aPAULinme

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen. - JFK

[Matthew 'Whiz' Buckley @WhizBuckleyNFH]

25 years ago this morning, I was packing for my first trip as a pilot for American Airlines when Suzi came in and told me an airplane had hit the World Trade Center.

I assumed a small airplane, bad weather. Then I turned on the television.

Crystal clear morning in New York. I stood there holding my young son Matthew, going through my mental aviation checklist on how this could've happned... and the second airplane hit.

I knew we were under attack.

Flight suit. Boots. Raced out to Naval Air Station Fort Worth. Through the gate before the base went to Threat Condition Delta.

I was supposed to spend that day flying Americans to Miami.

I spent it strapped into an armed and running F/A-18 Hornet at the end of a runway, prepared to shoot one down.

Gruff and I waited while the Spads of the 457th FS got airborne, scheduled to launch when they ran out of gas. By the time the did, all air traffic was on the ground.

2,977 innocent people were murdered by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists.

Souls jumped from the towers, because falling through a clear September sky was better than burning alive.

First responders climbed up while thousands ran down.

Father Judge, a Catholic priest and FDNY chaplain, walked into hell to pray over the dying and became one of its victims. They carried him out and laid him on an altar.

25 years later, Americans are still dying from what they breathed at Ground Zero. Veterans still carry the wounds you can see and the ones you can't.

This country has forgotten why.

NYC elected an avowed anti-American immigrant Muslim socialist as mayor. Michigan's nominee for senate closed his campaign beside a man who said America 'deserved 9/11' and that we brought it on ourselves.

People running for office in a country they hate.

We raised a generation to be ashamed of this great country. They will not defend it. And a generation that will not defend a country will eventually accept whatever replaces it.

I am for religious freedom. I spent 15 years defending the document that guarantees it, I started my own church.

But the moment your religion leaves its lane and comes into mine - the moment it claims the right to kill me for not believing what you believe - it is not a faith anymore. It is a political system with a body count. Its own law. Its own courts. Its own mandates on what women can and can't do.

Ask a girl in Kabul about her schooling, ask a Christian in Saudi Arabia where his church is. There isn't one in the whole country. 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

We let them build here. They do not let us build there. That is not tolerance, it's an invasion.

Europe has fallen.

The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

Contrary to what the pope thinks, there is such a thing as a 'just war'. This is it.

25 years ago this morning I sat at the end of a runway in a loaded fighter, waiting for an order I prayed would never come.

Many said we would never forget. They did.

I never will.

Fight's On.

@NoFallenHeroes @SuziNFH

[Jon Dummermuth @JDFireRescue63]

Good morning X World. Today's throwback is to September 10, 2001. The day before our world changed forever. These aren't my words. But it's how I feel.

My friends, as you settle down tonight for bed, remember that, on this night…..25 years ago, 246 people went to sleep in preparation for their morning flights. 2,606 people went to sleep in preparation for work in the morning tomorrow. 343 firefighters went to sleep in preparation for their morning shift. 60 police officers went to sleep in preparation for morning patrol. 8 paramedics went to sleep in preparation for the morning shift of saving lives. None of them saw past 10:00 am Sept 11, 2001. In one single moment life may never be the same.
As you live and enjoy the breaths you take today and tonight before you go to sleep in preparation for your life tomorrow, kiss the ones you love, snuggle a little tighter, and never take one second of your life for granted.
I'm still pissed and I WILL NEVER forget. 🇺🇸

[New York Mickey @MickmickNYC]

Tonight, 2,977 lights rose above New York Harbor, representing every person killed in the September 11 attacks.

The aerial artwork originated from Governors Island and illuminated the sky beside the Tribute in Light ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11. It was developed in conjunction with representatives of the families, survivors and responder community.

A powerful tribute to 2,977 lives that will never be forgotten 🕊️🇺🇸

#NeverForget #September11 #911Memorial #NewYorkCity

[Joel Fritsma ⚡️ @joelfritsma]

The ending of the Michigan vs Western Michigan game was incorrect, and here’s how I know from a former scoreboard operator myself.

Just posted this on TikTok, but don’t know if it’ll blow up. X do your thing.

@barstoolsports @ESPNCFB @Castellani2014 @Sheehan_Sports

[Justin Spiro @DarkoStateNews]

Every clock in the building said the game was over. The Big Ten has still not explained whose clock was wrong. https://t.co/iOLwvrRycP

[SparkyBru @SparkyBru]

Never Forget…..

[Mike Bales 🫡🇺🇸 @MikeBales]

Patrick “Paddy” Brown, 48, Captain of Ladder 3. Marine, Vietnam tunnel rat, FDNY legend. Men transferred just to work for him.

