Occasionally witty, often absurd. Generally cheerful.
Joined August 2021
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NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
33 years ago this weekend, two Delta Force snipers made a choice almost nobody would make.
Master Sergeant Gary Gordon was 33, from Lincoln, Maine, with a wife and two young kids at home. Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart was 35, a farm kid from Newville, Pennsylvania.
On October 3, 1993, they were in a Black Hawk circling over Mogadishu when another Black Hawk, Super 64, was shot down. Pilot Mike Durant was alive in the wreckage with a broken back and a crushed leg. His crew was hurt. There were no friendly ground forces anywhere near them, and hundreds of armed militia and locals were already converging on the crash site.
From the air, Gordon and Shughart could see exactly what was coming.
They asked to be dropped in. Command said no.
They asked again. No again.
They asked a third time and finally got the green light.
Their helicopter set them down nearby and they fought their way to the wreck on foot. Two men, carrying only what they had on them. They pulled Durant out of the cockpit, set him up in a safer position, and started holding off the crowd.
For a while, it worked. They kept the mob back with precise, steady fire while the numbers against them kept growing.
Shughart was killed first.
Gordon kept fighting alone. When he was nearly out of ammunition, he went back to Durant, handed him a rifle, and told him good luck. Then he went back out. He was killed minutes later.
Durant was captured, beaten, and held for 11 days. He came home alive. He has said for decades that he's only here because of those two men.
In 1994 Gordon and Shughart were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the first since Vietnam. The Navy later named two ships after them, the USNS Gordon and the USNS Shughart.
They didn't stumble into that fight. They watched it from above, understood the odds, and asked three times to go anyway.
Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart. Remember their names.
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
I can't even imagine what it would feel like to be this detached from your humanity
A CPD dispatcher was trapped in her wrecked car with 9 broken ribs and 2 fractured vertebrae, desperately waiting for help to arrive.
That’s when this couple allegedly slid into her car, stole her credit cards, and patted her down for valuables.
cwbchicago.com/2026/09/coupl…
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
Since the 60s sexual revolution many ppl no longer made love: they had sex.Having sex does not involve any emotional tie or long-term commitment. It involves nothing more than mutual pleasure of certain body parts.
Once you see sex in this way, the moral landscape changes. Sadly.
Premarital partners strongly predict divorce likelihood.
People with 9 or more premarital partners are 151% more likely to dissolve their marriages compared to people who tie the knot as virgins.
In other words, this level of premarital sex increases the chances of divorce between twofold and threefold.
Having between one and eight premarital sex partners increases the odds of divorce by 50%.
Few Americans marry as virgins these days, the median American man now has five lifetime partners, while the median woman has three.
There’s no gender difference: premarital sex raises the divorce rate for both men and women equally.
Social scientists theorised that this association can be attributed to sample selection: the kinds of people liable to have a lot of sex partners are the same kinds of people who will get divorced.
Or the experience of having premarital sexual partners might change people’s beliefs or behaviours in ways that make it harder to sustain a marriage later on.
This recent study from the Institute for Family Studies suggests that these mechanisms cannot account for the relationship between premarital sex and divorce rates.
More investigation needed. — h/t IFS
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
The one artifact from 9/11 that impacts me the most, it was clear from this note he left behind at the station where he got some gear that Bielfeld knew exactly what he was going into, and that the chances he would survive the day were slim. Yet, he went anyhow. Thank God we have people like him among us.
From the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation site:
"On September 11‚ 2001 a very special person was taken from us. That special person was Firefighter Peter A. Bielfeld (age 44) Shield #1699 of FDNY Ladder42/Engine 73‚ Bronx‚ New York. Firefighter Bielfeld’s heroic acts on that day were no surprise to those who knew him. FF Peter Bielfeld had 19 years and 3 months with the Department as a firefighter. He spent his entire career with Ladder 42. He was one of the best firefighters. He had tremendous experience‚ having been involved in several major fires. He had no fear and had been involved in some very dramatic rescues. He always went out of his way to help the younger members of the company. In his spare time he would always be training the young members‚ showing them some special techniques he had learned through his experience. He had a very outgoing personality‚ always engaging people. During his career with the Department‚ he received two citations of valor. His heart was set on taking the next fire lieutenant’s test to further his career. In June of 2002 he was eligible to retire with 20 years of service.
