phdhomeschooler

late night thinker

[phdhomeschooler @phdhomeschooler]

@eyeslasho In Norway, one-lane roads are shared by traffic going both ways with turn outs to wait for the other guy to pass. The driver assist on the rental car kept trying to steer us into the fjord.

A good metaphor for nanny-state controls.

[i/o @avidseries]

In any purely-merit-based highly-cognitively-demanding area or field or competition, a black share of about 1% (or lower) is likeliest.

This is abundantly clear from the admissions data of any elite school or grad program.

In super-elite competitions (like Math Olympiads), black representation disappears. Any group IQ distribution table clearly shows why this is the predicted outcome.

You cannot expand "equity and inclusion" (i.e., expand black representation) without degrading academic excellence. The evidence for this is endless, and much of it is recent.

The black cognitive disadvantage is an albatross that hangs around the neck of America. When combined with an institutional terror of honestly confronting group differences, it has resulted in the gutting of gifted programs, dumbing-down of standardized testing (or its complete elimination), and the reduction of academic rigor all across the country.

As long as the left and the polite center hold on to statistically-unsupported views about group abilities, and have the power to impose these views in our institutions, excellence will continue to be under threat.

[Homer Pavlos @HomerPavlos]

In 1822, Muslim Turks captured two Greek Christian women in Naousa and attempted to force them to convert to Islam. They smeared them with honey on the head and tied them exposed, so as to receive the stings of wasps and of passersby.

The first woman, wife of captain Zafeirakis, was then built into the wall up to the neck in the church of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki. She was left there for days for the entertainment of the wild mob that went there cursing and hitting her head with sticks as it protruded from the wall. She did not back down for a moment, strengthened until her last breath by prayer, and she never abandoned her Christian faith. Her martyrdom lasted five days. A passing gypsy woman, to hasten her end, threw a large stone at her, and thus the blessed one delivered her heroic soul into the hands of God, Whom she did not deny.

The other woman, Maria, refused to change her faith, and for this Ebub Lubut enclosed her in a sack with deadly snakes, where she was martyred.

The historian Eustathios Stougiannakis writes:

"The acute venom diffused into the veins of the martyr from the bites, however, killed her in sweet lethargy, praying until the last moment for her executioners and invoking the Most High and the Virgin."

And Pouqueville describes in the darkest colors to the civilized world the dramatic scenes he saw with his own eyes there:

"Many women naked were put up to the neck in sacks with cats, snakes, and mice…"

The lifeless bodies of these holy women were eventually thrown into the sea.

These events took place during the Naousa massacre.

13 April 1822

409 Greeks killed and over 400 enslaved.

Homer Pavlos

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

🚨#BREAKING: Outrage is erupting in Seattle after a 21-year-old who was SH0T 3 TIMES trying to STOP A ROBBERY walked 2 blocks BLEEDING TO DE*TH, begging for help...

...and a 7-Eleven LOCKED THE DOORS on him and people stood around FILMING him instead of helping.

He had to TEXT 911 by himself, alone.

Yes, you read that right... ZERO bystanders helped him and he had doors locked in his face while he was bleeding to DE*TH!!!

His name is Matthew Lanske, he's a construction worker in Seattle.

Last Saturday night, he and his friends had just finished dinner in Belltown when they walked into one of those "street takeovers."

His family says a man and two women tried to rob one of Matthew's friends at gunpoint.

Matthew tried to stop the gunman and for his trouble, he was SH0T THREE TIMES.

Twice in the stomach and a third bullet shattered his pelvis and tore through a major artery.

He should have passed away right there on the sidewalk.

Instead, this man got up and WALKED two blocks while bleeding out.

He was begging for people to help him, no one did.

He made it to a 7-Eleven and they locked the doors in his face:

Later he said he told his mother:

"Mom, they wouldn't let me in. They locked the doors. I begged them to let me, and there was so much blood coming out of my stomach, I thought I was going to die."

