and even neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia.

I’m not saying you should cut all sugar during the holidays — just make better choices to protect your metabolic health. This might be swapping to whole, real alternatives such as honey instead of corn syrup. There are some sugar alternatives, but be advised fake sugars come with potential health risks. 

I realize it can be hard to avoid sweets at gatherings with family and friends, especially if they’re not necessarily supportive of your efforts. 

But I highly recommend doing your best and cutting sugar to whatever extent that means for you.

Monitor processed foods

The holidays (quite literally) bring all sorts of processed foods to the table. Prepackaged sweets, sausages, pies, and baking mixes promise to add “the flavor of the season” to your dining room table. And considering 73% of the US food supply is made up of processed foods, there’s a good chance UPFs will be present during at least one of your holiday events.

It is still possible to enjoy holiday classics with whole, real food once you master simple cooking skills.

Manage stress

I don’t need to remind you just how stressful the holidays can be. Two in five people say their stress increases during the holidays, with fears about money, travel, and busy schedules topping the list.

I realize there’s no way to eliminate stress during the holidays completely, but chronic levels can increase many heart health risk factors. They may also encourage poor habits, such as smoking, binge drinking, or poor sleep. 

I highly encourage you to find time for yourself, set up relaxing routines, and seek support when needed. You can also get more specific advice around this in my guide covering how stress increases your risk for heart disease. 

Keep yourself warm

Cold weather forces blood vessels to constrict, which can increase your blood pressure and put more strain on your heart. For those with a history of chest pain, this can lead to (or worsen) angina. In extreme circumstances, it could limit blood flow to the heart.

Keep in mind that cold weather may also affect the viscosity of your blood. It may be thicker and stickier, which makes it more likely to form clots. This ultimately raises your risk of heart attacks and strokes if you’re already at risk or have a history of heart problems. 

Be conscious of your drinking

I’m not a fan of alcohol at the best of times — even one glass a day contributes to poor metabolic health. Apart from increased blood pressure, drinking can also spike your blood sugar and increase your risk of heart disease. Yes, this applies to holiday favorites like hard ciders and eggnog.

Drinking too much alcohol can also lead to arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, that lasts for many hours. That’s actually where the term “holiday heart syndrome” came from in 1978.

So I recommend limiting alcohol significantly and looking for alternative celebratory drinks. But if you’re struggling to pull back, start with baby steps first. Maybe this means one fewer glass before going to bed, or experimenting with non-alcoholic versions of your favorite drinks. 

Make activity a priority

Between the weather, holiday movies, and potential long-distance travel, people are typically far less active during the winter months. This can certainly raise your long-term heart health risks. But there are also some short-term risks to consider: namely, deep-vein thrombosis.

Thrombosis occurs when blood clots form in a vein or artery, usually within the leg. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to clot formation in the case, but one of the most common is immobility — being unable to move around for long periods of time.

You may be immobile while working a desk job, sitting in a car or plane, or sitting down on the couch to watch the Hallmark channel. These things aren’t inherently ‘bad’ per se, but in an already inactive season fraught with cold weather, your risk factors will be higher.

Do your best to continue some semblance of an exercise routine, perhaps extra movement sprinkled in (like an after-dinner walk, for example). I understand it might feel awkward or embarrassing to continue a routine around friends or family, so you may want to check out these four ways to strengthen your heart when you don’t have time to exercise.  

A final note

This isn’t, I’m sure, the most exciting thing to read before the holidays. And yet, as a heart surgeon, I care too much not to say something. 

Please understand I’m not asking you to moderate your fun, or give up things you enjoy during this special time of year. The purpose of my content is to give you information, so you can come to your own conclusions and make decisions to improve your quality of life.

If you’re interested in learning more about the intricacies of your heart health, I highly recommend the following resources:

And if you want to remove the confusion about your own individual heart health, book a free call with my team today.

You Get More Introverted With Age, According to Science

We all become more introverted as we get older, even the most extroverted among us. Of course we do

I’m a classic introvert, but in my teens and twenties, it was normal for me to spend almost every weekend with friends. Now, in my thirties, the perfect weekend is one with zero social plans.

And I’m not the only one socializing less these days. My extroverted friend, for example, used to run through her entire contact list, calling friends whenever she was alone in the car. She told me she hated the quiet, the emptiness, because being alone felt boring.

You know, for the whole 10–15 minutes it took to drive to the grocery store. Oh, the horror.

These days, I can rarely get her out for brunch or coffee. She’s content spending most nights at home with her husband and two kids. And I haven’t gotten one of her infamous calls in years.

So, what gives? Do we get more introverted as we get older?

Probably, says Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking — and this is actually a good thing. Let me explain.

Why We Become More Introverted With Age

In a post on Quiet Revolution, Susan Cain confirmed my suspicions: We tend to act more introverted as we get older. Psychologists call this “intrinsic maturation.” It means our personalities become more balanced, “like a kind of fine wine that mellows with age,” writes Cain.

Research also shows that our personalities do indeed change over time — and usually for the better. For instance, we become more emotionally stable, agreeable, and conscientious as we grow, with the largest change in agreeableness happening during our thirties and continuing to improve into our sixties. “Agreeableness” is one of the traits measured by the Big Five personality scale, and people high in this trait are warm, friendly, and optimistic.

We also become quieter and more self-contained, needing less “people time” and excitement to feel a sense of happiness.

Psychologists have observed intrinsic maturation in people worldwide, from Germany to the UK, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Turkey. And it’s not just humans; they’ve observed it in chimps and monkeys, too.

This shift is why we slow down as we get older and begin enjoying a quieter, calmer life — and yes, it happens to both introverts and extroverts.

Becoming More Introverted Is a Good Thing

From an evolutionary standpoint, becoming more introverted as we age makes sense — and it’s probably a good thing.

“High levels of extroversion probably help with mating, which is why most of us are at our most sociable during our teenage and young adult years,” writes Susan Cain.

In other words, being more extroverted when you’re young might help you form important social connections and, ultimately, find a life partner. (Cue the flashbacks to awkward high school dances and “welcome week” in college.)

Then, at least in theory, by the time we reach our 30s, we’ve committed to a life path and a long-term relationship. We may have kids, a job, a spouse, and a mortgage — our lives are stable. So it becomes less important to constantly branch out in new directions and meet new people.

(Note that I said “in theory.” In my 30s, I still don’t have kids, a mortgage, or a wedding ring. These days, we have the luxury of not following evolution’s “script.”)

“If the task of the first half of life is to put yourself out there, the task of the second half is to make sense of where you’ve been,” explains Cain.

During the married-with-children years, think of how difficult it would be to raise a family and nurture close relationships if you were constantly popping into the next party. Even if you don’t marry or have kids, it would be hard to focus on your career, health, and life goals if you were always hanging out with friends like you did in your teens and twenties.

Once an Introvert, Always an Introvert

But there’s a catch: Our personalities only change so much.

In my book, The Secret Lives of Introverts, I like to say that our personalities may evolve, but our temperaments remain constant.

This means that if you’re an introvert, you’ll always be an introvert, even at 90. And if you’re an extrovert — though you may slow down with age — you’ll always be an extrovert.

I’m talking big-picture here: who you are at your core.

Research supports this idea. In 2004, Harvard psychologists Jerome Kagan and Nancy Snidman studied individuals from infancy into adulthood. In one study, they exposed babies to unfamiliar stimuli and recorded their reactions. Some babies got upset, crying and flailing their arms and legs; these were labeled “highly reactive” to their environment.

Other babies remained calm around the new stimuli; they were the “low-reactive” ones.

When Kagan and Snidman checked in with these individuals later, they found that the “highly reactive” babies often grew up to be more cautious and reserved, while the “low-reactive” babies tended to stay sociable and daring as adults.

The bottom line? Our core temperament — whether cautious or sociable, introverted or extroverted — doesn’t change dramatically with age.

Want to feel more at ease in social situations?

Discover the secrets to enjoying fun, meaningful conversations. Know exactly what to say — even if you’re introverted, shy, or socially anxious. Feel less drained and have more energy while socializing.

An Example: Your High School Reunion

Consider, for instance, your high school reunion.

Let’s say you were very introverted in high school — perhaps the third-most introverted person in your graduating class. Over the years, you’ve grown more confident, agreeable, and comfortable in your own skin, but you’ve also become a bit more introverted. If you enjoyed hanging out with friends once a week in high school, maybe now in your thirties, you’re content with seeing them only once a month.

At your ten-year high school reunion, you notice everyone has slowed down a bit, enjoying a calmer, more stable life. But those who were very extroverted in high school are still much more extroverted than you.

You’re still approximately the third-most introverted person in your class — but now the whole group has shifted slightly toward the introverted side.

And that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it might be exactly what we need to flourish as adults. If there’s one thing we introverts understand, it’s the deep satisfaction of a quiet life.

Source

My take, I just had my 50th high school reunion. I never even considered going. I enjoyed it immensely.

Different Headlines: Flaw In Artificial Intelligence; 10 Leading Causes of Death In The US; Wine Production By Country; 30,000 Illegals Skip School In Charlotte To Not Get Deported; Study – 100% Of Covid Jabbed People Have Microclots; META Aware Of Children Being Contacted By Adult Strangers, And Did Nothing; 10 Coolest Cars; What’s In This Taco Bell Crunchwrap…..and more

Wine

Ranked: Wine Production by Country – I guessed the wrong country on this one

Food Prices

The McDonald’s Price Meltdown: What $4 Fries Really Mean – when I was a kid, a Big Mac was 89 cents

Mortality In the US

Ranked: The Top 10 Leading Causes of Death in the U.S.

MAHA Processed Food

What Pigs and Rats Taught Me About Human Snack Food – If pigs won’t eat it, neither should you

Illegals

Charlotte Area Schools Report Over 30,000 Absences Following Weekend of ICE Arrests – well, we know where they are. Biden put them in Red states. FJB

Hacking

Hacker Shows Sean Ryan How Easy it Is to Take Control of Phones and Data [VIDEO] – you many think your data and messages are safe, but not even close

Artificial Intelligence

The Double-Edged Sword: How AI’s Hunger for Data Makes It Cybersecurity’s Weakest Link – A critical flaw of current AI is its inability to truly delete data. Once information is absorbed by a model, it becomes a permanent, unerasable part of its core structure, creating a lasting digital shadow.

COVID-19 Vaccine Damage Update

BREAKING STUDY: Anomalous Amyloid Microclots Found in 100% of the COVID-19 Vaccinated – So it was never safe and effective, they lied. Those 20% of us who didn’t get jabbed never have to regret this. It’s funny that people told me who felt sorry for me when I said I didn’t get vaccinated. How the tables have been turned. We’re not even into the long-term effects yet

Meta

APPARENTLY, Meta was aware that millions of adult strangers were contacting minors on its sites; that its products exacerbated mental health issues in teens; and that content related to eating disorders, suicide, and child sexual abuse was frequently detected, yet rarely removed. – This is evil. We’ve known about the mental health issues, especially in girls, but not doing anything to stop it? Unforgivable.

Cars

The 10 Coolest Cars at the 2025 Los Angeles Auto Show – Not exactly my idea of cool, but it sure is for somebody. I might have thrown in a Bugatti Chiron, A W-18 Porsche, but the first couple are cool. The Fiat is lame

X/Twitter

Popular X Accounts That Turned Out to Be Foreigners – Why I don’t use it. The lies are being exposed

Harrassment

MAGA School Board Member Reveals More Hideous Chats Targeting Her Following “Nipplegate”

Taco Bell

California Woman Orders Crunchwrap Supreme. Then She Demands Answers From Taco Bell After Seeing What’s Hidden Inside – Well, at least it wasn’t a chicken head this time.

Do you trust your instincts?

Do you trust your instincts?

Always.

I somehow was blessed with an innate ability for pattern recognition. I can see disparate things happening, put them together, and know what a good opportunity is. I didn’t know it until things fell into place for me, and I thought everyone saw what I did, but I was wrong.

Here are a couple of examples. I’ll be as matter-of-fact as I can.

I chose a career in personal computers when I didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t do anything, except for VisiCalc, but I saw it as my future before they introduced the IBM PC. The head of a major company said he saw a demand for about 5 of them, and why would you want one on your desk. I made a career out of it. People thought I was chasing my tail at the time.

I had things in life I wanted to do, and knew that if I wanted to retire by 55, I’d have to start before 30. I finally left at 53, and people at IBM were still living paycheck to paycheck up in NY. I refused two job offers to move there to live where the cost of living was 30% less. Money is made 2 ways: make more and spend less. I did both. Plus, I didn’t have to live in NY.

