i/o

The SAT is an excellent numerical indicator of the academic ability of the test taker. It was the biggest obstacle to colleges being able to get away with increasing representation of much less qualified black and Hispanic students in the name of "diversity".

So why did so many colleges abolish the SAT requirement? Here's why: Asian SAT mean, 1220 White SAT mean, 1080 Black SAT mean, 900

@MacroSloan2929 @kabaal23 Plant a tree that will mature in 15 to 30 years when you're probably going to be living in another house in ten years?

@kabaal23 @avidseries This thread is full of helpless people. Just plant trees and capture the best of both worlds.

"A mature tree increases a home's value by 7 to 19 percent." How much money do builders save on costs by removing all the trees from a lot prior to construction? "Roughly $5,000 per lot." Vast swaths of residential America are bleak because of the selfishness, shortsightedness and greed of builders and developers. Personally, I can't live in a house in which there are no visual points of interest outside it that can be enjoyed through its windows. Views of trees, hills and mountains, maybe a skyline or compelling urban panorama — any of these will greatly increase the enjoyment of a home and improve the mental health of its occupants.

The left: We must eliminate the SAT because it only predicts the socioeconomic status of your parents. Study after study: Nope.

I once had a very talented boss who also happened to be an atrocious human. There were four people in the office in particular who hated him. One of them, the head deacon of his church, would tell me, "People like him don't end well." All four of those people are now dead (three died before age 60), but that boss is now in his 80s, rich and seemingly content, playing golf every day, with a new young bride.

@jeremymstamper Words cannot convey how much I hate the Gravelly-Voiced White Boy Delta Mama Roadhouse Blue-Collar Gravy N' Grits Good Time Rock N' Roll genre of music. Only reggae is worse.

Diabetes is devastating for so many people. I wrote this song to bring attention to it.

@TradMaldOwl @HeTows Again, what part of what I said is inaccurate? The people haven't taken to the streets. This reflects the current status of the war. The reason they haven't taken to the streets is because the opportune time hasn't arrived (whether that is accompanied by a "signal" or not).

@avidseries @HeTows The part where you said “people have not taken to the streets” as a point against the war when Israeli communications to the Iranian public have been CLEARLY AND LOUDLY stated: “Do NOT go out to the streets yet. We WILL call on you to go out later.”

The US and Israel's execution of their Iranian leadership decapitation strategy has worked beautifully, but it hasn't produced the desired results. The regime lumbers on, and the Iranian masses haven't taken to the streets. The regime's highly decentralized command structure, particularly within the IRGC, remains intact. The US and Israel's relentless destruction of Iran's missile and drone assets has been impressive, but, even by their own admission, many (if not most of) the locations of the manufacturing facilities are unknown to them. And so, unless the supply chain has been sufficiently disrupted, the regime's assembly lines continue to hum. It looks like the war is slowing down to the pace sought by Iranian war planners: A grinding conflict of attrition that it hopes will ultimately bore or frustrate Trump and will result in Gulf State pressure on the US to abandon its efforts to topple the regime.

@HeTows People assess the current status of military conflicts on every day that they are ongoing, from beginning to end. Which part of my assessment do you believe doesn't reflect the war's current status?

@avidseries These kinds of assessments are baffling to me. It has not even been three weeks. Patience!

Perhaps I wasn't clear: The MILITARY execution of the decapitation strategy worked beautifully (i.e., most of the important leadership figures were eliminated), but its objective (i.e., a collapse of the regime) wasn't met.

@jihad4jesus @Light_of_Hashem I'm not calling anything. It is too early to call.

I think it's too early to call since there's still the massive looming signal from Pahlavi for his supporters and all other anti regime natives to take to the streets. We're at act 2, the act3 climax isn't the US softening the regime thru air strikes. It is the all-in of the violent uprising that began in January. This time though there has been time for small arms shipments and coordination by foreigners and natives so that the next round of revolution riots will presumably be far more effective. If that signal comes and we don't see massive effect, we can start calling things but until then the big boots on the ground event hasn't happened yet. Here's hoping.

@terrybythebay The military execution worked beautifully. But it didn't achieve the hoped-for objective.

@avidseries “Worked beautifully” “Hasn’t achieved desired results” 🧐

The assembly of drones like the Shahed series can be decentralized across small nondescript warehouses, civilian industrial parks, or light-manufacturing facilities. CENTCOM leadership recently acknowledged this by noting a shift in targeting toward Iran's wider manufacturing apparatus, which is scattered and easily moved.

@avidseries I'm not a drone manufacturing expert, but how hidden can they even make these facilities? Unless they are making them in a garage somewhere by hand there should be a lot of material going in and out that our eyes in the sky should be able to figure out where

@KnightOfTh3Wind "dearly held assumptions" Are you under the impression that I was a "cheerleader" for the regime change component of this war?

@avidseries So are you going to actually question your dearly held assumptions, or are you just going to cheerlead it again when they pull something like this, and then act surprised when it doesn't work out?

@Light_of_Hashem The IRGC's 4,000-person decentralized leadership infrastructure established for activation in the event of war is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

I don’t think you’re seeing the full picture. The systematic dismantling of Iran’s repression apparatus isn’t being fully captured by Western media, largely because of the blackout inside the country. What we’re seeing right now is only part of it, and there are still additional phases in motion before anything like mass mobilization is signaled.

@IyerDharmapuri It could be more devastating for the vulnerable and fragile Gulf States, and, politically at least, potentially for Trump.

@avidseries But a grinding war of attrition will devastate Iran more

@CaliforniaFirst For now.

@avidseries Iran's attacks on the Gulf States have had the opposite effect of pushing them to pressure the US to stop.

@bullintheserver It's a good question, and I don't think I could answer it properly in this format. The shortest answer would be: I am an American.

@avidseries How would you rank your own nationalism or identitarianism? Both extremes go through great lengths to inflate/deflate these concepts. I’ve spent much time contemplating the subject having been born in the 3rd world but American culturally.

I don't understand internationalists at all. They want to be born nowhere and everywhere. To be rooted and connected to a place where your culture and ancestors existed for centuries is "nothing special." The world they seek has the texture and depth of an airport transit lounge.