Welcome to what may well be a truncated version of the Hili dialogue, as I’m starting this on Sunday night and have no idea when I’ll get up tomorrow. (Note: I got up at 4 am local time, but got 7 hours of sleep, and have written most of it this morning.)
So good morning on Monday, June 23, 2025, and National Detroit-Style Pizza Day.
What in tarnation is that? Outside of Italy, there is is only Chicago pizza and New York pizza (and white clam pizza in New Haven(, and Chicago wins. Well, Wikipedia tells us this about Detroit-style “pizza”: it’s. . .
. . .a rectangular pan pizza with a thick, crisp, chewy crust. It is traditionally topped to the edges with mozzarella or Wisconsin brick cheese, which caramelizes against the high-sided heavyweight rectangular pan. Detroit-style pizza was originally baked in rectangular steel trays designed for use as automotive drip pans or to hold small industrial parts in factories. It was developed during the mid-20th century in Detroit, Michigan, before spreading to other parts of the United States in the 2010s. It is one of Detroit’s most famous local foods.
Here is is, and for crying out loud it’s just a rectangular pizza with local cheese. Give me a stuffed pizza over this any day:
It’s also National Pecan Sandies Day (a cookie), Pink Flamingo Day, and National Hydration Day.
It’s gonna be a hot one in the next few days, with a predicted high temperature in NYC of 96° today and 98° tomorrow, and that’s leaving out the humidity, which will make it feel several degrees above 100°F.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 23 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The war between Israel and Iran continues, with the U.S. stepping aside after its bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities while Israel continues to attack:
Israel fired a new round of strikes at Tehran and other Iranian cities early on Monday, and the Israeli military said it had identified missiles launched from Iran, hours after President Trump raised the prospect of regime change in the Islamic Republic.
. . . The new attacks came a day after U.S. bombers and submarines unleashed heavy strikes on a trio of Iranian nuclear facilities, and as the state of Tehran’s nuclear program remained unclear. Top U.S. officials said it was too soon to say whether Iran still retained the ability to make a nuclear weapon and the location of its existing stockpile of enriched uranium was unknown, even as Mr. Trump doubled down on his claim that Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities had been “obliterated.”
, , , Israel’s Air Force is attacking “military infrastructure sites” in the Iranian province of Kermanshah, the Israeli military said in a statement. The province, in western Iran, borders Iraq and lies hundreds of miles from Tehran and the three nuclear sites that the U.S. attacked on Sunday.
Israeli fighter jets attacked surface-to-surface missile launchers and storage sites in Kermanshah, the military later said, calling it part of Israel’s broader aim of degrading Iran’s military capabilities.
The Times of Israel reports Iranian missile attacks on Israel, but they were limited:
Just six or seven missiles were launched from Iran in four waves in the attack a short while ago, according to updated IDF assessments.
The missiles were fired over a 40-minute period.
There are no reports of injuries. Several impacts were reported in open areas.
One impact next to a power station in southern Israel has caused outages in nearby towns, according to the Israel Electric Corporation.
The NYT published a map of where the U.S. attacked Iran; I’ve reproduced the NYT’s caption (click to enlarge):
What impresses me is how close to each other the six bomb entry points are at Fordo: there are two groups of three. The U.S. appears to have been targeting the ventilation shafts at the enrichment plant, which, if true, is a clever move since the already-dug shafts would obviate the need for the bunker busters to penetrate hundreds of feet of rock. This video shows some of the entry points:
*Meanwhile, the NYT reports that Trump’s waffling about whether he’d take two weeks before deciding to strike Iran appears to have been an elaborate ruse. The decision had already been made when Carolin Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, announced the “two week decision period” bit (article archived here):
Mr. Trump had been under pressure from the noninterventionist wing of his party to stay out of the conflict, and was having lunch that day with one of the most outspoken opponents of a bombing campaign, Stephen K. Bannon, fueling speculation that he might hold off.
It was almost entirely a deception. Mr. Trump had all but made up his mind to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, and the military preparations were well underway for the complex attack. Less than 30 hours after Ms. Leavitt relayed his statement, he would give the order for an assault that put the United States in the middle of the latest conflict to break out in one of the world’s most volatile regions.
Mr. Trump’s “two weeks” statement was just one aspect of a broader effort at political and military misdirection that took place over eight chaotic days, from the first Israeli strikes against Iran to the moment when a fleet of B-2 stealth bombers took off from Missouri for the first American military strikes inside Iran since that country’s theocratic revolution in 1979.
