Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister

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We see by the news that World Leader Gordon Brown, boss politician of Britain, identifies security and the economy as the "major challenges" of 2009, and the world's media are dutifully reporting  it as a profound observation. 

Let's think historically about that, maybe going back to the late stone age. "I tell ya' tribe, we gotta find more nuts and berries next year or we're goinna starve. And it's time to do something about those sabre-tooth tiger attacks."  

True, Prime Minister Brown also said "climate change" is the third "major challenge" for 2009,  but that's just because it's fashionable.

Personally, I think we'd all be better off if the United Nations outlawed these annual  World Leader New Year's speeches about "major challenges."

Ho ho ho

The absolute last gift is wrapped and in the big box for transport to the action zone, so I'll probably need to stop only once or twice on the way to pick up what I forgot.  I have no idea about what will or won't show up on The McGee Reader before I return. Depends, I suppose, on whether I decide to further overload the vehicle with the macBook and/or how well I get along with the son's MS box.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

Christmas Guilt

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On the Christmas when I was  ten I snuck downstairs in the wee hours and found the coveted official Boy Scout sleeping bag AND the official Boy Scout Yucca Pack. I crawled into the bag, used the pack for a pillow and  dozed under the tree, content beyond my fantasies. The family means were quite modest, the BSA gear expensive beyond all reason, and two younger sisters had their own Yule dreams. 

I thanked Mom and Dad.  I wish I'd thanked them more. I never knew what important things they denied themselves, but it was something.

Travis had it right about the teary nostalgia of some Christmas memories. It's the good ones that get to you.  

On My Santa Wish List

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Maybe the Old Boy could deliver a copy of Ed Neuman' s "Strictly Speaking" to every journalist, politician,  and flack in the nation. Then perhaps we wouldn't be subjected to so damn many stupid uses of the English language.

Like this morning.  Headlines all over the place about the worsening housing "crisis." 

Near as I can figure, what's happening is that fewer people are going in hock for houses they can't afford, never could afford, and never will be able to afford.  If that's a "crisis" I'll kiss your butt on the quarterdeck and give you an hour to turn out the watch below. 

Money gurus

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My friend came by recently and the conversation turned to the markets. He had come by  a good deal of money  the hard way and over the past few years placed most of it in the financial markets, losing as of last week,  about two-thirds of it. He spread it around in accord with the advice of a "well regarded investment advisor"  who sold him  a "diversified portfolio" of mutual funds.  Which brings us to the point:

These guys don't know one damned bit more about investing than you do. 

Write that on your hand. 

Like used car peddlers, they work for commissions. 

The B-word

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It isn't quite like Carlin's famous seven, but our northern-plains forecasters are reluctant to use bl****ard. Bad for business. 

So we haven't  had an official governmentally approved (B-word) yet this season. The worst I've seen in print is "whiteout," (code for "Drive and Die") due to heavy snow and high wind. That used to be a (B-word). 

But some of us use the word in conditions of carefully guarded privacy,  and that will sometimes raise the question of where it came from.  As a matter of regional pride, Midwest children hereabouts  are taught that it was invented by an Estherville, Iowa, newspaper writer to describe a spring storm in 1870. 

Which ignores a little bit of doggeral of the kind I've always liked -- an evil-repelling chant from  the early 1800s asking Divine protection against "gizzards and blizzards."

It also ignores one  contribution,  among many,  of the shooting sports to the English language. From the Newark (Ohio) Advocate for October 25. 1867: 

“I and Sam loded and fired as fast as we could, and at every broadside the black rascals fell in showers around us….The crow was keerful to keep as high abuv the rest as possible, but every time he’d lite we’d give him a blast. At length, toward evenin, we kind of hived him, and the last of the blackbirds in a big old tree….Now, Sam, sez I, now for big lodes and a simultuous blizzard!….How it did rain blackbirds….”.

It's sad that Estherville has nothing else to be proud of.

EDIT,  Sat. A.M.: Does NWS read this stuff? Or is Smugistan-on-Lake really in for it? Anyway, the dreaded  B-Word is now in our forecast.

  

 

Hey Al Gore, I got your ice right here

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Yesterday's news held woeful laments for all that recently lost ice and snow  in northern Greenland. Relax Al. I just found it here in Smugistan-on-Lake.

