Jim Laney

@HollywoodInToto @redsteeze I wouldn’t want Hanoi Jane defending anything I care about. Sometimes it’s better to have bad people disagree with you.

Quiet during the Twitter Files scandal Quiet while 'sensitivity readers' ransacked classic books Quiet as Team Biden censored Americans Quiet as YouTube censored 'wrongthink' over COVID Quiet as Cancel Culture crushed comedy Quiet as radicals silenced conservatives on college campuses

@MrDanielBuck Even if she’s saying something I agree with ( doubtful) I don’t want ti hear her. Is it legal to walk around in public in her condition?

Imagine 13 unrelenting years of this condescending "teacher talk," and you'll go a long way to understanding why young men are turning to the right

@BradleyKellard I think he’s right on this, but you can play the guitar for 10,000 hours and you’ll never be the Beatles.

Malcolm Gladwell revealed why you shouldn't go to Harvard: 1. America does not have a shortage of students who want science and math degrees. It has a shortage of students who finish them. Half of all high school seniors who intend to study STEM drop out by the end of their second year. The problem is not interest. It is persistence. 2. The obvious assumption is that smarter students persist longer. So Gladwell tested it. At Hartwick College, a small liberal arts school in New York, the top third of math SAT scorers took the majority of STEM degrees. The bottom third dropped out in large numbers. The data seemed to confirm it. Smarter kids stick around longer. 3. Then he looked at Harvard. The bottom third of Harvard's math SAT scores are equal to the top third at Hartwick. By the logic above, everyone at Harvard should graduate with a STEM degree. They are all brilliant. Nobody should be dropping out. 4. Harvard showed the exact same pattern as Hartwick. Top students graduated. Bottom students dropped out like flies. Even though the bottom Harvard students were objectively brilliant by any global standard. Something else entirely was driving the dropout rate. 5. That something is called relative deprivation theory. Human beings do not measure themselves against the world. They measure themselves against the people immediately around them. A Harvard student in the bottom third does not think I am in the top one percent of all students globally. They think that kid next to me keeps getting everything right and I keep getting it wrong. So they quit. 6. The research from UCLA puts a specific number on it. Your odds of graduating with a STEM degree fall by two percentage points for every ten point increase in the average SAT score of your peers. Choose Harvard over the University of Maryland and your chance of finishing a STEM degree drops by thirty percent. Thirty percent. Just to put a brand name on your resume. 7. Relative position matters more than absolute position when it comes to confidence, motivation, and self belief. The eightieth percentile student at Harvard looks up at the people above them and feels like they cannot compete. The number one student at a state school feels like they can conquer the world. That feeling drives everything. 8. The practical hiring implication is radical. Class rank matters more than institution name. Gladwell argues companies should have a don't ask don't tell policy for where someone went to college. Hiring only from top schools means missing the top students from every other school. That is not smart hiring. That is brand worship. 9. When choosing a college, never go to the best school you get into. Go to the school where you are guaranteed to be near the top of your class. Being a big fish in a smaller pond does not just feel better. It statistically produces better outcomes than being a small fish in the most prestigious pond available. 10. So why do we keep choosing Harvard over Maryland? Because we are flattered. Because the acceptance letter feels like validation. Because we make an irrational decision in a moment of enormous flattery and call it ambition. Gladwell's conclusion is simple and brutal. When we have the chance to join an elite institution we do things that are genuinely against our own interest and we feel great about it the whole time.

@BreitbartNews I don’t suppose he cares to remember in prayer the other 90% of humanity….

Scott Russell, Episcopal chaplain at Rutgers University, leads a call-and-response prayer before a Pride Flag raising at NJ's Middlesex County administration building "May this flag, when it is raised, remind us of all your beloved children who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, queer, two-spirit, all other identities, and those known only to you, oh God."

@megbasham We were taught that in the Boy Scouts. My luck would be to sit near these guys, want to leave and end up picking up litter for an hour out of a feeling of guilt…

Again, all cultures are not equal. Some cultures are better than others.

@ThrillaRilla369 My I Phone does this sort of thing. Once I was giving a presentation and it called a friend who sat and listened to my presentation. I know one woman checking the time w/o glasses took a selfie in the bathroom mirror, posted it on Facebook w/o realizing.