Sept. 11, 2001. He signed in at 8:00 a.m. After the first plane hit, Ladder 3 went up. Command ordered them out. From the 44th floor he radioed: “I refuse the order. We have too many burned people with me. I am not leaving them.”

The North Tower fell at 10:28. He and eleven of his men never came out. His ashes were scattered in Central Park, at the spot where he used to stop and look at the skyline.
Never Forget 🙏🏻

[MAGA Deb 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 @DebRN1953]

💔😭 The youngest FDNY member to be killed on 9-11 was Firefighter Michael Cammarata.

At just 22 years of age, he had been on the job just 9 weeks. When his company, Ladder 11 in Manhattan, was called to the scene of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, he left a message on his father's voice mail saying he was heading to the scene of the disaster. Mike, his family said, had always wanted to be a firefighter. He was also a star hockey player for New Jersey semi-pro team. Ten years before 9/11, Michael played in the Little League Baseball World Series for South Shore Little League of Staten Island, N.Y. Today, only one number is officially retired from use in the Little League Baseball World Series. It is Michael Cammarata’s No. 11, and it is still proudly displayed on the right field wall of Lamade Stadium, where he patrolled proudly as a member of his team at the age of 12. The Huguenot resident is survived by his brother Joseph Jr, parents, Joseph and Linda and his sister Kimberly Cammarata.

Mike was last seen conducting fire operations at the Marriott Hotel at the foot of the WTC.

Mike's remains were never recovered.

On June 7, 2003 a vial of blood donated by Mike during his time at the fire academy was buried with full department honors.

This is Michael Cammarata's list that his brother found inside his night table a day after he died. 1. "Take care of Jenna," referring to his girlfriend of 7 yrs.
2."Don't mourn me. This is the career I chose.
3."Make my spirit live on." 4."Remember I love you all will be waiting for you upstairs."

Mike's entire company of Ladder Co. 11 perished on 9/11.

May he continue to rest in peace with his brothers...

And yes Mike, Sirens and Salutes, Inc will always ensure yours, and all the Heroes taken from us that day, spirits will live on.

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

A Hero That Trusted His Intuition.

The problem wasn’t that Morgan Stanley didn’t believe him.

Rick Rescorla had already been right once. After the 1993 basement bombing of the World Trade Center, the firm’s security chief walked the towers, studied the site, and reached a conclusion most people preferred not to hear: the World Trade Center was still a target. Next time, he said, it would not be a truck. It would be an airplane.

An airplane. In a 1993 report.

Executives listened. Then they looked at the lease.

Morgan Stanley was the largest tenant in the complex—twenty-two floors of the South Tower, thousands of brokers, and a trading infrastructure that could not be packed into boxes and wheeled across the Hudson.

They literally made it a trading center.

The contract with the Port Authority ran until 2006. Walking away from premium Manhattan space of that scale would have meant penalties measured in the hundreds of millions, plus the operational chaos of relocating an entire downtown machine. So the company stayed.

Rescorla adjusted. If they could not leave the building, they would learn to escape it.

He built a protocol and treated it like doctrine. Unannounced drills. No exemptions. Brokers who billed by the minute were pulled off their desks and sent into the stairwells two by two, starting from the top floors, leaving a lane for firefighters coming the other way.

People complained. He did not care. Practice, he believed, was the only thing that would beat panic.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower. From the 44th floor of the South Tower, Rescorla could see the fire. Then the Port Authority came over the speakers: the South Tower was secure. Stay at your desks.

Rescorla grabbed a bullhorn and ignored them.

He started the drill his people already knew by heart. Floor by floor, two by two, down the stairs. He sang as he moved—Cornish songs from childhood, then “God Bless America”—keeping the line moving, refusing to let the stairwell become a stampede. Seventeen minutes later, the second plane struck the South Tower.

By then, most of Morgan Stanley was already on the way out.

Of the 2,687 employees in the building that morning, all but 13 survived.

It was stunning.

Rescorla could have been outside with them. He went back up instead. Colleagues told him to leave. He said he would, as soon as he was sure no one was left behind.

He was last seen around the 10th floor, heading higher.

The South Tower fell at 9:59 a.m. They never found him.

He was one of the 13.

He was a hero in every sense of the word.

Remember Rick Rescorla, he remembered for us.

[✌🏼Honey Bomb 🌻 @honeyybomb]

Never forget what this footage actually shows.

These men are not watching from a safe distance. They are standing at the base of the burning towers on the worst day of their lives. For 343 of them, it was the last. They looked up as people jumped.
Then they tightened their straps and ran toward the buildings.