. . .The strike plan was largely in place when Mr. Trump issued his Thursday statement about how he might take up to two weeks to decide to go to war with Iran. Refueling tankers and fighter jets had been moved into position, and the military was working on providing additional protection for American forces stationed in the region.
While the “two weeks” statement bought the president more time for last-minute diplomacy, military officials said that ruse and the head fake with the B-2s also had the effect of cleaning up a mess — the telegraphing of the attack — that was partly of the president’s making.
The “head fake” was that the U.S. had, as part of the deception, sent a strike force of B-2 bombers from another direction, across the Pacific (the bombers that actually struck Fordo came from Missouri and traveled west):
These public pronouncements [Trump’s public waffling] generated angst at the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command, where military planners began to worry that Mr. Trump was giving Iran too much warning about an impending strike.
They built their own deception into the attack plan: a second group of B-2 bombers that would leave Missouri and head west over the Pacific Ocean in a way that flight trackers would be able to monitor on Saturday. That left a misimpression, for many observers and presumably Iran, about the timing and path of the attack, which would come from another direction entirely.
Now it’s not clear whether Trump was resolved to give the order to bomb when he made the “two weeks” statement, but what is certain is that the military, under his orders, had already prepared an elaborate attack plan, The extent of the damage is unknown, and there are some reports (see photos here) that a fleet of trucks had removed enriched uranium from Fordo before the bombing:
There was also evidence, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence, that Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site in recent days. And there was growing evidence that the Iranians, attuned to Mr. Trump’s repeated threats to take military action, had removed 400 kilograms, or roughly 880 pounds, of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity. That is just below the 90 percent that is usually used in nuclear weapons.
Finally, there have been protests in America against by bombings, but according to the NYT they are more limited than I predicted:
Protesters in more than a dozen U.S. cities demonstrated on Sunday against the Trump administration’s airstrikes on Iran.
Some rallies attracted hundreds, while others drew dozens. The overall turnout was far less than last weekend’s “No Kings” protests against the president that were held in all 50 states. Many of Sunday’s demonstrations, held in cities including New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles, were arranged late Saturday and had been described by organizers as “emergency mobilizations.”
*The international opprobrium against the U.S. for striking Iran has been widespread, with UK PM Kier Starmer being an exception, but still calling for restraint. I found three op-ed pieces that were pretty praiseworthy, and one (by Tom “I am Dumb” Friedman) being deeply confused.
At the NYT Bret Stephens, whose writing on the war I admire, had an op-ed called “Trump’s courageous and correct decision” (archived here). A short excerpt:
For decades, a succession of American presidents pledged that they were willing to use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But it was President Trump who, by bombing three of Iran’s key nuclear sites on Sunday morning, was willing to demonstrate that those pledges were not hollow and that Tehran could not simply tunnel its way to a bomb because no country other than Israel dared confront it.
That’s a courageous and correct decision that deserves respect, no matter how one feels about this president and the rest of his policies. Politically, the easier course would have been to delay a strike to appease his party’s isolationist voices, whose views about the Middle East (and antipathies toward the Jewish state) increasingly resemble those of the progressive left. In the meantime, Trump could have continued to outsource the dirty work of hitting Iran’s nuclear capabilities to Israel, hoping that it could at least buy the West some diplomatic leverage and breathing room.
. . .one set of risks must be weighed against another, and there are few greater risks to American security than a nuclear Iran.
The regime is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. It is ideologically committed to the annihilation of Israel and is currently attacking it with indiscriminate missile fire on civilian targets. It is an ally of North Korea, China and Russia — and supplies many of the drones Russia uses to attack Ukraine. It is developing and fielding thousands of ballistic missiles of increasingly greater reach. Its acquisition of a bomb would set off an arms race in the Middle East. And it has sought to assassinate American citizens on American soil. If all this is not intolerable, what is?
Apparently it is tolerable to those who, determined to criticize everything that Trump does, cannot force themselves to admit that the U.S. strike was timely, clever, and well executed. This mindset does not allow Trump to do anything positive, even if it’s by accident.
The second positive op-ed is in by the editorial board of the Free Press: “Trump keeps his promise on Iran. The world is safer for it” (archived here).
In a moment of political decisiveness and courage, Trump deployed those bombs, despite strenuous objections from the “restrainers” in his administration and parts of the MAGA coalition.