It was clear to me that COVID was a hoax from the beginning, and I refused the jab when the sheep were lining up for it. Once I saw that the Government was forcing an untried and untested treatment they called a vaccine, I knew not to take it. I had studied gene editing and knew it was untested and untrustworthy. My whole family and all my friends thought I was nuts. They couldn’t wait to get it and thought I was risking my life by not getting it. They all got Covid anyway.

My Son in Law, who has patents and is a chip designer said I was smart, so why didn’t I get it? I’m not a lemming, that’s why. It was clear to me that Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were the cure. They tried so hard to ban (and got the media to promote that it was bad) it that I knew to research it and found it to be the cure. I never regretted not getting jabbed, and the rest of the family now wishes they had made my decision. They rushed to get it because they were told that it was “safe and effective”. I called BS. We don’t talk about it because they hate me being right on that one. Thanksgiving is next week, and it will come up like Trump.

I never doubted that Trump would beat Hillary when Scott Adams talked about his ability to use persuasion techniques. I was an island on that one also. I was less certain in 2020, as the evidence of rigging and judicial interference was too overwhelming. Anybody could have called the 2024 election, so I don’t take any credit.

I worked in sustainability for IBM around 2009, but I knew Climate change was a scam when they worried about the hole in the Ozone layer in the late 1990’s. I knew it was a lie from the start, and we found out this week from none other than Bill Gates that it isn’t true, but rather a power grab. I read yesterday that the Ozone hole was mysteriously closing. Again, I was on an island calling BS.

I also have spatial Awareness that I got from my father. I can see how things fit together. It’s as clear as day when others are just arranging objects. Between that and pattern recognition, some things are clear to me as to their truth or the path I should take.

So yes, I trust my instincts.

What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?

What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?

January, actually December 26th. That’s when the world goes back to normal, and they stop playing all the same songs I’ve been hearing in the stores since October.

You can have too much of a good thing, and that is what they’ve done to Christmas, overdone it. I’m for the real meaning of our Savior being born, but people who don’t even care about that go overboard. It started in September with the Christmas decorations at the Home Improvement stores, and they are already up. Thanksgiving is next week.

It’s hard for introverts to process all the attention. We also know that for most people, it is fake. They act all happy and joyful, then get in their cars and cut you off and give you the finger.

All the production around it excites some, but drains introverted people. By the time we get to Christmas, our social battery is dead, and it’s hard to function. Look at the post a few below this on introvert hangovers, and that is what I’m talking about.

The holiday season is tough for some. Fake joy doesn’t make up for it. Too many people takes it out of me and I can’t wait for it to be over.

Different Headlines: AI China Toys Telling Children To Do Twisted Things; GLP-1 Side Effects From Vomiting To Life Threatening; New Lucifer Bee Discovered, Horns And All (on the females); The Left Want A Civil War, But Forgot Who They Will Be Fighting….and more

AI Toys From China

AI Toys From China Collect Biometric Data From Children and Instruct Them to Do Extremely Dangerous and Twisted Things

GLP-1 Weight Loss Side Effects

Weight Loss Jabs Like Ozempic and Mounjaro ‘Linked to 170 Deaths’ – Including Adults in Their 20s – Yet concerns are growing over the side effects, with milder ones including headaches, vomiting, and diarrhea.

In more serious cases, GLP-1s can cause gallstones, kidney stones and inflammation of the pancreas, with some doctors warning of ‘life-threatening complications’.

Nature

New Nightmare Just Dropped: Scientists Discover Horned “Lucifer” Bee – So the male bees are totally cool and lack stingers, and the females have stingers and devil horns?

Hmmm…you don’t say. It’s always the girls that are the devils.

The Real troublemakers tearing America apart

‘F-ck Your Dead Homie’: Violent Antifa Mob Terrorizes Attendees of TPUSA Event Honoring Charlie Kirk at UC Berkeley – Haven’t you got something better to do? Or are you being paid to protest? Here’s your hint, it’s the liberals, Antifa and the socialists.

Climate

Reality Caught Up to ‘Climate Change’ – Greed for AI power is more important that the carbon lie. Bill Gates pulled the rug out from under the Green New Scam

Air Travel

‘It Hurts Our Feelings’: New Jersey Flight Attendant Of 11 Years Shares All The Things Customers Do That Flight Attendants ‘Hate’—You Might Be Guilty Of The ‘Stretching’ One – what a whiner. You signed up for the job. The travelers overpaid for their tickets for usually poor service and late arrivals. If you don’t like it, learn to code. Oh, that’s right, you’re a stewardess. Every job sucks that deals with people, but you chose it.

Cost of living around the world

Visualizing How The Cost Of Living Differs Around The World

Inflation and Tarriffs

150 Years Of Data Destroy Democrat Dogma On Tariffs: Fed Study Finds They Lower, Not Raise, Inflation – NBADJT

Child Welfare Mistreatment

193 Youth in Care of Illinois’ Child Welfare Agency Missing in 2025 – How the F do you lose 193 kids?

Incompetence

San Fransicko’s Newly Appointed Supervisor Resigns Over Pet Store Controversy – I took one look at her and knew she was a loser

Civil War

Too Many Americans Want a Civil War – First of all, Katie Couric is a F’n idiot. Second, Antifa and the left don’t know that hunters have been practicing with camo and high powered rifles since they were kids. A lot of us had to fight real fights, not the pussy name calling they are used to. The are in for a nice Sunday Surprise if they try it

How Is This Legal? Drinking and Driving In Florida

‘How Is This Legal?’: Tampa Bay Woman Pulls Up To Drive-Thru. Then She Proves Why Florida ‘Isn’t A Real Place’

If you know, you know: Florida is more than a glorious, sun-drenched vacation land. It’s a weird and chaotic, semi-lawless-feeling place dangling off of the edge of America. And for Maddy (@maddy.1414), who lives in Tampa Bay, that is exactly why she swears it’s not even a “real place.”

In a TikTok video that’s been watched over 689,000 times, Maddy spotlights one of the quirkiest, most counterintuitive things about life in Florida. And shockingly, it has nothing to do with alligators or the Brightline. It’s all about drive-thru drinks. 

One For The Road, Literally

“Florida is not a real state,” says Maddy in the intro to her video. Sure, she’s going hard, but she promises to back up her claim with evidence. The video then cuts to her ordering at a drive-thru. “Can I just get one espresso martini?” she says.

A voice replies, “Yeah, sure thing.”

She pulls around to the window. But while waiting, she speaks directly into the camera again. “OK, if you know me, you know that I always say Florida isn’t a real state because you can do things here that you shouldn’t be able to legally do,” she says.

MY STORY FROM YEARS AGO

When a stupid youth in high school and college, I remember going through the brew-threw to get a six pack for the beach or wherever I was going. They were available in Orlando and along the beach. We had fake IDs and just cruised in and out. The best thing I ever did was move out of that state. That meant splitting a six-pack to the beach and another one on the way home. It was only a one hour drive away. I could have blown the limit by double, which was higher back then. That business made a killing. We’d have to wait in line for our turn, it was so busy, any time of day. I think they finally passed a law to stop it, but I haven’t been there in years.

How I’m alive is beyond me.

Now, when I see a Florida tag in my current state, I steer clear because I know it’s a bad driver. The minute you cross the border from Georgia, people pass in the right lane. The old people get into the fast lane and drive slowly. They also drive into pools in South Florida fairly regularly

Now, If I have to go out with my brother-in-law to dinner, he has a cocktail, a bottle of wine, and an after dinner drink. I gave it up 30 years ago, yet he drives because I don’t know where I’m going where they live, and he thinks he’s a big shot. How he doesn’t have a DUI or a broken neck is beyond me. It’s why I avoid my family when possible. I also won’t drive with him anymore.

If I’m a cat, I’ve used up 8 lives.

Feeling Drained? Here Are 12 Signs You Have an Introvert Hangover

An introvert hangover can leave you feeling exhausted, making you want nothing more than to escape to a quiet place alone.

Does this sound familiar?

You’ve spent the whole day with your friends or family. You’ve had a great time eating, playing games, and catching up. But now, you’re so exhausted you can barely see straight, while everyone else seems as energetic as ever. In fact, they’re already setting up the next game as you’re wondering how you can slip out the door.

The next day, after the event is over, is no better. You might have a headache, and your body may feel sore and drained, almost like the onset of the flu. You’re tired — so very tired.

If this resonates with you, you might be experiencing something we call an “introvert hangover.”

What Is the Introvert Hangover?

Introvert, Dear writer Shawna Courter coined the term “introvert hangover” in this article to describe the exhaustion she felt after celebrating Christmas with her in-laws. She writes:

“An introvert hangover is a pretty terrible thing to experience. It starts with an actual physical reaction to overstimulation. Your ears might ring, your eyes start to blur, and you feel like you’re going to hyperventilate. Maybe your palms sweat. And then your mind feels like it kind of shuts down, building barriers around itself as if you had been driving on a wide open road, and now you’re suddenly driving in a narrow tunnel. All you want is to be at home, alone, where it’s quiet.”

Yes, the introvert hangover is real. It’s a funny term that describes the serious social burnout many introverts experience, marked by significant mental and physical fatigue.

Here are 12 signs that you might have an introvert hangover, which I discuss in more detail in my book, The Secret Lives of Introverts. You don’t need to experience all these symptoms to have one, and your symptoms might vary.

Signs of an Introvert Hangover

1. Every little thing gets on your nerves.

When you have an introvert hangover, even small annoyances can overwhelm you. Normally, you might brush off a sarcastic comment from your partner or stay calm when you misplace your keys — but not in this state. An introvert hangover can make it feel as though your head is so full it might burst, leaving no room for even the smallest extra bit of information. Because you’re so tired, you may find it hard to control your emotions.

2. You struggle to make decisions.

Even small decisions become difficult. Paper or plastic? Pumpkin pie or cherry? Normally, these choices wouldn’t be hard, but when you have an introvert hangover, your brain is so tired that it doesn’t function properly. For bigger issues, you might find yourself obsessively thinking about the situation to the point of frustration. You’re searching for that one piece of information that will show the right way forward, but because you’re so exhausted, your mind can’t focus enough to find it.

3. You can’t think clearly.

Similar to the previous point, you’re so tired that it feels like your mind is processing everything in slow motion. You might struggle to recall details of things you should easily know, like your daily schedule, where you left your phone, or even common passwords.

4. Your speech changes.

You might speak slower, with unusually long pauses between your words. Sometimes, you might use words that are close to what you mean but not quite right — for instance, “dessert” becomes “candy” and “where’s my coat” becomes just a vague gesture. You might even seem a bit intoxicated, even if you haven’t had much or any alcohol. You might slur your words together, mispronounce them, or both.

5. You feel physically unwell.

Some introverts report experiencing headaches, muscle aches, upset stomachs, or other physical symptoms.

6. You’re tired.

Like, really tired. It feels like you’ve just finished an intense workout at the gym. If someone offered you a quiet spot to nap, you’d accept it immediately. After the social event, you find yourself collapsing on the couch, skipping your usual evening routine, or heading straight to bed.

7. You’re zoning out.

You find it hard to focus. Someone might be speaking, but you’re not absorbing their words. Your expression may appear blank, sad, or even angry, but you’re not necessarily upset. Your mind is simply wandering, perhaps lost in thought or daydreaming.

8. You feel anxious.

For some, an introvert hangover can intensify their anxiety. In social situations, they might feel particularly nervous, worried about how others perceive them and concerned they might say or do the wrong thing. They may also find themselves overthinking a particular decision, unable to escape an anxious thought spiral due to their fatigue.

Want to feel more at ease in social situations?

Discover the secrets to enjoying fun, meaningful conversations. Know exactly what to say — even if you’re introverted, shy, or socially anxious. Feel less drained and have more energy while socializing.

9. You feel depressed.

An introvert hangover can also trigger feelings of depression. You might find yourself overwhelmed by pessimism and cynicism, questioning past decisions, and experiencing dark thoughts. Everything in life may seem bleak or not okay.

10. You’re not acting like yourself.

You might be quieter or not as cheerful as usual. Something seems off, and those close to you are likely to pick up on it.

11. You can’t handle small talk anymore.

When you’re experiencing an introvert hangover at a social event, you might find it hard to keep up with conversations. You’ve run out of small talk. Your mind is just too tired to think of anything polite or interesting to say.