His mother's said that he begged BYSTANDERS for help and instead... they filmed him:

"While my son was fighting for his life, people were standing around filming him, taking pictures instead of helping him."

So Matthew sat down on the ground, alone, and did the only thing left.

He texted 911 and then he texted his girlfriend.

Police eventually found him... he has spent 2 days on life support.

He has had two surgeries so far and has two more to go.

It'll be MONTHS before he can work again.

Please pray for Matthew... you won't hear his story in the mainstream media, it doesn't fit the narrative.

Oh, and not a single person has been arrested...

WE DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS!!!!!

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Children who take music lessons develop a larger corpus callosum, the bridge between the two halves of the brain, and the change is permanent. A 2005 review in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences found that early music training produces structural brain changes that persist into adulthood, even if the person stops playing.

The review was led by Gottfried Schlaug at Harvard Medical School, one of the leading researchers on music and the brain. He found that children who started instrumental training before age seven had a significantly larger anterior corpus callosum than non-musicians, and the size difference was still visible in adults who had not touched an instrument in years.

The corpus callosum carries signals between the left and right hemispheres. A larger one means faster, richer communication between the two sides, and the effect shows up in tasks that have nothing to do with music: spatial reasoning, verbal memory, and the ability to process multiple streams of information at once. The music built the highway, and the brain uses it for everything.

Schlaug also found that musicians had larger cerebellums, the region involved in timing and motor coordination, and more grey matter in the areas that process sound. The brain had physically reorganised itself around the demands of the instrument, and the reorganisation was visible on a scan.

The age window matters. Children who started before seven showed the largest changes. Children who started after ten showed smaller ones. Adults who took up an instrument for the first time showed the least structural change, though they still showed some. The brain is most willing to be rebuilt by music during the years when most parents are debating whether to sign their child up for lessons. https://t.co/hrHlmtHjjg

[FischerKing @FischerKing64]

The real question is why have we not been enforcing a totally reasonable law that has been on the books for nearly 150 years.

We have always had the tools to maintain the integrity of our country. Politicians made choices not to do so.

[Morse Report @MorseReport]

🚨BREAKING: The Trump Administration has invoked the long-unenforced Immigration Act of 1882 to prohibit entry into the United States of “any convict, lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.”

Ultimately, this will allow the Trump Administration to deny green cards to immigrants who are likely to use federal welfare, food stamps, or Medicaid, and to revoke the green cards of immigrants who are currently using these programs.

The new rule is set to take effect Friday, September 18.

As a result, 5.6 million immigrants are expected to lose access to those benefits, and American taxpayers are expected to save $13 billion per year.

Follow: @MorseReport

[Daniel Concannon @TooWhiteToTweet]

Labor Day 2026. 11 AM. Chandler Creek Park. Round Rock, Texas.

White 62-year-old Andrew Wimsatt takes a seat on his favorite bench. Three minutes later, Black 26-year old Benedict Chinedu Ogbodiegwu Jr. sneaks up behind him and plunges a knife into his neck. Ogbodiegwu stabs Wimsatt repeatedly until Wimsatt falls to the ground. This is when Ogbodiegwu kneels on Wimsatt's dying body and begins sawing away at his neck as if to behead him.

As the body of Andrew Wimsatt lays lifeless in the park, Ogbodiegwu returns home, changes his clothes, and heads to McDonald's for lunch.

When confronted with surveillance video of himself committing the vicious murder in broad daylight, Ogbodiegwu blames his identical twin brother - who, of course, doesn't actually exist.

Ogbodiegwu is charged with murder. A mental health assessment has been ordered. Because of course it has.

Andrew Wimsatt was a research engineer and expert in pavement materials and infrastructure assessment in Texas. In his spare time, he enjoyed doing photography in local parks. On Labor Day, that's exactly what he was doing before a dreadlocked Nigerian killed him for sport and tried to saw his head off.

As usual, ZERO national news agencies have covered this horrific Black-on-White daylight slaughter.

Out of ten total local news stories, ZERO include an image of the White victim.