You can have it back for free.  Just pay shipping and handling.

Speaking of Vermin

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Perhaps I already mentioned Bernie Madoff, the former Naz chairman and investing genius accused of somehow managing to make $50 Billion disappear in a Ponzi scheme.

Turns out Bernie was active in politics, too, lavishing some of that $50 Billion on politicians and and K Street bandits. Among them:

"One of the largest recipients of Madoff largess was Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who received $39,000 from the family for his two Senate races." (AP) 

Senator Schumer is the virtuous fellow who keeps writing bills to make sure no one has any firearms except the military, the police, and the criminal class.

The Libertarian Travis McGee

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In his heart of hearts, McGee wanted to round up all the Florida land developers, hustling politicians,  and associated vermin and pen them up with hungry alligators. As a rational man he knew the impossibility, and so he offers us a libertarian solution -- carving the best one personally can out of a world growing uglier: 

" ...There would would be a time again when I would canoe down the Withlacoochee, adrift in a slow current,  seeing the morning mist rising at the base of the limestone buttes. seeing the sudden heart-stopping dip and wheel of a flight of birds of incredible whiteness."

---

It's in "Cinnamon Skin," which you shouldn't read first. The way to get acquainted with McGee and Meyer is to start at the beginning "The Deep Blue Goodbye" and enjoy your way through to  the last one, "The Lonely Silver Rain."

No Obama Kid Left Behind

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The wires inform us this morning that Obama's daughters will attend private schools. Nothing wrong with that, but as our new president caterwauls about the glory of public education and the need to escalate money-bombing the NEA-run schools (and he will), it's an interesting fact to keep in mind.

Jeff Cooper and the Europeans

A recent gun show had the usual scads of foreign minor-caliber semi-autos on display. That suggested  another round of browsing for  Jeff Cooper stuff:

"...Europeans retain their preoccupation with the 9mm Parabellum cartridge. This is due primarily to the fact that the Europeans as a group are not interested in stopping power. As one Frenchman once told me, if in Europe you shoot a criminal, he sits down on the curb and bursts into tears. In America he will shoot back and kill you if he can."

 

Titivation Report

It's the season for inviting folks over for  pre-Christmas gluttony, so I decided to clean the kitchen. I always do that when I notice  dirt old enough for kindergarten. One thing led to another, and I wound up repainting the whole &)*^*$# room.  White.  It looks pretty good but forced me into a rare New Year's Resolution. I hereby resolve to pay closer attention while frying bacon,  thereby igniting fewer grease fires. 

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Justice and General Motors

So this guy  Bernie  Madoff,  darling of NASD,  admits to stealing more than three times what the car companies and the UAW want to steal from the citizens this week.

Bernie's take was about $50 Billion. New York judges have been known to ship a raggedyass ghetto kid to Attica for 10 years for  swiping a 200-buck teevee set. Whaddya suppose Bernie will draw?

Fun With Statistics

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Let's assume that Gov. Rod will  do a little prison time.

When that happens you will be able state accurately that 2 per cent of the nation's governors in office as of December, 2008, are incarcerated.  At the same time, 1 per cent of all Americans are graybarred for one offense or another.

Thus United States governors, as a class, are twice as criminal as the people they govern.

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Passing Mention

 "Call-in-gay" day  limped in and out without much notice.   I hear They are trying to broaden their demographics. Stand by for call-in-fey day.

For Sale

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...One U.S. Senate seat. 

What the Hell. How much worse is a senator bought on the open market than one bought through the usual processes?

I hope none of you libertarian cynics snorts out snide comments about Illinois being the political cradle of one Barrack Obama.

Priority for High-Level National Action

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So help me, I didn't know 20 states had decided to regulate underage consumption of ultra-violet.

"ATLANTA (AP) – State laws meant to keep teens out of indoor tanning booths haven't made a dent, a new study has found, disappointing doctors hoping to reduce deadly skin cancers. The researchers say it's not clear why the laws failed, but pointed to lax enforcement as a factor."

(1) -- These researchers must be reassigned to researching optimum means of pouring piss out of a boot.

(2) -- Enforcement  would be an excellent project for Obama's new civilian security force. 