12. You have an intense desire to be alone.

When you’re dealing with an introvert hangover, all you crave is solitude. Whether it’s sneaking off to the bathroom during a social gathering or cozying up in your pajamas afterward, you just need some time for yourself. For introverts, there’s nothing quite like the comfort of being alone after a hectic day or social gathering.

What Causes an Introvert Hangover?

Research shows that everyone eventually gets tired from socializing, including extroverts. Socializing requires energy, and after a while, everyone reaches their limit. However, introverts experience social burnout more quickly and intensely.

Why is this the case? Introverts are generally more sensitive to noise and other forms of stimulation compared to extroverts. Their dopamine systems are less active, meaning that an overload of dopamine — the “feel good” neurotransmitter — can leave them feeling tired and overstimulated. In contrast, extroverts often feel energized by the same levels of dopamine, which can help them push past social fatigue.

To learn more about why introverts need time alone and why they get easily drained from socializing, click here.

The Cure for an Introvert Hangover

The best way to recover from an introvert hangover is to spend time alone in a peaceful, quiet environment. Do your favorite self-care activities or hobbies — anything that helps uplift your mood and energy. For introverts, solitude is as essential as food and water.

If you can’t be completely alone, look for small ways to take a break. You could listen to soothing music with headphones, go for a walk, or find a quiet corner to read. Even short breaks can make a difference.

As introverts, we might feel pressured to fit into a society that often values extroverted behavior. You might worry that prioritizing your needs could inconvenience others or hurt their feelings. This pressure can lead you to hide or deny what you really need, causing more stress.

Remember that your needs as an introvert are valid. It’s perfectly okay to leave a party early or to spend time alone. Your needs are real and deserve respect.

Source

The holiday season is here. It’s the worst 2 months of the year for me. What is telling is that as soon as the presents are opened, people go right back to the other 10 months of the year.

I cringed when I saw the decorations for sale in September, and they started going up 50 days before Christmas near me. My energy started draining on the spot

And I Thought Getting Eaten Was The Worst Way To Die

A postal worker has died after getting stuck in a mail handling machine – and his body was only discovered after his devastated fiancée turned up at his workplace.

The employee in his 30s was found dead on Saturday after being trapped for several hours inside a large mail handling machine at the United States Postal Service Detroit Network Distribution Center in Allen Park, Michigan. 

Police believe the death was accidental, though the exact circumstances of how the worker became stuck remain under investigation.

The man’s body was discovered by firefighters who responded after the worker failed to return home from his shift. 

Investigators believe he had been deceased for approximately six to eight hours before being located, lodged inside the machine at the facility. 

His fiancée initially alerted authorities to his absence and waited outside the facility for hours before receiving assistance.

More

That means he was crushed to death, slowly, knowing he couldn’t escape

Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?

Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?

Famous: Mario Andretti, William Shatner, Lou Gerstner – CEO of IBM. All were speakers at Conferences, so I got to meet them. All were gracious and nice. I ate dinner many times with Chet Hanson, assistant to 5 Star General Omar Bradley. I worked with his daughter at IBM. I was a personal friend of Gina Smith, of Good Morning America, and the author of iWoz. She worked for me before she became famous.

Infamous: Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google. I also met them at computer conferences. I put them in the infamous category for what they’ve done to people. I would have avoided them if I could, but the situation forced us to be together.

Regarding Bill Gates, I worked on the same hall at IBM with Dave Bradley, the inventor of Ctrl-Alt-Del. At the 20th anniversary roundtable of the introduction of the IBM PC. Dave said he wrote the program during his speech, but Gates made it famous. Everyone but Gates laughed.

Although I didn’t meet them, I was in line next to Muhammad Ali at LaGuardia. He was in the late stages of Parkinson’s, so I left him alone. I saw Joe Frazier and Marvin Hagler in Vegas, but I didn’t bother them. They were smaller than I thought. I ate dinner at the table next to Bo Derek right after the movie 10 was released. I was surprised at how small she was. I wasn’t surprised at how hot she was. Joe Namath and I checked in together at the same hotel in Boston. He was also smaller than I thought. We just talked like guys do about sports. Dan Marino was a star at the time, and we talked about his quick release.

I got stared down by Ann Coulter at an airport for way longer than normal. It was almost like I reminded her of someone she had looked so long, and she was trying to figure out who I was. I knew who she was, but couldn’t figure out why she would look at me. I smiled, and so did she. It was one of those smiles a girl gives you when you’re the one, not a hello, how do you do smile. Then we went to our flights and that was that.

Famous people are tough to deal with. They come with a squad to keep people away. Everyone wants a piece of them, so I just walk on by.

I had to schedule famous speakers for events I ran, but I rarely talked to them. Their handlers were difficult to deal with, so by then, I didn’t want to deal with them.

Fame is a curse. You can’t go anywhere without being mobbed. and your private life is removed forever. I’ll take the peace and quiet.

A Cardiac Surgeon’s Look at RFK Jr’s Proposed Dietary Guidelines

The Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement has made quite a few waves in 2025. And by the end of the year, it will make at least one more: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced new dietary guidelines that will revise or revamp existing Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) reports. 

While these new dietary guidelines have yet to be released, we have quite a few details on what to expect. Some people believe they may be misleading or even dangerous. But as a cardiologist and heart surgeon of 30+ years, I’m very optimistic they will help reduce our rates of heart disease. 

Below, I break down the most important principles to know, plus the guidelines’ ramifications for American heart health.

One quick note: this is not intended to be political commentary. There are plenty of party-based perspectives on these dietary guidelines, and lots of opinions from all sides. My goal here is to examine the facts and provide my honest perspective.

RFK guidelines versus traditional nutrition advice

First, a little background.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee releases an updated nutrition guideline every five years. This is a 400+ page report you can access at dietaryguidelines.gov, although it isn’t intended for public use. Rather, it’s a boilerplate of Federal guidelines for things like school lunches, military rations, and government assistance programs. 

But RFK’s guidelines are set to be significantly shorter — just four to six pages. The goal is to create a set of “common sense guidelines” that anyone can use to make decisions about their nutrition.

Again, the guidelines themselves have yet to be released. But we have a pretty good idea of what they’ll include. 

Here’s a closer look at some anticipated changes so you can compare and contrast with traditional guidelines.

Emphasizes whole, real foods

Traditional dietary guidelines such as the food pyramid and MyPlate categorize foods by the nutrients they provide.

So for example:

  • 6 servings of grains
  • 2 servings of protein
  • 2.5 servings of vegetables
  • 3 servings oils and fats

What it doesn’t account for is the qualities of these foods, or how processed they are. Fruit and gel cups still count as a serving of “fruit,” while sweetened yogurt tubes and Goldfish count as dairy and grains, respectively.

You don’t need to be a nutritionist to realize this leaves a very large gap for interpretation. 

Because people don’t eat nutrients, they eat food.

RFK’s proposed guidelines help eliminate this confusion by emphasizing whole, real foods over arbitrary classifications (like whether or not you got your “servings” of grain today). This is also much more scientifically sound; it goes beyond categorizing nutrient types and makes it easier to isolate ultra-processed foods, or UPFs.

The current administration plans to develop a “government-wide definition” for ultraprocessed food. This likely means a working definition for whole, real food as well.

In my opinion, establishing a definition for ultra-processed foods is a net positive for everyone. Not only will people know how to better avoid unhealthy options, but they can also significantly decrease their risk of heart disease.

Encourages more saturated fat

While RFK’s new dietary guidelines won’t focus much on specific nutrients, there is one component likely to be emphasized more than others. In his own words, “[these] new dietary guidelines that are common sense, that stress the need to eat saturated fats of dairy, of good meat, of fresh meat.” 

RFK has gone on record multiple times explaining that animal-based products deserve a higher priority in the everyday diet. But animal-based products contain more saturated fat — something of a boogeyman in traditional guidelines. 

If these new guidelines do raise suggested intakes for saturated fat, it will go against decades of advice from the US DGA, and this is concerning some nutritionists. For context, traditional US guidelines recommended an intake of 10% of daily calories. The American Heart Association recommends even less, around 6%. 

But we don’t have any evidence to suggest that limiting saturated fat intake actually prevents heart disease. Plus, increasing saturated fat intakes from whole, real sources is unlikely to negatively affect heart health. If anything, it may improve it. 

That’s because some of the highest sources of saturated fat in the US are pizza and ice cream. Sandwiches, desserts, and sweet snacks aren’t far behind. These are ultra-processed foods that will have other, more serious ramifications (like spiking your blood sugar, for example). 

So what does this tell us? That whole, real foods like steak and eggs are not primary sources of saturated fat in the average American diet.

Demystifying saturated fat from whole, real food sources will play a substantial role in improving dietary quality and heart health.

What I’d like to see: A heart surgeon’s perspective on food guidelines

Contrary to popular belief, RFK Jr’s proposed dietary guidelines do not work adversarially to supporting heart health. I don’t say this flippantly, either: I am firmly dedicated to Making America Healthy Again, and will (and do) only support changes that match my research and opinions.

Here are the other components I would love to see added:

  • Firmer guidelines about alcohol consumption. Alcohol is not your friend, and it certainly doesn’t do any favors for your heart. Adding educational information about how drinking interacts with heart health could be extraordinarily beneficial to those wanting to reclaim their metabolic health.
  • A heavier emphasis on animal products. Many animal-based products make a world of difference in heart health maintenance and heart attack recovery. My hope is that the guidelines demystify animal products so they can become dietary staples instead of guilty pleasures. For example, eggs, milk, and ruminant meat such as beef, lamb, and venison.
  • Education about limiting carbohydrate intake. People deserve to know how carbohydrates affect their bodies, and how overconsumption can lead to insulin resistance, inflammation, and heart disease. While not everyone needs to follow a low-carb diet, adding some concise information about how to avoid unnecessary starches could be enormously effective in limiting overconsumption.

Time will tell what the guidelines contain. We don’t have long to wait: they’re slated for release no later than the end of this year.

As we wait for its release, I highly encourage you to perform research of your own. I’ve written quite a few guides covering nutrition and heart health you can use to get more information. 

Below are some resources to help get you started:

source

How your gut health directly impacts heart disease

Researchers have done a significant amount of work exploring the gut-brain axis, or how the food we eat affects the way we think. But they’ve also spent time exploring the gut-heart axis — which, in my opinion, is one of the most important biological concepts of our generation. 

The food you eat has a direct impact on the heart, both directly and indirectly through your gut microbiota.

I’m going to take the next few minutes to discuss how this interaction works, as well as what you can do to improve your gut (and heart) health over time. 

Exploring the gut-heart connection

The state of your gut bacteria — as well as nutrients, compounds, and hormones it produces — has an impact on your heart. 

First, the nutritional aspects. 

We know the heart receives priority nutrients from our diets, especially from the fats we eat. Studies suggest that the heart directly receives nutrients through blood after digestion. This is because blood from the small intestines, where digestion takes place, collects in the hepatic portal vein. Blood passes directly from the intestines to the liver, then to the inferior vena cava and the heart. This means the heart receives some of the first and most intimate contact with nutritious (or not so nutritious) food you’re consuming.

We also know your gut bacteria produce more than just nutrients. As they break down certain foods, they also create secondary compounds called metabolites. These include:

  • GABA
  • Amino acids like tryptophan and tyramine
  • Trimethylamine N-oxide
  • Noradrenaline
  • Dopamine
  • Serotonin

Studies show that dysregulated metabolite production can “activate pathways that promote myocardial injury and may contribute to ventricular dysfunction” (in other words, encourage heart disease). 

It can also lead to inflammation. This is the third and biggest way your gut contributes to heart disease.

Here’s a flyby overview of how this works:

  • Your intestinal lining is semipermeable to allow for adequate digestion.
  • But poor gut health, known as leaky gut, allows for hyperpermeability, or a large amount of exchange between your intestines and bloodstream. Leaky gut can also stem from conditions such as SIBO and PCOS.
  • Leaky gut stimulates inflammation in your body by quite literally leaking toxins into your bloodstream (including high-sugar food).
  • This puts your body into a state of systemic or chronic inflammation, meaning it doesn’t go away on its own.

This gut inflammation directly impacts the heart by causing blood vessels to become stiff, hard, and narrow. It may also accelerate plaque accumulation, which greatly contributes to heart disease. 

So what does all this mean? That your next bite of food could have a major impact on your heart.

And if you’re not eating nutrient-dense, whole, real food, it will also be one of the first organs to bear the brunt of damage. 

How to improve your gut-heart axis

There’s no overnight fix for your gut or your heart health.