“There’s no military that could’ve done what we did,” Trump said during a brief speech to the nation Saturday night. He is correct. As Niall Ferguson and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant recently noted in these pages, Fordow was essentially impervious to assault. There was one bomb that could cut through its defenses: America’s GBU 57A/B Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP). And there was only one plane built to deliver that bomb: the American B-2 Spirit.
“With a single exertion of its unmatched military strength,” Ferguson and Gallant wrote, “the United States can shorten the war, prevent wider escalation, and end the principal threat to Middle Eastern stability. It can also send a signal to those other authoritarian powers who have been Iran’s enablers that American deterrence is back.”
That is exactly what this White House has done.
Well, the Free Press‘s enthusiasm may be premature, but I share their approbation. And that does not make me an unalloyed fan of Trump, which of course I am not.
Finally, Sam Harris has a piece called “The right war,” which I can’t access though I have a subscription. Here’s part of what’s visible:
For all his faults, President Trump is now the first U.S. president to take decisive action against the terror state of Iran. Of course, there is a risk that he could exploit this war to justify further authoritarian measures at home, but I believe that the decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was both necessary and courageous.
No doubt, the President drew most of his courage from the success of Israel’s recent military operations—both within Iran and against its proxies throughout the region. Without these astonishing achievements, it is hard to imagine him choosing to attack Iran on his own. Unsurprisingly, President Trump declared our attempt to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability a complete success, long before anyone could know the actual result. Still, bombing these sites seemed like the right thing to do.
*Finally, Tom Friedman, who has been lame throughout this crisis, proposes his “solution”, which is, as usual, untenable (op-ed archived here).
The real knockout blow to Iran and all the resisters — and the keystone that would make it easy as pie for Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq to normalize relations with Israel and consolidate the victory for the forces of inclusion — is for Trump to tell Netanyahu: “Get out of Gaza in return for a cease-fire from Hamas and the return of all Israeli hostages. Let an Arab peacekeeping force move in there, blessed by a reformed Palestinian Authority, and then begin what will have to be a long process of Palestinians building a credible governing structure in return for a halt to all Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. That would create the best conditions to birth a Palestinian state there.”
I don’t think Israel wants to permanently occupy Gaza, but the idea that there could be an immediate cease-fire, with Hamas relinquishing power and returning all the hostages, is totally stupid and ignorant. Hamas does not want to give up either power or hostages, and Israel will not stop fighting in Gaza until Hamas does (the hostages might of course have been killed).
And Friedman unaccountably still trusts the Palestinian Authority—another pro-terror organization sworn to destroy Israel—to be part of a joint peacekeeping force with other Arab states, who themselves want no part of policing Gaza.
Friedman simply mouths pious words but seems to have no idea of the passions that inflame both Hamas and Israel (the latter wants no part of a “two state” solution right now). The man is delusional, and should not be writing for the NYT.
*The pro-Isael Elder of Ziyon has a nice memorial for Malgorzata, who translated the site’s articles into Polish:
I am sorry to say that Małgorzata Koraszewska passed away suddenly last week.
Malgorzata was a prolific translator of works into Polish, and she had translated hundreds of my articles, posters and videos over the years. But she translated from many others, as well as books and… pic.twitter.com/msaEWMWFcg
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) June 22, 2025
Here is the Polish Rationalist Society’s obituary for Malgorzata, which Google can translate into English (click to read):
An excerpt:
It was Małgorzata Koraszewska who translated and searched for texts showing us all the situation of atheists and freethinkers in the world. It was mainly thanks to her that many of us had a chance to move from the provincial world of anticlericals criticizing the local church to the real world full of dangerous secular and religious ideologies. It was Małgorzata who was one of the main builders of a truly rational and humanistic awareness of what is really happening in the world understood as a global village in which we live, and not distant fairy-tale lands that are indifferent to us.
Andrzej and Małgorzata Koraszewski were awarded the title of Rationalists of the Year by PSR, due to their enormous contribution to rational thought, to the fight against dogmas that build various ideologies in defenseless human minds. You have probably noticed that we have not been awarding this prize for some time. This is no coincidence. It is currently difficult to find people in Poland who would match the scale of their activities and achievements of Małgorzata and Andrzej Koraszewski.