But I'm sure if a 20-something White guy horrifically butchered a 60-something Black man in a public park, tried to saw his head off, then went to get himself a McChicken, it would be similarly ignored by the national media, right?

The only thing unique about the murder of Iryna Zarutska was that it actually got attention.

Black-on-White murder is a DAILY FACT OF LIFE in America, and it's relentlessly swept under the anti-White rug. This will happen again today. It will happen again tomorrow. And almost no one will ever know.

[Rhein Amacher @RheinAmacher]

Race hustler got owned in a game of chess.

[Darwin to Jesus @darwintojesus]

This caused so much cognitive dissonance in me that I eventually left atheism.

[Eric Schmitt @Eric_Schmitt]

25% of all Mexicans live in the US. 70% rely on welfare.

10% of Guatemalans live here. 77% are on welfare.

12% of Nicaraguans live here. 75% rely on welfare.

12% of Haitians live here. 53% rely on welfare.

[Nick shirley @nickshirleyy]

🚨 BOOM! All the hospices are gone. Not a single hospice remains. No more luxury vehicles and no more of your dollars funding their fraudulent scheme. They were all frauds.

In this one location alone we saved America $30 million+.

END IT ALL.

[Wilfred Reilly @wil_da_beast630]

They really have just figured out an indirect conquest strategy.

[Scott Jennings @ScottJenningsKY]

Every Republican I ever voted for said they would shrink the govt. Trump actually did it.

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

It is truly insane that identity politics it ruining juries.

If you want to reliably bring justice down on a woman? Jury of men. Want to reliably bring justice to a Black person? Jury of Whites.

This system is becoming so broken we might have to replace it like Singapore did.

[Matthew Thomason @Matthew56193629]

In roughly 156 AD, at the age of 86, Polycarp was arrested by Roman authorities. He refused to flee, offered food to his captors, and calmly went to the local stadium. When the Roman governor pressured him to curse Christ to save his life, he uttered his most famous words:

"Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He hath done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?"

He was burned at the stake and stabbed with a dagger.

The written report of his death, titled the Martyrdom of Polycarp, became the first recorded, eyewitness account of a Christian martyrdom outside of the Bible. It was read aloud in churches across the ancient world, inspiring generations of early Christians to remain steadfast in their faith.

[AJ Inapi (Allan) @aj_inapi]

Older Americans, you already lived through this.

You were told globalization would make goods CHEAPER.

And it did.

But nobody told you the full price.

In 1979, America had roughly 19.6 MILLION manufacturing jobs.

Then the model changed.

During the 1980s and 1990s, American companies increasingly moved production overseas because labor and manufacturing costs were lower.

Consumers benefited.

TVs got cheaper.

Clothes got cheaper.

Electronics got cheaper.

Household goods got cheaper.

But then something else happened.

The factories in American towns started closing.

Steel.

Textiles.

Furniture.

Machinery.

Electronics.

Auto parts.

Jobs that once allowed someone without a four-year degree to buy a house, raise a family and retire disappeared.

Then came the major policy decisions.

1994: NAFTA took effect after being negotiated under President George H. W. Bush and implemented under President Bill Clinton.

2000: President Clinton signed Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China.

December 2001: China entered the WTO.

The argument was simple:

Open global markets.

Move production where it is cheapest.

Give American consumers cheaper products.

And perhaps greater economic integration would eventually change China.

That was the BET.

Then came what economists later called:

THE CHINA SHOCK.

Between 2000 and 2010, America lost almost 6 MILLION manufacturing jobs.

Not all because of China.

Automation mattered.

Technology mattered.

Recessions mattered.

But researchers estimate Chinese import competition contributed to roughly 2–2.4 MILLION American job losses from 1999–2011.

And here is what Washington missed.

A worker who lost a factory job Monday did NOT magically find an equally good job Tuesday.

Some towns never recovered.

Wages fell.

Communities declined.

Families were disrupted.

The economist said:

“The economy will adjust.”

The worker discovered:

I AM the adjustment.