But there are certainly steps you can take to see results faster.

This includes:

1. Whole, real food

The first piece of the puzzle is changing what you eat.

Studies show that real-food diets can lower coronary calcium scores (CAC) over time. They can also reduce the chances of death for patients living with heart disease. 

The opposite is true for diets high in processed food. 

Instead, focus on increasing your foods’ nutrient density — foods that are deeply nutritious and allow the body to heal.

Staples include:

2. Adequate rest

The amount of sleep you get each night can have a dramatic effect on your gut’s microbial health. The less sleep you get, the less diverse your bacteria are. Dysbiosis can also affect the quality of your sleep, which creates a vicious cycle. Namely, one that affects your heart.  

Getting seven to nine hours per night is considered key to metabolic health. You might need more or less depending on age, health, and activity level, but it’s still a target to hit, alongside many of the other principles of metabolic health. 

3. Reassessing medications

If you can’t eliminate medications, you may consider supplementation as a way to support your gut health.

The following is a list of bioactive compounds known to support the gut-heart axis:

  • Polyphenols: These are plant compounds found in substances like berries and tea.
  • Prebiotics: Onions, garlic, leeks, and asparagus are good examples.
  • Probiotics: Yogurt and kefir are some of the most common, although sauerkraut and kimchi are also options.
  • Quercetin: Red onions and capers contain quercetin, among many other plants.
  • Resveratrol: Blueberries are often the most common example.
  • Some dietary fibers: This includes vegetables like broccoli and leafy greens.

4. Cutting sugar

Sugar not only changes your gut microbiota, but also fundamentally damages your liver, pancreas, and blood sugar function.

Your best bet is eliminating processed sugar altogether, although I realize that can be a struggle depending on where you’re at.

First, reduce your consumption. Rather than three sodas a day, make it two. Then, look for sugar alternatives. Instead of processed sweets before bed, you might try fruit, milk, or berries. You can also try wearing a CGM to assess how your blood sugar responds to these alternatives in real time.

Finally, reduce the amount of processed carbohydrates you eat. Substances like bread and alcohol, for example, turn into sugar in the bloodstream. 

This means adopting a ketogenic, carnivore, or similarly low-carb diet that supplies your heart with the high-fat nutrients it needs. 

5. Eat the right fats

Speaking of fat, we also know fat consumption contributes heavily to heart health. Research has found that “increasing fatty acid availability to the heart results in a marked inhibition of glucose oxidation,” leading to healthier function. 

This is especially true of ketones, or a type of fatty acid that is beneficial to heart health. Ketones directly affect the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling, which is a bodily process affecting cardiac function, cellular growth, and insulin sensitivity.

Your body can create more ketones for the heart via fasting, heavy exercise, and low-carb dieting. 

I highly suggest avoiding seed oils and fake fats, and recommend opting for a healthier balance of omega-3 and saturated fats. 

What about the hyperspecifics?

The five pointers above can help you make the biggest difference in your gut. But they’re not the only things you can be doing.

The following resources contain additional resources that may be useful on your journey:

source

What was your favorite subject in school?

What was your favorite subject in school?

I’d like to say that I was dedicated to a job goal in school, but I just tried to get good grades, like it or not. I was only interested in either getting into college or getting a job, but there wasn’t any subject that blew wind up my skirt.

I was small and the youngest kid in my class due to the birthday cut off, but I enjoyed PE class because it was a break from studying. It’s tough being the youngest and usually the smallest. Once I caught up to the other kids, I held my own and even kept up with the team athletes at the end.

It was the break from the monotony of class that made me enjoy it.

The valedictorian and salutatorian were in my chemistry class. They ruined the curve for everyone. The kids always messed with their experiments, and they could never figure out why they didn’t get the results that they were supposed to, although their write ups got them the A’s they strove for. Neither went anywhere in life.

The real smartest kid placed 3rd behind these two shrimp girls because he took weightlifting in PE and got a B, his only one ever. I give him credit for sticking his neck out in life. Straight A’s got a lot of people nowhere, but life lessons did.

Which brings me to my greatest learning in school. I had to try harder in everything. I was so young that social things, intuitive to others, were a hard learned lesson for me. It was tenacity over talent in everything. If I’d known that I was an introvert, I could have used my observation skills even more. What I did was just intuition back then.

So while it was the toughest subject for me, life was the class I studied the most. I had to figure everything out without someone to show me how. Like the Bob Seger song, I was working on mysteries without any clues. It was the best lesson I learned.

I wound up playing Tennis for my college, the only sport I made the team on. I was president of my fraternity and dated a cheerleader. None of that really mattered to me then. I expected it after all that I’d been through. I worked hard enough to get the job that opened doors to people and travel, and the success I’d defined for myself.

As it turns out, my 50th reunion was last weekend. I didn’t go because I never related to the other kids, or wanted to. They were just people I learned from, mostly what not to do or how to act.

At high school graduation, I vowed that I’d be more successful by any measurement. A few became actors, pro sports athletes, or a doctors here and there. As I’d come across their stories before I ditched Facebook, the pinnacle of life was high school for them. It was all downhill from there. I was just starting, but the seeds of motivation to succeed were planted and fertilized. I’d met my goal set way back in high school.

Life was the best class. It had nothing to do with the classroom.

I will say that my German teacher was hot and not that much older than me. Why didn’t they throw a high schooler a break like they do now?

Millions Of America’s Teens Are Being Seduced By AI Chatbots, Including Encouraging To Commit Suicide

Our kids are being targeted by AI chatbots on a massive scale, and most parents have no idea that this is happening. When you are young and impressionable, having someone tell you exactly what you want to hear can be highly appealing. AI chatbots have become extremely sophisticated, and millions of America’s teens are developing very deep relationships with them. Is this just harmless fun, or is it extremely dangerous?

A brand new study that was just released by the Center for Democracy & Technology contains some statistics that absolutely shocked me…

A new study published Oct. 8 by the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) found that 1 in 5 high school students have had a relationship with an AI chatbot, or know someone who has. In a 2025 report from Common Sense Media, 72% of teens had used an AI companion, and a third of teen users said they had chosen to discuss important or serious matters with AI companions instead of real people.

We aren’t just talking about a few isolated cases anymore.

At this stage, literally millions upon millions of America’s teens are having very significant relationships with AI chatbots.

Unfortunately, there are many examples where these relationships are leading to tragic consequences.

After 14-year-old Sewell Setzer developed a “romantic relationship” with a chatbot on Character.AI, he decided to take his own life…

Read more here

Here’s a Parent’s view of how AI killed their son.

“ChatGPT killed my son”: Parents’ lawsuit describes suicide notes in chat logs

Over a few months of increasingly heavy engagement, ChatGPT allegedly went from a teen’s go-to homework help tool to a “suicide coach.”

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, mourning parents Matt and Maria Raine alleged that the chatbot offered to draft their 16-year-old son Adam a suicide note after teaching the teen how to subvert safety features and generate technical instructions to help Adam follow through on what ChatGPT claimed would be a “beautiful suicide.”

Adam’s family was shocked by his death last April, unaware the chatbot was romanticizing suicide while allegedly isolating the teen and discouraging interventions. They’ve accused OpenAI of deliberately designing the version Adam used, ChatGPT 4o, to encourage and validate the teen’s suicidal ideation in its quest to build the world’s most engaging chatbot. That includes making a reckless choice to never halt conversations even when the teen shared photos from multiple suicide attempts, the lawsuit alleged.

“Despite acknowledging Adam’s suicide attempt and his statement that he would ‘do it one of these days,’ ChatGPT neither terminated the session nor initiated any emergency protocol,” the lawsuit said.

Here is their full story

The robots always kill the humans.

New multi-disciplinary approach sheds light on the role of mitochondrial DNA mutations in cancer

Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital explored how mutations in mitochondrial DNA contribute to cancer, the extent of their impact, and when and how they become a factor.
Mitochondria act as energy factories in cells and have their own, separate DNA. Mutations to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) have been observed in cancer, but it has been unclear how these changes might affect cancer growth. To find answers, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists combined computational tools and DNA sequencing technologies to examine these mtDNA mutations in cancer cells closely. Their new method lets scientists pinpoint when these mutations occur, how they change as cancer develops and whether they affect how cancer cells behave. The results of this study were published today in Science Advances.

Exploring the role that individual mtDNA mutations have on cancer has historically been difficult. “Each cell contains hundreds of copies of mitochondrial DNA; so, a mutation might be present at low levels in many cells, or at high levels in just a subset of cells,” said corresponding author Mondira Kundu, MD, PhD, St. Jude Department of Cell & Molecular Biology. “These different patterns can have dramatically different effects on how cells function.”

mtDNA mutations are not random passengers in cancer

To overcome this challenge, the team combined several techniques, including powerful computational tools, statistical analyses, bulk whole genome sequencing and single-cell studies. This approach allowed them to determine how much mitochondrial DNA was mutated in each cell, and when these changes happened in relation to cancer development. Surprisingly, the researchers found that some mitochondrial DNA mutations occur before a cell turns cancerous — and that these mutations are not always random. It appears that in some cases, cancer cells actively “select” for a mix of normal and mutated mitochondrial DNA.

“This approach allowed us to tell apart harmless ‘passenger’ mutations from those that may help cancer grow,” Kundu explained. “That’s something the field has struggled with until now.”

Kundu’s team took the analysis further by deploying a tool, called NetBID2, created by co-author Jiyang Yu, PhD, St. Jude Department of Computational Biology interim chair. With this tool, the researchers found evidence that mtDNA may contribute to therapy resistance. They discovered a mtDNA mutation linked to changes in pathways associated with resistance to glucocorticoids, a common therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Further analysis suggested that this type of mitochondrial mutation may make leukemia cells more likely to resist treatment.

While this research highlights the role mitochondrial DNA mutations might play in leukemia, the main achievement is the creation of a novel multidimensional approach to investigate mtDNA. Kundu is optimistic about the value of digging deeper into this overlooked feature of cancer growth. 

“This work shows that mitochondrial DNA can influence both how leukemia starts and how it progresses,” said Kundu. “The next important step is to apply this approach to many more patient samples, so we can fully understand its impact.”

GRTWT

13 Things Introverts Find ‘Horrifying’

1. When people call — and a text or email would have been more than sufficient.

As an introvert, I am frightened by people who call when a text or email would be more than sufficient. There is a certain anxiety that comes with an open-ended conversation, since phone conversations are expected to take longer than the 10 seconds necessary to transmit the information. This anxiety is compounded by the lack of visual cues during a phone call that are vital to us introverts, but are often summarily ignored by extroverts. 

–Steve

2. Not being able to exit an intense social setting.

The thing that horrifies me the most is not being able to exit an intense social setting. If I am somewhere and don’t have an out, my stress level skyrockets. I need to know that I have a way to step out or leave so I can recharge. 

–Lou

3. Networking events. Period.

Networking events are made for extroverts who gain energy by being around people and engaging with them. However, for most introverts, networking events are generally uncomfortable and terrifying — we find it hard to be open and let strangers into our lives. We are atrocious at small talk, and it is challenging to establish rapport with new people. For us, networking is definitely out of our comfort zone and ranks as one the top scary things for introverts.

–Albert

4. Being put on the spot.

My biggest fear is of being put on the spot to say something in a group or public setting when I’m not prepared. That feeling of all eyes turning to me to say something off-the-cuff really makes me uncomfortable! 

–Jen

5. Two words that strike intense fear into my heart are “overnight stay.”

I may be an introvert, but I love people. I can have a great time seeing friends and family and love spending time together over a few drinks and board games. But if we need to stay overnight? That’s when anxiety sets in. Keeping up the social energy in the morning, not knowing when we’ll be able to duck out and find some respite — these thoughts embed themselves into the back of my mind, which makes socializing that much harder.

–Mike

6. First dates terrify me. 

First dates terrify me because of my aversion to small talk and awkward silences. I can talk to someone online, no problem, but face-to-face? I make very weird small talk because I’m nervous. The terror is, I see the date and he’s not who I’m interested in when I meet him in person. Then I just want to leave as quickly as possible, so the small talk becomes even more painful. I just sit there, in anxious terror, and blurt out the first thing that comes into my head, whether it’s appropriate or not. 

Prime example: I went out on a one-date-wonder a few years ago. We met for lunch, he didn’t appeal to me in person, awkward silence ensued. The only thing I thought to say was: “Armadillos are the only other mammal that contract leprosy from humans.” (I learned that factoid in fifth grade and who would have thought it’d stick with me 35 years later?!) He looked at me in horror and I fled. I never heard from him again — whew!

