CCC - Catholic Constitutional Conservative. Important Things: Science, Theology, Music, Debate, Coffee, Chocolate, Dogs.
Joined January 2017
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Critical Thinker C retweeted
Last May, I waited two hours in line for a hamburger.
On a U.S. Air Force base. In Tokyo.
Once a year, Yokota Air Base opens its gates for a friendship festival. Over a hundred thousand Japanese people show up. The Americans who live there run the food booths.
The burger line was two hours long.
Nobody complained. Nobody cut. A man stood at the very end holding a sign that said "END OF LINE," like a human flag.
My American friend stared at it. "Two hours? For a burger?"
"In Japan," I said, "this is a pilgrimage."
The old man in front of me had a cane and came alone. He didn't say a word for ninety minutes.
Then he turned around and asked me, in Japanese, if I could translate one thing when we got to the front.
The guy at the grill was maybe 20. Texas accent. Sweating through his shirt.
The old man bowed. Deep. Then he spoke, and I translated:
"In 1946, I was eight years old. I was hungry. An American soldier gave me his chocolate and his lunch. I never learned his name.
So I come every year. I wait in line. I eat one hamburger.
That is how I say thank you."
The grill went quiet.
The kid took off his gloves, walked around the table, and shook the old man's hand with both of his.
"Sir. For whoever he was… you're welcome."
Then he made him a burger with three patties.
The old man tried to pay. The kid pushed the money back.
The old man tried again. The kid pushed it back again.
The old man tried a third time.
"Sir," the kid said, "in Texas, you don't win this argument."
The old man laughed for the first time all day.
He's 88 now. He says he'll be back next May. He's bringing his great-grandson.
Two hours. One hamburger. Eighty years of thank you.
Critical Thinker C retweeted
A young boy named Laurence was so troubled by the thought that he loved Aslan more than he loved Jesus that his mother wrote to C.S. Lewis about it. The legendary British author replied that Laurence “can’t really love Aslan more than Jesus,” because the lion was not a symbol of Christ: to Lewis, Aslan was Christ.
That answer makes more sense once you know how Narnia began: many people assume Lewis sat down to teach children about Christianity and built a story around the lesson, an idea he dismissed as “pure moonshine.” Narnia started instead with pictures he had carried in his head for years, like a faun with an umbrella walking through a snowy wood. Then, as he tried to turn them into a story, “suddenly Aslan came bounding into it,” and even Lewis couldn’t fully explain it: “I don’t know where the Lion came from or why He came.”
Once the lion was there, Lewis began to see who he really was. If Christ entered a world like Narnia, he asked himself, what would He become? In a land of talking animals, he reasoned, the answer had to be an animal too. He chose a lion because it is the king of the beasts, because the Bible itself calls Christ the Lion of Judah, and because, he admitted, he had been having strange dreams about lions when he began writing.
With that in mind, the most famous scene in the books takes on a new meaning: when Aslan dies on the Stone Table in place of a traitor and returns at sunrise, Lewis wasn’t hiding the Easter story inside a fairy tale, he was picturing it happening a second time, in another world. And at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis has Aslan say it himself, in words meant as much for the reader as for the children:
"I am in your world too. But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."
The entire point of being sworn into office with your hand on any religious book is that you are swearing to uphold the values contained within that book.
Islamic values are not foundational to this country. Christian values are. That’s why using ONLY a Bible should be mandatory.
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This looks AWESOME!
Now remembering all of the people complaining about the state of the ‘dead grass’ after the 250th MMA Arena was dismantled… as though Trump would ever just leave a mess and not repair it.
Not only did he repair it - he again gave the WH a timeless improvement that will last for decades.
Nice Job, DJT!
BREAKING: President Trump releases the first image of the new Heliport Landing Zone on the South Lawn of the White House.
"It is truly a work of art and, even the Trump Haters are saying, 'Wow, that’s really good!'"
"It was completed ahead of schedule, under budget and, again, though expensive, was a Gift to America!"
Critical Thinker C retweeted
Dear Muslims: My family and I have decided to move from the US to a Muslim country. We haven't picked which one yet—we're still comparing which one offers the best benefits package.
All my neighbors want to come too. And my neighbors' neighbors. And all their friends. And their friends' friends. Millions of us will show up with suitcases and a sense of entitlement.
