julee v

@SmithZoe22704 @ColettaFrank True or false the statement is totally irrelevant. First Lady isn’t a beauty pageant. It’s a smart supportive partner for a person doing a complex job. If she’s competent she will also champion important societal causes rather than hold multiple fittings for collar adjustments!!

Karoline Leavitt: “Melania is the most beautiful and well dressed First Lady in history.” Hey, Karoline? Sit the fuck down. The world had Jackie Kennedy.

@VolodyaTretyak Liberace Op Shop Kitsch is what I call it.

What is the name of such interior style? 🤔

@WarrenV_ I love that our flag is now the one America uses for presidential visits from the British king. 😁😀🤣😀😁

@Acyn @MeidasTouch They could just say ‘National ICE’ agents or the whole name. It’s always a choice-like, for instance, Trump always puts the middle name Hussain in Obama’s name, as a racist dog whistle. Juvenile name calling and verbal bullying has become a prominent feature of USA leaders style

The President signals his desire to change the name of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to NICE so the media will have to refer to ICE agents as NICE agents… not sure wtf I just wrote but whatever

@Dad_2_The_Bone Now he’s using his bullying and intimidation to try to stop the Pope from calling out his warmongering barbarism. Every time he gets to the bottom of the pit he finds a further depth to plummet.

Sometimes we need to ask ourselves “is this really what we want?” You know the answer. It’s WELL beyond time to turn the page on this ass hole.

Notice that Pete Buttigieg spoke for 1.25 hours tonight in Tulsa and he had no teleprompter. And he was brilliant. Pete is the real deal. His talent can't be faked.

@Craig__S @AustralianAths He waved to his family. He’s a kid. A very fast kid who’s now dealing with life in the public eye.

@AustralianAths Waving to the crowd with 10 metres still to go is pretty disrespectful to the rest of the runners

GOUTRAGEOUS 🤯 Gout Gout has done it again, claiming his second-straight Australian title in the U20 Men’s 100m, throwing down a time 10.21 of (+0.5) that featured a wave to the crowd with 10m to go. 👋 Job done, title in hand. We’ll see you in Eugene for the World Athletics Under 20 Championships. Thanks for coming, Gout 🤝 #AthleticsNation #ThisIsQueensland #VisitBrisbane

Jens Stoltenberg went on Fox News this week. It did not go the way Trump would have liked. The former NATO Secretary General, now Norway’s Finance Minister, was asked about Trump’s threats to pull the United States out of the alliance. He answered with the kind of calm, precise demolition that only a Norwegian diplomat can deliver without raising his voice once. On why Europe didn’t join the war: “NATO is a defensive alliance. The strikes or the war against Iran were never an attempt to make that into a NATO operation.” On whether Europe disagrees with America about Iran: “We all agree the Iranian nuclear program is dangerous. The question is how we achieve that goal.” Translation: the problem was never the destination. It was the lunatic who decided to get there by setting the car on fire. On what Trump should have done before launching: “If you want NATO to contribute, then at least you have to sit down with NATO allies, as you did after 9/11. You cannot expect us just to be there without any consultations, any discussions in NATO before you take the decision to launch the attack.” This is Stoltenberg saying, in the most polished terms imaginable, that you do not start a war at two in the morning on Truth Social and then ring your allies for help at breakfast. On whether Europe abandoned America: “The majority of European allies have made sure that their bases and infrastructure were available for the United States. There are some exceptions, but most have contributed.” Most helped. Quietly. Without being asked to endorse a war they considered illegal. On why leaving NATO would be catastrophic for America specifically: “The United States is 25 per cent of the global economy. But together with NATO allies, we are 50 per cent of the global economy and 50 per cent of the world’s military might. So it makes the United States safer to have friends and allies — something that Russia and China don’t have at all.” And then, in a separate interview, the warning nobody in Washington wants to hear: “It’s not a natural law that we will have NATO forever. It’s not carved in stone that NATO will exist for the next ten years.” That last line was not a threat. It was a diagnosis. Trump called NATO a Paper Tiger. Stoltenberg replied, with characteristic Norwegian understatement, that paper tigers tend to be considerably less useful once you’ve set them on fire yourself. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

They should change the name to "Strait of Schrödinger". It's both open and closed at the same time.

