Even our surfers are built completely different down here.... 🏄 This salt-crusted Florida lunatic ain't just riding a wave — he's juggling three balls in the impact zone. Surfing takes core strength and balance. Juggling takes hand-eye coordination. Doing both on a moving chunk of the Atlantic with bull sharks circling below? That's years of unemployment, zero fear, and pure beach-bum sorcery. California surfers drop ten grand on a custom board & cry about the wind. This guy grabbed a thrift store board, some tennis balls, and decided to mock physics while the rest of the country can't even walk and chew gum. Only in Florida. Never change, you beautiful crazy bastard. 🌊🌴show more

This year's Earth Day theme, "Planet vs. Plastics," is... really hitting home for all of us. 🌍 Let's take a moment to reflect on the impact of plastic pollution and how our choices play a crucial role. Single-use plastics, in particular, are causing significant harm to our beautiful planet. 😔 But fear not, because we can all be part of the solution! 💪 It starts with small, conscious decisions in our daily lives. Remember the three magic words: Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. ♻️ While recycling is important, focusing on reducing our plastic use and reusing items can be even more effective in managing waste and fighting climate change. EARTHDAY.ORG #SaveSoil #ConsciousPlanet #SaveSoilFixClimateChange #SoilForClimateAction #PlanetvsPlastics #EndPlasticsshow more

Maybe some coaches will chime in on this…. But... this is how I’m seeing it right now. I think you’re going to see more and more two way guys coming on the scene in college baseball. Here is why. The rosters are going down to 34 man rosters. You will be needing 2-4 guys who can eat up an inning or two and be able to produce in the field and at the plate. Those numbers may be even higher than that. Years ago when a college told you- you can two way, it typically meant we are brining you in, youll have a short leash and your most likely going to be a PO. Now it’s a legit thing. Schools will need much more versatility- If you can pitch and hit AND play multiple spots on the field. Your stock will rise this year and years beyond. It’s just a matter of can you develop both and do both safely with the load on the arm. Bobcats open on the 13th at home!!! #slammarcos #baseball #twowayplayer #beisbol #pitchershow more

Flying home for Christmas, and thinking about all of... it. Tonight, the specially modified, reindeer powered, A350 hums its way back across the Atlantic, the same great circle we traced earlier in the week, only this time in reverse, toward home. It’s approaching Christmas Eve, and while most of the world is gathered around tables and tree lights, thousands of us are in uniform, keeping the skies moving so others can be with the ones they love. This year’s holiday travel period is shaping up to be one of the busiest in history. Globally, more than 300 million passengers are expected to fly over the Christmas and New Year period, a significant increase in demand compared with previous years. It’s easy to forget that behind every departure board and baggage carousel are crews working long hours through holidays and timezones, pilots, cabin crew, engineers, dispatchers, ATC, ground staff, all facilitating millions of journeys. If your plans don’t go quite to schedule this season, please be patient and kind. We are all doing our best to bring you home. From the flightdeck tonight, the horizon blends winter darkness with distant city glows; the Atlantic below, the festive world above. There’s something quietly profound about flying home for Christmas, a reminder of both how vast the world is and how connected we remain. From my crew to yours, safe travels and a peaceful Christmas. #FlyingHomeForChristmas #PilotLife #AviationLife #AvGeek #ChristmasTravel #HolidayTravel #FlightDeckView #AboveTheClouds #GlobalTravel #AirbusA350 #AirlineLife #Gratitude #KindnessMatters #SafeTravelsshow more

I love this tragic, subtle parallel in the Godfather... Trilogy. Both Vito and Michael Corleone die of old age in a garden setting, retired dons relaxing in the sun with oranges nearby. The parallel is deliberate, but the contrast reveals everything. Vito collapses while playing with his grandson, a symbol of succession and rebirth from one generation to the next, surrounded by love and innocence despite his violent world. Michael dies alone. No children, no grandchildren, no partner, no family nearby. Only a couple of dogs moving around him. Despite having more blood on his hands than the local butcher, Vito exudes an approachable warmth and outwardly shows love for his family. This warmth is arguably what prevents Vito from dying alone. Michael, on the other hand, takes on a more steely persona after inheriting the family business, regularly putting business before family, even ordering the assassination of his own brother Fredo. The same ending, two completely different lives. One dies in connection, the other in isolation. 🍊show more