As a large Christian community, we'll need a few small changes: Please start building churches immediately. Real churches, with nice loud bells, the kind that can be heard from the town square.
We'll also need for everyone to celebrate Christmas, and to close certain streets once a year for our processions. We may want to gather to pray to our Almighty God on your streets, in your parks, or on the lawns of your mosques.
We'll be an oppressed minority, so you'll have to be understanding and adapt to our way of life. Every supermarket must stock real pork, ham, chorizo, and bacon. And we're bringing all our dogs, so you'll need dog parks, and you'll have to smile tolerate them we walk them in front of your mosques. We want our women to be able to safely go out alone and wear shorts and tank tops. And when the weather's nice, we men like to go shirtless. We also want to drink alcohol, dance, and place an occasional bet at the horse races.
While we're at it, your religious holidays are a bit too much; they could offend the Christian community, so we'd appreciate it if you'd discreetly eliminate them. Thanks.
In schools and workplaces, our children and employees must be able to wear large crucifixes, say prayers, eat ham sandwiches in the cafeteria, and learn Christian principles without anyone getting criticized. We also demand chapels or Christian prayer rooms in every building, plus translators, because we have no intention of learning Arabic.
If any of this is rejected, please send a list of police station addresses so we can report you for discrimination, Christianophobia, racism, and anything we don't like.
One more thing: if my kids protest or burn your flag for any reason, please be understanding. I'll be sure to give them a very serious scolding.
Finally, we all want generous benefits, free housing, phones, free food, and pocket money while we "integrate" over the next three generations. Working is optional, obviously. Be patient with us, you'll get used to it.
We thank you in advance for your tolerance and compassion. After all, diversity is our strength!
Sincerely,
A Very Reasonable Christian
@Nerdrotics @TheCriticalDri2 @DDayCobra
If and when the series Doctor Who ever returns to TV, this is my proposal for the background/backstory of the character, which ties together and explains all of previous Doctor Who history, including all of the parts longtime fans did not like (“I’m half human!”) or outright hated (the 'other' versions of The Doctor, The Timeless Children).
Things to keep in mind here:
~ The doctor’s fascination with earth/humanity.
~ All of the worst aliens/species always threatening earth.
~ Frequent references to humanity’s uniqueness, ability to overcome obstacles, desire to explore and expand through the universe, etc.
~ There are most recently several story points/arcs portrayed that go against all of the long-established canon/history of the show.
The heart of my proposal comes from this:
We know WHERE the Doctor is from (Gallifrey).
But, we’ve never seemed to question exactly WHEN the Doctor is from. (1/x)
(And as a disclaimer: the very title of the series, Doctor Who, implies a question of who exactly is he or what is his true story, so I would never expect all of this to ever be shown or revealed in the series, or at least not for a long time, but act as the underlying story that can be tied into for canon and consistency’s sake.)
~ The Time Lords always regard the doctor as a rogue, a madman, an insane person they would rather not deal with and not have to see again. Perhaps this is because the Doctor knows their true origins, understands the full history, and the need to preserve it, and the Time Lords and Gallifreyan leaders refuse to believe in that version of their history, so dismiss him as insane. He is their Alex Jones or Graham Hancock.
~ And in the grand scheme of things, the Doctor battling the Daleks on and around earth so many times could actually be reinterpreted as the opening salvos of the Time War itself – the Daleks trying to exterminate humanity before they can grow and spread and help to evolve the Gallifreyans into the Time Lords.
This backstory would explain most everything we know. The Doctors’ travels to and fascination with earth. Part of the origin of the Time Lords. It resolves the issues of the timeless children, and the Doctor claiming he’s part human. It allows for the non-canonical other versions of the being known as The Doctor. It possibly explains why Gallifrey banished and ostracized him. And hints at what ultimately started the time war.
All possible if we only assume that the Doctor is actually from our distant future and is also our distant descendant.
~ The original first Doctor begins visiting earth because he recognizes it as the ancient origin of 1/2 of their history, and the species to which they owe their ability to regenerate. This is why he is originally so fascinated with Earth and travels with humans. They are his ancestors.
~ His 'mission' as The Doctor is to preserve the timelines of Earth and Gallifrey against their own deletion. The first regeneration of him to take this on is 'the First Doctor.' This allows for the 'other' versions of the being while still preserving the versions of The Doctor we know.