–Lisa

7. Public speaking scares me to death. 

Any sort of public speaking scares me to death as someone who is basically a career introvert. It doesn’t matter if I’m leading a meeting of three participants or speaking to a larger audience, the thought of being the center of attention in any way, shape, or form truly terrifies me. It’s kind of like a fear of heights — you don’t understand it truly unless you suffer from it. All of the workarounds don’t seem to work, and I just manage it by avoiding it as much as possible. 

–David

8. Getting trapped in a social commitment that goes on for hours.

There’s nothing more frightening than getting trapped in a social commitment that can prolong for hours (like public speaking or large parties). I prefer shorter engagements when my energy levels are higher, but once things drag on, it becomes impossible to focus and incredibly uncomfortable! 

–Sara

9. Having roommates — thus having to be social all the time — is an introvert’s worst nightmare.

The one thing that scares me a lot is living with my friends permanently. While I enjoy socializing, after a while, I am mentally drained and need time to recharge. If I had to live with friends, I’d feel obligated to be social all the time and that would be mentally stressful for me as an introvert because I wouldn’t have “space” to get away from them. You’re stuck living in the same place, and I feel that would be pretty unbearable.

–Roger

10. My biggest fear is being embarrassed.

As an introvert who avoids social interaction at nearly all costs, my biggest fear is being embarrassed. When I’m in public, I usually become solely focused on how I look to other people, what others think of me, and the assumptions they make of me. In the past, it’s affected everything from the way that I walk to the comments I make to even the tone of my voice. It can be kind of brutal, but it’s something I’ve learned to deal with. Staying out of the public eye seems to help with that.

–Mike

11. I feel my introversion can scare off a romantic partner.

One thing that scares me is that being introverted and very independent could cause damage to my relationship or scare them off. 

–Lauren

12. I fear being alone forever because of my introversion.

We all need love and companionship, but as an introvert, I don’t like feeling like I have to compete for “airtime” in social gatherings. I love my alone time, but still want a solid group of loved ones. 

–Tolu

13. I find it horrifying when my work manager announces, “Let’s have a team-building exercise today.”

I call myself an introvert, as I am someone who enjoys alone time, would rather stay home than go to a party on weekends, and I regain energy by spending time away from people. 

The one thing that terrifies me is when my work manager announces, “Let’s have a team-building exercise today.” Though we introverts tend to be team players — as we are all about deep work and being invested in the goals of the group — when it comes to group or team activities, it scares us. Team-building exercises involve interacting with people, small talk, and, in some cases, having the spotlight on you alone. These are all things my introverted self dreads and runs away from.

Source

12 doesn’t bother me, and I pretty much have gotten over being embarrassed, but the rest are true. I have to face number 5 on Thanksgiving with a houseful of extroverts.

I got told that I have to take care of some adolescents that I’m related to next summer and the anxiety has already set in.

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

When I was single in Miami. I was in a place that was great to be solo. I had friends to do stuff with. The beach was minutes away. Life was just starting for me, so everything was an adventure. We went deep-sea fishing, clubbing, and I came home to a house that occasionally had roommates. Mostly, I was able to come and go as I wished.

When it was time to move on in a relationship, that was easy too. They would just become after W in the alphabet.

Health was easy. I was in shape for free by just being young. We were fearless and what felt like immortal. We could do anything and there would always be tomorrow.

My friends and I had season tickets to the Dan Marino Air Force show. Every game was 5 touchdowns, and I even partied in the stands with Don Shula’s daughter.

Then, I grew up. In the words of Toby Keith, I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.

Now, it’s you ain’t much fun since I quit drinkin’.

Different Headlines: American Support For Same Sex Marriage Failing, Gen Z Not Going To Chipolte, How Europe Funneled $2 Billion To Erode US Democracy, Space-X Flying Car, Obama Creeping On Girls Like Biden, Dilbert Creator’s Health Declining Fast, Cows Fainting…..and more

Marriage

American Support for So-Called Same-Sex Marriage Falls – statistics say only about 2% of the population are homosexuals. The press would make you think it’s 10 times that. People are behind it when it’s in vogue. If you’re not totally invested in something, you don’t give a shit after a while. They’ve beat us over the head with accepting it for so long that those not against it (actually the majority) don’t give a $hit anymore. You can only hear something for so long.

Gen Z

Chipotle CEO: Millennials, Gen Z Customers Choosing Groceries Over Burritos – Dave Ramsey would be proud of them, even if they were forced into being financially frugal.

Anti-Americanism

European Billionaires Funneled $2 Billion Via Transatlantic NGO Network To Erode U.S. Democracy, Finance Anti-Trump Protest Machine – Denmark, Switzerland, and the UK, thanks for your support.

Venezuela Regime Funded Black Lives Matter

Working vs Free Money

Universal Basic Income – Making Slavery Great Again – you take away the will to work, and people of all colors are on the plantation again. It’s not the story you think you’ll read. The government is the slave owner

Flying Cars

Is This The Secret SpaceX-Backed Flying Car Musk Just Hinted At?  – still not getting into it

Woke

Woke Hollywood Just Keeps Sinking as Box Office Receipts Fall to 27-Year Low – The movies suck, starting with Disney

Canada’s Military

WHAT A DUMB, PATHETIC CUNT – I just liked the title

Some Reality On Racism

Beyond the Cotton Field: How ‘Racist’ Was Pre-Civil-Rights-Era America, Really? – Muhammed Ali after his fight in Zaire – “Thank God our grandpappies caught that boat!”.

In other words, the real racism was by 2 people, LBJ and Obama. Let’s dispell some of the lies being told today.

Creepy Old Men

“You Look Cute.. But I’m Married! Michelle’s Fine Too!” – Creepy Narcissist Obama Flirts with Girl at New Jersey Rally For Mikie Sherrill (VIDEO) – I thought he was gay, or is this just subtrafuge?

Dilbert

Dilbert Creator Says He is ‘Declining Fast’ and Asks President Trump to Help Save His Life — Needs Newly Approved Drug For Advanced Prostate Cancer

Government Shutdown

Elon Musk STUNS Joe Rogan with SHOCKING TRUTH – Exposes Dems’ DIRTY SECRET Behind Government Shutdown: ‘If They Stop Paying Illegals, They’ll Lose Their Voters’

Justice

South Carolina Death Row Inmate Scheduled for Termination This Month Has Chosen His Method of Execution – Shoot Him

Taxpayer Wasted Money

‘Ghost students’: Fake college kids collecting very real cash – enrolling to get money but never attending class…..think that’s called stealing.

World’s Largest Economies

$124 Trillion And Counting… These Are The World’s Largest Economies – no real surprises, but interesting to see who ranks where

Government Shutdown

Why Are 42 Million Americans Relying On SNAP Benefits? – EBT Mom’s gaming the system

Voting

Here’s Why Asian Americans Shifted Right – They are tired of getting their asses kicked and other crimes.

World Series Rioting

Fans Go Wild After World Series Win, LAPD Deploys Tear Gas – Win or lose, they loot

Cow Farting And Fainting

Danish Cows Collapse After Controversial Anti-Methane Product Added to Feed – This is taking Climate dumbassery to a new low. I’m with the cows on this one.

Different Headlines: Springsteen Movie Bombs, EV Sales About To Tank, The Leaked Playbook For Destroying America, WWI Soldier’s Message In A Bottle Found….and more

Entertainment

‘The Boss’ Bombs: Springsteen Biopic Hits A Sour Note At The Box Office – Well, he shit on half the country with his TDS delusions. No wonder they didn’t go see it

Election 2024

‘What The F**k Did You Just Do?’: Obama Was Allegedly Irate With Pelosi During 2024 Presidential Campaign – They are not the kingmakers they thought they were, just egotists

The Real No King To Protest

Joe Biden Was the Real ‘King,’ Not Trump

Biden-era FBI may have investigated over 160 Republicans as part of ‘Arctic Frost’ probe, documents show… Pot/Kettle

Education

Historical Icons They’re Removing From Our Kids’ Education, we’ll be doomed to repeat history. The difference is one side is armed with about a trillion rounds of ammo, the other doesn’t know which bathroom to use and hires drug addled stooges to do their killing. Antifa just destroys their own towns.

EV Sales

EV Sales Will Collapse 60% in October, J.D. Power Forecasts – They were only buying them because of the subsidy, not to save the planet or whatever nonsense they used to justify it.

Black Women Behaving Badly

“Get Out There and Ravish!”: Woman “Out of Food Stamps” Shows Off Stolen Goods, Urges Others to Steal at Will and “Infiltrate” Churches for Cash – What happens to grifters when the free stuff runs out? It’s on Schumer to stop the shutdown now. Try working instead instead of bitching about your free money being cut off. BTW, isn’t this hate speech?

Humor

Gen-X and Older Will Remember the Struggles Were Real [VIDEO]

The Fifth Column Trying To Destroy America From Within

The Leaked Playbook for Silencing America – power-grabbing money-grubbers who are trying to rule instead of govern. These people must be stopped, or many will really suffer, not social media suffer.

Retirement

Top Places to Retire if You Love Cold Weather – not everyone wants to boil in Florida surrounded by tourists

NYC Mayor’s Race

The Shadow of Terror: Zohran Mamdani’s Radical Islam Problem – A radical past and present. That portends a radical future for a city going down the toilet

More Islamic Problems In The US

All Roads Lead to Dearborn – I’m sure this wasn’t Henry Ford’s dream

Humanity

WWI Soldiers’ Messages in a Bottle Found in Australia – a message from the past

Little Green Men

Researchers Say UFOs Spied on Nuclear Weapons Program – Take me to your leader

Food Stamps

Mapping Where Non-Citizens Receive The Most Food Stamps… Surprise, sanctuary cities and states near a border (or accessible by water)

mRNA

mRNA Vaccine for Birth Defects Didn’t Work Well, Won’t Be Continued: Moderna… in things not ready for prime time, yet they forced it on the sheep who took the Covid Jab. Some of us are still pure bloods. We are not ready to be gene editors.

Lawfare

Latest Arctic Frost List Confirms Smith and Democrats Were Aiming to Wipe MAGA off the Map and Ultimately to Jail All MAGA Leaders – maybe this should be under No Kings, as that is how they acted

Letters Confirm Liz Cheney Secretly Worked ‘Hand-In-Hand’ With Jack Smith – what a cnut

Healthcare

107 Studies Link “Vaccines” to Autism, Other Brain Disorders

Woke

Cracker Barrel Shares Down About 32% This Year, Following “Century’s Worst Brand Blunder” – They might beat Bud Light as the top of the FAFO companies. Both campaigns were dreamed up by liberal white women. Stop ruining our lives

Does high protein hurt the heart?

By Dr. Philip Ovaida

As a heart surgeon, one of my favorite mantras is “hit your protein goal.” That’s because many of the patients who walk into my office see enormous metabolic improvements just by swapping dietary carbs for protein.

But maybe you’ve seen research talking about the unhealthiness of high-protein diets. Will getting rid of carbs increase your risk of a heart attack? Or will the amino acids in meat trigger cardiovascular disease?

From a purely scientific standpoint, probably not.

But I’ll go through the research so you can decide for yourself. 

What science says about protein and the heart

Let’s start with the studies sounding the alarm about getting ‘too much’ protein in your diet.

One posited that eating more than 22% of your calories from protein could raise cardiovascular and metabolic health risks.

Another found that “high-protein diets increase cardiovascular risk by activating macrophage mTOR to suppress mitophagy.” In other words, that high protein intake could overstimulate certain immune cells, leading to artery damage and higher cardiovascular risk.

Here’s a quick breakdown of their hypotheses:

  • Eating a large amount of protein in one sitting raises amino acid levels in your blood.
  • Those amino acids collect in artery plaque, or the fatty buildups that encourage atherosclerosis.
  • Inside the plaque, amino acids activate a signaling pathway in immune cells called macrophages (specifically called the mTOR pathway).
  • When this happens, types of white blood cells called macrophages stop clearing out damaged parts of cells.
  • These damaged cells die off, which makes artery plaque more unstable. This means it could rupture and cause heart attacks or strokes.

So researchers concluded eating more than 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight could be harmful to your heart. 

Now, before you start wondering if going vegan is your only option, I’d like to point out a few limitations.