Małgorzata was and is my heroine! If you want to honor her, follow in her footsteps! Be distrustful and skeptical of media and political witch hunts. When learning about difficult topics, look for sources and think independently. Be like investigative journalists, without this you will drown in a sea of propaganda. Finding the truth, or a more true picture of a given event or phenomenon, is a very exhausting challenge. And when you possess this truth, you will often be stigmatized, like Małgorzata and Andrzej defending a cause as “unfashionable” as the case of Israel. So you will face hardship and there will most likely be no reward from the circles you associate with. On the contrary, there will be criticism, often stupid and unfair. However, deep inside, in your hearts, you will be winners. You will have a chance to become wiser, just as the repeaters of propaganda and dogmas do not become better. So if you want sometimes painful wisdom, instead of blissful stagnation that drowns in indolence, do not forget about Małgorzata. Reach for the texts she translated and go further, to the sources, to the truth, to justice.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is puzzled:
Hili: What did I come here for?
A: And where have you been?
Hili: By the well.
A: Go back there, you may remember.
In Polish:
Hili: Po co ja tu przyszłam?
Ja: A gdzie byłaś?
Hili: Koło studni.
Ja: Wróć tam, może sobie przypomnisz.
*******************
From Stacy; Day-O!
From Now That’s Wild:
From CinEmma:
*******************
Yes, Americans are already extolling the wonderfulness of the Iranian regime, like the woman on the right below. Masih has a message for them:
That woman in your poster?
Your “hero”?
She says women like you and me deserve to be raped, because we don’t cover our hair or hide our bodies “properly.”On Iran’s state TV,
She said #MahsaAmini deserved to die, because she broke the law by showing her hair. Remember?But… pic.twitter.com/gYO9dS16bB
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 22, 2025
From Barry. I have no idea what it’s about, but it’s funny:
From Luana. These are the people like the woman on the right in the first tweet above:
“9/11 was kinda justified.”
American students have been indoctrinated beyond belief. pic.twitter.com/bcitZva9yn
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) June 20, 2025
I found two tweets, but the one I want to emphasize, and which I used to post about, is the second one:
Iran before and after the Islamic Revolution.
The difference is undeniable! pic.twitter.com/455cKeKXbN
— The Immortal (@TheImmortal007) June 21, 2025
From Malcolm: a polite d*g:
When the dog was drinking water, he noticed that the cat wouldn’t drink. So, he stepped aside and let the cat drink.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/7ZwY4fw8DN
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) May 18, 2025
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
This German Jewish boy was sent to the gas chambers immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. He was nine.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-23T08:23:53.599Z
Two posts from Matthew. First, an ancient cat:
I love this photo from my collection that was correctly framed to cut off the dude's head but catch the photobombing cat.
— Cats of Yore (@catsofyore.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T17:44:36.496Z
And birds who know what they want:
Hace mucha calor.Definición gráfica.Besitos
I agree with Sam Harris: “both necessary and courageous.”
Like all of us, I worry about what comes next. But any capitulation to terrorism in Gaza or a terrorist regime in Iran is not wise.
am yisrael chai
Those student interviews at our unis here in NYC aren’t set ups I can assure you.
Prior to Oct. 7 – and twice afterwards – I’d visited these pro-terrorist gatherings at NYU which is a short walk from my apartment: “Let’s check these… people.. out.”
I wasn’t expecting any deep insights or considered sophisticated reviews (they’re only elite students after all).
But it was really horrible. I couldn’t believe how little ANY I spoke to knew about the situation. The one that did had the Al Jazeera playbook down pat. I was shaken by this.
Wrote about it here
https://themoderatevoice.com/what-pro-palestine-student-groups-get-wrong/
THOUGH.. I didn’t include much of my interviews with our “elite” new generation of morons.
D.A.
NYC
Thanks for sharing the very lovely tribute to Malgorzata by the Polish Rationalist Society.
Seven hours of sleep…excellent compared to recent nights at home. Hope it continues throughout your conference stay.
Also, readers may be interested in trying to tune into the official opening of the Vera Rubin Observatory high in the mountains of Chile at 11:00 EDT this morning. Information for live link should be available at url https://www.space.com/astronomy/scientists-to-unveil-1st-images-from-the-vera-c-rubin-observatory-on-june-23-watch-the-big-moment-live
The construction of this HUGE device was funded jointly by the NSF and U.S. Dept of Energy. I have for many years been amazed at how much fundamental/basic science research is supported by the DoE. I remember seeing photos of workers shlepping material on horseback to the mountaintop to build the 200inch Mt Palomar telescope (the gold standard for astronmy in my chilhood) in the 1930’s; I cannot imagine the effort required to simply get the materials for this behemoth to the job site.