(3) -- Because the primary offenders are young women, Amendment 4 should be suspended  to permit LEO stop and gape on reasonable suspicion. "Halt! Remove your  garments. Aha, No white strap marks. You're busted, Baby."  If nothing else it would boost local teevee news ratings.

 

See the USA in your...

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Looks like the Detroit Failout will happen,  opening with $15 Billion  for the auto makers in return for letting Obama's Washington  tell them how to build cars.  

"Wouldn't You Really Rather Have a  Moskvitch?" 

Tora Tora Tora

It is more than a middling-grade movie. Tora means Tiger. Said thrice on the morning of December 7, 67 years ago today, it was the signal that the sneak attack was successful.

Some 2,400 Americans died, some ashore, some entombed in a battle fleet all but destroyed in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. 

Three and one-half years later the final retribution was administered.

---

Why all  this which, readily conceded, comes from routinely available secondary sources and which,  again admittedly,  cherry picks among the countless  available facts? Because a few weeks ago,  browsing through some old Jeff Cooper writings, I found, from 1993:

"Pearl Harbor Day slipped by without much notice. I daresay a huge number of our population has never heard of Pearl Harbor...".

And I hate it when that happens.

None of it should be forgotten. Not the occasional heroism. Not the chance that hallowed names in American history -- Roosevelt, Marshall, Hull, Stimson, and others -- should be de-hallowed to the extent of their incompetence in the final months of 1941.

And a fair mind might conclude that while the pilloried Admiral Kimmel and General Short did not operate brilliantly, to say the least, their professional sins pale in comparison to those from whom they took their orders. 

A Last Saturday of Peace

PEARL HARBOR -- Fleet intelligence chief Ed layton has only one  pleasant interlude today, his ride in a gig to visit Admiral Pye aboard the battleship California. He hands Pye  the morning dispatch which repeats that Japanese agression in southeast Asia could come at any moment.  A number of intercepted but still coded messages to and from the Japanese consulate in Honolulu are forwarded to Washington for decrypting, translation, and action -- most of which are accomplished sometime after the Honolulu sunrise tomorrow.

WASHINGTON -- Exhaustion has set in at every level of  naval communications and intelligence. Only civilian specialist  Dorothy  Edgers stayed through the early weekend afternoon to translate what has come to be called the "lights message." Somehow, it just seemed significant to her.   She left the translation  with her boss, Lieutenant Commander Alwin D. Kramer, who found the wording imperfect and the punctuation in need of titivating. It is still on his desk Monday morning, Dec. 8. The message details the light system (including bonfires) Japanese spies on Oahu will use to signal attacking aircraft of the status of ships at their moorings and anchorages in Pearl Harbor. 

At the White House, Roosevelt finally agrees to follow through on his scheme to send a personal message to Emperor Hirohito, a piece of prose blending conciliation and veiled threat. He figures Hirohito will  respond by Monday evening, whereupon, if necessary,  a pure threat can be sent to the Imperial Palace.

Across the capital after sundown, almost to a man the power elite disperses to balls and dinner parties, as Wellington danced  before Waterloo. Kramer, with a decoded intercept of the  14-part message from Premier Tojo to his Washington envoys is successful in tracking down  some of the nation's leaders. Some of them eventually join the President in a late-night council.  Or perhaps there was no White House meeting. Some say yes. Some say no. Nothing of the sort is recorded in the official White House records. In any case, no one picks up a  phone to call Hawaii, to tell Kimmel and Short that America has received something like a declaration of war.

KIDO BUTAI -- Admiral Nagumo, now steaming due south,  eases water rationing for his fleet of carriers and escorts. His sea and  sky fighters take the final showers they desire to enter battle in purity.  The word from the Honolulu embassy is good: The battleships are in Pearl, as expected. Aerial reconaissence confirms that nothing worth bombing is in the port of Lahaina. The ultimate   announcement is made to all ships via the flag signals representing Admiral Togo's message to his 1904 fleet before its victory over the Russians in the Tsushima Strait: "The fate of our nation depends on this battle -- all hands will exert themselves to their utmost." The maintenence crews joined the cheers, then began fueling the planes.