America once understood that.
We watched in horror and called them heroes without hesitation.

That clarity faded.

The same firefighters, police, and first responders who still run toward the fire, the gunfire, and the wreckage are now second-guessed and disrespected by the society they protect.

They never stopped running toward the danger.
We stopped being worthy of it.

With the 25th anniversary days away, honor them. Remember them. Do not let this become just another clip.

[Andrew Zywiec, M.D. @AndrewZywiecMD]

The only chart you actually require to understand the nature of what's happening.

We live in a soap opera, in hell, that's on fire.

[Chris Martz @ChrisMartzWX]

I think that Trump renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America is pointless and stupid.

Wanna know what else I think is dumb?

The fact left-wingers are triggered about this after they spent the last decade plus renaming sports teams, public schools and universities, streets and highways, food and condiment brands, and redefining half the dictionary altogether.

Here’s a list of some in case you forgot:

• Washington Redskins ➡️ Commanders

• Cleveland Indians ➡️ Guardians

• Stanford Indians ➡️ Cardinals

• Loudoun County Raiders ➡️ Captains

• Edmonton Eskimos ➡️ Elks

• Columbus Day ➡️ Indigenous Peoples’ Day

• Lee–Jackson Day ➡️ eliminated

• Robert E. Lee High School ➡️ John Lewis High

• Jefferson Davis Highway ➡️ Richmond Highway

• Mount McKinley ➡️ Denali

• Fort Bragg ➡️ Fort Liberty

• Fort Hood ➡️ Fort Cavazos

• Boy Scouts of America ➡️ Scouting America

• Aunt Jemima ➡️ Pearl Milling Company

• Uncle Ben’s Rice ➡️ Ben’s Original

• Eskimo Pie ice cream bars ➡️ Edy’s Pie

• Land O’Lakes ➡️ removed the Indian, but kept the land

• Illegal alien ➡️ undocumented worker

• Hispanic ➡️ Latinx (a term Hispanics did not want and do not use)

• Mother ➡️ birthing person

• Anchor baby ➡️ child of noncitizens

• black ➡️ Black

• Breastfeeding ➡️ chest feeding

• Inmate / prisoner / convict / felon ➡️ justice-involved person

• Ex-con / ex-felon ➡️ returning citizen

• “Gender” as a biological fact interchangeable with “sex” to being a social construct

• Fat ➡️ plus-sized

• Master bedroom ➡️ primary bedroom

• Manhole ➡️ utility hole

And so on and so on. . .

[TaylenGreen@182 @CLE_Underdawg]

So happy he did/does this - I was worried the NFL wouldn't allow him to keep writing scriptures on his tape, but he did it all throughout his time at Boise and Arkansas (not sure about HS) - I'll post shots of other scripture choices from past games @taylengreen17 #dawgpound

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

This is one of the most romantic paintings in American history, but the artist hid a second story in it, one that only reveals itself once you know who the tired old man in the corner really was...

The painting is Marriage License, made by Norman Rockwell for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1955. It is late on a Saturday afternoon in a small-town clerk's office. A young couple leans over the desk to fill out the paperwork for their marriage license, the man's arm around her, the woman up on tiptoe in a yellow dress to sign her name. The whole room is dim and brown, and a shaft of golden light falls through the window and lands on just the two of them, as if the day itself knows what is happening here.

Rockwell built it out of contrast: the couple glow with the beginning of everything, and, slumped in the corner, the old clerk waits, ready to go home, because for him, couples in love are just the ordinary traffic of an ordinary day.

But here is what almost no one knows: the clerk was a real man, a local shopkeeper named Jason Braman, and Rockwell chose him for a reason. Braman had recently lost his wife. Rockwell knew it, and he asked him to pose, in his own words, "as a way to give him something else to think about."

So the tired old man watching two young people promise themselves to each other is not acting. He is a widower placed by Rockwell right beside the very thing he has just lost.

Once you know that, the whole painting deepens because it is no longer only about young love. It is about the full arc of it, the beginning and the end in one room, the couple who have everything ahead and the man who had it and lost it, sitting a few feet apart in the same afternoon light.

And here's the best part: the young couple were real too, engaged in life, Joan and Francis Mahoney, and Rockwell gave them the oil sketch as a wedding present. They married. And they stayed married for the rest of their lives...