~ However, any threat to earth in the past which is not occurring at a “fixed moment in time“ then threatens the very existence of himself and all the Time Lords, thus the Doctor now has both a fascination with and a responsibility for earth, it’s people, it’s history, and with protecting it. He is protecting his species’ own timeline!
~ Of course, in typical Doctor Who fashion, his very presence and interference in the Earth history often brings the very aliens threatening its destruction, thus his fascination with his and the Time Lords’ own early history is what often threatens to destroy it.
~ One of these generational ships, crewed by human colonists with this ability to regenerate, crash lands on a new planet. Only one small human child survives. The planet they crash landed on was Gallifrey, and this child becomes the focus of The Timeless Children.
~ The Gallifreyans learn from this child how to regenerate (Timeless Children episode), integrating the human and Gallifreyan, becoming the Time Lords we know.
~ The Time Lords are therefore a combination of Gallifreyan and Human. So, when in the TV movie, the doctor says, “I’m half human,“ he is actually telling the truth. And, when the 12th doctor claims that “the hybrid is me,“ this is also accurate, especially taking into account the storyline of The Timeless Children, where the original regenerating child is said to become the Doctor.
~ The Doctor and his planet of Gallifrey are from millions of years into our distant future.
~ Humans, as we are, have continued to explore and push the boundaries of travel into space.
~ Even within the context of the current Doctor Who stories, we’ve colonized many planets, but are still limited by our technology. Wanting to explore further, humanity depended on multi-generational ships or only traveled limited distances for colonization (within the galaxy vs. universe).
~ Over millions of years of trying to push this exploration to its possible limits, without losing or having to re-teach/relearn everything between generations, humans eventually learn to or acquire the ability to regenerate (same being, multiple bodies )– allowing one person to live multiple lifetimes, and their offspring to live and learn over multiple lifetimes, pushing their ability to explore within a single lifetime and to live on and populate new planets to a new extreme.
The series for decades has seemed to imply or assume that the Doctor’s visits to his home planet were contemporaneous with the time period of the series.
But what if that is not true?
What if the Doctor and his home planet of Gallifrey are from a completely different time? A time in our very, very distant future.
He is a time traveler. So it would be of no consequence for him to travel in time way back to our earth. But why?
This is my theory/proposal that attempts to tie together everything we know and have seen in Doctor Who:
Critical Thinker C retweeted
Trump’s Top 25 Achievements: The List Every Conservative Should Know and Use
Donald Trump doesn’t have an accomplishment problem. Republicans have an information problem. It’s on each of us to change that.
With the midterms coming, an astonishing number of Republican voters cannot name three things President Trump has accomplished. Which is remarkable when you consider that Donald Trump has accomplished more in a year and a half than any other president ever did in four.
Indeed, he has accomplished so much, so fast, across so many fronts that most people cannot keep up. The Enemedia buries the victories, while Republicans do an abysmal job of explaining them.
So here is the cheat sheet. It barely scratches the surface. And yet each and every item here is a game-changer, and your befuddled black-pilling friends need to know it.
This is not a list of promises. It’s a list of laws enacted, cases won, policies implemented, agreements secured, and measurable results.
You don’t have to memorize all 25. Learn five. And when somebody says Trump “hasn’t done much,” show them the receipts.
Trump Restored American Safety and Sovereignty
1. He made the border a real border again.
In a matter of months, Trump reduced illegal border crossings to their lowest level in half a century. Catch-and-release is finished. The wall is going up and even being expanded, “Remain in Mexico” is back, and the Administration reduced releases into the country by an incredible 99.9 percent.
2. He reversed mass migration.
America recorded negative net migration in 2025 for the first time in at least half a century. So far, nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the country, whether voluntarily or involuntarily: more than 675,000 forcibly deported and the rest “self-deported.”
Many of those self-deportations were facilitated by the President’s innovative program to offer plane tickets and cash bonuses for illegals to leave, not only incentivizing good behavior but significantly reducing the cost of deportations. Citizenship and the law actually mean something again.
3. He signed the Laken Riley Act — and required detention of criminal illegal aliens.
Named for an innocent girl murdered by an illegal alien, the Laken Riley Act requires federal authorities to detain illegals arrested for theft, burglary, shoplifting, assaulting police, or any crime causing death or serious injury. It also lets states sue officials who refuse to enforce it.