In my more cynical moments, I expect much of the to-do this morning is public relations to try to fend off the proposed cuts to the US basic science budgets, but it also promises to give some interesting insights to this incredible new instrument. They claim it will be broadcast in English and Spanish.
I caught something lately – a photo was released – exciting! I was confused at first, I thought it referred to that old radio telescope.
Interesting ceremony…i watched about 30 minutes. Held at National Academies auditorium. Directors of agencies (nsf and doe) and the project each gave around 4-5 minutes as did the chilean ambassador. The ambassador spoke of vera rubin name inspiring their young girls for careers in science and astronmomy. Americans, except for ostp director, praised rubin for her expertise, ostp director used the name of the observatory…at least did not remove her name from it!…. Ostp director is a business hack, not a scientist … not even a degree in science. Nsf director and dep director slots are both blank, so nsf chief of staff, a career nsf ses staffer with a bs in biology and an mba spoke on behalf of nsf. Sheesh! As I understand it, the big deal about this telescope is it appears to be of a rich field design with an incredibly fast and large ccd camera. Should be able to acquire tons of Southern hemisphere sky survey rapidly with high resolution. It was the first priority in the 2010 NAS Decadel survey.
IIRC Detroit style pizza is maybe more well known as Pizza Hut pizza – the key features being frico – crisped up Monterey jack around the crust edge, and almost fried bottom crust in a cast-iron pan.
I have made it! It works! It has that particular crunch/feel/flavor as Pizza Hut! I used America’s Test Kitchen recipes in Cook it in Cast Iron and .. some other one…
I’m not sure of modern Pizza Hut offerings – I actually have not eaten their stuff forever. I also do not understand the rectangular sheet pan / shape. But apparently the name stuck.
Jet’s Pizza is a pretty big chain that specializes in Detroit-style pizza (they have other styles as well). One of my Detroit-origin acquaintances tells me it’s the real deal.
To me, a Detroit style pizza is good pizza, depending on the quality of ingredients — like all pizzas.
As newlyweds living in Ann Arbor while I worked on my Bachelor’s, my husband worked at a Pizza Hut and he brought one of those crispy, greasy pizzas home every night he worked. I loved them! They don’t really taste like pizza. They should be called something else.
Very nice to read the lovely tributes to Malgorzata. I remember Jerry referring to her (and Andrzej, as well) as a workaholic. She’d have to be to do all she did. I’m so glad to have known her through WEIT. Thank you for sharing her with us Andrzej and Jerry.
That is a beautiful tribute to Malgorzata. She lived a very meaningful life.
I love the Hili dialogue and can relate.
No kidding. Me, too! (“I know I came in here for a reason…”)
Check your email PCC(E) for my number. If the conference gives you some time alone do saunter over the Bkn Bridge (Manhattan is still cool I can assure you) any time on your trip this week. Meals, coffee, etc. on me.
HA! I’ll even throw in some of the “street entertainment” we’re famous for for your amusement. Sure your Pal protests at Chicago are cool but we’ve got a market lock on woke stupidity here: lots of weird hilarious human fauna and great architecture. (not sure there’s a demo at NYU today… but fingers crossed).
You can take a break from this horrible heat and even meet my doggie! (It is OK, he doesn’t try to kiss strangers).
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
D.A.
Chelsea/G. Village north
NYC
Was President Trump’s two-week interim really a ruse, with Trump intending to attack Iran imminently all along? I don’t know and I don’t know if we’ll ever know. Trump’s people have a way of backfilling after the fact in order to make Mr. Trump’s actions appear fully rational and intended. In other words, it could be that Trump planned on a two week interim but then changed his mind, his people turning his uncertainty into the perfect ruse and the perfectly executed plan—after the fact.
Małgorzata Koraszewska. May her memory be a blessing.
I think Trump simply had FOMO, fear of missing out, and being upstaged by Bibi.
I suspect that the trigger for the airstrike on Iran on June 13th, 2025 was this very short report published by the IAEA Board of Governors the previous day – 12 June:
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-38.pdf
It shows what we have known for the past 20 years: At the negotiating table, Iran makes promises it doesn’t intend to keep. It is steadfast in its mission to enrich uranium to weapons grade so that it can achieve its goal of making a bomb to drop on Tel Aviv.
