Road Traveler

Eduardo took eleven minutes to cross the field this morning. The field is approximately 130 metres long. Eduardo, if he had wanted to, could have crossed it at a brisk alpaca walk in about three minutes. He did not want to. He stopped at the gorse bush. He stopped at the small section of clover near the gate. He stopped at the place where the badger crosses, which is not currently active but which Eduardo, by some assessment of his own, considers worth checking. He stopped at the dip where the rainwater pools, drank slightly, walked on. He stopped at the eastern fence post for ninety seconds and looked, by every visible indicator, at nothing in particular. He arrived at the far gate at 7.46am. The farmer, watching from the kitchen, made a cup of tea. The farmer's wife, who has watched Eduardo cross this field most mornings for seven years, said: "He's slow today." The farmer: "He's slow every day." The wife: "He's slow on purpose." The farmer: "...Yes." This is the thing about Eduardo. The eleven minutes is not inefficient. The eleven minutes is the work. The work is to walk the field, attend to it, notice what has changed, register the gorse and the badger crossing and the dip and the fence post, and finish at the far gate having processed the morning. Most useful animals, and most useful humans, work like this. The work is in the noticing. The noticing requires time. The time looks, to the casual observer, like the animal is doing nothing. The animal is not doing nothing. The animal is doing the most important part. The phone in your pocket has, in the last decade, optimised the noticing out of most modern lives. The walk to work has become the scroll on the bus. The lunch has become the working lunch. The slow look at the eastern fence post has become the answered email. Eduardo has not, at any point, optimised the noticing out. This is, in the long run, why Eduardo is fine and you are tired. Walk the field slowly. Notice the gorse. Be the alpaca.

Never forget.

11 years ago, 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians were beheaded by ISIS in Libya for refusing to convert to Islam. Their last words were: “Jesus, I love you.” Remember, no one marched for them. Not a single protest for them!

@puregsd @SenSanders He really looks rather demented.

@SenSanders 🚨 FRAUD ALERT 🚨

The reality of American life today: Jeff Bezos, worth $290 billion, spent: $10 million on the Met Gala $120 million on a penthouse $500 million on a yacht Meanwhile, he‘s planning to throw 600,000 Amazon workers out on the streets and replace them with robots. Unacceptable.

@Natalia_yael4 Well, I do.

I swear, 90% of people on X want the Islamic regime to collapse and Iran to finally be free. Am I right?

The Greater Israel Project is a lie made up by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Eurasian slop peddlers. In reality, Israel has given up significantly more land than it currently holds, and much of what it returned was territory won in military conflicts. Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War, then returned the entire territory roughly 23,000 square miles to Egypt as part of the 1979 Camp David peace agreement. The Sinai alone is about three times the size of the entire modern state of Israel. Israel also withdrew from southern Lebanon, from the Gaza Strip in 2005 (a unilateral pullout removing all Israeli settlers and military), and returned parts of the West Bank under the Oslo Accords. There is not one other country in the world that has ever done that besides Israel. So again the question I always ask myself when people say stupid things that are not true… is why. And if you’re lying about that then, what else are you lying about? That’s a rhetorical question because everybody knows what all these losers are actually lying about.

The truth the world ignores about Gaza Hamas and Islamic Jihad built a 620 km underground tunnel network — turning the entire Gaza Strip into a massive military fortress. This is why large parts of Gaza were destroyed. Hamas didn’t build bomb shelters for civilians — they built a terror city underground and used their own people as human shields above ground. Destroying these tunnels is completely legitimate. The destruction of Gaza is Hamas’s fault — not Israel’s.

Actually, you did start it. New York did mid-decade redistricting last cycle and tried again this cycle. This is your fourth attempt at partisan gerrymandering since becoming governor.

BREAKING: UN officials are now warning that the United Nations is facing "total financial collapse" because member states are refusing to pay their dues. "We face a real danger of running out of money," they say. Good. A corrupt, bloated bureaucracy that rewards regimes like Iran while obsessively attacking democracies does not deserve a single dime of Western taxpayer money. Let it collapse. Defund the UN.