In the 1920s, a Stanford psychologist tracked genius children for 50 years. Malcolm Gladwell breaks down what he discovered: Rich families → successful. Poor families → failures. Not average. Failures. Genius-level IQs that produced nothing. He spent 60 minutes at Microsoft explaining why we're wrong about success: The psychologist was named Terman. He gave IQ tests to 250,000 California schoolchildren. He identified the top 0.1%. Kids with IQs of 140 and above. His hypothesis: these children would become the leaders of academia, industry, and politics. He tracked them. And tracked them. For decades. The results split into three groups. The top 15% achieved real prominence. The middle group had average, moderately successful professional lives. And the bottom group? By any measure, failures. The difference wasn't personality. Wasn't habits. Wasn't work ethic. It was simple: the successful geniuses came from wealthy households. The failures came from poor families. Poverty is such a powerful constraint that it can reduce a one-in-a-billion brain to a lifetime of worse than mediocrity. There's a concept called "capitalization rate." It asks a simple question: what percentage of people who are capable of doing something actually end up doing that thing? In inner city Memphis, only 1 in 6 kids with athletic scholarships actually go to college. If our capitalization rate for sports in the inner city is 16%, imagine how low it must be for everything else. Here's something stranger. Gladwell read the birth dates of the 2007 Czech Junior Hockey Team: January 3rd. January 3rd. January 12th. February 8th. February 10th. February 17th. February 20th. February 24th. March 5th. March 10th. March 26th... 11 of the 20 players were born in January, February, or March. This isn't unique to the Czechs. Every elite hockey team in the world shows the same pattern. Every elite soccer team too. Why? The eligibility cutoff for youth leagues is January 1st. When you're 10 years old, a kid born in January has 10 months of maturity on a kid born in October. That's 3 or 4 inches of height. The difference between clumsy and coordinated. So we look at a group of 10 year olds, pick the "best" ones, give them special coaching, extra practice, more games. We think we're identifying talent. We're just identifying the oldest. Then we give the oldest more opportunities, and 10 years later they really are the best. Self-fulfilling prophecy. The capitalization rate for hockey talent born in the second half of the year? Close to zero. We're leaving half of all potential hockey players on the table because of an arbitrary date on a calendar. Kids born in the youngest cohort of their school class are 11% less likely to go to college. 11% of human potential squandered because we organize elementary school without reference to biological maturity. Now here's the part about math. Asian kids dramatically outperform Western kids in mathematics. The gap is enormous and consistent across decades of testing. Some people say it's genetic. It's not. It's attitudinal. When Asian kids face a math problem, they believe effort will solve it. When Western kids face a math problem, they believe the answer depends on innate ability they either have or don't. Here's the proof. The international math tests include a 120-question survey. It asks about study habits, parental support, attitudes. It's so long most kids don't finish it. A researcher named Erling Boe decided to rank countries by what percentage of survey questions their kids completed. Then he compared it to the ranking of countries by math performance. The correlation was 0.98. In the history of social science, there has never been a correlation that high. If you want to know how good a country is at math, you don't need to ask any math questions. Just make kids sit down and focus on a task for an extended period of time. If they can do it, they're good at math. Why do Asian cultures have this attitude? Gladwell's theory: rice farming. His European ancestors in medieval England worked about 1,000 hours a year. Dawn to noon, five days a week. Winters off. Lots of holidays. A peasant in South China or Japan in the same period worked 3,000 hours a year. Rice farming isn't just harder than wheat farming. It's a completely different relationship with work. There's a Chinese proverb: "A man who works dawn to dusk 360 days a year will not go hungry." His English ancestors would have said: "A man who works 175 days a year, dawn to 11, may or may not be hungry." If your culture does that for a thousand years, it becomes part of your makeup. When your kids sit down to face a calculus problem, that legacy of persistence translates perfectly. Now consider distance running. In Kenya, there are roughly a million schoolboys between 10 and 17 running 10 to 12 miles a day. In the United States, that number is probably 5,000. Our capitalization rate for distance running is less than 1%. Kenya's is probably 95%. The difference isn't genetic. The difference is what the culture values and where it spends its attention. Here's the most fascinating finding. 30% of American entrepreneurs have been diagnosed with a profound learning disability. Richard Branson is dyslexic. Charles Schwab is dyslexic. John Chambers can barely read his own email. This isn't coincidence. Their entrepreneurialism is a direct function of their disability. How do you succeed if you can't read or write from early childhood? You learn to delegate. You become a great oral communicator. You become a problem solver because your entire life is one big problem. You learn to lead. 80% of dyslexic entrepreneurs were captain of a high school sports team. Versus 30% of non-dyslexic entrepreneurs. By the time they enter the real world, they've spent their whole life practicing the four skills at the core of entrepreneurial success: delegation, oral communication, problem solving, and leadership. Ask them what role dyslexia played in their success and they don't say it was an obstacle. They say it's the reason they succeeded. A disadvantage that became an advantage. Here's what Gladwell wants you to understand: When we see differences in success, our default explanation is differences in ability. We forget how much poverty, stupidity, and attitude constrain what people can become. We refuse to admit that our own arbitrary rules are leaving talent on the table. We cling to naive beliefs that our meritocracies are fair. The capitalization argument is liberating. It says you don't look at a struggling group and conclude they're incapable. It says problems that look genetic or innate are often just failures of exploitation. It says we can make a profound difference in how well people turn out. If we choose to pay attention. This 60 minute Microsoft talk will teach you more about success than every self-help book you've ever read combined. Bookmark this & give it an hour today, no matter what.

