Woody

Retired IT consultant (self-employed). My only enduring political allegiance is to the truth. My only enduring hatred is for lies and liars.

[Ihtesham Ali @ihtesham2005]

A neuroscientist at UC Irvine spent 60 years proving that your brain has a separate memory system for emotional events, and you can hack it to remember almost anything you want.

His name is James McGaugh.

He founded the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine, and he has been running experiments on how the brain decides what to keep and what to throw away since 1959. The finding he spent his entire career building, refining, and defending should change how every person on Earth thinks about learning.

The discovery started with a question almost nobody else was asking in the early 1960s. Why is it that you can read an entire textbook chapter and remember almost nothing three days later, but you can recall in vivid detail what you were doing the moment you heard a piece of devastating news from years ago.

The two memories were stored by the same brain in the same skull, and yet one was almost completely erased while the other was preserved frame by frame. McGaugh was convinced that something specific had to be happening in the brain to explain the gap, and he spent the next six decades chasing it.

The first major piece of evidence came from a simple animal experiment that almost ended his career when he proposed it. He trained rats to perform a task, and then immediately after the training he injected them with a stimulant drug. The rats who received the injection remembered the task far better than the rats who did not, even though both groups had performed identically during the actual learning.

The drug had not made the rats smarter or faster. It had been administered after the learning was over. Something about the chemical state of the brain in the minutes following a learning event was determining whether the memory survived or vanished.

This was the moment the entire field of memory consolidation was born. McGaugh had proven, against decades of consensus, that memories are not formed at the moment of the experience. They are formed in the hours that follow, and the chemical environment of the brain during that consolidation window decides what gets kept.

The next 50 years of his lab's work mapped out exactly which chemicals were doing the work. The answer turned out to be the stress hormones your body releases when something emotionally significant happens. Epinephrine. Cortisol. And most importantly, a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine, which floods a specific part of your brain called the basolateral amygdala the moment you feel anything strongly.

The amygdala is the small almond-shaped structure deep inside your brain that processes emotion.

McGaugh and his colleagues proved that when this region is activated by emotion, it sends a signal to the hippocampus, which is the brain region responsible for forming new memories, and that signal physically strengthens the consolidation of whatever you were experiencing in that moment.

Emotionally charged events get stamped into the brain with a flood of hormones that say keep this. Neutral events get filed without the stamp and are quietly thrown away over the next few days.

The experiment that made the mechanism unmistakable was published in 1994 by McGaugh's collaborator Larry Cahill, who had trained at the same lab. He showed participants a series of slides that told a story. Half of them saw a neutral version of the story where a boy and his mother visited a hospital.

Half of them saw an emotional version where the boy was hit by a car and rushed to the same hospital. The slides were almost identical. The narration was different.

Two weeks later, the participants were brought back and tested on how much they remembered. The emotional group recalled the middle of the story, where the trauma happened, with significantly higher accuracy than the neutral group recalled the same middle slides. The story was the same. The images were the same. The only thing that had changed was whether the brain was emotionally activated while encoding the information.

Then Cahill ran the experiment again. This time he gave half the emotional group a drug called propranolol, which blocks the action of norepinephrine in the amygdala. The drug did not interfere with their thinking. It did not make them sleepy. It just shut down the chemical pathway McGaugh had spent decades mapping. And the emotional memory advantage disappeared completely.

The group on propranolol remembered the emotional story no better than they remembered the neutral one. The hormone was the difference. Block the hormone, and the brain stopped stamping the memory.

This is the framework McGaugh built over 60 years. The brain has a two-track memory system. The default track is for neutral information, and it is leaky on purpose because most of what your brain processes in a given day is not worth keeping.

The emotional track is for information that arrives with a chemical signal that says this matters, and it preserves the experience with stunning detail because evolution decided that anything emotionally significant was probably important for survival.

The implication is the part almost nobody talks about, and it is the reason this research should be on the wall of every classroom and study room.

If you want to remember something, you have to give your brain a reason to flip the emotional switch on while you are learning it. Information delivered in a flat, neutral, low-stakes environment will be processed through the leaky default system regardless of how many times you re-read it. Information delivered with curiosity, surprise, stakes, embarrassment, awe, or even mild stress will be processed through the emotional system, and the same brain will hold onto it for years.