I’m voting for Republicans in the midterms because I only get two options on my ballot. But I am so utterly disappointed and disgusted with the GOP right now it’s not even funny. I don’t care if you blame the House, the Senate or whatever other type of structure you blame. The bottom line is other than President Trump acting by executive order and his cabinet being able to execute certain orders without having to go to Congress, the elected officials who were elected on the coattails of Trump have done NOTHING to advance his agenda. 80% of the country supports Voter ID but they can’t get it to his desk? “Oh it’s procedural…” is the excuse I hear. “You need sixty votes…” is the other excuse. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THAT SHIT. Find a way and get it to the President’s desk. We are always left with excuses rather than results. We always have to vote for the lesser of two evils rather than on a body of work that we can be proud to vote for. I’m so sick and tired of the foolishness. That being said, who else am I going to vote for? Can’t vote for a Democrat. They’ll ruin the country entirely. At least Republicans won’t do any damage. They sure won’t make any progress, though!

@Old_SchoolEddie I haven’t kept track but it’s more than once.

As a Boomer or Gen X'er, how many times have you started a response to a post and, in the middle of writing it, you realize you just don't care enough to finish responding to it?

The abortion debate is not complex. You either support baby-murder or you support a baby’s right to life.

Hernando de Soto discovered why billions of people remain trapped in poverty despite owning valuable assets: their property exists outside formal legal systems, making it economically "dead." In Peru, de Soto's researchers found that obtaining legal title to a home in Lima required 728 bureaucratic steps across 52 government offices, taking 6 years and 11 months. The cost exceeded $1,200 when average income was $4,800 annually. Similar barriers plague the developing world. In the Philippines, titling urban land takes 13-25 years. In Egypt, acquiring legal rights to desert land requires navigating 77 bureaucratic procedures over 14 years. This creates a parallel economy where people own homes, farms, and businesses but cannot leverage them as capital. You cannot mortgage an untitled house to start a business. Banks will not accept informal property as collateral. Investors cannot verify ownership through reliable records. The assets become sterile wealth that generates no additional economic activity. De Soto calculated that dead capital in developing nations exceeds $9.3 trillion. These are substantial assets trapped by bureaucratic barriers, not worthless shacks. The poor own the assets but cannot access the capital markets that would transform dead property into live capital. The solution requires property rights reform. Countries need to simplify titling processes, recognize informal property arrangements, and integrate parallel legal systems into unified frameworks. When people can prove ownership and transfer property freely, dead capital comes alive and generates the investment flows that create prosperity.

@Notwokenow Tomorrow never gets here drink more water now.

I don’t drink enough water. Tomorrow I am going to start making a concerted effort to improve that. Y’all, please help hold me accountable.

A little history for those frauds wanting to “restore Palestine”: 1: Before Israel, there was the British Mandate, not a Palestinian state. 2: Before the British Mandate, there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state. 3: Before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, not a Palestinian state. 4: Before the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, there was the Ayyubid Arab-Kurdish Empire, not a Palestinian state. 5: Before the Ayyubid Empire, there was the Frankish and Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, not a Palestinian state. 6: Before the Kingdom of Jerusalem, there were the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, not a Palestinian state. 7: Before the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, there was the Byzantine Empire, not a Palestinian state. 8: Before the Byzantine Empire, there were the Sassanids, not a Palestinian state. 9: Before the Sassanid Empire, there was the Byzantine Empire, not a Palestinian state. 10: Before the Byzantine Empire, there was the Roman Empire, not a Palestinian state. 11: Before the Roman Empire, there was the Hasmonean state, not a Palestinian state. 12: Before the Hasmonean state, there was the Seleucid Empire, not a Palestinian state. 13: Before the Seleucid Empire, there was the empire of Alexander the Great, not a Palestinian state. 14: Before the empire of Alexander the Great, there was the Persian Empire, not a Palestinian state. 15: Before the Persian Empire, there was the Babylonian Empire, not a Palestinian state. 16: Before the Babylonian Empire, there were the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, not a Palestinian state. 17: Before the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there was the Kingdom of Israel, not a Palestinian state. 18: Before the Kingdom of Israel, there was the theocracy of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, not a Palestinian state. 19: Before the theocracy of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, there was an agglomeration of independent Canaanite city-kingdoms, not a Palestinian state. 20: Before the agglomeration of independent Canaanite city-kingdoms, there was God. The Kingdom of David — a historic map for those wondering how the region looked over 2,000 years ago.

@PolitiBunny @Booker4KY How many jobs has Elon created? How much tax revenue is created by the businesses he founded? How many of those who promote the “fair share” nonsense would end up the elite if their version of communism was implemented? How many of the middle class would end up in poverty?

@Booker4KY Elon Musk broke actual records with the amount of taxes he has paid … how much more is his so-called ‘fair share’? And who TF are you or any Democrat to tell Musk what he can and can’t do with his money?

