One Thousand Basis Points Of Light

Morning in America 🇺🇸

[Adrian Vermeule @Vermeullarmine]

Public service announcement for those reading SCOTUS news this month: even if the Court reaches a certain result by 5-4 or 6-3, that’s not necessarily the final result. Late arriving votes may change the outcome through the end of the second Vance administration in 2037. Don’t fall for the conspiracy theories!

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@dangitdale66 “Whereabouts unknown.”

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@Dentonandsas "Ask your doctor if Zzyzx is right for you."

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@wil_da_beast630 "You're really pretty, and we get along well."
"Do you want to come over?"
"Oh, gee, I dunno..."

[Wattus Maximus @WattusMaximus]

80 years ago today.

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@Lifeinvestmoney I'm going to bankrupt Medicare Advantage plans with this strategy.

[DepressedBergman @DannyDrinksWine]

British Motor Corp, owners of the Mini, refused to donate any cars for "The Italian Job" (1969). The chief of Fiat Motors offered to donate all of the cars needed, including Fiat 500s in place of the Minis. Peter Collinson, the director of the movie decided that, as it was a very British movie, the cars should be British Minis.

Fiat still donated scores of cars for filming, as well as the factory grounds. The authorities refused to close the roads, but the Italian Mafia stepped in and shut whole sections of Turin down for filming. The traffic jams in this movie are real, as are people's actions during them.

(Source: IMDb)

P.S: On this day, 56 years ago, "The Italian Job" (1969) premiered in London, UK.

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

84 years ago today, a pilot running out of fuel made a decision that won the Pacific War. Most Americans have never heard his name.

June 4, 1942. Six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan's navy is undefeated. Four of the carriers that burned Pearl, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu, are steaming toward Midway to finish off the US Pacific Fleet.

At 7:52 AM, Wade McClusky launches from USS Enterprise leading 32 Dauntless dive bombers. Here's the detail nobody mentions: McClusky is a fighter pilot. He'd been given the air group weeks earlier and had barely flown a dive bomber in combat. Now he's leading every SBD the Enterprise has at the most important target in the Pacific.

9:20 AM. He arrives at the intercept point where the Japanese fleet is supposed to be.

Empty ocean. Nothing for miles.

The Japanese had turned. Nobody knew where. And now McClusky owns the worst math problem in naval aviation: his fuel is bleeding away, and every minute he keeps searching, he condemns more of his own pilots to ditch in open water where nobody will find them.

Doctrine is clear. Turn back.

McClusky keeps going. He works a search pattern, squeezing miles out of dying fuel tanks.

9:55 AM. Far below, a single Japanese destroyer is cutting a white scar across the ocean at flank speed. It's the Arashi, racing to rejoin the fleet after depth-charging the American submarine Nautilus. Think about that. A failed sub attack is about to give away the entire Japanese navy.

McClusky reads the wake like an arrow and follows it.

10:02 AM. The horizon fills with the entire Japanese strike force. Four carriers, their decks crammed with planes being refueled and rearmed. Fuel lines snaking everywhere. Bombs stacked in the open.

And here's the miracle: the sky above them is empty. Minutes earlier, American torpedo squadrons had attacked at sea level and been annihilated. Torpedo 8 lost all 15 planes. One survivor, Ensign George Gay, watched what came next while hiding under his seat cushion in the water. Those doomed pilots dragged every Japanese fighter down to the waves. The door upstairs was wide open.

10:22 AM. McClusky pushes over from 14,500 feet. Both squadrons follow him down onto Kaga. It's actually a mistake, doctrine said split the targets, but Lt. Dick Best catches it mid-dive, pulls out with two wingmen, and goes after Akagi alone. His single bomb pierces the flight deck into the packed hangar. It's enough.

By 10:28, Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu, the third hit simultaneously by Yorktown's bombers, are floating infernos. Six minutes. Three carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor, gone. Hiryu follows them to the bottom that evening.

The cost of McClusky's gamble was real. Many Enterprise bombers never made it home, some shot down, others swallowed by the sea when their tanks ran dry. McClusky himself was jumped by two Zeros on the way out, took five bullets through his shoulder, and still flew his shot-up Dauntless back to the Enterprise.

Admiral Nimitz said McClusky's decision "decided the fate of our carrier task force and our forces at Midway." Japan never won another major battle.

One borrowed pilot. One destroyer's wake. One choice to keep flying when every gauge said go home.

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@redrose_anna “Take our steaks from the butcher to your grill to their final resting place, your plate.”
“Don’t the tomatoes look natural? They’re at peace.”

[TriBeagles @TriBeagles]

Adoptable beagle of the day-Que! https://t.co/sfspASuI6N

[Lyndsey Fifield @lyndseyfifield]

I bucked all advice from my friends (and resisted my conservative bias) and decided to fully trust the Times journalists.

As they left my home they asked that I not talk to any other outlets and I insisted then and repeatedly over the following weeks that I would keep my word and only share this story with them.

But then the weeks dragged on. They kept coming back to us saying the editors needed more. I needed to go on the record (okay). We need more screenshots (okay). I met every bench mark they set, eager to provide more sources or evidence as needed.

After the story went up I began to ask them … wait, where are the stories from the other women? Where are their accusations of sexual assault? Why am I the focus? Why are there 11 paragraphs dedicated to detailing my work history (more than has been published about Graham’s by far)?

Why does it say “nobody could corroborate” when I offered them sources that COULD corroborate?

Why did they include an out of context quote from a friend joking “do not call Graham” after I called off my wedding? (Because she knew I would never).

Where were the screenshots they’d said they would use? Or the mention that I’d supported local democrats and that most of my family (and husband) are liberal?

The editors said it was too much, they explained.

The Times also failed to include any mention that I DID confide in multiple friends through the years that Graham had been abusive — long before he was running for office. Those friends confirm they told the Times so.

It dawned on me that this really was a set up all along. The journalists I trusted who convinced me to share a story I never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign. Violating the trust of his victims. Shattering the trust I placed in them with the most vulnerable story of my life.

And at the end of my call with them I reluctantly accepted their insistence that this was still a powerful story and that I had done a brave thing. And I thanked them for all the hard work they had put into it.

Still fawning after all these years.

[Andrew Leyden @PenguinSix]

The Reflecting Pool is now reflecting again.

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@Lifeinvestmoney Worst Lotto jackpot ever.

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

Video of Chinese communist security forces killing hundreds of protesting students on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4th, 1989. 🇨🇳

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@MiamiHerald @ingelramdecoucy
Frog needed here.

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

Rhodesia and the suicide of the West.
https://t.co/Y74beZyYCM

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@messedupfoods

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@MickeyBlowtorch I have no idea WTF this is about, but I'll hang around to hear more.

[Wall Street Mav @WallStreetMav]

Maturing is realizing European and American whites are the least racist people in human history.

[One Thousand Basis Points Of Light @belize042]

@TooOldToMedic @MickeyBlowtorch "Shop 'til it makes sense."
"Anything?"
"Nope."
"Ah...keep shopping,"