  

Liberty Call, Honolulu, Friday Dec. 5, 1941

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The American Navy at peace borrowed from the unions. A man must have his weekends. When not on an actual voyage it was the custom to get underway Monday morning, play war games in local waters  through Thursday, and return to port  in time for all hands to shine, shower and shave before the first liberty boats began running about 1600 Friday. The married went to their wives, the bachelors to the beaches, the slop chutes,  the delights of Hotel Street. It was about like that on Dec. 5.  War clouds were apparent, but they were thousand of miles to the southwest of Honolulu. Washington said so. 

CincPac Headquarters --  Rear Admiral John Newton sails on the cruiser Chicago to escort the carrier Lexington. The task force is to deliver Marine fighter planes  and pilots to Midway, then scout the northwest approaches to Hawaii. Kimmel knew aircraft should be making these recons.   Washington was telling him he could expect more PBYs one of these days. The situation: All carriers at sea, along with their usual cruiser and destroyer escorts. The big battle wagons and their escorts are  either in the harbor on on their way.

Washington: Navy code breakers were given small cards with the words "higashi no kazi ami.' typed. In English it is "east wind rain." They were to look for that phrase which, naval intelligence believed, was the signal to all Japan's official world interests that U.S. - Japan relations had ruptured beyond repair.  Of itself it was not a declaration of war; it was a declaration of the intent to declare  war or perhaps just start shooting. Junior men in naval communications claim to have received  the "winds" message and  quickly passed it up the line. The senior officers and their political masters deny it ever happened.

Manila: General Douglas MacArthur receives British Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, visiting for a council of war. MacArthur tells his guest he "had every confidence he could defend this place."

The Kido Butai sails with poor visibility under gray skies and encounters Uritsky, a Russian merchantman.  Nagumo is under orders and perfectly willing to  smash and sink any passing ship which could report the existence of his force.  He permits Uritsky to pass unmolested toward her Siberian  destination. The Russian ship makes no report.

Below, in the hanger decks, mechanics make final checks on the Zeros, torpedo planes,  and dive bombers. In the pilot and crews' quarters, lockers are opened. The Emperor's sky warriors check their clean loin cloths and thousand-stitch belts.  One wages war dressed as a gentleman.

  

 

Jabberwock. Dec. . 4, 1941

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BERLIN -- Japanese  envoys to the Nazis are having a hard time of it. Ribbentrop won't, on his own, promise a declaration of war  on the U.S. if Japan attacks first. Only Hitler can do that, and he's busy at his forward headquarters directing the attack on Moscow.

TOKYO --  The decision is reconfirmed. Despite the lack of a German promise to modify the Tripartite Pact,  the assault on the American fleet is still on. 

HONOLULU --  Radio intercept operators report a massive increase in Japanese naval communications traffic, leading Layton to report to Kimmel his speculation that the "entire Japanese Navy is being prepared for drastic action."  

WASHINGTON --  The cables go out to U.S. naval attaches in Guam, Tokyo, Peiping, Shanghai, and Tientsin to destroy codes and secret material and to report compliance in the clear with the  code word  "Jabberwock."  The fleet at Pearl Harbor is not told of all this.

In the north-central Pacific, the still radio-silent Kido Butai reaches Point C, near the dateline, and hauls right to a southeast course, putting Pearl Harbor dead ahead, 1,000 miles over the bow. 

  

Dangle it!

"WASHINGTON (AP) - Facing massive job losses, the White House and congressional Democrats are working to provide about $15 billion in loans to prevent Detroit's weakened auto industry from collapsing."

One  can only hope.

Further Economic Analysis -- Drive 'n' Shoot

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As of the time the Mr. Coffee wheezed itself full today, wholesale gasoline needed to decline just 29/100ths of one cent (about the value of a Pelosi promise) to be below $1 per gallon.

And a pound of lead now trades at 45.5 cents. Keep that in mind if you're planning to buy dangerous projectiles any time soon.
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Ho Ho Bang Bang

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"You  have a credit balance and do not need to make a payment at this time,'" sayeth my Plastic Master.

And how.  Found money. (I over-estimated costs in pre-paying for some election travel.) As a prudent citizen and patriot  I feel compelled to get that money in circulation quickly through a wise investment. 

The most expert financial planners  are advising blue steel and walnut.  A Luddite Special, maybe in  .30-06?

 

Honorable Men

The gentlemen of Prime Minister Tojo's war cabinet meet Dec. 3  to begin drafting the 14-part message to Washington. As a matter of honor, it is to be delivered before aircraft of  carrier divisions 1 and 2 begin bombing. Respectable nations do not mount sneak attacks. The final wording makes no mention of  hostilities.

