Take serious things seriously. Don't make everything something serious. Don't take yourself too serious. You live. You die. Laugh at things in between, most of all at yourself

Take no part in the unfruitful deeds of darkness... Christian conferences should no more host this stuff than we would the works of Karl Marx, Lenin, or Stalin.

A-10 crews sure have a good sense of humor.

One of the most amazing thing about the heroes of World War 2 is how they never thought they were the heroes, it was always the other guys, the ones who didn't make it home. Humility and gratefulness marked so many.

He died in 2016 at the age of 100, the last surviving Midway dive-bomber pilot. Seventy-four years earlier he had done something no other American pilot at Midway managed. He scored direct hits on three enemy ships over three days, and all three sank. He never wanted the credit. The title of his memoir was a plea. Never Call Me a Hero. This is the story of Dusty Kleiss..🧵1/7

The idea was brilliant. The execution was catastrophic. Allied planners knew that the men hitting the beaches of Normandy would be cut apart without armor support in those first critical minutes. The solution was the DD tank. The Duplex Drive Sherman. A standard 33-ton Sherman tank fitted with a collapsible canvas flotation screen and two small propellers bolted to the rear. Raise the screen, drop into the water, swim to shore, lower the screen, start shooting. Tanks arriving with the first wave, ahead of the infantry, suppressing German positions before the ramps even dropped. The concept worked perfectly in testing. The designers had one requirement: waves no higher than one foot. On the morning of June 6th, 1944, the waves off Omaha Beach were six feet high. Nobody stopped the launch. At 5:40 AM, the 741st Tank Battalion began dropping their DD tanks into the English Channel, six thousand yards from shore. More than three miles of open water, in seas that were six times rougher than the tanks were designed to handle. The first tank hit the water. The canvas screen, designed to hold the weight of a Sherman afloat, was immediately overwhelmed. Waves crashed over the top. Water flooded in. The tank went down. Then another. Then another. The canvas screens collapsed like paper bags in the swell. Tanks that had been designed to float became 33-ton anchors the moment they hit the water. Crews inside had seconds. Some got out through the hatches. Many did not. The tanks took them straight to the bottom of the English Channel. Some crews managed to get a radio signal out as their tank went under, warning the following units not to launch. The warnings either did not get through or came too late. 29 DD tanks were launched by the 741st Tank Battalion that morning. 27 sank before reaching the beach. The entire left flank of Omaha Beach, where the 1st Infantry Division was assaulting, had five tanks to support it. Five. Against fortified German positions housing hundreds of machine guns, 88mm guns, and mortars zeroed on every inch of that sand. The infantry arrived first. Alone. What happened next at Omaha Beach, the 2,400 casualties, the slaughter in the first ten minutes, the near-total destruction of Company A, is inseparable from the loss of those tanks. They were supposed to be there. They were supposed to be firing at German positions while the ramps were still closed. Instead they were on the bottom of the Channel with their crews. The story of the 743rd Tank Battalion makes it worse. The 743rd was assigned to the western sector of Omaha Beach. Their LCT flotilla commander looked at the sea conditions that morning, looked at the waves, and made a different decision. He refused to launch his tanks into the water. Instead he drove his LCTs directly onto the beach and dropped the ramps in the shallows. The tanks rolled off onto sand. Nine tanks were knocked out by German fire during the assault. But they were there. They were fighting. The infantry had armor. At Utah Beach, the sea was calmer, protected from the prevailing winds. 28 of 32 DD tanks launched there made it ashore. The infantry had support. Utah Beach cost 197 casualties. Omaha cost 2,400. The sunken tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion still lie on the bottom of the English Channel off Omaha Beach. They have never been raised. Divers have visited them. Inside some of the wrecks, they found what they expected. They are still there today, 82 years later, three miles off the coast of Normandy, on the bottom of the sea. Today is June 6th. Remember them.

This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it. More than half the donors to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom just won over $50 billion in new federal contracts in six months. And here’s the part that should make your blood boil. Sixteen of these 27 donors were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, securities charges. Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence. The White House won’t even release the full donor list. They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive. A federal judge already ruled ballroom construction has to stop until Congress authorizes it. Government is supposed to serve the people, not auction itself off to the highest bidder. When access goes to whoever pays the most, working families always end up paying the price. We either end the corruption, or the corruption will end us. wapo.st/3QmJjSz

🎵🎵 Everybody has a water buffalo. Mine is fast and yours is slow.🎶🎶

This actually sounds like a pretty good idea.

RT @RickChapterTwo: I'm crying. x.com/RandomTheGuy_/status/2…

In the beginning was the.... Word, you say?

America!

Preachers, don't preach the Gospel so as to make it Law. Don't forget that it is Good News. Some preach it with such command that there is no reason to believe other than being told to do so. They have no problem saying God is holy, but you'll never catch them saying God is love.

On sale at Logos: Gaffin's book on Paul. A must read. logos.com/product/212252/in-…

Well, he has tenure

Gladiator fights on the White House lawn, lavish spending on a new banquet hall, while a war launched on personal whim simmers in the Middle East. Quite a look for the American Republic as it nears its 250th birthday. #Caesarism

Dear writers, Please do not use any AI platform to write your content. It is called “artificial” for good reason. If you have a calling to write, then write. Pray deeply. Study extensively. Write carefully. We want and need to read beautiful prose from you.

Oh look, a Stargate crossover with the Star Trek Xindi.