When I point the remote directly at the TV, nothing happens. If I accidentally drop it between the couch cushions, it switches from Netflix to Hulu, opens four apps, changes the subtitles to Portuguese, and somehow starts playing Christmas music.

@Nettieyettie @megbasham Jeanette, what are you talking about?

@LaneyDMD @megbasham Did he tell you about the man that walks in front of cars so you can't go quicker than walking pace? Also the lack of washing machine means one of the most popular gadgets is a mangle and the clean water situation is dire?

What the World Cup has brought to the United States could not have been more providentially perfect for our 250th anniversary. The rest of the world is coming here and reminding us what makes America so great. Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes. Yes it does.

@DanHolbrook @TheRabbitHole I’ve thought such about the UK and other places. I’ve changed my mind. People struggle to fully realize a con job or a malicious actor, even when they’ve been bitten before. Honest people struggle with mendacity, especially in the face of propaganda

@TheRabbitHole The UK is going to hit a boiling point. People voted for this crap for years, and now they get police at the door over retweets while real criminals walk around laughing. At some point even the people who asked for it realize they screwed up.

The UK arrests people over retweets. Crazy.

@BuckSexton @ClayTravis @ToddPiro For years I got teased by friends for preferring vanilla iced cream. ( young people care about silly things) So one day I rocked their world; I ordered French Vanilla. Living the dream….

@ClayTravis @ToddPiro Nobody expects the Todd's of the world to appreciate such flavorful greatness. They are vanilla people.

Please don’t lump all Todd’s into this. Thank you. Todd. @ClayTravis

@JeremyTate41 The problem is how to keep the bad guys from hijacking the system. Absolutely yes we teach morality, but let’s not neglect to teach reasoning skills.

Even the people who are melting down and acting like they don’t agree with this, really do agree with this. If you agree that we should teach students that randomly stabbing or shooting people is wrong, then that is teaching them WHAT to think. We need to teach students what to think and how to think.

@NanHayworth He looks bad, like he has cancer.

Why'd you turn off replies, Mayor of London, to such an optimistic post? The question is, of course, rhetorical. London is dying under your poisonous *leadership*--and you do know it. It's your goal. Giving voice to your critics is antithetical to your authoritarianism.

@farzyness @pmarca That was a very optimistic take. It’s worth a follow. I hope you’re right!

My theory is that the American empire is JUST getting started. US has a stranglehold on Space with SpaceX, which is the next frontier for defense/war. It has a comically large lead. No one will be close for at least 20 years. It is the leading power in AI by far - both in models and chips. China is catching up fast, but the US has an inherent mechanism that will increase the likelihood that it will win in the end - a free market + capitalism + free speech. A free market + capitalism allows for brutal competition between companies. Free speech allows for AI models to be maximally truth seeking, which means that AIs CAN and WILL BECOME smarter than humans to the point where they can tell the truth about its leaders. This is literally impossible in China. Try having a Chinese model that says Xi Jinping is corrupt. Good luck with that. Then, you have a country that has more guns than people and surrounded by two massive oceans and two friendly neighbors, which means any sort of kinetic take over of the country is literally impossible. Not to mention the US has BY FAR the best and strongest military. The only way adversaries can hope to defeat the US is by tearing it from within by pitting us against each other. This is why it's virtually guaranteed that all the division/hatred/polarization you see within the country is fomented by China/Russia Psy Ops + propaganda efforts. I'm not saying these aren't naturally happening in spots - America is far from perfect - but it would be naive to think our adversaries aren't pouring millions of gallons of fuel on a fire. As long as the American public a) has the ability to exercise its free speech b) has a protected 2nd amendment c) capitalism and free markets continue to function and d) the populace is aware of how awesome America really is, it is literally impossible to stop the US's trajectory to global domination in the coming decades, especially as China's demographics continue to collapse. It's the bottom of the 9th, the game is tied, and the US has the bases loaded. It's a 3-2 pitch. All we need is a home run, and we win the rest of the century.

@Oilfield_Rando @redsteeze Woody Guthrie spinning in his grave. The Left used to have better music….

“You see what happens Larry?! You see what happens when you defund USAID and scrutinize ActBlue’s payment processing system?!”