This is why the lecture you were forced to sit through evaporated by the end of the week, while the question you got humiliated by in front of the class is still perfectly preserved 15 years later. The humiliation was the chemical stamp. The lecture had none.

People who remember enormous amounts of what they read are not gifted. They are emotionally engaged with the material in a way most learners never become. They argue with the author in the margins. They feel actual frustration when something does not make sense. They get genuinely excited when a concept clicks. The frustration and the excitement are not side effects of learning.

They are the mechanism of learning. Every emotion you feel while reading is a small dose of norepinephrine being released into the amygdala, telling the hippocampus to stamp this page into long-term storage.

The fix is almost embarrassing in its simplicity.

Stop trying to absorb information neutrally. Pick a question you actually care about answering before you open the book. Argue with the material as you read it. Get angry at the parts that feel wrong. Get curious about the parts that surprise you. Try to explain what you learned to someone who would push back on it. Care about the outcome.

Your brain was never designed to remember neutral information. It was designed to remember anything that made you feel something. McGaugh spent 60 years proving that the rest is almost a rounding error.

The voice in your head that tells you to study harder is wrong.

The one that tells you to study warmer is the one your brain actually listens to.

[Wesley Hunt @WesleyHuntTX]

Hey Jasmine…

Black pilot here.

I think you missed the plot.
Then again, that’s becoming a pattern.

I graduated from West Point.
I went through Army flight school.
I learned to fly the AH-64 Apache.
I deployed to combat and flew 55 combat missions over Baghdad.

Nobody handed me a cockpit because of my skin color.

Nobody lowered the standards for me.

Nobody looked at me and said, “Let’s check a diversity box.”

That’s what people like you don’t seem to understand.

Suggesting that Black pilots, Black engineers, Black doctors, or Black leaders need special preferences to succeed is not empowering, it’s insulting.

I didn’t want a different standard.
I wanted the same standard.

And when you’re flying into combat, the American people don’t care what race the pilot is.

They care whether the pilot is qualified.

Merit isn’t racist.
Excellence isn’t discriminatory.

And reducing every achievement to skin color says far more about your worldview than it does about mine.

[Conflict Radar @Conflict_Radar]

BREAKING: A Sudanese immigrant tried to behead a man in Northern Ireland

After the attack, flash protests were announced in at least 70 LOCATIONS across the UK by tonight

[Woody @WFDickJr]

@Frost_Byte_404 @kingsofar @JodyChaseTN Great video. But it isn't propaganda if it's true.

[Ian Carroll @IanCarrollShow]

It is often overlooked that the dancing Israelis didn’t just take celebratory photos (and video that was never recovered) of the burning towers on 9/11 with apparent foreknowledge of the attack.

They actually took photos from the same vantage point the day before holding up lit lighters to the tower (like burning it down)

It’s all documented in fbi reports- just a coincidence that a bunch of ex-Israeli intelligence officers were working at Israeli moving companies surveilling the attacks the day before and day of. Then they were caught with explosive residue found in their van and prepurchased plane tickets for each of them to different foreign countries scheduled for the day after (9/12).

When the fbi went to go raid the offices- they were abandoned, the Israeli owner had vanished and left everything (except some electronics) there.

All just normal coincidental Jewish behavior before being sent back to Israel and saying their purpose there was to “document the events”

The actually retarded 9/11 conspiracy theory is that osama bin Laden carried out the world’s most sophisticated terror attack from some mud cave in the mountains with no internet and a small handful of Arabs that couldn’t fly planes caused three controlled demolitions in NYC (including one building they didn’t hit), a physically impossible flight path at the pentagon, and a disappearing plane crash in shanksville. And we know it was them because they had indestructible passports and Mohamed atta decided to leave a briefcase with their detailed plans and personal information in the airport so the Americans could know all about them.

If you have not yet learned the truth about 9/11- or more accurately, the lies, you’re falling behind.

Catch up.

[Fr. John Whiteford ☦️ 🇸🇴 公 公 @frjohnwhiteford]

This is the last completely Christian village in the Holy Land. This is what Israel just did to it. Are you going to do anything about it, Ambassador Huckabee? @USAmbIsrael

[Woody @WFDickJr]

@ExxAlerts Imagine being so stupid as to think you could get by with something this outrageous when you're not a member of the Epstein class.

[Woody @WFDickJr]

I'm sure there's a really good reason why Israel committed this war crime.

