12022021 is a palendrome. Also, if you turn it upside down, it duplicates itself.

You people in time zones further west can savor this great cosmic coincidence a little longer. Enjoy!

NOXON

NOXOFF

in b 4 ~ madam i'm adam ~

I AM! AM!

Christ on a crutch.

EGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGCELLENT !!!

All-time best palindrome, from a horrified luau attendee:

"Oh no, Don Ho!"

Today is also: International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

Tomorrow (Friday) is Be A Blessing Day, International Baboon Day, International Day of Persons With Disabilities, Bartender Appreciation Day, Faux Fur Friday...

I wasn't paying attention but yesterday was: Antartica Day, Basketball Day, Bifocals at the Monitor Liberation Day, Civil Air Patrol Day, Clark Kent's Birthday (Superman), Day With(out) Art Day, Playboy Day, Rosa Parks Day, World Aids Day, National Package Protection Day, Special Kids Day (I thought they were all special)...

caffiend Wrote:
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> 12022021 is a palendrome. Also, if you turn it
> upside down, it duplicates itself.
>

What do you mean it duplicates itself?

Those 2s look pretty funny upside down.

Today is wait for it...123

It's also 12321

Like



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2021 04:41PM by Elder Berry.

That took you four edits???

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Was trying to do ascii art.

Where's Ziller when we need him?

ASCII art is hard to do here because RfM software does not like spaces.

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Victor David Hanson is a military historian and classicist with the Hoover Institute, and widely syndicated. In the essay (link, below) he discusses the event from Japan's point of view: what their assumptions about the US and the world stage were, plus their military/imperial goals, their miscalculations, and what was relevant in the European and western Asia/USSR fronts. For example, the Germans were advancing fast on Moscow, and the Japanese expected the USSR to fall, which would change the global calculus immensely.

Also, think in terms of two-front wars:
The US: Europe and the Pacific
The USSR: the western Axis and Siberia/western Pacific
Germany: Western and Russian fronts
United Kingdom: Europe and the Indian Ocean

All of which made it, truly, a World War.

So here it is, history buffs:

https://victorhanson.com/remembering-pearl-harbor/

This guy?

https://dailycaller.com/2021/12/02/victor-davis-hanson-third-worldizing-america/

I don't know that I want to read his stuff.

Has working for the Hoover Institute become the Mark of Cain?

I don't know what the institute is.

I do know this sounds silly to me.

"Supposedly Washington would sue for a truce, recognizing Japanese prior colonial acquisitions."

Interesting view of diplomacy.

There was a comment better than the article which drones on with little insight.

The Hoover Institute is a conservative think tank, such as the Heritage Foundation (conservative) or the Brookings Institute (Liberal). Hanson is a conservative.

"Suing for peace" is a diplomatic term that's fallen out of use. Basically, it's when a country at war says, "We surrender. What are your terms for a cessation of hostilities?" Think of Germany surrendering to the allies in the (in?)famous railroad carriage to sign the 1918 Armistice, or France signing her surrender in the same carriage in 1940.

I'm not aware of the term having been used in any conflicts since, along with formal declarations of war. Another term that's gone is "open city," when a defeated or fleeing army states that they will not defend a city to spare it military destruction. Paris was declared an "open city" by the French government when they fled to Bordeaux just before they capitulated.

Regarding "Washington would sue for a truce (peace)," Hanson points out that that was one of several optimistic scenarios the Japanese anticipated--unrealistically, as it turned out. His analysis of the Japanese strategic calculus is one I never knew about. "Tactically brilliant, strategically imbecilic."

The comment I liked.


CHARLES CARROLL
DECEMBER 6, 2021 AT 10:17 PM
Actually, the attack wasn’t brilliant even on a tactical level. the Japanese failed to bomb the clearly visible fuel depot which would have been very difficult to replace and, more importantly, the drydocking facilities at which damaged ships were repaired and our carriers damaged in the early Pacific battles were repaired and restored to service.
In 1969, Gen Minoru Genda (Ret.) who was a commander on Admiral Yamamoto’s staff at Pearl and who was actually the person who did the detailed planning, spoke at the Naval Academy. You can see part of the question and answer portion of the talk, courtesy of BritishPathe, through the following URL:

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVACIU6D4V0H4KCO4GEBB2DNI9S0-UNITED-STATES-JAPANESE-GENERAL-MINORU-GENDA-WHO-PLANNED-PEARL

I was present at Gen Genda’s talk and remembered the most controversial portion; when a midshipman asked him how he felt about our bombing his birthplace, Hiroshima, in 1945. Gen Genda decried the loss of his countrymen’s lives but stated that we were at war and that, had the Japanese had it, they probably would have used it. He was whisked out of the country about three days later and never allowed to return. Asked about a potential amphibious assault, he said that he had recommended one but was turned down by higher headquarters.

Hanson also points out that Yamamoto failed to launch 3rd and 4th strikes against the sitting aircraft and oil storage. But it was brilliant in advancing a huge strike force across 3800 miles of open sea, in winter, under radio silence without detection by naval or maritime vessels. So some of it means planning, successful and not, also luck--the US carriers were not in port.

Also, Japanese intelligence overestimated the political resolve of the American isolationist movement. Perhaps Yamamoto frequented the wrong cocktail circuit.

I wonder how a drydock would be critically disabled. The only thing I can think of would be to bomb the lock doors which strikes me as a tricky target. But yes, that would have made a huge difference. Overall, I'm to agree that it was tactically brilliant, even as hindsight shows how it could have been more so.

"huge strike force across 3800 miles of open sea, in winter, under radio silence without detection by naval or maritime vessels. "

Mostly water they controlled. And given the plan was what it turned out to be, they had the luck of ambushing gorillas more than tactical acumen in my opinion.