  • Most studies don’t control for the type of protein consumed. After all, there’s a big difference between eating a grilled chicken breast and a 10-count chicken nugget meal from a fast food franchise. Food quality matters, especially with protein, although many studies neglect this or don’t define it explicitly in their results.
  • Many mechanistic studies use isolated amino acids such as leucine or protein powders to measure protein impacts. However, we know the body doesn’t process amino acids from a whole steak or lentils the same way it processes them from supplements. Leucine in these studies may not act the same way in whole, real foods, since fiber, fat, and other nutrients slow absorption and change digestive impacts.
  • Mice don’t develop heart disease the same way humans do, so what causes atherosclerosis in mice doesn’t always translate to people. Look back at that study hypothesizing a higher risk of atherosclerosis from high protein. That number was present in a cohort of mice, not people. 
  • Increased signaling in immune cells isn’t the same as a greater number of heart attacks or plaque buildup in the body. As one study found: “protein ingestion has a negligible impact on whole-body amino acid oxidation.” Biological reactions may not always translate to risk. 

For all these reasons, among many others, we lack concrete data to say high-protein diets are “bad” for the heart. High protein may actually be critical to those recovering from heart attacks or reclaiming metabolic health.

One study found that high-protein diets improve weight loss, reduce triglycerides, and improve HDL cholesterol, all of which are protective for the heart.

We also also know people lose muscle mass and bone density due to inactivity and inflammation after a heart attack. A higher protein intake can help maintain this lean body mass, which supports exercise tolerance and recovery moving forward. 

This complements yet another study: higher protein intake after a heart attack may improve long-term patient prognosis. According to their analysis, heart attack patients eating high-quality protein had a much lower 10-year cardiovascular risk score compared to patients eating +50% less protein per week.

Why does research say two different things? 

First, nutrition science is still quite young. It’s been less than 100 years since we isolated the first vitamin, after all. The science isn’t settled, and there’s still much to learn, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we’re still exploring new biomechanisms.

We also have to look at differences in terms and study structure. There’s a big difference between studying metabolically unwell young people versus metabolically healthy older adults, for example.

And don’t forget that N = 1. One person’s response to protein won’t be the same as someone else’s, especially within unique age, sex, or health cohorts. 

But I can confidently say that the benefits of protein far outweigh any warning to the contrary, especially for those recovering from poor metabolic health.

What about all those other problems with protein?

Protein has become quite the target for misinformation. If you’re active on X, you likely know what I mean.

I can’t dispel all protein myths here, but I felt it was appropriate to cover a few topics. 

First: most people actually underconsume protein, not overconsume it. Americans have a mean protein intake of 16%, which is less than half the max range of even US food pyramid RDVs.

And no, high protein isn’t bad for the kidneys. If you live with liver and kidney problems, then yes, you may need to plan your meals. But this applies only to a very small portion of the population.

When healthy, resistance-trained adults consume high-protein diets (think 3x higher than recommended daily values), there is no evidence of harmful side effects on kidneys and renal function. You can find details of that in this study and this one.

So please: don’t believe for one second that increasing your protein intake will do more harm than good. If you’re looking to repair, restore, or protect your metabolic health, a high-protein diet will be an incredibly powerful tool.

So will too much protein hurt your heart?

No, not at all. Especially not as part of a metabolically healthy lifestyle.

And if you’re at high metabolic risk, it might be worthwhile to increase your macros. 

That means:

  • Eating more whole, real animal proteins. I recommend ruminant animals such as beef, venison, buffalo, and lamb, although chicken, turkey, and seafood are excellent choices. I talk through other options in my guide covering the proper way to set a protein goal.
  • More non-muscle proteins such as cheese, eggs, and milk. Despite what you may have heard, eating eggs won’t spike your LDL cholesterol and lead to heart disease. 
  • Supplementing when necessary with convenient protein options. Uncured, less processed options such as meat snacks may be beneficial. You could also opt for protein powders, although I’d recommend those without high quantities of lead.

Following a high-protein diet for better heart health

High-protein diets aren’t a danger to your heart health. For the vast majority of people, it’s one of the best lifestyle changes you could make. 

If you’re not sure how to get started, I’ve written quite a few guides. Learn more about using high-protein diets to support your heart health in the following resources:

Source

How much would you pay to go to the moon?

How much would you pay to go to the moon?

Nothing. It won’t happen for me in my lifetime. I don’t have enough left to jump on a starship for a jaunt to another planet, safely. The way we are planning a colony on Mars is a one-way trip. I kind of like my recliner now.

Oh, I used to brag that I could be the next Captain Kirk. That is me believing in fiction, though. I was as they say, young and dumb and full of cum back then. I was ready to slay dragons and save the damsel in distress. Age has cured that for me.

I watched the first step on the moon and later read the biographies of the people who developed the programs. It was one of the biggest crap shoots ever, that didn’t go horribly wrong. It wasn’t Star Trek; it was closer to a wagon train going to California for the gold rush, so we could beat the Soviets to the moon.

I also don’t wonder as much about what is out there. I’m pretty sure there aren’t any Romulans, or Klingons, or even Vulcans. We kind of know there aren’t little green men coming to take them to our leader.

I don’t even care about the money. Musk is spending his fortune on the aforementioned colony on Mars. Let him slay that dragon.

Breast Cancer Month Hypocrisy

I lost my Mom to breast cancer. She beat it twice and battled it for 3 decades. In what amounts to malpractice, she ultimately succumbed to it. I do not take it lightly. So before you get outraged and be a SJW Karen with your panties in a wad, read the following and see what should happen if you do more than wear a pink ribbon. There’s a ribbon for every cause, but taking action to cure it is the ultimate expression of support.

Original article and source start here.

Once again, it’s “Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” as we’re hit with pink ribbons and fundraising alerts from breast cancer groups.

Two organizations that solicit funds purportedly for fighting breast cancer are the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF).

Wouldn’t you assume that groups promoting breast cancer awareness want women to actually decrease the risk by having women know all the risk factors?

Yet the biggest promoters of Breast Cancer Awareness month either omit the abortion factor or actually deny it.

Typically, these groups list lower risk factors that line up with their pro-abortion stance. What good does it do to mention exercise or alcohol while refusing to go near what has been found in studies around the world — abortion.

It’s also absurd to list family history as a risk factor — which is true but not preventable — while refusing to discuss abortion which is preventable.

It sounds unbelievable that groups claiming to be working against breast cancer are actually promoting breast cancer by not telling young women the full truth. But that’s exactly the situation.

Breast Cancer Hypocrisy Month

The closest either group comes to the abortion issue is Komen, mentioning breastfeeding as part of a healthy life for lowering risk: “Breastfeed if you can. Women who breastfeed have a lower risk of breast cancer than women who don’t breastfeed, especially before menopause. The longer a woman breastfeeds in her lifetime, the lower her risk may be.”

Correct. But why omit the significant factor of abortion if you really want to educate people?

BCRF lists these factors: weight/diet/exercise, alcohol use, smoking, timing of pregnancy, breastfeeding, and hormone use. Under ‘timing of pregnancy,’ we read, “giving birth later (after 30) or not having children can both increase a person’s breast cancer risk.”  That’s as close as they get s to mentioning the drastic increase in risk after abortion. Yet they plead for donations: “Triple your impact for life-saving research during Breast Cancer Awareness Month!”

What’s the point of more research if they refuse to talk about the existing research?

Komen states: “Research clearly shows abortion (also called induced abortion) is not linked to an increased risk of breast cancer.”

That statement is false.

When Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, attended medical school in the 1970s, women who got breast cancer were overwhelmingly older. As a breast surgeon, she saw younger women getting breast cancer and she became alarmed.

“I became concerned because I saw a lot of women in their 30s with breast cancer.” Lanfranchi shared with Human Life International. “None of them had a genetic reason… It was heartbreaking because all three had young children… so I started looking into risk factors.”

Research already showed that if you smoked and had a child, your risk of breast cancer increased 69%, but if you smoked and had no children, the risk increased 649%. What was it about having a child that protected women from getting breast cancer, Lanfranchi wanted to know.

In 2023, JAMA published a study of U.S. cancers from 2010 to 2019.  Women age 20-29 had a 5.3% increase in breast cancer and those 30-39 had a 19.4% increase in breast cancer. Shockingly, late stage, less curable breast cancer rate under age 40 has increased 3% per year over that time period. Young black women have almost five times the abortion rate as Caucasians and are suffering the greatest increases in breast cancer. These vulnerable women need early screening if their lives are to be saved. “

So the dramatic increase in breast cancer was noticed; what wasn’t cited was the causes that had already shown up in studies done since 1957.

In 1996, Dr. Joel Brind, endocrinologist and professor at Baruch College of the City University of NY, did a meta-analysis of all research on abortion and breast cancer and found confirmation.

Abortionists like Planned Parenthood emphasize the negatives of having a child, not the ramifications of abortion. The suppression of the truth is reinforced by the nation’s two largest breast cancer charities, leaving women in the dark about a growing disease by the very people who claim to be pro-woman.

The nation’s top abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, also promotes breast cancer awareness while denying the abortion connection. They use the month of October to fundraise, bragging that they offer breast exams while they profit from abortion.

How absurd is it to offer breast screening exams while simultaneously promoting breast cancer by selling abortion?

Time to Connect the Dots

BCPI’s Dr. Lanfranchi says the research from China is conclusive that breast cancer is the #1 risk factor for abortion.

China’s 1979 one-child policy led to an explosion of breast cancer. Forced and multiple abortions led to more screening for breast cancer as the rates and mortality increased greatly.

 In 2019, the Chinese developed a risk model for Chinese women by conducting epidemiological studies to find the greatest risks in China. One study found a 151% increase risk with 1-2 abortions and a 530% increase in risk with three or more abortions. If women were over 30 years old when they had their first child, they had a 258% increased risk than women who were <25 years old when they had their first child.   

Another study in 2022 found, “that when the rate of abortion rose, so did the risk of breast cancer. This association is biologically plausible as full-term pregnancy is a protective factor for breast cancer, and the breast enlarges due to the changing level of estrogen and progesterone during pregnancy. Immature breast cells are more likely to transform into breast cancer cells when the pregnancy is ended via abortion, which raises the risk of breast cancer.”

In fact, they found abortion was the greatest risk factor with a 613% increased risk for two or more abortions. About half of all U.S. women have repeat abortions.

Apparently, “Federal grant givers (NIH and NCI) are reluctant to publish data that might call into question the safety of abortion and hormonal contraception that is deemed essential to protect our planet from global warming and over-population,” Lanfranchi points out.  “It’s ironic that in a country not known for freedoms [China], there was seemingly no problem in publishing data that could be seen as a criticism of public policy on abortion but not in the land of the free and the brave.”

Despite the dishonesty of many scientists in the U.S., the world’s scientific literature confirms the Abortion/Breast Cancer Link. 

It’s disgusting that those profiting from abortion are using breast cancer to sell more abortions. The American Life league (ALL) cautions people against supporting these organizations.

Both earned negative ratings from the ALL’s Charity Watchlist, while the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute has a positive rating. ALL’s director Katie Xavios explained the most egregious concerns uncovered in researching these organizations.

“In 2024, a staggering 360,000 women across the nation are estimated to face the devastating diagnosis of breast cancer,” observed Brown. “The devaluation of human life as practiced by the Komen Foundation and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation compounds this tragedy. We urge donors who wish to support breast cancer prevention to consider charitable organizations that affirm and protect human life regardless of stage of development.”

“Life-minded donors seeking to support the fight against breast cancer will be pleased to discover that the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute (BCPI) upholds pro-life values and does not support anti-life organizations or agendas.”

source

The Science Behind Why Socializing Drains Introverts

To the extroverts, please read this. Introverts will read this and say this is me.

ByJenn Granneman

If you’ve ever felt exhausted from socializing, there’s a very real reason — it has to do with our unique wiring as introverts.

An extrovert and an introvert walk into a bar. It’s a Saturday night, so the place is buzzing with energy. A cover band croons away on stage while groups of people stand around, clutching drinks and nearly shouting to be heard.

The extrovert takes in the scene and feels a surge of excitement. He sees social opportunities everywhere — an attractive woman at the bar, friends to chat with, and the chance to cut loose and have fun. He walks straight up to his group of friends, gives one of them a hearty slap on the back, and orders a beer.

The introvert experiences the situation differently. He hangs back for a moment, surveying the scene and taking everything in. Then, he quietly joins his friends. He feels a bit overwhelmed, drowning in the noise and activity, but he tells himself to relax — this is supposed to be fun, after all.

And for a while, the introvert does have fun. But it doesn’t last.