At the time of the WTC attack‚ FF Bielfeld was at FDNY Headquarters in downtown Brooklyn. He was at the Bureau of Health Services for a follow-up visit on injuries that he sustained at a fire in the Bronx on Friday September 7‚ 2001. It was told to us that when an announcement was made‚ that firefighters were needed to respond to the WTC attack‚ he asked to be placed back on duty so he could respond. FF Bielfeld never hesitated‚ but immediately jumped on a department vehicle that was heading toward the towers. We were also told that he responded to Ladder 10/Engine 10 where he geared up and headed in to help. That was the last that anyone saw of him.
All that we have left of Peter are our memories and stories of him that we can share with each other and with his 2-year-old daughter Brittany Marie (the love of his life) whom he adored and who resembles her father so much. We must always remember to carry on Peter’s memory with Brittany."
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
My friend Kelly was in building 2 the morning of 9/11. She survived the day but died later from the after effects. Since she no longer can, I post her account of that day in her memory. Never forget.
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
The insanity defense is absurd. If you killed another human being, not in self defense, you are obviously outside your right mind. Because people in their right mind don’t kill other humans. The act of it implies insanity based on accepted societal norms and behaviors.
I don’t need a trial to tell me she’s batshit crazy. She killed three kids, the batshit crazy is implied by her actions.
And being crazy is NOT a defense. Send her crazy ass to jail.
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
MP: What led to your creation of this device?
Dr Death: I found that my hands and arms were getting quite tired.
MP: …
Dr Death: Uh, I would like to retract that statement.
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
My mother was a family therapist. Years ago, when the especially gentle parenting trend became the overriding way to bring up children she told me things were going to get bad quickly.
She said, boundaries and expectations are not abuse. By the end of her career in 2016, she told me her office was full of families who were angry, exhausted, enmeshed and undisciplined,
We are ten years later and it’s even worse. Your job as a parent is to be a teacher and to endow your children as quickly as possible to take care of themselves. Not to entertain every whim,
We are the authors of our own destruction.
We are authors
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
Please pray for beth. They have found another cancer. A Squamous cell carcinoma of the Trachia. The doctor said the caught it early but only have a few months to treat or it's game over. Please pray for she and my sister Janie. She's traveling to MI tonight to see her. – at San Fernando, CA
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
I attended a county fair and watched a child sell a pig.
The pig is worth, I am told, somewhere near four hundred dollars. I looked this up afterward because I did not believe what happened.
The girl is twelve. She walked the animal into a ring wearing a white shirt and a numbered card. She had raised it herself, from a piglet, for nine months, which I confirmed, and she had a binder of records because the program requires one.
The bidding began. Local men. A man from a bank. A man who sells tires. A woman who owns a restaurant I had eaten at the previous evening.
It did not stop at four hundred.
It stopped at three thousand two hundred.
I turned to the man beside me and asked whether the pig was of exceptional quality.
He said, "It's a fine pig."
I asked whether it was worth three thousand two hundred dollars.
He said, "No."
I asked why the price was three thousand two hundred dollars.
He said, "She's a good kid."
I stood up. I could not remain seated. I said, out loud, in a metal building that smelled of animals, that a market which knowingly and deliberately misprices a good in order to put a child through a university, and does so every year, in the open, with an auctioneer and a microphone, is not a market at all but a rite, and that I have never seen a province conduct one so cheerfully.
He said, "You want a lemonade?"
I said that I did.
Here is the part I had entirely misread. The men bidding against each other were not rivals. They were raising it together. The tire man bid, then the bank man bid, and the tire man nodded at him, and they were pushing the number upward on purpose, in public, in front of the girl. She knew. Everyone knew. The auctioneer knew. The rite requires that nobody says it.
Afterward the girl shook every buyer's hand. She writes them letters later. That is also part of it. She writes letters.
I asked the restaurant owner why she bids every year.
She said, "Somebody bought mine."
She is fifty-eight.
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
Any anger I have right now over COVID is less geared toward Fauci and more towards the people still defending him.