It’s quite obvious that this report will be used as the legal basis for the airstrikes that followed.
The link goes nowhere, unfortunately.
But it looks like Iran had a large truck convoy removing materials out shortly before the strikes.
So, what needs to be next is to find where they are stockpiling, and to hit that target without preamble.
Apologies… here it is:
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-38.pdf
Perhaps important to note that in the banner it says “(This document has been derestricted at the meeting of the Board on 12 June 2025)” so the details were probably know to Israel, Iran and the US beforehand.
That is really damning. I wonder if the naysaying MSM outlets have seen this?
Al Jazeera spoke to IAEA chief Rafael Grossi on June 19.
https://www.aljazeera.com/video/talk-to-al-jazeera/2025/6/19/iaea-chief-no-evidence-iran-is-building-a-nuclear-weapon
At around the 11:30 mark they discuss the June 12 report and how it shouldn’t/can’t be used as the basis for military action. About two minutes later Grossi mentions that there is no evidence that Iran is building a bomb but this is just Grossi’s diplomacy.
Sure, they aren’t building a bomb NOW. But, if left to their own devices, they’ll be making their own devices. From page 2 paragraph (m) of the June 12 report:
There’s now the question of 400kg of unaccounted for +60% enriched metal. Such is their zeal, I wouldn’t put it past them to pack it in a dozen briefcases and dribble it around Tel Aviv.
For some reason that link doesn’t work.
I tried looking for a report by I.A.E.A. in June and just found calls to let inspectors return.
Copy/paste into the address bar works… no idea what’s up with my markup today…
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-38.pdf
Try it now, Frau. It’s working for me and I’m the one things never work for 🙂
Edit: The second posting of it
The US strike package into Iran was large. Many pilots, flight crews, maintainers, planners, intel analysts, satellite operators and other support personnel were involved. Nevertheless, there are some people whose performance was pivotal. I am thinking, for instance, of the first B2 pilot over target. The lead pilot is very likely someone whose early career trajectory puts him or her on a path to one day wear stars. This mission will further solidify that path.
Notice that we do not know that person’s name or that of the other key men and women on this mission. All public thanks are going to the US military, or to the Air Force, or in some cases to the men and women of a particular unit. What is explicitly missing is praise of an individual, let alone self-praise. The time will come for individual awards and recognition from within the organization; I hope Trump doesn’t make a public spectacle of it. Part of this is a security measure: you don’t want to put individualized targets on the backs of these men and women. Most of it is culture: it is the team and the mission that matter.
This is why calls from outside the military to let individuals “express themselves” or to “follow his dreams” or to “be her authentic self” fall largely on deaf ears within the military establishment. Subjugation of “I” to “we” begins on the first day of military training. This culture wasn’t adopted arbitrarily; it evolved with the success and the deaths of many, many men. The social designers seem not to grasp that change without coercion requires that one understand organizational culture and the reasons for its existence. Or they don’t care. But coercion and condescension make it difficult to attract volunteers who are ready to sacrifice their lives. And fronting the individual over the team will ensure that many lives are lost.
Many thanks, Doug, for making a profound point. Its far-reaching implications are precisely what are lacking in the the amateur social designer schemes of the DEI cult, and more generally in the posturing of the pop-Left,
Very true, Doug, in my limited experience.
Here is where woke (which is a project to empower narcissists) runs aground.
In sports (where ID group doesn’t matter) and the military – where it is a team effort.
The competence of the military is a team effort – one’s skin color or ideology don’t matter. It is why we are a superpower and deserve to be, irrespective of university and social elites… whom the military protect (of all ironies!).
As an equities/options trader I learned this young – you are only as good as your last trade. Nobody cares about your rainbow or racial, mar-gin-alized id-en-tit-y.
Successful orgs and countries are meritocracies or the system fails.
D.A.
NYC
Thomas Friedman’s logic is no longer based in reality. His columns are no longer readable. Both his logic and writing style are stuck in the 20th century.
Does logic depend on the “when” (20th century or whenever)?
Would you care to provide some links to early 21st writing style and when it popped into existence? Is it primarily a Gen Z thang? Is one supposed to reasonably take it that Vidal and Hitchens (among a host of other 20th century writers) are stylistically obsolete? On what day and at what hour did the the bell toll, signaling their expulsion from the sacred groves of contemporary literature?