If Elon Musk can drop $10 million in the Kentucky Senate race, he can afford to pay his fair share in taxes.

AOC cost 25,000 people their jobs in Queens by opposing Amazon’s project. Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete cost 17,000 people their jobs by opposing the JetBlue-Spirit merger. Gavin Newsom cost 82,000 people their jobs by driving Tesla, SpaceX, Oracle, Chevron, Palantir, Charles Schwab, and HP out of California. Joe Biden and Kamala cost 11,000 people their jobs by shutting down construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. None of this was a mistake. It’s a policy choice by Democrats. Unemployed and displaced workers turn to and become dependent on government social programs. Without welfare recipients and illegal aliens, Democrats don’t have a base.

@IndianaGPA @larrythkw They were called the Greatest Generation for a reason. It will be a great loss when those of us who knew that generation well are also gone from this world. Who will then truly remember their sacrifices?

On an autumn day in 1944, deep in the chaos of war-torn France, a squad of American soldiers pushed forward through dangerous ground, every step carrying the weight of the unknown. Among them was Robert E. Laws. The fight tightened without warning. What had been movement turned instantly into survival. Then, in a moment that gave no time for thought, a grenade landed among them. No warning. No second chance. Laws saw it-and didn't hesitate. He dove onto it. In that single act, he used his own body to absorb the blast. What should have taken multiple lives ended with one. His squad lived. He did not. There were no orders. No time to weigh options. Just instinct-and a decision that placed everyone else before himself. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, yet like so many from World War II, his name isn't widely remembered today. And that's what sticks with me. I sit here, years removed from anything like that kind of moment, and I try to wrap my head around it. A single second where everything is on the line-and instead of stepping back, he stepped forward. I think about the world we live in now, how easy it is to get caught up in the small stuff, the noise, the distractions. And then I read a story like this, and it puts things in a different light. That generation carried something different. A sense of duty that didn't need to be explained. A willingness to give everything without expecting anything in return. I don't know if any of us really know how we'd respond in a moment like that. But I know this—because of men like Robert E. Laws, others got to live full lives, go home, have families, grow old. He never got that chance. Some acts of courage don't last long. But they echo forever. 🙏🇺🇸🙏

"People have used mustard oil and sesame oil for thousands of years. These are traditional foods." True. And also missing the point. Sesame oil is the oldest seed oil ever pressed for human consumption. Charred seeds from the Indus Valley date to 3500 BCE. The Babylonians considered it sacred. It is genuinely 5,500 years old, and it remains a defining ingredient in Japanese, Korean, and Indian cuisines today. Mustard oil has been pressed in the Indian subcontinent for at least four thousand years. The Bengali fish curry, the North Indian winter pickle, the oil rubbed on a newborn's scalp at the moment of birth. The plants are old. The pressing is old. Nobody is disputing that. What is being disputed is the volume. A traditional Indian household in 1850, pressing mustard seeds in a kachi ghani, the wooden press turned by a bullock walking in slow circles, produced perhaps a litre of oil from a morning's labour. The yield was low. The labour was high. The oil was therefore precious. It was used in tablespoons, not litres. A teaspoon of toasted sesame oil drizzled at the end of a stir-fry, the way every Japanese chef still uses it. A spoonful of mustard oil to fry the spices for a curry that fed eight people. India in 1961: 4 kg of seed oil per person per year. About two teaspoons a day. India in 2024: 23.5 kg per person per year. About four and a half tablespoons. Per person. Every single day. A six-fold increase in two generations. The diabetes rate has tripled. The heart disease rate has tripled. The childhood obesity rate, in a country that thirty years ago had no concept of childhood obesity, has tripled. This happened because the bullock and the wooden ghani were replaced, sometime in the 1980s, by industrial expeller presses, then hexane solvent extraction, then refined-bleached-deodorised vegetable oil shipped in from Argentine soy and Malaysian palm at a fraction of the price of the kachi ghani version. The traditional cook used a teaspoon of pungent, slow-pressed seed oil to flavour a meal, and the rest of the cooking fat came from ghee, butter, and the fat of an animal someone had kept themselves. The supermarket bottle of vegetable oil that the modern household cooks everything in, every day, in volumes the kachi ghani could never have produced, is not the traditional oil. It shares the label. It shares almost nothing else. The tradition was a finishing touch. The industry sold you the bottle and called it heritage. Heritage was the teaspoon. The litre is the disease.