Laken Riley should still be alive. This law will prevent tragedies like hers.
4. History’s biggest drop in violent crime, and the lowest violent crime rate in 126 years.
According to FBI data, violent crime in America dropped an incredible 9.7 percent in 2025 — the largest one-year decline in history. Murder fell 18.1 percent, robbery fell 18.5 percent. And America’s violent crime rate is its lowest since 1900.
This is what happens when you put the National Guard on the streets in crime-ridden blue cities: fewer victims, safer streets, and better futures for America’s poorest.
Trump Launched an American Industrial Supercycle
5. He made the 2017 tax cuts permanent…and better.
The One Big Beautiful Bill locked in the largest tax cut in modern history, including the doubled standard deduction, the expanded Child Tax Credit, and 100 percent expensing for factories and equipment. It also delivered No Tax on Tips, No Tax on Overtime, an abolition of most taxes on Social Security benefits, and major relief for seniors.
Every Democrat voted no. With the 2017 act set to expire in December 2025, that would have resulted in the largest tax hike in American history.
6. He repealed 129 regulations for every new one.
In fiscal 2025, federal agencies finalized 646 deregulatory actions and just five regulatory actions: 129-to-1, and in nearly every case, the “one” was to repeal the others! OIRA says the savings exceeded those of Trump’s entire first term. That is more freedom, lower costs, and less bureaucratic sabotage.
Of these, the crown jewel was the repeal of Obama’s 2009 “Endangerment Finding”, the legal foundation for the Green New Scam’s vehicle mandates. EPA calls it the largest deregulatory action in American history and estimates that by itself, it will save Americans more than $1.3 trillion. Trump also killed the federal EV mandate, restored Americans’ freedom to buy the cars and trucks they actually want, and even eliminated the incentives behind the almost universally hated start-stop button.
7. He secured $18 trillion in announced investment commitments.
That’s nearly two-thirds the size of the entire American economy, building American factories, chip plants, data centers, energy projects, steel mills, shipyards, and supply chains employing American workers. Apple, Meta, NVIDIA, Micron, Hyundai, U.S. Steel, Ford, Taiwan Semiconductor, and many corporations and sovereign wealth funds are betting big on Trump’s America.
No President has ever done anything remotely like it. And it’s just getting started.
8. He made “reshoring” and “reindustrialization” real, not a slogan.
Ford is moving Lincoln production out of China. Toyota is shifting Tacoma production from Mexico to Texas. GM, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and others are expanding U.S. production. The capital equipment pouring into the country is the machinery that’s building the growing boom.
9. He replaced lopsided trade deals with balanced, reciprocal trade.
Trump used tariffs as leverage to reverse 80 years of lopsided trade deals that favored everyone but America, and to win new or improved agreements with trading partners accounting for more than half of global GDP. Those agreements open foreign markets, attack non-tariff barriers, defend strategic industries, and make it more profitable to build in America than to export American jobs.
10. He shifted global energy dominance from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of America.
Once the world’s largest energy importer — “exporting” $700 billion a year to our enemies — America now outproduces Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. The U.S. is also setting new records in oil, natural gas, and LNG exports, becoming the first country ever to export more than 100 million metric tons of LNG in a year.
Trump also opened land, accelerated permits, expanded pipelines and export terminals, and made American energy a tool for prosperity and peace.
11. After four decades of nuclear paralysis, Trump brought five new reactors online in a single year.
For more than 40 years, not one new privately developed non-light-water reactor reached criticality in America. Trump ordered at least three by July 4, 2026. DOE delivered four by the deadline, then a fifth just one month later.
Decades of zero. One Trump summer: five. That is a genuine nuclear renaissance.
Trump Made Elections Matter Again
12. He broke the Deep State’s power to defy the elected branches.
In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time in 90 years that Article 2, Section 1 is still part of the Constitution: the President may fire subordinate officials in the executive branch, overturning the 1935 precedent that insulated “independent” agencies from voters’ control.
Ever wonder why elections often seem to change nothing? How about one President and 5,000 political appointees vs. 2.8 million unfireable, unaccountable bureaucrats? THAT is the “Deep State”.