Yesterday it was father's day, and I would like... to share this post, that I find very moving: "Father’s Day in Ukraine is a day of pain and pride. It’s a holiday that should be about hugs, children’s laughter, and joyful family photos. But for thousands of Ukrainian families, it’s a day when a lump sits in the throat and eyes are full of tears. Those we call “Dad” are not at home today. Some are in captivity. Some are listed as missing. Some remained forever on the battlefield, having given their lives for their children and our land. And some still hold the line… There are also those who cannot say that word. Children stolen by Russia from Ukraine, their childhoods broken, stripped of ties with their loved ones. Children who are not allowed to remember their parents. It’s a day when every corner of the country carries a different pain, a different devastation. But also immense strength. Because Ukrainian fatherhood is about sacrifice, protection, and resilience. So today, we don’t just celebrate—we honor. Every father who was, is, and will be in the truest sense of the word. With pain. With love. With gratitude. For everything you do—even when you’re not by our side. Glory to Ukraine’s fathers. Honor to the living. Memory to the fallen. Hope to the missing and the captive." Yarina. Source: yaryna_myno/ instashow more

A loop of AI agents built me a gun.... It just can't make it shoot. Day 11 of building GTA 6 with a loop of agents. Yesterday I said today they'd learn to steal cars and shoot. Today's progress: - 2 weapons in - Pickup system works (we can grab weapons now) The downside: you pull the trigger, nothing happens. The loop is incredible at the overall, but shooting is the main part of the game, so I think we wire this one up ourselves. So here is the progress I'm taking shooting and sitting down to learn the physics myself with agent as support. At the same time J A Z I I takes driving by hand. The agents keep doing what they're good at. They're building out the police system and the economy right now, while I type this. Also spent the weekend in SF at a Tripo3D Donut event learning 3D art.show more

On a walk yesterday evening in the wooded grounds... of a former psychiatric hospital just outside Ennis in Co Clare. Four people passed me inside in the woods, 3 young and then one lady of approx 60 who had visible marks of her face They all look drunk or high however we're friendly and all said hello as they walked deeper into the woods with their heads down I noticed many abondoned tents and duvets throughout the woods while walking As I passed on further I noticed a young man and woman sitting and drinking inside what I can only describe as a fort, the likes I built myself as a teenager. My heart was broken I have been here before and spoken to a young man who was living on the grounds of this hospital literally in a hedge while sleeping on a wet duvet These are ALL Irish people Addicts and alcoholics I'm sure most are, but to be allowed rot and live like this in Ireland as Irish people is beyond upsetting to see. In the middle of Ennis town is Clare lodge A large former tourist accomodation now filled with Africans and other foreigners who live like kings while our own country men and women rot like this in the woods surrounding Ennis Town When you see disgusting liberal men and women who scream for foreigners please let them know how you feel and what has happened to our forgotten Irish.show more

We recently introduced Gemini Omni Flash, our first model... in the new Omni family. With Omni, you can easily create and edit high-quality videos from text, image, video or audio references. We recently gave developers access to it, and since then, we’ve seen builders all over the world use Omni to create a range of personal and professional projects. Here are some of our favorite ways we’ve seen builders use Omni so far ↓ 📽️ Switch angles and perspectives You can change camera angles, switch environments, and apply cinematic zooms — all without losing the thread of your original scene. Builder Leon Lin took full advantage of this capability, capturing a woman standing in the middle of a city from about 20 different perspectives. You see her from different angles: up close and far away, head on and in profile, from above, and from below. Some shots zoom in, while others hold still. And the background shifts, too.show more

🌴🌞🌊🌵 This was an afternoon when the Levante of... #Mojacar for the first time this year in a preview of what to expect in summertime 🏖️ showcased it’s full Charme and coziness. So it will have been therefore that I took my coffee with a sophisticated though tiny piece of cheesecake in „Restaurante Lua Beach Club“ right in the last mile of the paseo maritimo of #Mojacar. This club is only three minutes walk away from that one I showed you two days ago and it has it‘s very own and distinguished appearance and you know what: if my intuition is not wrong it seems to attract society people like a magnet 🧲 So I‘m sure you 👉🏼 knowing much more society people than I ever can dream of will have a great time exploring this social laboratory ( instead of social net ) inside out. You know the spanish saying: „El mundo es chico!“ in english „The world is a village!“ So you never know whom you will meet and have a great time with them over there. All ingredients for a succeeded afternoon & evening are just in place 🌴🌊🌞🌵🏖️ What else you may like to know about this place you will find on the google-maps page hereundershow more

