JasonDibble @JDib71

Agreed.

My husband is busting his ass today in a steel mill in 90+ degree heat 60 hours a week all summer long and I’ll be at my job on July 4 at the hospital while you enjoy your holiday you starchy shirted jackass. Tell me we don’t work as hard as you.

Bitch you missed

EarthquakePrediction @Quakeprediction

a day ago

6.0 earthquake hits south of California - 28 HOUR WARNING - ALERT - 5.5 to 7.0 earthquake is likely in the Los Angeles area during the next 28 hours.

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The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day: 182 years ago today, on July 1, 1844, Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, the first commissioner general of The Adelsverein, arrived in Galveston. He bought land on Matagorda Bay for a port of arrival he named Carlshafen (later Indianola), traveled extensively in Texas, and subsequently advised the Adelsverein to buy specific tracts of land. The first German settlers arrived at Indianola in December, 1844 but did not reach their new home --- New Braunfels ---- until Mar. 21, 1845. And the next thing you know, bread was being baked, beer was being brewed, and they were planning Wurstfest. In the past, I tried to think of the courage it must have taken to completely uproot oneself from a place in which you were born and raised, get on a ship, travel 5,350 miles to a place in which a different language is spoken, different crops grow etc ... And I wondered why somebody would do that, so I've been researching it for the past few days. It turns out that it wasn't just the siren song of freedom's call that caused them to take the chance. Rather, it was a combination of that song and desparation. Briefly: First, it's important to remember that "Germany" did not yet exist as a unified nation. Instead, there were dozens of independent kingdoms, duchies, principalities, and free cities loosely organized within the German Confederation. Many of these states were struggling economically. Population growth had outpaced available farmland, particularly in rural areas. Families that had once expected to divide farms among their children found that there simply wasn't enough land to go around. A peasant's son might inherit a field too small to support a family, or nothing at all. Economic hardship was widespread. The beginnings of industrialization disrupted traditional crafts and trades. Artisans, weavers, and small farmers often found themselves squeezed between rising prices and declining opportunities. In the years just before Prince Carl's recruiting efforts, a series of poor harvests and food shortages made matters worse. The potato blight that devastated Ireland also affected parts of continental Europe, and grain prices soared. There were political pressures as well. Many Germans lived under conservative governments that restricted freedom of speech, censored newspapers, and discouraged political participation. After the defeat of Napoleon, European rulers had worked hard to suppress liberal and nationalist movements. Young, educated Germans who dreamed of constitutional government and greater personal liberty often found themselves frustrated by the rigid political order. Texas, by contrast, was marketed as a place of extraordinary opportunity. The promotional literature distributed by the Adelsverein painted a picture that must have seemed almost fantastical: abundant cheap land, political freedom, a mild climate, and the chance to build prosperous farming communities while preserving German language and culture. To a struggling farmer in Hesse or Nassau, Texas appeared as a vast blank canvas. Of course, as we all we know, there's marketing and then there's reality, and woe be unto he who conflates the two. Prince Carl himself quickly discovered that central Texas was far more challenging than brochures suggested. Many immigrants arrived with unrealistic expectations, and thousands suffered terribly during the difficult overland journey from the coast to the interior. Many of them walked the 130 miles from Carlshafen to New Braunfels. Can you imagine? The heat, the mosquitoes ... EEESH! But they were tough, smart folks and they succeeded. So my take is this: German migration to Texas was driven by a combination of "push" and "pull": Germany pushed with poverty, overcrowding, and political frustration, while Texas pulled with promises of land, freedom, and the possibility of starting life over on an entirely new frontier. The Germans came and it was ausgezeichnet. Personally, I'm glad they did, on account of I'm a huge fan of apple strudel. And beer, of course. By the way, I really recommend "Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World" by Christopher Clark for folks more interested in this subject. Shown here: New Braunfels circa 1895.

The results were not subtle. Wildlife-vehicle collisions dropped by more than 80% overall. For elk and deer, they dropped by more than 96%.

Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature

3 days ago

Canada built bridges for bears, and the bears used them. So did wolves, cougars, elk, moose, lynx, wolverines, bighorn sheep, black bears, deer, and almost everything else trying to cross one of the busiest highways in the Rockies. The Trans-Canada Highway cuts through Banff

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June 30, 1943. The Allies kick off a huge campaign in the South Pacific, and it is built around a clever, ruthless idea that would help win the whole ocean war. Do not take the enemy's strongest fort. Just cut it off and let it rot. The problem was a place called Rabaul. The Japanese had turned it into a monster of a base, packed with planes, ships, and tens of thousands of troops, the anchor of their whole position in the South Pacific. Storming it head on would have cost a horrifying number of lives. So the Allies decided not to. The plan was to land all around it instead, hopping from island to island, seizing the spots that mattered and surrounding the big base on every side. It opened on this day with landings in the Solomons and on the coast of New Guinea, the first steps of the squeeze. Over the following months they tightened the noose. They took the airfields, cut the sea lanes, and bombed Rabaul until its planes were gone and its harbor was useless. And then they just left it there. A hundred thousand Japanese troops, dug in and ready for a fight that never came, completely sealed off and useless for the rest of the war. They sat on their mighty fortress while the war sailed right past them and on toward Japan. It was a brutal kind of genius. Why pay in blood for a fortress when you can simply walk around it and leave the enemy to wither.