Trump then made that victory real. For the first time in a century, all policy-making bureaucrats can now be fired for misconduct, incompetence, or defying lawful directives. The permanent bureaucracy no longer gets to veto the voters.
13. He ended nationwide injunction abuse.
In Trump v. CASA, the Supreme Court sharply limited nationwide injunctions. A single, local, district judge should not be able to block a national policy for everyone, everywhere; and yet that’s exactly what they’ve done, nonstop, ever since Trump (and only Trump) took office in 2017.
In restricting that unconstitutional power, the Court kneecapped the Black Robe Bureaucracy’s favorite tool of unlawful judicial supremacy.
14. He shut down USAID as a left-wing slush fund and shadow government.
USAID had become a taxpayer-funded machine for exporting abortion, gender ideology, censorship, and left-wing politics. It had a bigger budget than the CIA and the State Department combined, absolutely no accountability whatsoever, and a penchant for overthrowing governments.
Trump terminated it — completely — and moved real humanitarian aid under the State Department. Immediately, seven socialist Latin American governments lost re-election. Coincidence?
15. He shrank Federal employment to its lowest level in 60 years.
From a high under Biden, the federal workforce is now its smallest since 1966. Workforce reductions, agency closures, and spending cancellations mean fewer bureaucrats paid to resist the voters.
What’s more, when Biden left office, 94 percent of federal employees “worked” from home. The Trump administration cracked down: as Elon Musk put it, “you can work from the office or you can pretend to work somewhere else.”
16. He expelled DEI from the federal government.
Trump eliminated federal DEI offices and barred race- and sex-based preferences across the executive branch. Government hiring and contracting are returning to merit and equality under the law, ending the grotesque Democrat idea that “fighting discrimination” requires the federal government to discriminate.
He Defended Faith and Family
17. He delivered sweeping pro-life reform.
In his first term, Trump delivered the judges that overturned the abominable Roe v. Wade. Hardly anyone believed it could be done, or that Trump would do it. But he did, and a half-century nightmare finally ended.
Since returning to office, Trump has enforced the Hyde Amendment prohibiting the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy prohibiting federal funding of foreign abortions, ended federal fetal-tissue research, strengthened conscience protections, protected Medicaid from funding large abortion providers, and pardoned 23 pro-life activists prosecuted by Biden’s weaponized Justice Department.
He’s also done everything within the Executive Branch’s power to defund Planned Parenthood. It would be nice if Congress did likewise.
No President has ever done more to protect life. No one.
18. He got men out of women’s sports, and restored biological reality to federal policy.
The United States government once again officially recognizes two sexes: male and female. Trump ended federal support for the chemical and surgical gender mutilation of children, stopped taxpayer funding of such irreversible abominations, and forced more than three dozen health systems to end or suspend their programs as well.
Trump also enforced Title IX as written: women and girls deserve their own teams, trophies, scholarships, and locker rooms. The NCAA and other athletic organizations changed their rules in response. After years of Democrats doing everything they could to destroy women’s sports and ruin girls’ lives, Trump’s administration protects women and girls again.
19. He enacted America’s first nationwide school-choice program — and launched Trump Accounts.
As part of the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump enacted America’s first-ever nationwide school choice program. The new Education Freedom Tax Credit helps fund scholarships for tuition, books, and other educational costs.
That’s on top of the new Trump Accounts, which give every child a tax-advantaged stake in America’s future, including a $1,000 federal seed for eligible newborns. Parents gain power. Bureaucracies lose it. And children learn first-hand about free markets and future orientation.
20. He targeted anti-Christian bias and discrimination.
Trump created the White House Faith Office, Religious Liberty Commission, and Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. He restored conscience protections and made clear that Christians do not surrender their First Amendment rights merely by entering public life.
He Restored Peace Through Strength and Put America First
21. He forced NATO to stop freeloading and increase defense spending by 250 percent.
For decades, wealthy European governments underfunded their militaries, effectively sending America the bill and using American taxpayers to subsidize their bloated welfare states. Trump forced NATO to replace its old two-percent-of-GDP spending target with an enormous five percent by 2035.
Allied spending is rising, American defense orders are soaring, and Europe is becoming a partner instead of a dependent.