@megbasham When he was little, I read Amelia Bedelia ( not sure which book) to my son. Amelia does silly things, and my son commented it made him want to smack her. This video is even worse. Amelia was a genius next to these poor people.

If you had asked me to guess how Nordic countries address the problem of migrant sexual assault, this is about what I would have pictured.

@themaddierune If they say, “You all..” it’s fake. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a native southerner use that, instead of “Ya’ll”.

No actor has ever successfully done a Southern accent. Not a single one. I swear they have invented an entirely new dialect that no human being has ever spoken on earth. As someone who was born and raised in the deep south, I literally cringe when I hear it, and I immediately stop watching. We feel it in our BONES. Something about it is deeply personal and I can't fully explain why.

@jameszimmermann @KeenanPeachy God isn’t checking our resumes, He wants us to know Him, obey and trust Him to make things work. Our striving almost always falls short. It’s funny how such usually leads to good long term outcomes like emotionally healthy children and good relationships.

This @KeenanPeachy post really resonates, as it feels like in the six years I’ve been out of the symphony industry I haven’t done much with my life. I used to feel like I was fulfilling my purpose and making an impact, I don’t feel anything like that now. But in these last six years my children have grown up splendidly. My software job makes me able to provide them a perfectly decent life, they’re happy and healthy and a joy to be around. They bring me no grief. I chose them over living a lie to stay doing what I love, because I love them more than what I do for a living. You reap what you sow and while I may have less than I did before on many levels, I’m rich in what matters most.

@SkylarSkye3 When I was in high school ( 1970’s) in SC, it was legal to have a beer in the car. So, in a boring small town, we’d ride around and drink beer. It’s crazy to think about, but that’s what we did…

Why does every car in America have enough cup holders for an entire family?

@japan_nobunaga When I was 13, I had a hunting license. I could take my shotgun, walk a mile and be in a field where I could hunt doves. My friends and I did this fairly often. Nobody thought anything about it.

Be honest with me, Americans 🇺🇸 Do you actually own a gun? In Japan, I have never seen a real one. Not once. Not at a friend's house. Not in a drawer. Never. But online, every American just goes "oh, mine's in the nightstand" like it's a phone charger 🔌 So now I'm genuinely curious: What's YOUR gun? The very first one you ever got? Is this normal everywhere in the US? Or just some states?

@ShadowbanSlam @FloppingAces @NanHayworth I see your point. Some likely are sociopaths, some might be gullible fools, some might be going along with their particular crowd. Many probably don’t think they’re screwing anyone over, but pursuing something good.

Unless youre a *complete* sociopath, you need to hate the people you're screwing over. If they had some fondness for a White guy who lost his job at ghe plant to outsourcing or immigration or DEI, they would do something for him. They need seething contempt, a story as to why he deserved it: "dismantling whiteness" and "global equity" and "punishment for colonialism" and "what about 30 years ago" are their go-tos.

They really thought this was going to work forever, didn’t they? Run the country into the ground with idiotic energy policies, import millions of people to do the jobs the natives used to do, tell young men their entire heritage is a crime, then act confused when those same young men stop politely asking for a seat at the table. Brilliant strategy. Truly visionary leadership. In Canada they handed the keys to a guy whose main talent appears to be moving money from regular citizens into BlackRock-linked funds while smiling about “climate.” He helped engineer an economy where the only people getting ahead are the ones connected to the right funds and the right NGOs. Everyone else? Enjoy your higher costs and shrinking prospects. It’s for the planet, after all. Meanwhile the cultural class spent decades producing books, films, and academic theories whose main purpose was to make the people who actually built the civilization feel like villains in their own story. Worked great until it didn’t. Now the same young men who were supposed to quietly accept being replaced are looking around and realizing the people in charge have been running a very long, very profitable con. They broke family formation on purpose, flooded everything with propaganda about how awful normal life is, then imported a new population to keep wages down and social cohesion fractured. All while making sure their own kids would never have to compete with the results of their policies. The really funny part is they still think this is about “hate” or “extremism.” It’s not. It’s about noticing. And once enough people notice that the people running things have been actively hostile to their existence, the conversation stops being polite. The jokes are running out. The class that spent two decades treating the builders like a punchline is about to learn they weren’t laughing with them. (article below)