Not-So-OK Boomer

Classical Liberal, Partly Paleo, No Solicitors. I write stuff.

[Josh Howie @joshxhowie]

No one cares when it’s Muslims killing Muslims. But when Jews try to stop being killed by Muslims, then suddenly everyone’s wearing a keffiyeh and chanting genocide.

[Neel Kunjur @neelkunjur]

Some fun morning news to share:

1. A few weeks ago @K2SpaceCo became the world record holder for highest power hall thruster ever fired in space.

2. A couple weeks after that we doubled our power and put 2x margin between us and second best.

3. We are still only at 50% throttle.

We’re building sci-fi stuff over here and we’re just getting started.

[Mickey Kaus @kausmickey]

Re: Scott Pelley/ @CBS--I've been on staff at magazines when an editor you like is replaced by an outsider you distrust. I've never thrown a fit like Pelley did. That's just not what you do. You make the new person feel at home and then stab them in the back as soon as you can.

[Not-So-OK Boomer @Rand_Simberg]

@NGorhamA4S4 @HiddenHistoryYT "They broke our codes."

[Hidden History @HiddenHistoryYT]

84 years ago today, the most important Japanese admiral in the Pacific sailed into a fog bank he could not see out of, carrying secret orders he believed were known to no one on earth.

The Americans had read them three weeks ago.

In May 1942, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had a plan to end the war in the Pacific in 30 days. He would draw the surviving US Navy carriers into a trap near a tiny atoll called Midway, 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii, and destroy them with the largest naval force ever assembled. 200 ships. 700 aircraft. 100,000 men. Four heavy carriers under Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo would lead the strike. The American fleet, which had only three serviceable carriers left after the Coral Sea, would be annihilated. Then Hawaii would fall. Then the US would sue for peace.

The plan was perfect.

It was also compromised.

In a basement in Pearl Harbor, a small team of cryptanalysts under Commander Joseph Rochefort had broken the Japanese naval cipher JN-25 in the spring of 1942. They were reading roughly 20 percent of every Japanese signal in real time, and educated guesswork filled in the rest. By mid-May they knew the target was somewhere referred to only as "AF." But where was AF?

Rochefort had a hunch. He sent a signal in the clear from Midway saying their water distillation plant had broken down. Two days later, Japanese intercepts mentioned that "AF" was running short of fresh water. Bingo.

By May 27 Admiral Chester Nimitz knew the date of the Japanese attack, the composition of the Japanese force, the route Nagumo would take, and roughly the time he would launch his first strike. He pulled every American carrier to a point northeast of Midway called "Point Luck" and waited. The trap had been set for him. He set a trap inside the trap.

On June 2, Nagumo's four carriers approached Midway through the worst fog any of them had ever seen. Visibility dropped below 600 yards. His ships could barely see each other. He held radio silence to protect his approach. He believed he had complete surprise. He believed the American carriers were thousands of miles away in the South Pacific. He believed he was about to win the war.

Yamamoto, on the battleship Yamato 600 miles behind him, had intelligence that the American carriers might in fact be at sea. He chose not to break radio silence to warn Nagumo. He assumed Nagumo had the same intelligence. Nagumo did not.

At 4:30 AM on June 4, Nagumo launched 108 aircraft against Midway from a position the Americans had been waiting for him to reach.

By sunset, three of his four carriers were burning hulks. The fourth would sink the next morning. Japan lost 3,057 men, 248 aircraft, and the four best carriers of the Pacific War in a single day. Japanese naval aviation never recovered. The war was decided in six minutes between 10:22 and 10:28 AM on June 4.

The whole disaster traced back to one decision on June 2: a Japanese admiral sailing into fog, trusting that nobody knew where he was going.

[Uri Kurlianchik @VerminusM]

Gaza was an experiment to see what would happen if you gave Palestinians near total control over a territory. That experiment has failed spectacularly.

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

We need to elect people who want fair elections but first we need fair elections so we can elect them.

Escher world.

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

What going on now in LA and CA is the electoral equivalent of the Palisades fire. Same people too. If they want to burn your world, they will burn your world. And you will have to apply to them for a permit to come back and visit the ashes.

[piercheney @LVpolitic]

I’m not a big election fraud guy - but the 24,000 ballot drop showing Spencer Pratt didn’t receive a single vote, is just not realistically possible. Irreducible error rate is even more prevalent when functional literacy of LA is 50%.

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

You don't think they know how to count votes? Ha!

They know how to count them.

And how to add them and how to subtract them.

They can even do fractions.

The system is not "a mess."

The opposite.

It's nearly perfect.

[Tomos Doran 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 🇵🇸 @portraitinflesh]

A seriously high quality Jewish joke I just came across.

[Justine Bateman @JustineBateman]

In case anyone was wondering that this looks like.
Bring back in-person voting in CA.
Return to special request mail-in ballots only.

[David Weigel @daveweigel]

A good part of Republican messaging is pointing at California in horror, and saying: “See? Elect Democrats and that’ll happen to you.”

The monthlong vote count is not helping Dems’ rep for competence, which Dems are saying out loud recently.

[Not-So-OK Boomer @Rand_Simberg]

@thought_less_ @mattyglesias If and when we withdraw the Navy and other assets from the region with the straits still under Iranian control, and the uranium under Iranian control, morons like you can LOL to your shriveled hearts' delight.

[Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 @ChristinaPushaw]

Ah yes, the Soviet Union. Famous for cutting taxes and protecting private property rights.

[Guy Benson @guypbenson]

I woke up six hours ago to these exact same numbers. I went on TV four hours ago to decry California’s disgraceful vote counting system. And as of one minute ago, the vote count has not budged by a single ballot since they stopped last night. It’s almost 10am out there.

[Jaeger Media @jaegermedia1]

Funny how the same people saying Spencer Pratt shouldn’t be mayor because he has no political experience were the ones pushing for Mamdani to be mayor of NYC despite never even having a job before.

We see you.

[Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi]

America routinely taking days/weeks to count ballots now is f’n hilarious. They might as well announce results in Hamburglar costumes

[Kostas Moros @MorosKostas]

Counterpoint: totally understandable for people to claim fraud when a state takes a god damn month to count ballots, and races inevitably shift blue the longer counting goes.

Other large states like Texas and Florida do not do this. European countries do not do this.

Part of running legitimate elections is avoiding even the appearance of impropriety, and California has failed to do that.

[Not-So-OK Boomer @Rand_Simberg]

@thought_less_ @mattyglesias It means that he has paused before dropping the hammer, which remains poised to strike.