22. He drove China out of the Caribbean.
China spent years building strategic beachheads at both ends of the Panama Canal, in Cuba, and in Maduro’s Venezuela. Trump forced Panama out of Belt and Road, expanded American security access around the Canal, and captured Maduro, who now sits in a New York jail cell awaiting trial.
Beijing’s planned encirclement of the United States collapsed. The Monroe Doctrine is back. Call it the Donroe Doctrine.
23. He brokered eight peace deals in just eight months.
In eight months, Trump brokered peace in eight conflicts spanning four continents, including wars that had gone on for as much as 40 years. It’s a record unmatched by any other President.
24. He launched and funded Golden Dome, the first-ever true missile defense for the U.S. population.
Ronald Reagan dreamed of making nuclear missiles obsolete through his Strategic Defense Initiative. Today, Trump is actually building it: a layered homeland shield with space-based sensors and interceptors, conventional defenses, and new technologies including microwave systems to destroy drone swarms and directed-energy weapons (yes, lasers) that can replace an $11 million missile with $2 of electricity.
Congress has funded the initial $25 billion, with far more on the way once it passes the NDAA this fall. Better a shield than a sword.
25. He restored the warrior ethos — and reversed the recruiting crisis.
After years of missed targets under Biden, every active military component met or exceeded its 2025 recruiting goal. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refocused the newly renamed Department of War on actually winning wars, while pouring resources into shipbuilding, munitions, drones, missile defense, and America’s atrophied industrial base.
Young Americans once again believe their Commander-in-Chief is worth serving. And they’re showing up en masse.
Now Act Like It Matters
Those are not tweets or campaign promises. They are changes in law, power, investment, sovereignty, culture, and the structure of the Republic itself. And they’re just the top 25: I could give you hundreds more.
Midterms are turnout elections. We do not need to convince Democrats to love Donald Trump. We need Republicans and friendly independents to understand what is at stake — and to show up.
And let’s be clear. When you say (as some of you will) “the Republicans need to do a good enough job telling this story”, you’re pointing at yourself. You are “the Republicans.” The Democrats don’t rely exclusively on their elected officials to tell their story: everyone from their media lackeys to their lowest-level supporters are constantly spreading their “news”, whatever that “news” happens to be.
Today’s conservatives have more ability to find whatever you want to know than any group of people in human history, yet half of them couldn’t name any of the accomplishments in this essay, and if they were to read it, they would just complain that something else they wanted hasn’t happened fast enough to suit them.
This is called “black-pilling.” It’s a loser mindset, and if you engage in it, you deserve to lose: horribly, painfully, personally. And guess what: you will, unless people who are serious step up to save you. Which is frankly pathetic, but for the rest of our sakes, necessary.
So tell people our story. Donald Trump is delivering great things, whether or not heaven on earth has broken out quite yet. Do the work, send the team he needs to Washington to finish the job, and get ready for 2028 afterward.
Take the time to learn at least five of these victories. Share this list with someone who needs it. And vote as though the most consequential Presidency in modern history depends on what you do.
Because it does.
(Oh, and those receipts? Follow the link in my bio to get them all.)
It’s a bad week to be a famous 80 year old.
And it’s only Wednesday.
Bette Midler, Liza Minelli, and Cher better be hanging on for dear life (literally!) until Sunday night?! 😲
Critical Thinker C retweeted
Does anyone remember this amazing story? On July 2, 1982, a truck driver from California flew 16,000 feet into the sky in a lawn chair. Larry Walters, 33, from San Pedro, had dreamed of flying his whole life. He bought 42 eight-foot helium weather balloons, tied them to a regular Sears lawn chair, strapped on a parachute, packed a BB gun to pop balloons to descend, a CB radio, sandwiches, and a six-pack of beer.
He expected to float a few hundred feet above his backyard. He cut the rope and shot up like a rocket — to 16,000 feet. He drifted directly into the main approach path for LAX. Two airline pilots radioed the tower: they had just passed a man in a lawn chair holding a gun at 16,000 feet. For 45 minutes, he floated over Los Angeles, freezing cold, too scared to shoot balloons because he might fall. Finally, he started popping balloons one by one and slowly descended.
He landed tangled in power lines in Long Beach, California, causing a blackout. When police arrested him, they asked why he did it. He said, "A man can't just sit around." The FAA fined him $4,000. He became a national folk hero — Lawnchair Larry — and inspired the movie Up.