June 4th, 1994 our lives forever changed. We said,... “I do!”. With those two words, we said, yes, to all the highs, the lows, and everything in between. God has blessed us with four absolutely amazing children who are now amazing adults, with their own best friends/significant others (that they’re doing life with), we have three incredible grandsons, and a beautiful granddaughter on the way. We’ve lived where we both grew up (on the East Coast), and have now been out here in San Diego for just over 11 years. We’ve gotten jobs (and lost jobs), we’ve had more times than we can count where we couldn’t make ends meet, even though both you and I were working two, and sometimes three jobs at a time, and we’ve been blessed in ways that we could’ve never dreamed of. We’ve watched both my parents pass on, and are now dealing with the overwhelmingly difficult challenge of seeing your parents struggle with their own health in ways that no one should have to go through. Through it all (even in the midst of the chaos), we’ve been blessed to be by each other‘s sides! I thank God for you every day, Jillian! I love our adventures together (the big ones where we fly to somewhere we’ve never been before, and the little ones where we hop in the car with no agenda, and just drive). I love when we find ourselves in deeper conversation, laughter, and tears of joy then ever expected, and in the moments of silence, where no words are even spoken, but when we’re together, just being where our feet are. As the world (as we know it), keeps getting crazier and crazier, let’s continue to keep Christ in the center of all we do, keep leaning on and lifting each other up when it’s needed, and keep living the lives that we have been so incredibly blessed to live together. I love you with all my heart Jillian. Happy 32nd (heading into our 33rd year), Anniversary.show more

Aladdin Just Entered the Air Superiority Chat Somewhere over... the desert… An F-22 Raptor is cruising at Mach speed… carrying some of the most advanced radar, avionics, and stealth technology ever built by human hands. Two Pratt & Whitney F119 engines pushing nearly 70,000 pounds of thrust. Supercruise. Thrust vectoring. Stealth geometry designed to disappear from radar. A flying masterpiece of American engineering. And then… Out of nowhere… Aladdin shows up on a flying carpet with an AK-47. No radar. No targeting system. No avionics. Just vibes… determination… and a magic rug doing about 40 miles per hour with a tailwind. The Raptor pilot looks down and probably says: “Control… you’re not going to believe this.” Meanwhile Aladdin is leaning off the carpet yelling: “COME BACK HERE!” Sometimes you just have to laugh at this Ai… Even the most advanced fighter jet in the world isn’t safe from a determined guy on a magic carpet. #SilentMajoritySpeaks #AStoneGrooveshow more

I'm launching an urgent fundraiser to support engineering equipment... for our frontline efforts, and I need your help. Please donate, like, share, and comment—every bit of support is crucial. You can find the donation link at the end of this message. The situation on the front lines is incredibly challenging. Errors by political and military leaders, combined with slow support from the West, have led to significant losses in both territory and lives in the Pokrovsk axis. While we can't always change the decisions made by our leaders, we can make a real difference by providing our soldiers with essential engineering equipment. For instance, I personally have reservations about the operation in Kursk for my own reasons. However, I am fully committed to doing everything I can to save Ukrainian lives during this operation. That’s why one of Liberty Ukraine Foundation 🇺🇸🇺🇦’s excavators is already at work at the new positions on that axis. Our efforts to save soldiers' lives should remain focused regardless of individual opinions on tactical or strategic decisions made by our Ukrainian leadership. Thanks to the fundraising efforts of Liberty Ukraine Foundation 🇺🇸🇺🇦, we have already transferred or are in the process of transferring over 8 excavators. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with engineering, infantry, and artillery units reporting that this equipment is saving many lives. On both the Kursk and Pokrovsk axes, the front lines are constantly shifting, which makes the need for excavating equipment even more critical. This equipment allows our forces to adapt quickly and operate more effectively. Our goal is to raise 🎯 $110,000. I know this is a substantial amount, but we've successfully raised even more in the past, and this equipment is making a significant impact right now. donation link 🔗 Thank you for your support.show more