Then America sold the next generation another idea:

GO TO COLLEGE.

The factory job your father had was disappearing.

So get a degree.

Borrow money.

Enter the new economy.

Student debt went from roughly $340 BILLION in 2001 to about $1.65 TRILLION today.

Think about that generational progression.

Grandfather:

Factory → paycheck → house → family.

Father:

Factory closes → economy restructures.

Son or daughter:

Borrow tens of thousands of dollars because now you need a degree to compete.

Meanwhile politicians in BOTH parties kept the basic globalization model moving.

Then COVID hit in 2020.

Suddenly America discovered that the cheapest supply chain isn't necessarily the safest supply chain.

Pharmaceuticals.

Semiconductors.

Medical equipment.

Critical minerals.

Electronics.

Industrial components.

So much had become dependent on production thousands of miles away.

President Trump had already begun challenging that model.

In 2018, he imposed major tariffs on Chinese goods.

Washington screamed:

TRADE WAR.

And yes, tariffs can raise costs.

That criticism is legitimate.

But President Trump was asking a fundamentally different question.

For decades Washington asked:

Where can we make this CHEAPEST?

President Trump asked:

What does America NEED to be able to make itself?

Then something interesting happened.

President Biden came in…

…and kept many Trump-era China tariffs.

Industrial policy returned.

Semiconductors became a national-security issue.

Critical minerals became a national-security issue.

Domestic manufacturing became a national-security issue.

Why?

Because the argument had changed.

Now President Trump is back.

And Americans are understandably looking at:

Gas.

Groceries.

Rent.

Insurance.

Interest rates.

Mortgage payments.

Those bills matter TODAY.

But underneath that noise, America is attempting something much bigger:

Rebuilding domestic manufacturing.

Rebuilding supply chains.

Expanding semiconductor production.

Expanding pharmaceuticals.

Expanding steel.

Expanding energy.

Expanding advanced manufacturing.

Companies including TSMC, Micron, Apple, NVIDIA, Hyundai, GM, Ford, Eli Lilly, Roche and Johnson & Johnson have announced major U.S. investments.

But understand this:

An announcement is not a factory.

Factories take YEARS.

Semiconductor fabs take YEARS.

Mines take YEARS.

Supply chains take YEARS.

Workforces take YEARS to rebuild.

So here's the contradiction.

America spent roughly 40 YEARS building this economic model…

Then expects President Trump to reverse it in roughly 20 MONTHS.

Read that again.

FORTY YEARS IN.

TWENTY MONTHS OUT.

You should criticize President Trump when policies fail.

Demand lower prices.

Demand results.

Demand accountability.

But also understand what is happening beneath the daily headlines.

America spent decades telling capital:

GO WHERE PRODUCTION IS CHEAPEST.

Now America is trying to tell capital:

BUILD IT HERE.

That transition was never going to happen overnight.

The real question isn't whether every Trump policy works.

Some won't.

The question is:

Twenty years from now, will Americans look back at this period as the moment the country finally understood that the CHEAPEST economy isn't always the STRONGEST economy?

Because millions of Americans already lived through what happened the last time Washington made that gamble.

They watched the factory close.

They watched the jobs leave.

They sent their children to college.

They watched the debt pile up.

And now America is trying to build some of it back.

That is the story underneath the noise.

[Homer Pavlos @HomerPavlos]

On March 30, 1822, when the massacre in Chios began, the Muslim Turks had clear orders. The Sultan had commanded that all Greek Christians be slaughtered, except for boys aged 3-12 and women from 12 to 40. These would be captured and destined for the slave markets.

Young girls were raped publicly in the streets, and newlyweds in front of their husbands, who were then slaughtered. Others were raped in front of their parents, after which the men's genitals were cut off. Women over 40 were set on fire and left to burn alive. Pregnant women had their bellies ripped open and their fetuses pulled out, while small children were thrown forcefully against rocks. The frenzy of the Muslims was unprecedented.