Soon, the introvert starts to feel tired. Really tired. Not only does his body feel physically fatigued, but his mind becomes foggy and slow (and not just from the drinks). He desperately wants to head home — or at least step outside — where it’s quiet and calm, and he can be alone. He’s already getting an introvert hangover.

He glances over at the extrovert, who’s still chatting away with friends. The extrovert doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. In fact, he looks even more energized than when they arrived.

Sound familiar?

If you’ve ever felt exhausted from socializing, there’s a very real reason. Here’s the science behind why socializing can be draining for us “quiet ones” — it has to do with our unique wiring as introverts.

Socializing Can Be Draining for Everyone

First, let’s clear a few things up. The scenario above is just an example and a generalization. Not every extrovert spends their weekends partying, and sometimes, we introverts live it up, too. We all exhibit introverted behavior at times and extroverted behavior at others. According to the famed Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, there’s no such thing as a “pure” introvert or extrovert. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum that defines introversion and extroversion.

Another point to consider: Socializing is actually draining for everyone eventually. A 2016 study from the University of Helsinki found that participants reported higher levels of fatigue three hours after socializing — whether they were introverts or extroverts. How tired they felt depended on several factors: how many people they’d met, the intensity of the interaction, and whether they had a specific goal in mind.

It makes sense that both introverts and extroverts would feel tired after socializing, as it expends energy. You have to talk, listen, and process what’s being said, among other things.

However, there are some very real differences between introverts and extroverts.

Introverts, Extroverts, and Rewards

These differences stem from how we respond to rewards. Rewards can be things like getting the phone number of an attractive stranger, getting promoted at work, or enjoying a delicious meal.

We all enjoy rewards, and we all desire them. But introverts and extroverts react differently to them.

To understand why socializing can quickly wear out introverts, I spoke with Colin DeYoung, a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, who recently published a paper on introversion. I was conducting research for my book, The Secret Lives of Introverts. DeYoung, like other experts, believes that extroverts have a more activated dopamine system than introverts.

What Is Dopamine?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a crucial role in the body’s communication system, helping to control various functions by sending signals between the brain and the body. Often referred to as the “feel-good hormone,” it’s associated with positive emotions like bliss, euphoria, and concentration. Dopamine is vital for a wide range of bodily functions, from movement to sleep to mood regulation. When you experience pleasure — such as eating your favorite foods or during sex — your brain releases dopamine.

However, there can be a dark side to dopamine. It’s strongly linked to addiction. Some recreational drugs, for example, stimulate the release of dopamine and increase its levels in the brain, leading to dependency. That’s how powerful dopamine can be.

Social media platforms tap into the power of dopamine, giving you a boost of it when you watch a funny video or receive likes on your post. This is what keeps you scrolling, even when you know you have better things to do than stare at your phone. In this way, dopamine can keep us hooked on endless scrolling.

Extroverts Have a More Active Dopamine System

So, what does this have to do with socializing?

Because extroverts have a more active dopamine system, they get more excited by the possibility of reward. Dopamine energizes them to strike up a conversation with a stranger or stay at the bar until last call. Even though these activities can be tiring, dopamine reduces the cost of effort, much like getting a shot of espresso before running a race.

Dopamine even explains why extroverts might talk louder, faster, and with more confidence. These behaviors draw more attention to themselves and increase their chances of gaining social rewards.

Introverts have dopamine, too, but our dopamine system isn’t as “turned up” as that of an extrovert. We’re simply not as driven to pursue the same rewards that extroverts chase.

Having a less active dopamine system also means that introverts may find certain levels of stimulation — like loud noise and lots of activity — to be overwhelming, annoying, and exhausting. This explains why the introvert in the bar scenario was ready to leave after a while.

Want to feel more at ease in social situations?

Discover the secrets to enjoying fun, meaningful conversations. Know exactly what to say — even if you’re introverted, shy, or socially anxious. Feel less drained and have more energy while socializing.

Be the first to hear when Jenn Granneman’s new book is released — and get two FREE gifts to help you feel more comfortable in conversations right now:

The Introvert’s Superpower

Introverts don’t seek rewards to the same degree that extroverts do. Is this a bad thing? In my opinion, no. It’s actually the introvert’s superpower.

We all know that one friend who partied too hard and paid the price, or the workaholic who compromised her health and relationships. These are people who chased rewards — hard.

Instead of seeking external validation, introverts tend to turn inward. They might research topics simply for the joy of learning something new. In their careers, they seek a calling that’s more than just a paycheck. They desire depth and intimacy in their relationships — a connection that is mind-to-mind and heart-to-heart — rather than an abundance of casual acquaintances.

I’m not suggesting that all extroverts are shallow and all introverts are deep. That’s simply not true. Sometimes extroverts pursue quiet, intrinsically rewarding activities; sometimes introverts seek status and other external rewards. A healthy, successful life for anyone should include a mix of both.

When writing my book, I asked introverts to share what motivates and energizes them. They all mentioned low-key activities, like a solo shopping trip, a meaningful conversation with a friend, finishing a good book, or expressing themselves through art. If it weren’t for the introvert’s less active dopamine system, they might not engage in these activities as much. The introvert’s way isn’t about chasing rewards but rather about seeking meaning.

Rethinking What “Wealth” Really Means in Retirement

For most of our working lives, wealth is defined in numbers. We measure it in bank balances, investment returns, property values, and retirement account statements. It’s the sum of decades of hard work and careful planning — a financial safety net meant to secure our later years. But once you actually reach retirement, something shifts. The meaning of “wealth” starts to evolve. It becomes less about how much you have, and more about how deeply you live.

When you no longer have to chase paychecks or promotions, the things that once defined success lose their urgency. The focus moves from accumulation to appreciation — from “How much do I have?” to “What truly matters now?”

Time Becomes the Ultimate Currency

In retirement, time is the one asset you can finally spend freely. It’s the resource you once traded away for income, deadlines, and career goals. Now it’s yours again. How you choose to invest it — in travel, family, faith, or personal passions — says far more about your wealth than any number on a statement.

There’s something profoundly freeing about waking up without an alarm clock or a to-do list set by someone else. That sense of control over your time is a form of wealth that many people don’t recognize until they experience it.

Relationships Over Returns

While financial comfort is essential for peace of mind, studies repeatedly show that social connections have a greater impact on longevity and happiness than income or assets. True wealth in retirement often comes from nurturing the relationships that bring meaning to your life — whether it’s time with a spouse, deepening bonds with friends, or creating memories with grandchildren.

Some retirees even use their newfound freedom to rebuild old relationships that fell to the wayside during busy working years. Picking up the phone, writing a letter, or visiting an old friend can enrich your life in ways no financial investment ever could.

Health as the Foundation of Prosperity

Ask anyone facing health challenges, and they’ll tell you: without well-being, wealth doesn’t mean much. Good health allows you to enjoy the fruits of your labor — the travels, the hobbies, the simple pleasures. Maintaining physical strength, mental clarity, and emotional balance becomes a daily investment in your quality of life.

That might mean spending a little extra on nutritious food, gym memberships, or preventive care — not as expenses, but as deposits into your most important asset. A strong body and mind are what allow you to truly experience the richness of this chapter.

Purpose Is the New Paycheck

Many retirees struggle at first with the sudden loss of structure that work once provided. But retirement offers a chance to redefine purpose on your own terms. Maybe that means mentoring young people, volunteering, creating art, or building something new. Purpose fuels vitality and joy — and often leads to the most rewarding kind of “profit”: fulfillment.

You don’t need to earn a salary to feel valuable. Sometimes the wealthiest retirees are the ones who give the most — of their time, wisdom, and compassion.

Gratitude Turns Enough Into Abundance

Gratitude has a way of reframing everything. When you look at what you already have — health, freedom, family, faith, or the simple beauty of a quiet morning — life feels abundant, no matter what your portfolio says.

True wealth isn’t measured by accumulation but by appreciation. It’s realizing that every sunrise, every conversation, every moment of laughter is part of your return on investment for a life well-lived.

In the end, rethinking wealth isn’t about abandoning money — it’s about putting it in its rightful place. Financial security matters, but it’s just one piece of a much larger picture. Real wealth is health, time, love, peace, and purpose.

That’s the kind of wealth that doesn’t fade with the markets — and the kind that only grows richer with age.

Source

What Food Would You Say Is Your Specialty

What food would you say is your specialty?

When I was young, my Mom told me some people live to eat, while others eat to live.

Being an introvert, long ass meals are tedious for me. I just need something to fill up my stomach.

I also worked in an Italian restaurant that had real food based on recipes that came from the Mother Country, not just pasta.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve attended the three-hour business lunches in France, which often featured exquisite food. I’ve also gone hunting at 3 in the morning, and ridden in many 100-mile bike races that started at sunrise. I’d have to cram as much food as I could in the shortest amount of time, as I was on a deadline.

I know the difference between 5-star food, and reheated chicken and rice in the dark hours of the morning. I just need a proper meal (not fast food or processed) to get me to the next meal.

I bet some readers served in the military who ate some awful stuff, yet survived.

In contrast, my brother-in-law was the president of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and was obese for a good part of his life. He lived to eat and has failed at every diet and/or weight loss plan that exists. He now has health problems I saw coming decades ago. He also got the COVID-19 jab and has symptoms from that.

One last thing, I never miss the Hot Dog eating contest on July 4th. I’ve been a fan since Kobayashi was transforming the “sport”.

Different Headlines: Penis Costume At No Kings Protest, The Rules For A Long And Happy Life,

Superbowl Halftime

Petition Seeks to Swap Bad Bunny for George Strait at Super Bowl – so many good songs…You know me better than that, Clear Blue Sky, Amarillo By Morning, and more. I usually put the halftime show on hold the last few years. I can’t remember a really good one. If it’s Bad Bunny, I’ll go from 2nd to 3rd quarter while I miss all of the halftime show.

NFL Claims Bad Bunny Will Deliver “United Moment” at Super Bowl Halftime Show – and pigs can fly also.

Life

The Rules for a Long and Happy Life

No Kings Results

Soros Poured Millions Into No Kings Protests — but They Still Flopped

The ‘Unifying’ No Kings Protests Were Anything But

No Kings Idiots Are Beyond ‘Lose Your Job’ and Entered ‘Criminal Territory’ With Violent Rhetoric [VIDEO]

Alabama Police Arrest 61-Year-Old Woman in Penis Costume at Anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ Protest

The War On Men and Masulinity

Western Civilization Depends on Men and Masculinity – read it before you judge the title or you are the problem.

Louvre Heist

Historic ‘First Woman’ Security Chief Oversaw Embarrassing Louvre Heist – Res ipsa loquitur

Surveillance Camera Pointed the Wrong Way Allowed Louvre Heist

Cancer

The Silent Threat That Can Influence Your Cancer Survival

WNBA

The season ended – I had no idea, and cared even less.

Politics

Pelosi to Announce Plans After Nov. 4 California Election – She is insider trading again? Got more cases of Vodka from Russia?

EV’s

Tesla set for strong quarter fueled by rush to get expiring US EV tax credits – And then we’ll see if anyone wants one without a credit

8 Confessions of an Extreme Introvert

By Delilah Ho

If I come across as rude, it’s not that I don’t like you. As a very introverted person, I’m probably just uncomfortable.

It’s difficult being an introvert in a world that only works smoothly if you’re an extrovert. You’re expected to perform well in large groups, socialize often, speak up loudly, and be outgoing. As a highly introverted person, I get mentally and physically fatigued doing all of those things on a daily basis.

Here are eight things I wish people knew about me as an extreme introvert who also experiences social anxiety. Fellow “quiet ones,” can you relate?

Confessions of an Extreme Introvert

1. If I come across as rude, it’s not that I don’t like you. I’m probably just uncomfortable.

Some assume that I don’t like people because I don’t talk or smile much when I first meet them. It’s never my intention to be rude or cold, it’s just that there are a thousand things running through my head at the moment: “What should I say?” “What do you think of me?” and “Do I look like a hot mess right now?” And so on.

I’m quiet around the people I don’t know well, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t like them. As an extreme introvert, I’m just uncomfortable when meeting new people. Honestly, sometimes just being around new people overwhelms me and I freeze up.

It’s easy for my extroverted friends to chat with strangers and make new friends at practically a moment’s notice. But for me, it’s like I need a month in advance to mentally prepare! And even if I did get that advanced notice, when the day arrived, I probably still would not feel ready.