There's been an unfortunate incident in LA with a... Uhaul plowing into a crowd of anti-Khameini protestors This man should never have been able to get near the crowd with a uhaul but some info about the situation seem to be - signage on the truck is anti both the shah and the current ayatollah. is this his actual position or is this camouflage to have gotten into the protest to perpetrate an attack? "no Shah, No regime, No Mullah" Mullah is a religious leader so possibly referring to the current leader and not a king like Pahlavi Timeline appears to be - anti-Khameini protestors try to rip signs off his vehicle and are bashing on the windows and eventually his passenger side window is broken - guy in uhaul then stutterstops forward into the crowd, eventually accelerating further, then stuttering again, then full stopping down the road - there is a man surfing on top of the uhaul in the 3rd video, below I have posted another video showing the man on top of the uhaul trying to take the posters off the side, so he is likely part of the anti-Khameini protestors - uhaul driver is taken into custody by police is this a case of police not having the street sufficiently blocked off and so a guy was able to get a uhaul in here? He should not have been able to drive a uhaul this close to a massive protest crowd There are a lot of people saying this is a terrorist attack, it is possible it could be one but I don't think there's enough information to accurately assert that at this time The chronology of events also shows it is possible that the driver was in fear of his life since protestors were banging on the uhaul, windows, and removing signs+ eventually breaking his window Whatever turns out to be the actual case, it is an unfortunate event and as of right now a seeming silver lining is that no deaths have been reportedshow more

This deserves a thumbs up! 👍 But give me... a moment, my fine motor skills are still developing. As your little one grows, their physical (or “motor”) development happens on two interrelated planes: “Gross motor” development relates to the use of large muscle groups in the arms, legs and core used to balance, crawl, walk and jump (to name a few). And “fine motor” development describes the development of the small and precise muscle movements needed to manipulate your hands, wrists, fingers, feet, and toes. Both categories take time and practice to develop, with fine motor skills tending to trail gross motor skills in their refinement. Which makes sense. Fine motor skills are all about precision. Which leads us to this sweet little guy, who wants to celebrate by flashing a thumbs up to his mom and dad… but requires a little extra time and effort to get his thumbs to cooperate. Fine motor skills are critical to writing/drawing, the use of scissors, and the manipulation of things like buttons and zippers, just to name a few. You can help aid this development by providing lots of safe opportunities for your little one to practice strengthening the muscles of the hands and wrists, for example. Finger paint, crayons, play-doh, and eating utensils are all great options. Anything that will engage these small muscle groups. But even then, know that fine motor development takes a combination of practice and time. This happy little guy was shared to TT by chenko(dot)tattoo. (If you’re looking for the account use a period in place of the “dot” - I removed it here because the platform wanted to interpret this as a web link.)show more

I’m incredibly excited (and very nervous!) about the launch... of AMPLIFY. I have always felt enormous gratitude to have been born in Australia but, like many of you, I felt that we weren’t going in the right direction as a country. I started turning my mind to what we might do about the situation and got advice and encouragement from some amazing people. We decided to set up an organisation that is all about community at its core. So what is AMPLIFY? AMPLIFY is a community where Australians get to have their say and make a difference on the most important issues that we face as a country. We are non-partisan and completely independent of any political party. Anyone can become a member of AMPLIFY at no charge. We are seeking to find “uncommon ground” and identify the right solutions to the big issues facing Australia. We will do this by bringing our community together for events in all parts of the country, we will facilitate online conversations, share evidence, talk with experts and come up with solutions. The way in which we will make an impact is by taking our ideas to politicians and Amplifying the voice of our community to spark change. Our goal is to help Australia become a more prosperous, fairer, more cohesive and happier country. I will be serving as founder and Chair of AMPLIFY. My job at Square Peg is not changing in any way. Georgina Harrisson is our CEO and has been doing a remarkable job since joining last October. I am also really proud that my son Joel is an important part of the AMPLIFY team. I am grateful to the amazing group of people who have joined the board; Suzi Carp, Rona-Glynn-McDonald, Kate Jones, Gill McLachlan, Dom Perrottet, Kate Pounder, Mike Schneider and Zara Seidler. If we are going to be successful we need your support. You can sign up at our website and become a member in a few seconds. Please spread the word. Please share this Tweet or, better still, post your own Tweet and share with your audience.show more