Many Turkish soldiers cut off the heads of Greek Christians and then licked their swords. With this act, they believed they would earn a place in paradise. Others were hanged from the island's trees for deterrence. Severed human limbs and corpses were scattered on the streets, while the sea had turned red from the blood. The smoke from the burning houses had covered all of Chios, while the flames made the night look like day.Several women from Chios preferred death over dishonor and slavery.

They committed suicide by jumping off cliffs. Some were killed while defending their children, siblings, and husbands. Even among those who were captured, some died on hunger strike.Destitute women and children from the island were crammed into ships and transported to the markets of Smyrna and Constantinople, where they were sold as slaves at humiliating prices.

By May 1, 1822, over 41.000 slave ownership documents, known as "teskerés", had been issued in Chios. According to the French-language newspaper of Smyrna, Spectateur Oriental, by May 10, duties had been paid at the Smyrna customs for 40,000 slaves. The priest Welsh from the English embassy in Constantinople recorded what he saw in those days at the city's slave market:

"The Turks treated the women from Chios with utmost contempt. They examined them, groped them like butchers do lambs, and bought them for 100 grosia to 3 pounds per head. About 500 women from Chios were sold in the fish market."

The tragic events of Chios shocked Europe and America. For many weeks, the European press reported daily information and descriptions about the fate of the inhabitants, the massacres, the plunder, and the sale of women and children in the slave markets.

Korais writes in a letter to Varvakis:

"Imagine that you see Christ on the Cross, drenched in His blood, and calling out to you these paternal words: My son Varvakis, many thousands of captives baptized in my name are in danger at this hour of renouncing me and embracing the abominable religion of Mohammed. Behold the time, baptized in my name, beloved son, to save your baptized brothers from the Turkish defilement."

The horrific images of the crimes of the Muslims against the Greek Christians were never erased from the collective memory of Europeans. Great European artists were so shocked by the descriptions that they created important works inspired by Chios.

The famous painting by Delacroix is exhibited to this day in a prominent position at the Louvre. Victor Hugo's poem titled "The Greek Child" is a moving record. But the most famous sculpture of 19th-century America also stands out, named: the "Greek Slave." The sculptor Hiram Powers began carving it about twenty years after the tragic events. The statue depicts a young woman, nude, bound with chains. In one hand, she holds a small cross on a chain.

Powers himself describes the subject of his work as follows:

"The Slave has been abducted by the Turks from one of the Greek Islands during the Greek Revolution, the history of which is known to all. Her father and mother, and perhaps all her relatives, have been exterminated by her enemies, and she alone was kept alive, as a treasure that could not be thrown away. Now she is among barbarian strangers, under the pressure of the full recollection of the catastrophic events that led her to this state. She stands exposed to the gaze of people she abhors, and awaits her fate with intense anxiety, which is mitigated by her trust in the goodness of God. Gather all these sufferings together, and add to them the strength and resignation of a Christian, and there is no room left for shame."

As a Greek, I will use my weapon, the knowledge of my history, to warn as many as I can about the violent and barbaric invasion of Islam and the war we are experiencing today.

You might wonder why I repost the same stories once in a while. Repetition is the mother of learning. The only reason I have X is to educate people about Greek history. My purpose is to keep barbarians away.

- Homer Pavlos

[Colin Wright @SwipeWright]

The current system, whatever it happens to be, will always struggle to compete against a theoretical alternative.

That's because the current system is interacting with a very complex and messy reality, while the alternative only exists in the frictionless realm of your mind.

[QThestorm @17QStorm]

🚨ASSANGE SAID THE QUIET PART: THEY NEVER HAD DIRT ON TRUMP.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Megyn Kelly why his group never dumped a single damaging file on Donald Trump:

“There is no dirt to release on Donald Trump.”

He called him the most squeaky-clean man in Washington — not a career politician, not owned by the globalist club, no strings they could pull.

That is why they have hunted him from day one. No kompromat. No leverage. No closet full of skeletons. Just an outsider who walked in to drain the swamp they built.

The smears were the tell. If they had it, they would have used it.