Today is the anniversary of the third day of the battle.
The Battle of Gettysburg: Day 3 š§µ
1/ On July 3, 1863, Gettysburg reached its climax, with 140,000 troops locked in a desperate struggle. From Culpās Hill to the fields south of town, Day 3ās battlesāculminating in Pickettās Chargeāproduced over 15,000 casualties, deciding theā¦ pic.twitter.com/jVvFZhHIQR
— Manifest History (@ManifestHistory) July 3, 2025
Vicksburg fell the next day, on the Fourth of July, marking the beginning of the end for the South. Vicksburg refused to celebrate the holiday for seven decades.
The problem with Trump is that, despite his talk about “getting tired of winning,” he, like the pseudo-pacifist Democrats (I say “pseudo,” because they aren’t really anti-war–they’re just on the other side) doesn’t want to win wars, but to “end” them. I get that he doesn’t like wars, but sometimes they are necessary, and the only way, ultimately, to end them is to win decisively, in a way that the combatants either no longer exist, or are no longer willing to continue to combat. It remains to be seen whether that’s the case in Iran, but I fear that they are just biding their time.
ISDC is over, and I’m flying to DC in the morning. Driving down to Norfolk from there on Thursday to do a presentation on equatorial LEO at CRASTE. But I’ll have more time to check in this week once I’m ensconced there. I heard something about a bomber raid in Iran.
OK, so I understand that if you want to quickly bust a bunker, you need a bunker buster. But what if there's no hurry? Because you completely dominate the skies? Why can't Israel just keep dropping more-conventional bombs, one after another, in each consecutive crater? Wouldn'tā¦
Ignoring the dumb headline, Joel Kotkin has an interesting story on the new tech hub in the South Bay. I helped set up some of the plant visits for it.
A good analysis of what’s been happening over the past day in Iran.
1. The Israel-Iran war: The first day. We are now about 15 hours after Israel launched what it labels a *preventive strike* against the Islamic Republic of Iran – targeting its nuclear facilities and ballistic missile sites.
Hereās a short recap of whatās happened – and whatā¦
— × ×× ××× Nadav Eyal (@Nadav_Eyal) June 13, 2025
It seemed pretty clear that something was going to happen when we evacuated embassies in the region.
[Update early afternoon]
Iran has been waging war on us for over 45 years, while we've been pretending they weren't so we didn't have to do anything about it. We got away with it because they hadn't yet developed the capability to hurt us other than killing our soldiers in the region (it certainly wasn'tā¦
Iran has been launching retaliatory missile strikes against Tel Aviv, with most of them intercepted. I don’t think I’d want to be on Kharg Island on any day, but definitely not today.
The thanks we owe to the men who stormed the Normandy beaches and the leaders who made the extraordinarily difficult decision to send them is to ensure the civilization they saved remains the beacon of light and truth and is not worn away by neglect and contempt.
This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.
It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition paymentsā¦ pic.twitter.com/12hJWd1J86
ā Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) May 22, 2025