Lads. Sit down and give me your ear a... while, for I have watched from the water long enough and the hour is upon us whether we have the stomach for it or not. You remember. Or your fathers told you, or their fathers did, and the knowledge of it is in the marrow of you whether you drew breath in those days or not. The moors in the grey hour before dawn. Wet heather soft under the boot. Peat smoke rising from a low stone chimney a mile out across the bog, thin as a prayer. A sky the colour of a gun barrel and the gulls lamenting above the headland. The smell of turf burning, and wet wool, and the ferrous tang of the sea when the wind swung around out of the Atlantic and put the taste of iron on your tongue. A man could walk that land and know every stone of it was his by inheritance, because his grandfather had broken his back upon it, and his grandfather before him, back through the generations until you reach men whose names are lost and whose bones are in the soil you are standing on. The potato fields. God be good to us, the potato fields. Lazy beds cut straight as a gunwale, the ridges black and shining after a night of rain, women bent double with creels lashed to their backs and the children at their skirts, drawing the crop up by the hand for there was never any other means devised nor wanted. Hands split open at the knuckles and never entirely healed in this life. Hunger within living memory. Grandmothers who had seen the blight with their own eyes and would not speak of it from the year of it until the day they were laid down, save that a crust was kept always on the dresser which no soul in that house was permitted to touch. Not ever. Not for any reason under heaven. And the chimney sweeps. Wee lads no heavier than a sack of meal, black to the bone with soot, their lungs ruined before they were old enough to marry and old men entirely by thirty. Up the flues at first light, the skin worn off them by the brick, eyes crimson at the rim, breathing the black in with every draw of air. And the coal miners a half mile beneath our feet, down in the wet dark, the roof of the world muttering over their heads, the canary gone silent, a man's whole existence measured out in the shilling a ton and the dust he carried home in his chest to cough up of a Sunday morning into a rag. Fathers who descended and were never hauled up again. Widows at the pit head with the shawl drawn over the head and no tears remaining in them for they had spent those long ago. That was the tariff paid to keep the hearth lit. That was the reckoning of being warm in winter in the Ireland that was. And after the labouring week, Friday evening, and a man had earned the peace of what followed. Home first. Peeled the day off him in the yard. A shower of ice cold moor river water out of a tin bucket punctured with holes, hung on a nail on the gable wall, the water running clean down the back of him and carrying the week's dust and sweat away into the drain. Scrubbed till the skin was pink beneath the grime. Clean shirt laid out by the wife. The hair combed down with a drop of water. Then, and only then, did a man set himself to the table. A meat pie from the baker, tenpence if he was known to you, a shilling and no change if he was not, put down upon a proper plate. Fish and chips for threepence, the salt and vinegar soaked through the newspaper, but carried home and ate slowly at your own table with your people around you, not walked with through the streets like some vagrant tinker off the road. A man ate as a man who had earned his portion, for he had. And later, with the dishes cleared and the kettle set, down the road to the tavern. Low beams black with a century of smoke. A turf fire muttering in the grate. The air thick with pipe smoke and the vapour of wet overcoats steaming themselves dry on the backs of chairs. A pint of stout, cold and black as a cove at midnight, elevenpence laid down on the counter, a head on it thick enough to strike a match upon. A second one because you had it coming to you and no man present would dispute it. A fiddle starting up in the corner of its own accord. The old men in the snug who remembered matters the history books had long since mislaid. A song before the bolt was thrown on the door. The walk home beneath a firmament crowded with stars, the stout warm in the gut of you, the week behind you, and your own door waiting with the latch unlocked for you had no enemies in that parish. That was the country. That was the covenant. Honest labour, plain food, a cold wash, a hot meal, a cold pint, your own tongue in your own mouth, your own soil beneath your boots, and no man standing above you save the Almighty Himself. Now regard her. Regard her close. The fields disposed of to men who have never set foot upon them and never shall. The harbours signed away by the stroke of a pen in a room you were not admitted to, and foreign keels dragging out of our waters the living that sustained this island for a thousand years, while our own boats rot at their moorings for want of a quota. The tradesmen undercut by imported labour and imported goods. The shops shuttered along every main street from Donegal to Cork. The young ones scattered to London and Sydney and Boston and the Gulf because there is nothing remaining for them beneath their own roof. And the entirety of this rotten arrangement dressed up in the soft mannerly language of progress by men in towers of glass who could not tell a lazy bed from a grave, nor a trawler from a tugboat, nor an honest day's work from a pension plan. And now they arrive with the next imposition. A digital identity. A number assigned to each soul. A card required to buy your bread. A code required to draw your own earnings out of your own account. A file kept on every