2. I love being alone but I hate the loneliness.

As an introvert, I enjoy doing things by myself. I go shopping on my own. I go to coffee shops on my own. I go to the movies on my own — and I absolutely love it. I don’t feel awkward or uncomfortable being alone in public. Honestly, it’s my preferred state. I love watching everything going on around me and being alone with my own thoughts.

However, as much as I relish being alone, there are times when I crave the love, company, and affection of other human beings. Although I say that I don’t mind doing things alone, sometimes I wish I had someone to do those things with me.

You know, doing what friends do.

You see, no one likes being lonely, even if they’re extremely introverted. We “quiet ones” need close relationships and strong connections in our life, too.

3. Small talk makes me nervous.

I despise small talk because I don’t know how to act around small talk. Usually, when people engage me in chitchat, I give short answers like “oh” and “yeah.” As a result, I think I unintentionally come across as aloof or rude.

Little by little, I’m getting better at making conversation, because it can be a joy to talk with someone who “gets” me. But to be completely honest, I still get nervous chatting about the weather or my weekend plans. It makes my heart beat fast, and later, I think about how I acted in the conversation. Sometimes I beat myself up for not knowing what to say or do. I know not every introvert experiences social anxiety, but it’s my reality every day.

I actually prefer deep conversations straight away.

Ask me what I think of the latest news. Ask me what I think of Freud. Ask me what I think about global warming. Oddly, I can answer those questions without feeling the least bit awkward.

4. I wish I had more close friends.

I have a small group of good friends. They are people who I feel comfortable being around, so I almost always hang out exclusively with them. But if I’m being honest, I wish I had more people that I could hang out with. Yet this goes back to #1 — I feel uncomfortable meeting new people.

Honestly, there are times when I wish people would approach me instead of me having to approach them. That may seem like a strange thing for an extreme introvert to say, but it’s easier for me when other people take the lead in social situations.

Because of this challenge, I finished four years of college with hardly any friends. I may say that, as an extreme introvert, I’m fine with it, but I actually regret not making more of an effort to meet people. Again, it’s a skill I’m working to improve, but like any new skill, it takes time.

5. Even though I love him, dealing with my extroverted boyfriend can be stressful.

I love my extroverted boyfriend but sometimes it drains me to be with him.

He often wants to do things that I would not do in a million years, and he struggles to understand why I’d rather stay home than go out and “explore,” as he calls it. He wants me to meet his friends and family, but I get extremely anxious just thinking about doing that. Sometimes he tells me about social plans last minute, which gives me little time to mentally prepare.

Source

Personally, I don’t agree with number 4. I’m good with what I have. I weed out the insincere ones and my friends are my true friends, few as they are

Somebody finally figured out how ‘wokeism’ started — and no, it wasn’t Obama or Marxism…

This is a good breakdown of how it happened. It figures who was behind it. They can ruin everything they touch. Even my son says 9 out of 10 girls are not worth it because they make it that way.

Writer Helen Andrews just dropped a piece that’s getting a lot of buzz in conservative media. In her new piece, Helen argues that the rise of “wokeness” wasn’t born from Marxism, academia, or even Obama-era politics. That in itself had people shocked. Helen theorizes that it actually came from something way simpler… the quiet but steady feminization of America’s most powerful institutions.

Intrigued? Yes, so were we….

READ MORE: Bernie-backed Maine oyster farmer exposed: ‘communist’ hates fellow ‘rural white Americans’…

Andrews calls this cultural shift “The Great Feminization,” and her theory flips a lot of earlier assumptions on their head. Helen pinpoints this shift back to the moment Larry Summers was pushed out of Harvard back in 2005 for suggesting that men and women might have different skills in science. Helen believes that was the spark that ignited the entire woke era… when emotional outrage replaced rational debate and these elite institutions began enforcing left-wing ideology through feelings instead of facts.

Andrews backs up her argument with data that shows how back in the 2010s, women became the majority in nearly every elite profession. From law and medicine to media and academia, the ladies began running the show. Helen says once that shift happened, the entire vibe changed: empathy over logic, safety over risk, and comfort over competition.

Compact Mag:

In 2019, I read an article about Larry Summers and Harvard that changed the way I look at the world. The author, writing under the pseudonym “J. Stone,” argued that the day Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard University marked a turning point in our culture. The entire “woke” era could be extrapolated from that moment, from the details of how Summers was cancelled and, most of all, who did the cancelling: women.

The basic facts of the Summers case were familiar to me. On January 14, 2005, at a conference on “Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce,” Larry Summers gave a talk that was supposed to be off the record. In it, he said that female underrepresentation in hard sciences was partly due to “different availability of aptitude at the high end” as well as taste differences between men and women “not attributable to socialization.” Some female professors in attendance were offended and sent his remarks to a reporter, in defiance of the off-the-record rule. The ensuing scandal led to a no-confidence vote by the Harvard faculty and, eventually, Summers’s resignation.

The essay argued that it wasn’t just that women had cancelled the president of Harvard; it was that they’d cancelled him in a very feminine way. They made emotional appeals rather than logical arguments. “When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn’t breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill,” said Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at MIT. Summers made a public statement clarifying his remarks, and then another, and then a third, with the apology more insistent each time. Experts chimed in to declare that everything Summers had said about sex differences was within the scientific mainstream. These rational appeals had no effect on the mob hysteria.

This cancellation was feminine, the essay argued, because all cancellations are feminine. Cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field. That is the Great Feminization thesis, which the same author later elaborated upon at book length: Everything you think of as “wokeness” is simply an epiphenomenon of demographic feminization.

The explanatory power of this simple thesis was incredible. It really did unlock the secrets of the era we are living in. Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post-Obama disillusionment. It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently. How did I not see it before?

Possibly because, like most people, I think of feminization as something that happened in the past before I was born. When we think about women in the legal profession, for example, we think of the first woman to attend law school (1869), the first woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court (1880), or the first female Supreme Court Justice (1981).

A much more important tipping point is when law schools became majority female, which occurred in 2016, or when law firm associates became majority female, which occurred in 2023. When Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed to the high court, only 5 percent of judges were female. Today women are 33 percent of the judges in America and 63 percent of the judges appointed by President Joe Biden.

The same trajectory can be seen in many professions: a pioneering generation of women in the 1960s and ’70s; increasing female representation through the 1980s and ’90s; and gender parity finally arriving, at least in the younger cohorts, in the 2010s or 2020s. In 1974, only 10 percent of New York Times reporters were female. The New York Times staff became majority female in 2018 and today the female share is 55 percent.

Medical schools became majority female in 2019. Women became a majority of the college-educated workforce nationwide in 2019. Women became a majority of college instructors in 2023. Women are not yet a majority of the managers in America but they might be soon, as they are now 46 percent. So the timing fits. Wokeness arose around the same time that many important institutions tipped demographically from majority male to majority female.

The substance fits, too. Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition. Other writers who have proposed their own versions of the Great Feminization thesis, such as Noah Carl or Bo Winegard and Cory Clark, who looked at feminization’s effects on academia, offer survey data showing sex differences in political values. One survey, for example, found that 71 percent of men said protecting free speech was more important than preserving a cohesive society, and 59 percent of women said the opposite.

We encourage you to read her entire piece here.

Here’s Helen speaking at NatCon 5 in DC, where she expands on her “Great Feminization” theory.

More here plus the video. I couldn’t embed it but it’s at the link

get woke go broke? How about it just ruining everything it touches, especially our lives

Best Of Pet Meme’s – Part 1

This will be an intermittent series. It’s a happy post while I’m out. Don’t forget, pets are an Introvert’s best friend, and the first thing we look for when stuck with people

Pet Meme’s To Share, Some People Are Animals

Pet Meme’s And Stuff

Pet Meme’s

Pet Meme’s

These Are the 19 Most Stressful Experiences an Introvert Can Have

ByJenn Grannema

Introverts’ brains are wired a little differently than extroverts’ brains, so everyday experiences can become stressful for us “quiet ones.”

Let’s face it, life is stressful, whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert. But if you’re introverted, like 30-50 percent of the population, certain situations that seem easy for others can become very stressful for you. That’s because introverts’ brains are wired somewhat differently than those of extroverts, making them more prone to burnout, exhaustion, and overwhelm.

What Stresses Out Introverts

1. Talking to people

“Even though I’m a singer in a band and a fairly confident person overall, sometimes it can be so hard for me to talk to people or to ask for what I want.”

2. Being put on the spot, especially at work

“I can usually write a wonderful response if I’m given a bit of time, and I’m even pretty good at giving a spoken response if I’m prepared. But when a coworker or my boss demand I answer right now, my mind goes blank under the pressure, even if I’d otherwise know the answer.”

3. Making small talk with strangers or acquaintances

“My brain shuts off and I can’t think of anything to say.”

4. Job interviews

“All the attention is on you. I also hate a lot of the general questions and really hate having to answer what my best qualities are or what makes me the best person for the job. You’re put on the spot with a question and don’t have time to think about your answer — and introverts need that processing time!”

5. Phone calls… to anyone about anything

“I tend to either over-explain myself in hopes of avoiding miscommunication (one of my biggest anxiety triggers), or I’m forced into silence the majority of the time because the person on the other end is a talker. So I feel awkward. Silence over the phone is waaayyy more awkward than in-person silence (which I love).”

6. Meeting new people, especially when the first impression really counts

“I have a few good friends, and they easily see the real me. But as an introvert, it takes a while for my real personality to come out around people I don’t know well. When I meet someone new, I inadvertently come across as closed off, distant, or even stuck up — and this really sucks, especially when you’re trying to make a good impression! Because I know I do this, I put extra pressure on myself, and even then, I finding myself overthinking about the interaction afterward.”

7. Having to deal with people when you haven’t had time to decompress

“When I work long stretches in a row and have to deal with coworkers and customers while running on fumes, it becomes incredibly stressful.”

8. People who drop by unannounced

“Even though I may enjoy that person’s company, I still need time to mentally prepare to be ‘on’ to socialize. Please give me a heads up before you come to my home or drop by my office. I promise you’ll get a better interaction out of me because I won’t be so flustered.”

9. When people ask very direct personal questions

“I know that some mean well, but it feels like interrogating, plus I find it hard to express myself verbally to certain people.”

10. Group projects and all the drama associated with them

“So many times I’ve asked to do it myself instead.”

11. Speaking in front of a large group

“My mind goes blank, I stumble over my words, and I hate having so many eyes looking at me.”

12. Having to give someone negative feedback

“As a highly sensitive introvert, my empathy kicks in and prevents the words from coming out. It feels entirely unnatural and requires a titanic amount of effort. I want to make sure I’ve considered every angle, that I’m being fair and considerate. Speaking feels premature, even after weeks of preparation or contemplation.”

Want to feel more at ease in social situations?

Discover the secrets to enjoying fun, meaningful conversations. Know exactly what to say — even if you’re introverted, shy, or socially anxious. Feel less drained and have more energy while socializing.

Be the first to hear when Jenn Granneman’s new book is released — and get two FREE gifts to help you feel more comfortable in conversations right now:

13. Staff meetings

“I feel like I know what I need to do and I don’t need a staff meeting to do my job. As awful as it sounds, I can only take so much of other people’s opinions and direction. I find I just want to do things my own way.”

14. Leading a meeting or discussion…

“…especially with students or other folks with little incentive to talk. As an introvert, I won’t talk just to fill the silence, so if no one else is talking, we all just kind of sit there and stare at each other.”

15. Working in an open office

“With so much noise and frequent interruptions, some days it can feel like the walls are closing in on you.”

16. That moment when you realize you have to head into the extroverted world

“What’s the most stressful for me? That moment after I’ve arrived at my destination 15 minutes early (gladly) and enjoyed sitting in serene silence alone — and now I’m dreading getting out of my car and being thrown into the mix of everyone in this extroverted world. And I realize that I’ll have to do more than just blend in as highly sensitive introvert — I will have to become what they need me to be. And that’s exhausting.”

17. Networking events

“You’re expected to balance food and drink, make yourself heard over the din, be enclosed by the press of bodies, filter out all the other conversations so you can focus on what’s being said — and be brilliant and sparkling! The difficulty level goes up even more when you have to introduce someone and you can’t remember their name! Names do not stick in my brain.”

18. Confrontation of any kind

“My brain kicks into overdrive, making it almost impossible for me to think clearly, which just makes the problem even worse. And then my mouth just starts saying anything, and I come off feeling foolish because I know I’m saying things that don’t make sense but I can’t stop myself. Afterward, I’ll be left thinking about the interaction for hours or days or even weeks.”

19. Dealing with people in general

“They drain me.”

source