Now just  1,500 miles from Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nagumo and all his sailors curse the weather forecasters,  who had predicted smoother seas, as they steam into the worst storm of the voyage. Refueling will be impossible. On the bright side,  the foul weather will  keep American reconnaissance planes from Midway and the Aleutians far from the striking force.

In Washington,  Captain Safford again risked is career to relay to Pacific commanders that Tokyo had ordered its embassies in the Pacific region  and London to destroy their "Purple" machines --  the encrypt/decrypt devices for the most secret diplomatic traffic.  He was amidst the feud between the Office of Naval Intelligence and  the Office of Naval Communications. The turf battle turned on the issue of who was allowed to say what to fleet commanders. Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner had decreed that only he was allowed to alert fighting units to imminent danger, and he wasn't ready to do that yet. The Safford message was equivocal and without context, and Admiral Kimmel and General Short ended their day with about the same knowledge they possessed over their morning coffee.

London: Churchill continues to badger Roosevelt for an iron-clad pledge of armed asistance if Japan strikes Singapore.  Roosevelt promises  only "aid" in the event of a Jap assault on British or Dutch interests. He does not tell London about his clever little scheme of the three small boats, American flags flying, bouncing around in the Jap-infested waters between the Philippines and  Indo-China. For weeks he and the top policy echelons  have understood that war will  be politically acceptable only if Japan fires the first shot.

In downtown Honolulu, the Japanese consulate begins burning its secret files, and by nightfall the FBI discovers it.  It does not discover that a young attache there is a junior officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy who has for many weeks been blithely plotting American ship movements, including moored warships by name and precise place. He sends these plots to Tokyo via the consular code, which Pearl Harbor naval intelligence has been ordered to ignore.  Washington would tell them what they needed to know.

   

Tuesday, Dec. 2, 1941

In the  office of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Submarine Base, Pearl Harbor, the intelligence reports and charts mocked the assembled brass. There was still that matter of the Japanese Aircraft carriers. 

"What! You don't know where the carriers are?" demanded Kimmel.

Commander Ed Layton, intelligence boss, said "No."  Intense radio monitoring yielded no trace of the carriers' call signs.

Kimmel asked Layton to just guess where they might be. "Maybe in the home waters, Admiral, but we really just don't know." 

"You mean to say  they could be rounding Diamond Head right now and you wouldn't know it?" 

Layton later admitted how lame his answer was: "I hope they would have been spotted before now."

---

In Washington, Roosevelt needed a casus belli to move Congress to  give him the war he wanted, or the one he knew he would have to fight sooner or later.   He put his speech writers to work. They were to explain why America should fight even if Japan (remember that southern assault force in the South China Sea)  attacked only British possessions in south Asia -- Malaya, Singapore,  Bruma.

And he dreamed up, or accepted from someone else, a clever little ploy. Charter three small craft. Put American naval officers aboard, crew them with mostly Filipinos, fly the Stars and Stripes, and dangle them in front of the Japanese southern attack fleet. He called it a "defensive information patrol." Admiral Thomas Hart called it bait -- the hopelesss frog on a bass fisherman's hook. But like a good officer, he obeyed his commander-in-chief. 

The Kido Butai, steaming as before, approached the  International Date Line.  Admiral Nagumo looked with satisfaction on a precise list of American men of war moored or at anchor in Pearl Harbor as of November 28. To an aide he said: "I pray that the American fleet remains thus on X-day." 

Gun fun

The spare mainspring housing is supposed to be on its way. Machining  a couple of grooves to take the shoulder stock will be about an hour of pleasant work.  I will then need  to prepare a brief justifying  a carbine-ized  .45ACP Model 1911 as a  legitimate sporting instrument.  

The working hypothesis is that pissing off  horrified left-wing moonbats is a legitimate sport. 

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Ad valorem

Some Des Moines homeless guys built themselves homes. They don't meet the zoning decrees. The city council can't figure out a way to tax them.  Fire up the bulldozers. Plenty of bridges down there.

ttp://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20081202/NEWS/812020360/1001/NEWS

I dunno, whadda YOU think?

Monday, Dec. 1, 1941 and the band played on.  Spike Jones. 