Bought some fireworks today and I wasn't sure I'd picked out the right stuff until the salesman smiled and high-foured me.

I failed! This fixture isn’t the only such one. Colombia versus Ghana also shares this distinction. Despite the 5000+ likes and numerous retweets, it’s only right to delete it. Sorry. I got this one wrong! Must do better…

163 years ago at dawn, a Union general named John Buford stood in the cupola of a Lutheran seminary west of a little Pennsylvania town and understood something almost nobody else did yet. The war was about to land here, on these three low ridges, whether anyone wanted it or not. The night before he had told a subordinate that within forty-eight hours a great battle would be fought on the ground in front of them. He was off by only a few hours. Buford had roughly 2,700 cavalrymen and a suicidal assignment. Robert E. Lee’s infantry was coming down the Chambersburg Pike in the thousands, and Buford’s job was to hold the high ground long enough for the Union infantry to get there. Lose those ridges and the Confederates would own the good ground for the whole battle. So he chose to fight dismounted, trading space for time, knowing full well he was spending men’s lives by the minute to buy hours. The battle actually opened around 7:30 that morning about three miles out, at a vidette post on the pike in front of a blacksmith named Ephraim Wisler’s house. A lieutenant of the 8th Illinois Cavalry, Marcellus Jones, saw Confederate infantry coming up the road, borrowed a carbine off Sergeant Levi Shafer, rested it on a fence rail, and fired at a mounted officer six or seven hundred yards away. He almost certainly missed. Didn’t matter. The point of that shot was not to hit a man. It was to say the enemy is here, and it started the loudest three days in American history. Something like seven million rounds would be fired on that field before it was over. Jones fired the first one. Buford’s troopers held. Barely. They fell back yard by grudging yard while Buford sat his horse and waited on the one man who could turn a delaying action into a decision. Around mid-morning John Reynolds rode up ahead of his infantry. Reynolds was, by a lot of accounts, the finest general the Union army had. Lincoln had reportedly offered him command of the whole Army of the Potomac weeks earlier and Reynolds had effectively turned it down. He met Buford, took one look, and made the call that decided everything: we fight here. He sent riders galloping to bring up the rest of the army and personally started shoving his lead brigades into the fight. Around 10:15, while positioning the 2nd Wisconsin at the edge of Herbst Woods, Reynolds turned in the saddle to check on the men coming up behind him. His last words were something like forward men, for God’s sake, and drive those fellows out of the woods. A bullet took him in the back of the neck and he was dead before he hit the ground. His orderly said he never spoke or moved again, that he had never seen a ball do its work so instantly. He was the highest-ranking man on either side to die at Gettysburg, killed inside the first few hours of a fight he had personally chosen to start. He had a fiancée named Kate waiting on him. She entered a convent after they buried him. And here is the part people forget. By the end of that first day it looked like a Confederate win. They shattered two Union corps and drove the survivors back through the streets in a bloody, jostling retreat. But the beaten Federals rallied on the high ground south of town, on Cemetery Hill and the ridge running off it, exactly the ground Buford had bled his cavalry to protect at sunrise. Lee spent the next two days throwing his army at those heights and breaking it against them. Pickett’s Charge died on that ridge on July 3rd. The Confederacy never mounted a serious invasion of the North again. All of it, the whole hinge of the war, came down to a stubborn cavalryman who refused to give up three ridges, an infantry general who rode toward the sound of the guns and paid for it with his life inside three hours, and a nervous Illinois lieutenant who borrowed a rifle at half past seven in the morning and fired the shot that started the rest of American history. Same date. This morning. 163 years ago.

The Pennsylvania State Senate is urging Congress to award the Medal of Honor to the late "Band of Brothers" hero Major Richard ‘Dick’ Winters. The former Easy Company commander was portrayed by Damian Lewis in the HBO miniseries. Winters was recommended for the Medal of Honor during WWII for his leadership at Brécourt Manor in Normandy on D-Day, but he instead received the Distinguished Service Cross (in part due to the Army's quota system at the time of only one Medal of Honor per division for the Normandy campaign and it was already being given to Lt. Col. Robert G. Cole). A previous attempt was made in 2007 but the bill to grant Winters the Medal died in the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Military Personnel. #BandofBrothers #RichardWinters #ww2 #EasyCompany #WWII #ww2history

Jefferson named his sources in the Declaration: Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, and Sidney. The 27 grievances after "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" aren't a list of complaints — they're a legal argument that educated readers in 1776 would have recognized on sight. Historian Don Hagist has called it what it actually is: an impeachment proceeding. English law already had a framework for charging a monarch with breaking his obligations to his subjects. Jefferson didn't invent the argument. He filed the paperwork. He submitted a draft. Adams and Franklin made changes. Congress revised roughly a quarter of the text before July 4. The founding document of American freedom is a committee product. Only 29% of Americans have read the whole thing. The part everyone skips the critical part. Without that argument holding up, you might be speaking with an English accent right now. And July 4 is just another day. Full piece: pastpassport.com/p/jefferson-wr… Follow: X: @Pastpassport Substack: pastpassport.com

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EarthquakePrediction @Quakeprediction

9 hours ago

Very high earthquake risk remains entrenched across the Los Angeles area today - 07/01/2026.