man, woman and child from the cradle forward. Permission asked to move. Permission asked to speak. Permission asked to earn. A levy upon every breath drawn and a regulation upon every step taken. No. And no again. And no for a third time so there is no misunderstanding of it. We do not require your digital identity. We did not request it. We did not vote upon it. We do not consent to it. We do not need your permission to exist upon the soil our forefathers are buried in. We are a free people. We have carried ourselves this far upon our own two backs. Through famine and empire and civil war and black lung and blight and the emigrant ship out of Cobh, we have come this distance under our own steam, and the arrangement appears to be serving us well enough without your intervention. We buried our own. We fed our own. We raised our own roofs and took our own fish and reared our own children in our own tongue. We are in your debt for nothing. Not a signature. Not a biometric scan. Not a single solitary inch. And while we are upon the subject, let us speak plainly of the tax man, for he has gone too long without proper introduction. The tax collector and the tax man are the one article under two names, and the article is a parasite. There is no dressing it up finer than that. A man who produces nothing, who grows nothing, who catches nothing, who builds nothing, who mends nothing, who has never in his professional life lifted anything heavier than a pen, and who arrives at your door with the full apparatus of the state at his back to carry off the fruits of labour he did not perform. He is a middleman between your sweat and some scheme dreamt up in a committee room by his own kind, and the great majority of what he takes is consumed by the machinery of the taking itself before ever a penny of it reaches the road or the hospital or the schoolhouse he claims to be funding. And I will go further while I have the floor. Finance itself, the whole apparatus of it, money breeding money in the dark without a hand laid upon a tool or a spade turned in the earth, is slavery dressed in a good suit. It is the oldest swindle known to man and it has never been anything other. A man who produces nothing yet lives off the productive labour of others through the charging of interest upon money conjured out of nothing is a parasite of a rarer and more refined order than the tax man, but a parasite all the same, and between the pair of them they have the working people of this island bled white and lectured at for the pleasure. A man who will not work with his hands, nor with his back, nor with his mind at some honest problem of the real physical world, is no man that I recognise. He is a ledger entry in a suit. The country was not built by ledger entries. The country was built by farmers and fishermen and masons and smiths and sweeps and miners and shipwrights and midwives and mothers, and those are the people whose say should carry in her councils, and no other. Here is what I put to you. Let each man and woman of this island direct the first tenth of their earnings themselves, by their own judgement, to the purpose they see as worthy. The school down the road. The lifeboat station. The hospice. The widow on the corner. The roof of the chapel. The harbour wall. Whatever it may be. Let the people who earned the money decide where the money travels. You will find the roads mended and the ports dredged and the schools standing and the old ones cared for inside of five years, and done better and for less, because the hand that earned the coin knows the weight of it and will not squander it upon consultants and committees. And let us have done with the paper currency and the numbers in a screen that can be frozen at the whim of a clerk in a tower. Bring back the coin. Gold for the great transactions. Silver for the weekly commerce of a working life. Copper for the small change of the day. Metal you can bite. Metal you can weigh. Metal that cannot be conjured out of nothing by a keystroke, nor erased out of existence by another. Real money for real labour. A coin in the hand is a free man's wage. A number in a database is a collar around a free man's neck, and they are fitting that collar now while we stand arguing over the colour of it. Feel it in your gut. That is not nothing. That is your blood relating to you what your ears will not hear. That is every forebear who starved and fought and coughed the black dust into a rag and descended the shaft regardless, standing at your shoulder and saying no further. Not one more field. Not one more harbour. Not one more son upon a plane. Not one more free man converted into a number in a ledger for the convenience of the parasites. This is the hour. Make no error about it. Ireland is redeemed in this generation or she is lost beyond recovery, and every true son and daughter of her knows it in the marrow. There is no middle ground remaining. There is no waiting it out. There is standing now, upon your own two feet, or there is watching her go under the waves for the last and final time. So stand. Stand with your farmers. Stand with your fishermen. Stand with your tradesmen and your miners and your sweeps and your mothers and your old ones. Raise the tricolour. Speak the tongue. Walk the land. Hold the line in the streets of every town and city and do not break it, for they are relying upon you to break and to go home and to forget by Tuesday. She is calling her children home. Every stone of her, every breaker on her western shore, every acre of wet heather and every coal in every hearth the length and breadth of her is calling. Answer her. Take her back. Every field, every harbour, every last inch of her. Take her back, or lose her entirely. There is no third road open to us.show more