Forty nations gathered in Paris today. To figure out how to clean up a mess they had absolutely no hand in making. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively shut since February 28th, when the United States and Israel launched their air war against Iran and, for reasons that presumably made sense to someone in Washington, assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In retaliation, Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel, US military bases, and US-allied Gulf states, and proceeded to mine the strait and attack merchant ships.  A fifth of the world’s oil normally passes through that narrow channel. Not anymore. Enter the adults. France and Britain gathered the nations on Friday to push forward plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The United States, which started the war, was not invited.  Macron and Starmer have been leading what they are calling, with the kind of unimaginative bureaucratic naming that only diplomats can produce, the Strait of Hormuz Maritime Freedom of Navigation Initiative. It would be “strictly defensive,” Macron said. Non-belligerent. Deployed “when security conditions allow.” Translation: when Trump stops blowing things up. Starmer, for his part, said the reopening of the strait was “a global responsibility” and that the world needed to “act to get global energy and trade flowing freely again.”  Which is a very polite way of saying that one country has taken a lit match to the global economy and everyone else is standing around with buckets. France has sent its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the region, alongside a helicopter carrier and several frigates. Britain has discussed deploying mine-hunting drones from the ship RFA Lyme Bay.  Germany’s contribution, according to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, will arrive after a peace agreement is reached, with an international mandate, “preferably from the UN Security Council,” and approval from the German parliament.  Merz attended in person. So did Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Others joined by video. Starmer told parliament he would not join Trump’s blockade. “We are not getting involved in the proposal to blockade the strait, on the contrary, we’re working with other countries to try and get the strait open and fully open for free navigation,” he said.  Meanwhile, Trump told Fox News that “numerous countries” are helping America. He added that “the UK and a couple of other countries are sending minesweepers,” though the British government has not confirmed any such thing.  Starmer said planning is “underway now, with a view to deploying a combined military effort as soon as conditions allow.”  That is the Europe of 2026 in a single sentence. Capable. Organized. Ready to go. Waiting for the Americans to stop shooting before anyone can actually do anything useful.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Stay connected, Follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1

my favorite Bible story is probably the one where Jesus starts an unprovoked, unnecessary and illegal war, blows up a building full of schoolgirls, destabilizes the world's economy, tells the Pope to go fuck himself, and then jets off for a long weekend of golf at Galilee-a-Lago

Paul Keating does not hold back in response to Angus Taylor new immigration policy and I’m so here for it. Reminds me of better times when we had PMs with the backbone to tell it like it is. Truly statesmen like & excellent & I encourage everyone to take a moment to read it 👇🏼

#ULTIMAHORA Con un discurso simple pero muy contundente el #Pope #LeonXIV está acabando a Donald Trump: “Los maestros de la guerra fingen no saber que solo se necesita un momento para destruir. Sin embargo, a menudo toda una vida no es suficiente para reconstruir.” “Se Hacen de la vista gorda ante el hecho de que se gastan miles de millones de dólares en matar, en devastación, pero los recursos necesarios para la curación, la educación y la restauración no se encuentran por ningún lado.” Esto no le va a gustar a Donald Trump ni a su equipo, por favor no lo vayan a compartir, mucho menos a etiquetar… #Trump_War_Criminal #TrumpPedófilo #MAGA 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼😱

@Dannyjokes The Streisand Effect strikes again 🙂 also why are people being forced to sit through an hour of comedy against their will as the man is suggesting??😁😁

What did I do???

This is my favorite scene from The Bible.

New Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar finally appeared as a guest on state television M1 for the first time ever. Here’s what he told the journalist. “We will suspend this channel's news service. This isn't about me; I'm not seeking revenge. Our people deserve journalism that reflects the truth.” “We will nationalize the assets given to businesspeople and foundations during the Orbán era.” “The Mathias Corvinus Collegium Foundation, close to Orbán, was transferred 10% of MOL (oil company) and Gedeon Richter (pharmaceutical company) for free. We will take back these shares.” “After 16 years of the Orbán era, 400,000 Hungarian children in this country are living in deep poverty.” “President Sulyok is no longer the president of this country in my eyes or in the eyes of the people.” (In response to the host asking about his meeting with Zelensky as a counterpoint) “I get your joke, and I even like it. But your references no longer carry any meaning.” “According to you, Germany has collapsed, there's no internet there, people aren't even having sex. The Hungarian people were laughing at you.” “It was said on this channel that even my young children won't talk to me, when in fact my children live with me.” (When the host interrupted him) “No host in this studio ever dared to interrupt Hungary's most corrupt and most lying prime minister.” (When asked about the legal basis for closing the news service) “For someone on this channel to accuse me of breaking the law looks like a thief accusing the police.”

BREAKING: 🇨🇳 President of China, Xi Jinping: “A certain country, obsessed with maintaining its hegemony, has done everything possible to cripple emerging markets and developing nations. Whoever progresses rapidly becomes a target of containment; whoever catches up becomes a threat. But all of this is futile. The world we live in today is a community with a shared future. People do not want a new Cold War; they want a world of lasting peace and universal security."

An 18 year old just ran 19.67 in the 200m 🤯 GOUT GOUT won the 200m at the Australian Championships breaking the U20 World Record, setting a National Record and becoming the first Australian to run sub 20 seconds in the 200m EVER. Speed so nice they named him twice.

For those idiots at the back … Gout, is as Australian, as am I … born in Australia, grew up in Australia. His parents, like mine, were not. What’s the difference? The colour of his skin? Fuck off with your racist agenda …