[MindArch @mindarchx]

Booking Tony Robbins today costs $1 million for a single day. this is a 21-minute tape from inside his own house, filmed over 30 years ago, where he breaks down exactly how to get anyone to say yes. same $1 million material. completely free.

this is a rare, unfiltered tape from decades before this man started charging billionaires just to be in the room with him.

people give you two excuses when they say no, he says. not enough time. not enough money. neither is true. the real reason is they don't believe it's worth it yet, and that's not a money problem, that's a state problem.

so he teaches something he calls attack and confess. instead of arguing with the objection, you confess your own. "I had a chance to go to this thing six months ago and I didn't go until two months ago," he tells the room. "I can't even imagine the time I lost." the room goes quiet. nobody argues back.

he calls it getting someone on the yes train. every small yes you get compounds into the next one, until saying no to the final ask feels harder than saying yes. by the time he asks someone to sign, he says, they've already agreed to it five times over without realizing it.

21 minutes. that's all it takes to walk away knowing the exact two moves people pay $1 million a day to learn: how to read anyone's state, and how to move it. most people spend years in sales guessing at this. he wrote it down on a flip chart in his living room in under half an hour.

a seat in that room cost $125 back then. today it's a $1 million-a-day to sit in front of him.

The tape is free right now, and the answer is in this video.

[Coach AJ 🎯 Mental Fitness @coachajkings]

Kurt Warner shares the lesson that changed his entire career and it applies to everything.

He sat on the bench for 4 years in college. When a friend asked the coaches why he wasn't playing, the answer wasn't what he expected:

"The reason I wasn't playing was because I was not very good in practice."

His first reaction? Allen Iverson mode.

"Practice? What're you talking about, practice?"

But then he did the math.

"In college we play 12 games in 365 days. In the NFL we play 16 games in 365 days."

That's less than 5% of your year.

"95% of our lives are lived in practice. And the biggest impression we make on people, the way people can understand and really realize who we are, is what we do every day in practice."

This is the 95% Rule. And it applies to everything - sports, business, relationships, life.
1: Show Up With Your Best Effort - Compete and give your best every single day. People can't question how you show up - your effort, attitude, and actions. Consistency removes doubt.
2: Trust Is Built In Practice, Not Games - Trust is earned in the thousands of moments before it's given. Before you can be trusted, people want to know you're dependable. Every day. Not just when it matters.
3: Master Daily Consistency - Success isn't about intensity - it's about consistency. Your habits compound. What you do daily defines who you become.
4: Big Moments Are Earned In Small Moments - The little details make the biggest difference. Greatness starts with preparation - it's earned in the boredom of doing the work when no one's watching.

Excellence isn't an event - It's a habit.

Practice is where trust is built.

How you show up daily is who you really are.
(🎥 @pttorch)
(🎥@kurt13warner)

[Stephen R. C. Hicks @SRCHicks]

Classic men-and-women humor from Dave Barry:

Let’s say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else. And then, one evening when they’re driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: “Do you realize that, as of tonight, we’ve been seeing each other for exactly six months?”

And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he’s been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I’m trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn’t want, or isn’t sure of. And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I’m not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I’d have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward … I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking: … so that means it was … let’s see … February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer’s, which means … lemme check the odometer … Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He’s upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I’m reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed—even before I sensed it—that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that’s it. That’s why he’s so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings: He’s afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I’m gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don’t care what those morons say, it’s still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It’s eighty-seven degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a goddamn garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieving cretin bastards six hundred dollars.

And Elaine is thinking: He’s angry. And I don’t blame him. I’d be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can’t help the way I feel. I’m just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They’ll probably say it’s only a ninety-day warranty. That’s exactly what they’re gonna say, the scumballs.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I’m just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I’m sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I’ll give them a goddamn warranty. I’ll take their warranty and stick it right up their …

“Roger,” Elaine says aloud. “What?” says Roger, startled. “Please don’t torture yourself like this,” she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. “Maybe I should never have … Oh God, I feel so …” (She breaks down, sobbing.) “What?” says Roger. “I’m such a fool,” Elaine sobs. “I mean, I know there’s no knight. I really know that. It’s silly. There’s no knight, and there’s no horse.”

“There’s no horse?” says Roger.

“You think I’m a fool, don’t you,” Elaine says.

“No!” says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

“It’s just that … It’s that I … I need some time,” Elaine says.

(There is a fifteen-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.) “Yes,” he says.

(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.) “Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?” she says.

“What way?” says Roger. “That way about time,” says Elaine. “Oh,” says Roger. “Yes.”

(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse.

At last she speaks.) “Thank you, Roger,” she says. “Thank you,” says Roger. Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he has never heard of.

A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it’s better if he doesn’t think about it.

(This is also Roger’s policy regarding world hunger.)

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine’s, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: “Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?”