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I don't find the lobster and steak comment as offensive as the dismissive comment about people who are struggling with affordability not working as hard as he does. Congress is so out of touch with reality.

MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch

a day ago

PabloReports: How do House Republicans make the case that you're fighting for affordability when you go back to your districts? Nehls: Affordability? What are you talking about? I'm gonna go there tomorrow. I'm gonna get me a couple of big lobster tails. I'm gonna get me some

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WHAT??? Stop this insanity. Somebody. Anybody.

Sammi🦋 @StoriesBySammi

a day ago

"Our public lands are assets, to be developed and sold off to help pay down America's debt." That's Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. He's now leading a review that touches wilderness policy across roughly 75 million acres nationwide — managed by the National Park Service, Fish

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Remember that SpongeBob episode where King Neptune made thousands of patties at once using magic and they tasted like slop, whilst SpongeBob’s single patty tasted amazing because it was made with love and dedication? This is a post about AI

why the hell does Netflix help me spell a movie they don’t have??

📽️Band of Brothers – Lieutenant Speirs Takes Command at Foy This powerful scene from Band of Brothers shows one of the most iconic leadership moments of the series. During the assault on the town of Foy, Easy Company’s commander, Lieutenant Dike, freezes under heavy fire. Captain Winters, seeing the attack stalling, makes a bold decision — he relieves Dike on the spot and puts Lieutenant Ronald Speirs in command. Speirs doesn’t hesitate. He immediately takes charge, gives clear orders, and leads from the front by sprinting straight through German lines under fire to link up with the rest of the company. His fearless action instantly shifts the momentum and restores confidence in the men. The scene perfectly captures the difference between a leader who directs from safety and one who leads by example in the most dangerous moments. #BandOfBrothers #LieutenantSpeirs #EasyCompany #WW2 #WorldWarII #MovieScene #Leadership #Foy

NEW: Arizona has a huge school voucher program, and the money is being spent in shocking ways — lingerie, Xboxes, Disney vacations. The vouchers were sold as helping poor kids, but the money is going to rich families and private schools, while public schools close and suffer.

The vote that would create the United States was deadlocked, and the man who could break the tie was eighty miles away, dying of cancer, on the wrong side of a thunderstorm. His name was Caesar Rodney. On the first of July 1776, while Congress argued itself toward independence in Philadelphia, he was stuck back in Delaware. He was tamping down Loyalist trouble, in constant pain from the cancer eating at his face and fighting for breath due to his asthma. Then the letter came. Delaware's two delegates in Congress were split. One for independence, one against. Without a tiebreaker, the colonies would not stand united. And a divided front was exactly what the Crown was counting on. He did not hesitate. He climbed onto his horse near midnight and rode straight into the storm. Lightning split the sky. The roads turned to sludge. A journey that normally took two days but he made it in eighteen hours. He stopped only to change horses, soaked with every mile. He reached Independence Hall on the morning of July 2 just as the vote was called, still in his boots and spurs. Caked in mud. Thomas McKean never forgot the sight of him standing in the doorway. Rodney walked in and cast his vote for independence. It broke Delaware's tie, and with that, not a single colony stood against the break from Britain. On this day, 250 years ago, a dying man rode all night through a storm so America could be born. America 250 🇺🇸

In one region of Indonesia, malaria rates dropped from 16.5% to nearly zero. The fix wasn't pharmaceutical. It was fish. Farmers there raise fish directly in flooded rice paddies, a practice roughly 2,000 years old. The fish eat mosquito larvae before they mature, which is what crashed the malaria rate. They also eat insect pests and weeds in the rice itself, and their waste fertilizes the crop as they swim through it. The rice gives them shade and cover in return. One field, two harvests, and a public health outcome nobody was trying for. The numbers hold up under modern scrutiny. Studies have found rice-fish systems use 68 percent less pesticide and 24 percent less fertilizer than conventional rice farming, with equal or higher rice yields. Same land, fewer chemical inputs, plus a second source of protein and income from fish that were already doing the pest control. The Green Revolution pushed rice farming toward chemical monoculture, and practices like this nearly disappeared in the process. It's coming back because it never stopped working. A flooded field isn't a factory. It's an ecosystem, and apparently it can out-perform a malaria program too.

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