[Stew Peters @realstewpeters]

MASSIE: “The Israelis napalmed the deck of the USS Liberty and then machine-gunned the lifeboats. They were intent on leaving no survivors.”

It took 59 years for the USS Liberty survivors to even be recognized by our occupied government. God bless Thomas Massie.

[Steve Baker @SteveBakerUSA]

Does anyone have a clue why so many influencers have been sharing this video the last couple of days? I did this 2.5 years ago, but it’s now popping up all over, uncredited, and by some rather large accounts that don’t even follow me.

Don’t get me wrong. This story most certainly still needs the attention of the current administration and “our” @TheJusticeDept. These criminal federal cops need to face justice for their trial perjuries, before the statute of limitations runs out.

[Kenny Carmody @KennyCarmody]

Every obedience experiment in history had the same overlooked finding.

Not everyone complied.

In Milgram’s lab, 35% refused to deliver the final shock. In Asch’s line experiments, 25% never conformed, not once, across any trial. In Zimbardo’s prison, at least one guard refused to dehumanize. One prisoner demanded a lawyer instead of a doctor and broke the psychological frame entirely.

We spent decades studying the ones who obeyed.

We barely asked what made the others different.

That question matters more now than it ever has.

The resisters in the COVID era were not difficult to find. Physicians who filed exemptions and lost their licenses. Nurses who walked away from careers rather than mandate patients into decisions they hadn’t genuinely chosen. Scientists who published contrary data knowing what it would cost them. Parents who stood alone at school board meetings. Ordinary people who simply said, quietly, without drama , no.

What made them different?

Research consistently identifies a cluster of factors. Not personality traits you either have or don’t. Situational and cognitive patterns that can be cultivated.

First: prior reflection on authority. The resisters had usually thought, before the crisis, about the limits of institutional trust. They weren’t cynics. They were people who had already asked the question “under what conditions would I refuse?” before anyone was asking them to comply.

Second: a concrete reference point outside the consensus. A value, a principle, an oath, a relationship that existed independently of the institutional structure demanding compliance. Something the system couldn’t reach.

Third: at least one other person. Milgram found that a single dissenting confederate reduced compliance dramatically. The resisters rarely stood entirely alone. They found each other. Sustained each other. Gave each other permission.

Fourth: the willingness to tolerate social pain. Not immunity to it. Tolerance of it. They felt the pressure. They felt the exclusion. They chose the discomfort of integrity over the comfort of belonging.
None of this is innate. All of it is learnable.

The most important thing Milgram, Asch, and Zimbardo taught us is not how fragile conscience is.

It’s that conscience can hold, if you’ve trained it, named its limits, and found even one other person willing to hold theirs beside you.

Build that now. Because the experiment is always running.

Until then stay humble.

[Woody @WFDickJr]

@jaketapper Politely challenged? The mask is off. She is not even trying to hide her hatred.

[Kat @KatManDoToo2]

@jaketapper Who’s the unhinged one?
Photo credit @PinoAmericano

[Woody @WFDickJr]

"they name it after the thing nobody wants to defend.

then they point it at everything else."

[IT Guy @T3chFalcon]

the UK government just told Apple and Google: scan every phone in the country for nudity. not just kids' phones. every phone. you have 3 months. or we arrest your executives.

Apple already said yes earlier this year. 35 million people woke up one day and had to prove they were adults to use a phone they already paid for.

Signal put out a statement today. one line:

"nudity today. political speech tomorrow."

Here's every time a government built one of these systems and what actually happened:

2001 — PATRIOT Act. passed 6 weeks after 9/11. 3 days after it was introduced it was law. sold as: we need to spy on terrorists. what it actually was: a wish list of surveillance powers the FBI had been asking for for years and Congress had already said no to. multiple times.

2005 — the Bush administration was caught running a secret program wiretapping american citizens with no warrant. no judge. no oversight. the "terrorism only" promise lasted exactly 4 years.

2013 — Snowden. the NSA was secretly collecting the phone records of every single american. not suspects. not terrorists. every person who made a phone call. the law said "collect data related to terrorism." they decided that meant everyone.

2015 — same law, Section 215, used to collect financial records, internet browsing history, and location data on ordinary americans. still called a terrorism tool.

2021 — the entire surveillance infrastructure built after 9/11 was used to monitor Black Lives Matter protesters. domestic activists. people marching in the street. not terrorists.