Critical Thinker C retweeted
Why are so many women sooo angry? They won. They got everything they wanted. Men have never been doing this badly, and women have never been doing this well. They make more, they have the majority of jobs, they are the majority of college graduates, (UCLA undergrad is 60% female), they make more money, have much lower rates of suicide, addiction, and alcoholism, and live longer. They won: they took over all men-only spaces, they took over the Boy Scouts, they ended men’s bathrooms, they can fly fighter planes and be in combat. Marriage is optional, divorce is no-fault, they win 99% of the custody battles, they can control fertility at will, and they can’t get drafted. We are all living in the female future they promised.
Critical Thinker C retweeted
73% of women on the titanic survived.
Only 19% of men did.
Read that again.
Even the richest men alive, class, power, status, all useless when the ship started sinking.
Hierarchy collapsed.
Gender didn’t.
“Women and children first”
Not a suggestion.
A rule men didn’t break.
Men stood there.
No panic
No begging.
Just accepted it.
They didn’t ask:
“Do I know her?”
“Is she worth it?”
“Will she remember me?”
No one asked if it was fair.
No camera.
No applause.
No second chances.
Zero return.
Full cost.
Understand this:
When survival gets limited, a man’s life becomes negotiable.
Men like that built the world.
And today?
Masculinity gets mocked.
Call it whatever you want.
But when everything collapsed, men paid first.
This isn’t opinion.
This is history.
You’d have to be absolutely insane to want to or choose to live in NYC.
You could move to New York City.
Rent an 852-square-foot apartment for $5,503 a month.
Blow $500 on three “first dates” a week and somehow remain single for six years.
Finally meet someone you like, then discover they’re “not really looking for anything serious right now.”
Get a master’s degree so you can qualify for an internship.
Apply to 147 jobs, get 93 automated rejections, and finally find an “entry-level” position requiring five years of experience.
Eventually land a six-figure job and still need a roommate to make rent.
Pay federal income tax, New York State income tax, AND New York City income tax because apparently living there is a three-level subscription.
Learn that a “quiet neighborhood” means the sirens only come by every 20 minutes.
Pay $27 every day for a sandwich (no sides) because the place has exposed brick and a handwritten menu.
Take the subway to work every morning and develop the useful skill of pretending not to notice absolutely anything happening around you.
Spend 45 minutes traveling three miles.
Carry your groceries home six blocks because parking near your apartment is more of a philosophical concept than an actual possibility.
Have “owning a washer and dryer” become one of your primary measures of generational wealth.
Walk past a mountain of trash bags on your way to a restaurant with a Michelin star.
Tell your friends back home you don’t need a car while spending $46 on an Uber because the subway is delayed again.
Go to Central Park when you want to remember what trees look like.
Spend your twenties telling everyone you could NEVER live anywhere else.
Then one day you visit your cousin in Iowa.
He has a house with four bedrooms, a garage, a yard, two cars, four kids, and somehow pays less than you do for the apartment where your refrigerator touches your couch.
But hey.
The NYC bagels are incredible.
Critical Thinker C retweeted
A SpaceX intern once described eating lunch next to Elon Musk in the company cafeteria.
The intern said Elon sat down at a regular table with a regular tray of food. No entourage. No reserved section. He sat next to two junior engineers who were clearly terrified. One of them was explaining a problem with a valve component to the other.
Elon listened without introducing himself or interrupting. After about three minutes he turned to the engineer and said "have you tried running it at a lower pressure gradient first." The engineer stared at him. Then realized the CEO of the company had just casually solved a problem his team had been stuck on for a week.
The intern said what happened next was the part that surprised him. Elon didn't leave. Didn't check his phone. He spent the next twenty minutes asking the engineers questions about their work. Not CEO questions about timelines and budgets. Engineering questions about fluid dynamics and material stress tolerances. He was genuinely curious. The cafeteria conversation was indistinguishable from a technical review.
The intern said he understood in that moment why people work 80-hour weeks for this man. Not because he's inspiring. Not because he pays well. Because he's the only CEO in the world who sits in the cafeteria and solves your engineering problem between bites of a burrito.
People follow leaders who are above them. People worship leaders who sit next to them and prove they understand the work better than the people doing it.