I can understand the defense of "it was a once in a lifetime thing; no one knew what was going on." Fine. I can buy that.
What I can't buy is Mr. "I am the science" inflating the numbers of deaths and you toad-licking morons still saying "he was trying to save lives."
No, he wasn't. He was on an egomaniacal power trip that saw him burn society, science, and rights like Edward Woodward in "The Wicker Man." Fauci's rendition of Christopher Lee's Lord Summerisle saw him make up "the science" as he went and anyone who questioned or disagreed with him was lined up next for the burning.
Masking toddlers was an absolute "screw them kids" move. Closing outdoor parks, telling people to stay insides, insisting that kids didn't need socialization - all things that ran contrary to pretty much all previous medical advice. Ever.
But here you are, your Fauci action figure in hand and Fauci prayer candle lit, acting like the 6 ft rule had a basis in science and wasn't made up simply because "we had to do something."
People watching loved ones die from outside while dancing nurses choreographed the next social media dance between taking videos of them crying in stairwells because they were just so overworked. And you're eating that crap like a fat kid eats a bowl of Cocoa Puffs on Saturday morning.
And now we know that many of the loved ones that died alone did so unnecessarily.
"Science doesn't lie." No, but now we know that scientists did. A lot. They got more wrong than they got right.
"But they're the experts." And yet, somehow many of the podunks who didn't follow the regulations survived while many people who followed the regulations passed. It's almost like someone was lying.
Hey, quick question: how many people died from taking ivermectin? Answer: a metric buttload less than died from the side effects of the COVID vax.
Stop defending Fauci. But you can't, can you? Why is that?
I'd wager to guess that you can't stop defending Fauci because you so whole-heartly bought into what he was saying that you're in too deep to turn back now.
The bridges you burned, the family and friends you no longer talk to...not to mention that your fragile ego can't take the possibility that you were wrong, that someone you trusted hoodwinked you so hard, there is no possible way for you to save face and not look like a complete dumbass while Cletus from Pigfart, Arkansas was right all along. You're smarter than Cletus; you have a master's in gender theory while Cletus just a plumber. You cannot afford to admit you were wrong.
But you were. And still are. And probably always will be.
Being dumb is a choice. You can choose to not be dumb. You should try it.
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
As if we didn't love her enough.
Sophie Cunningham is unafraid. Unafraid to be blatantly transphobic.
“I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men.”
Her own words. In an ESPN article.
espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/493…
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
The idea that Massachusetts is the safest place to drive a car is so utterly counterfactual that it defies belief.
NotQuiteAsCheerful retweeted
🚨🚨🚨🚨Today the U.S. House passed the Sunshine Protection Act, advancing legislation that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent nationwide.
This is the biggest legislative step this issue has taken in years but it is not law.
The bill now moves to the U.S. Senate, where there is still an opportunity for it to be debated, amended, or rejected. If you care about health and circadian biology, this is the time to speak up.
The scientific case against permanent DST has become increasingly strong:
• Morning light is the most powerful signal for synchronizing the human circadian clock.
• Permanent DST delays sunrise for much of the year, especially in winter, reducing exposure to morning light when our brains need it most.
• Later sunrises are associated with chronic circadian misalignment, sleep loss, poorer mood, reduced alertness, and increased cardiometabolic risk.
• Studies comparing western versus eastern portions of time zones consistently show worse health outcomes where people experience later sunrises despite sharing the same clock time.
• The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and numerous sleep and circadian experts recommend permanent Standard Time, not permanent DST, as the option that best aligns with human biology.
The argument for permanent DST is largely one of convenience and preference for lighter evenings. The argument for permanent Standard Time is one of physiology and public health.
If you believe our laws should reflect the best available scientific evidence, now is the time to respectfully contact your U.S. Senators. Tell them that while ending the twice-yearly clock changes is a worthy goal, permanent Daylight Saving Time is not the healthiest solution. Ask them instead to support permanent Standard Time, which preserves the morning light our circadian system depends on.
Please REPOST this. The Senate has not yet voted, and informed voices can still make a difference.
@LeaderJohnThune is the Senate majority leader that will determine when this legislation comes to the Senate for debate. He should know how you feel.