2026 — "Protect the children."

All they need a software update.

It has happened this way every single time.

they name it after the thing nobody wants to defend.

then they point it at everything else.

[M.A. Rothman @MichaelARothman]

𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐀 𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐄. 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐀 𝐋𝐄𝐆. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 “𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄” 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐇𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐂𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐒

Roseanne Milburn, 61, of Winnipeg, had a routine procedure turn into an amputation — not because the surgery failed, but because Canada’s government-run system couldn’t find her a bed.

A surgeon at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre removed dead tissue from her knee, then sent her to Concordia Hospital with the plan to bring her back that same day so a specialist could stitch the wound (CBC News). She was never brought back.

There was no bed at HSC. So she sat at Concordia with an 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬, waiting for the system to make room.

As the video narrator put it: “𝘌𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘥𝘢. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘊𝘶𝘣𝘢, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘥𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘳-𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘥-𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺. 𝘕𝘰, 𝘯𝘰, 𝘯𝘰, 𝘪𝘯 𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘥𝘢.”

By the time a bed opened, the wound had rotted past saving. The doctors told her the leg couldn’t be salvaged. On a Friday in December, Roseanne Milburn lost her 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐠 — over a missing hospital bed.

This is not a freak accident. It is the predictable output of a system that rations care by making people wait.

In 2025, the median Canadian waited 𝟐𝟖.𝟔 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 from a GP referral to actual treatment (Fraser Institute). For orthopedic surgery — the exact category Milburn needed — the median wait is 𝟒𝟖.𝟔 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬. Nearly a full year. By design.

That is 222 percent longer than the 9.3-week wait Canadians faced in 1993 (Fraser Institute). The system isn’t getting better. It’s getting slower — and the waiting list itself becomes the rationing mechanism.

Defenders call it “𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦”. It is not free. Roseanne Milburn paid for it. She paid with her leg.

Every politician selling “𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘈𝘭𝘭” is selling this — the bed that never opens, the specialist who never comes, the wound that turns black while a bureaucrat shuffles a list.

𝐀 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝.

[Disgraced Propagandist @DisgracedProp]

People demanding "proof" of election fraud are not understanding how crime works. I worked at Manhattan DA for over 2 years, one in Homicide. We never had video proof of the crime. We almost never had DNA. These are things that occur on CSI on TV, not in real life. And we still convicted people all the time.

What we had was testimony and circumstantial evidence. Travel times, bank records, cell phone data, gate access codes. Motive, capability, benefit, time and place. Never direct proof. Of course the defendant always denied the crime, but there was enough evidence to show that one had to have occurred nonetheless.

If what we have in the LA Mayoral election is a statistical anomaly that is beyond reasonable explanation with anything besides fraud, that is enough to prove a crime. This has been true since the beginning of Western Civlization.

[Sidney Powell 🇺🇸 Attorney, Author, Gladiator @SidneyPowell1]

Exactly. It should not be allowed. It’s a display designed to assert power, dominance and fear. It disturbs the peace, blocks traffic—of cars and people. Deport them all! @AmyMek @marklevinshow

[DR POOL @DRPOOLQ17]

🚨SENATOR JOHN KENNEDY: "It strikes me as breathtakingly ironic that that the people who are screaming so loudly about President Trump's decision to audit federal spending, are the very same people who wanted to hire 80,000 new IRS agents with guns to audit the American people."

[Cherub Rock 💜 @Cherub_Rock_23]

@RupertLowe10 We DO matter.
Our families DO matter.
Our right to walk about the streets of OUR country without being attacked matters too..
That doesn't make us Far Right.
The Government & media have been gaslighting us, but that isn't going to work anymore..

[Seth Keshel @RealSKeshel]

Why is it the burden of the people to prove the fraud to the letter of the laws crafted to conceal the fraud, rather than on the government to prove the elections are legitimate and to offer maximum transparency?

[Ron Paul @RonPaul]

The notorious Section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act has survived the first attempt to strike it from the legislation.

The provision, which "integrates" the Israeli military into our own national security apparatus, will remain in the bill as it moves out of the House Armed Services Committee.

Will Americans be forced to mortgage their sovereignty on behalf of a foreign country - one that cannot stop spying on us?

Watch @RonPaul & @DanielLMcAdams:

[Woody @WFDickJr]

@RatiugJES @ShadowofEzra Probably the same CK ass2ination that broke millions who were not like this years ago.