And so disappointing, Rick!
I loved his “From Beirut to Jerusalem” about the Lebanese war in the 1980s.
But… as I WILL NOT SHUT UP ABOUT HERE… institutions and individuals can fail over time. Witness: BBC, PBS, UN, (the boss’ bugbear ACLU), … and individuals like Tom Friedman. Who is now all in for the Pay For Slay terrorist lite Abbas and the Pal Authority.
Things can decay. I have decayed and you might too. But let’s call out when others do, like Friedman who is now not fit for purpose as a serious voice in all this.
best Rick,
D.A.
NYC
I started following some left wing sites after becoming pretty fed up with Trump.
That includes, it turns out, strong disapproval of Israel’s attacks on Iran and of course massive disapproval of Trump’s actions. These are the same people saying “trans women are women” and should be allowed to compete in women’s sports.
I can always return to The Free Press, where the commenters just love Trump but half of whom think vaccines cause autism.
Sigh.
My friend FK – that’s the point. In the old days we could pick a lane with some predictability. No longer – we have to parse more but the advantage is when we listen to each “side” we can get the best info by- using our noggins – ignoring the dross and the maniacs.
And listen to the smartest people irrespective of whether they comport with what we used to think of as “left” or “right”. Terms which have little meaning now.
We live in very good times I think.
D.A.
NYC
I agree. These issues aren’t simple.
Fortunately I usually agree with the editorial tone at WEIT.
” . . . the Iranians . . . removed . . . uranium enriched to 60 percent purity. That is just below the 90 percent that is usually used in nuclear weapons.”
What is the reporter’s definition of “just below”? What motivates the reporter to utter that locution? How much less than 60 percent would the enrichment have had to have been that the reporter could no longer claim with a straight face that that percentage was “just below” 90 percent purity? 54.3 percent? 49.8 percent?
Would the reporter claim that a manual laborer, receiving a 1/3 daily pay cut of $30, should consider $60 “just below” $90? Is a 60 percent literacy rate “just below” a 90 percent rate? If the reporter’s publication’s readership dropped from 90 percent to 60 percent, would “just below” be the first thought that serenely popped into the minds of the editor, publisher, board of directors and shareholders?
I’m not an expert on uranium enrichment, but from what I know of the centrifugation technique, each increment of purification probably makes the next increment easier – thus starting from 60% enrichment could make reaching 90% a much quicker process than getting from 30% to 60%.
Careless writing but a process like enrichment/concentration is exponential and non-intuitive. Think of it like paying off your mortgage. In the first year of a 25-year amortization, you’ve paid off your front door. Congratulations. It takes forever, it seems, 15-17 years at least, to retire half of the balance. But then, around 50% or so, most of the monthly payment starts going to principal instead of interest. The virtuous circle kicks in and the fraction going to principal rises further, rapidly every month. If you paid, and the lender compounded, continuously you would derive e, the banker’s number, which tells you that in the limit, exponential growth is involved.
This is how enrichment works. The more enriched the current feedstock, the easier it is to enrich further because there are fewer molecules of U-238 hexafluoride gas remaining to spin out of the charge in each iteration of the cycle, just as in retiring a late-stage mortgage. Or separating needles from haystacks. Finding one needle is difficult. But picking out 40 strands of hay from 60 needles is easy, as long as your needle separator discriminates efficiently. Even if there is only one strand of hay in 1000 needles you should be able to pick out that one strand and get pure 100% needles if you need to. Like going bankrupt: slowly, then suddenly. All the articles I’ve read use 60% as the conceptual “shoulder” of the enrichment curve. If you can get to 60%, you can get to 90% easy-peasy…unless something comes crashing through the roof. I don’t think 60% is a number politically concocted to justify rash action. By the same token uranium metal enriched to 60% is already a dearly precious resource given the effort that went into getting it that far.
From my understanding of this you are correct Leslie. We should keep reading on this subject for it is actually very interesting. I like your mortgage analogy.
And a lot of people don’t understand that the uranium enrichment is the bottleneck – not the missiles, not the fabrication of the bomb or the raw yellowcake even.
It is enrichment that’s the money shot. And the process is as you say – from my understanding anyway.
regards,
D.A.
NYC
(we’re boiling down here Leslie, I’m sure the boss is melting in Brooklyn. I bet even you can probably take off your snowshoes up there.) 🙂