Hedgehogs are solitary animals so are silent - they... have no need to communicate so don't have a 'vocabulary'. Even when in pain or fear they usually suffer in silence. The only time you'll really hear them vocalise is this time of year - mating season. And it's only the girls who talk.😁 The male approaches the female and circles her, trying to mount. The female turns to face him, keeping her nether regions out of his reach, and makes a chuff-chuff sound, telling him she's not interested. She'll keep this up for hours, sometimes days, until she whittles down which of her suitors is the strongest, has the most endurance and energy, is the fittest and healthiest and most determined. She wants only the very best to be the father of her precious children. Only when he's proved himself to be worthy, does the female crouch down and lay her spines flat, and allow him to mate. Inexperienced males often need to use their mouth to hold on and get into position, so this time of year you may see females with a small wound on their back. There can be more than one winner, and she'll allow other males who have made the grade to mate with her also. So the resulting litter can be hoglets with several different fathers, producing a truly diverse and healthy gene pool. This genetic diversity within a population allows it to adapt to changing environments and resist diseases. Just one of the reasons our humble little hedgehog has survived for over 15 million years!show more

🇺🇸 BREAKING: BYRON DONALDS IS DOMINATING THE GOP FIELD... IN FLORIDA! Florida Republicans know who they want. Byron Donalds commands 54% of Republican primary voters with zero other candidate polling outside single digits. The Naples Congressman has built an unstoppable momentum heading into August's primary. His polling lead actually widened nine percentage points since January. This isn't a race anymore. It's a coronation. The endorsements tell the story. Trump backed him. Mike Johnson backed him. Rick Scott backed him. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. Seventeen members of Florida's congressional delegation. Roughly 75% of the Republican House caucus in Tallahassee. When that many heavyweights coalesce, primary voters follow! Here's what makes Donalds special: He's a self-made conservative. Son of a single mother in Brooklyn. Worked through poverty. Career in banking and finance. Pro-life, pro-gun, pro-America First agenda. If elected, he becomes the first Black Republican governor in U.S. history. That's not a footnote. That's a big deal that matters! He's raised $67 million this cycle. His campaign has the money, the organization, the message, and the Trump seal of approval. The field got crushed because nobody else could compete. Now for the general election: David Jolly is running as a Democrat. He's the ex-Republican who switched parties and now campaigns on affordability. Some recent polls show a tighter race than Republicans want. But here's the reality - Florida hasn't gone blue since 2018. Trump won it by 13 points in 2024. Cook Political Report rates this Solid Republican. What matters most: Ron DeSantis is leaving Florida in terrific shape. Eight years of governing has built a fortress state. Strong economy. No state income tax. Growing population. Conservative courts. When you inherit success like that, momentum carries you forward. Donalds doesn't need to reinvent Florida. He just needs to protect what DeSantis built and push the Trump agenda deeper into state government. That's a winning message for a Solid Republican state. Florida Republicans have made their choice. Now watch them show up in November.show more

We’ve seen guys like Judge, Stanton, Wells and others... tinker with their stances to get into a better hitting position to attack strikes in the zone. When a guy like Volpe has struggled to hit consistently for his first 3 years, is constantly late on mid-velocity heaters in the middle of the zone and is constantly off-balance when he misses the off-speed stuff; you think to take a look at his pre-pitch habits especially what he’s doing with his hands and stride, and consider eliminating some of the unnecessary movements to simplify things and be ready to attack a pitch in the strike zone sooner. Volpe starts with his hands high above his head with some waggle to probably keep his hands moving and stay in rhythm, then as he strides he drops his hands into the slot while he loads, then wraps his hands behind him as he strides and keeps his weight back on his backside. That front foot needs to get down early as he gets his hands back to be ready to smoke something in the zone. Why hasn’t someone suggested dropping his hands pre-pitch in his stance to get them into the slot early, keep them back to prevent wrapping, and cut out one less moving part to get him better ready to attack pitches in the zone? He can even still have some waggle back there if he prefers to keep his hands moving. In theory if his hands are down and back already, all he needs to do is get his front foot down in time? It’s worth a try lolshow more