The U.S. 2nd Marine Division, 4th Marine Division, and 27th US Army Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Holland Smith, defeated the 43rd Division of the Imperial Japanese Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saito.

We were two days away from this win on the 7th of July, 69 years ago.

Fighting became especially brutal and prolonged around Mount Tapotchau, Saipan's highest peak, and Marines gave battle sites in the area names such as "Death Valley" and "Purple Heart Ridge." When the U.S. finally trapped the Japanese in the northern part of the island, Japanese soldiers launched a massive but futile banzai charge. On July 9, the U.S. flag was raised in victory over Saipan.

From an airfield on this small island, we launched the two B29s that ended WWII.

In late summer 1944 the Imperial Japanese Navy was pushed to the edge. Lacking supply, materiel and trained airmen, they lashed out desperately with suicide missions. Poorly trained and poorly able pilots guiding their aircraft as human bombs into superior forces.

It was effective and horrific. Seems like something we should know. And learn from.

CORRECTION: commenter faggot Buzzsaw90 reminds me that the bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man were launched from Tinian.

Saipan was a base for lots of B-29 bombardments, but not those.

I suspect Buzz has some Batman underoos, but I would rather not go there.

Look, if they make you feel brave.. run with it..

And all my stupid aside thanks.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:13 PM | Comments (137)
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Now with 100% less filler.

Posted by: andy at 03:43 AM | Comments (220)
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Of course you could use it to find hipsters too I suppose.

Looking for bacon in San Francisco? Here's the neighborhoods where you'd find it

Curiously, when you look at London and scan for hipsters and yuppies, there doesn't seem to be too many areas where they're intensely concentrated. Austin OTOH, has a blazing hipster and yuppie hotspot.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:57 AM | Comments (119)
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Alliance mate, Incizion made this

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Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 11:13 AM | Comments (80)
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With the George Zimmerman trial in full swing, my mind wanders to another self-defense case: The case of Marissa Alexander, sentenced to 20 years in prison for Aggravated Assault.

Now, this case is not as neat and clean as is Zimmerman's but that makes it an even more interesting case.
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:32 PM | Comments (207)
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Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to the the award-winning AoSHQ's Sunday Morning Book Thread.

Jack Reacher Questions

OK, so Mrs. Muse and I watched the movie adaptation last night. I had low expectations for it, but I have to admit, all things considered, it was competently done. But I have no idea how much it does or doesn't line up with the books, since I've never read any of them. So, my questions are:

1) Is Tom Cruise a believable Jack Reacher? I know he's a lot smaller than the Jack Reacher of the novels, but did he manage make it work? Cruise does not have a physically intimidating screen presence. Sandy's "brothers" all thought, yeah, I can take this guy, and were then unpleasantly surprised. I can't imagine any bad guy in the novels thinking this.

2) The movie bad guy ultimately turned out to be (wait for it) a large corporation. Really? I see this so often in movies, it's just so boring. But is that true to the book? I remember what they did to Clancy's novel Sum of All Fears where the Arab terrorists were, for no reason I can discern, turned into the left's other favorite bad guys, American Neo-Nazis. Much to the detriment of the movie, I might add. So I'm wondering if something like that happened here.

[Update]: Apparently, the appropriate moron question is not whether Tom cruise is a credible Jack Reacher. Commenter perdogg gets to the heart of the matter:

45 I actually thought the movie was good. The question I have is does Rosamund Pike ever wear a bra in the movie.
Posted by: perdogg at July 07, 2013 11:26 AM (ziD3M)

A fair point. Mrs. Muse and I both noticed some parts of the movie where the scene was dominated not by Jack Reacher's menacing presence, but by Ms. Pike's ginormous hooters. (please note that I resisted the obvious "Pike's peaks" joke) more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:50 AM | Comments (263)
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Via Ben Domenech, the rare holiday/Friday news dump is taken to a whole new level.

The Obama administration announced Friday that it would significantly scale back the health lawÂ’s requirements that new insurance marketplaces verify consumersÂ’ income and health insurance status.

Instead, the federal government will rely more heavily on consumersÂ’ self-reported information until 2015, when it plans to have stronger verification systems in place.

...

After encountering “legislative and operational barriers,” the federal government will not require the District and the 16 states that are running their own marketplaces to verify a consumer’s statement that they do not receive health insurance from their employer.

“The exchange may accept the applicantÂ’s attestation regarding enrollment in eligible employer-sponsored plan . . . without further verification,” according to the final rule.

The federal government will, however, conduct an audit for the states where it is managing the new insurance Web portal.

The rule also scaled back statesÂ’ responsibilities to double-check the income levels that consumers report, which determine any tax subsidy they receive.

Why no, this isn't an invitation to fraud! Why would you say that other than because you hate poor people!

So in short, ObamaCare is impossible to implement, costs are out of control and there will be no oversight to avoid fraud.

But they will totally live up to the terms of any immigration deal.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:43 PM | Comments (281)
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Not so much. Not so much. Gold produced metal whiskers just like tin, cadmium and zinc can.

...Large, grass-root-like whiskers, of approximately 10μm in length and ~1μm in diameter, which were observed on several parts, are shown in Figure 4. Giant, irregularly shaped, toothpaste-like whiskers of more than 20μm in length were observed in two out of 22 inspected parts...

Click around that linked NASA whisker failure page. What's gone down already is pretty scary...and not something the media or industry is too interested in telling people about.

Yea, they can take out normal consumer PC's as well as cause nuclear reactor shutdowns.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:37 PM | Comments (515)
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RT @NewsBreaker: NEW PHOTO: Black smoke plume following plane crash at San Francisco International Airport pic.twitter.com/ePrOgWqgpr @vini_1914

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) July 6, 2013

SF emergency responder channel feed here via @bob_owens

KTVU reporting via PJ Tattler

An update from someone who says he was a passenger, the pic is up close. RT from @DanRiehl

We're into the newsgathering confusing eyewitness account bullshit stage at this point. Witnesses claiming both wings were torn off when they are still clearly attached after the fire.

It feels like they came in low, or short on the runway, damaged the tail, rolled to wherever while pieces got tore off the tail.. bags deployed and people got the fuck off. Then more fire.

But I don't know that. I don't know shit. I sure hope that.

DrewM sent me this pic of debris at the edge of the runway.

As of yet we don't know who was hurt or how badly. 290 adults and a baby on the manifest, plus the 12 crewmembers. I pray they are all ok.

UPDATE: KTVU reports two fatalities.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:09 AM | Comments (590)
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Thurston, we have a problem. If they'll lie about something as mundane as this, they'll lie about anything (and they have). Their behavior says a lot about the press. They KNOW the press will carry their water and aren't afraid of being called out on their lies. Although it is surprising that it was CBS that pushed the Kerry boat thing. Probably just a mistake. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 06:00 PM | Comments (688)
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