Washington, D.C. --  Captain Arthur McCollum, head of the Far East desk for the Office of Naval Intelligence  took the results of his grueling three-day analysis of Japanese intentions to the admirals.  The Japanese are going to war, he told them. Yep, they agreed, but we pretty much knew that already.

And here in an existential moment  Captain McCollum put his career on the line with a question captains  just don't ask admirals:  "Have we told the fleet?"  They frowned and  said yep again, of course we have.

In an odd and ultimately useless  way, they had. All Pacific Ocean brass was alert to the possibility of attack on the Philippines, and the Dutch/Brit colonies  of south  Oceania and southeast Asia. And Kimmel in Hawaii had certainly been advised that the Nips were not playing nice and maybe more materiel would need to be taken from him to reinforce MacArthur in Manilla.

Admiral Stark took the McCollum report and the  admirals' views to the Oval Office where Roosevelt was sitting grumpy at having his Thanksgiving vacation cut short. He listened to his top sailor.  He said "It's all in the lap of the gods."  He called Treasury Secretary  Henry Morgenthau and told him to borrow another $1.5  billion because things "might be worse next week."

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Tojo's cabinet assembled in the Imperial Palace before Divine Emperor Hirohito. They met as a support group, confirming to one another that they had done everything possible for peace, that the November 30 deadline for ending negotiations was certainly fair, that it had passed, and that, therefore, it was just that  they declare carrier divisions 1 and 2 had passed the moral point of no return. 

In Pearl a lot of that good Navy coffee was being drunk around the clock as java-drugged officers and enlisted specialists continued to wonder where those damned carriers were. Kimmel wondered too, and tomorrow, on that subject,  he would embarrass Ed layton, the intelligence office he liked and respected. 

Kido Butai commander Nagumo was feeling better as those lost divisions steamed further eastward.  The  seas had calmed, permitting refueling. The final word from Tokyo was in hand. There would be no recall. His aide, Fujita wrote: "The radio signal for the beginning of hostilities has been received. Hawaii intelligence has begun to arrive, and now  everything is going as hoped for."

Across the world, in besieged London, sat Winston Churchill, increasingly satisfied that American food and arms would  soon be joined  by American blood in the war against Germany -- thanks to Tokyo. How much he knew of actual Japanese tactical intentions is, to this day, debated by serious men.

  

Personal Apology

I didn't spend a dime Friday, so stock futures are crapping out this morning.  I really must get a social conscience. Amazon?

Quicker than anyone dreams

Sunday, November 30, 1941, adds a fresh dateline. In Berlin, Japanese Ambassador Hirashi Oshima receives a cable from Tokyo: "Say very secretly to (the Germans) that there is extreme danger that war may suddenly break out between the Anglo-Saxon nations and Japan through some clash of arms and add that the breaking out  may come quicker than anyone dreams." 

Transmitted in "Purple," the highest security Japanese diplomatic code (which we had been reading for a very long time),  it may have been read in high-level Washington even before it was by the ambassador.   No one in Washington thought it important enough to relay to Hawaii. 

---

Ed Layton and  Joe Rochefort took no Sunday ease on Oahu beaches. Intelligence chief Layton pored again and again  over information from across the Pacific. Jap carrier divisions 1 and 2 were still no where to be found.  Rochefort's and his cryptographers, still trying to make useful sense of the  Japanese naval code JN25, made no important breakthroughs and were forced to use the crudest form of SigInt (signals intelligence)  -- guessing based on what little of the code they had  broken, primarily radio direction finding  on the (almost) enemy ships whose call signs they knew.

Pearl Harbor code breakers had been forbidden by Washington to read Purple code. In the Philippines, MacArthur had the necessary machines and could read it at will. 

---

Still far to the north, but getting closer,  Communications Officer Kazuiyoshi  Koichi of the  Hiel was having an uncomfortable  time of it.  Kudo Butai meteorologists had it wrong yesterday, and Sunday's weather was miserable. Besides,  he was sleeping badly on his wooden box pillow full of vital radio parts from the battle cruiser's transmitters. From Yamamoto himself had come the order:  Strict radio silence until after curtain rise, one week from today.

Secretary of State Hillary

I hereby announce the end of  my patience with the Obama Administration. 

Pearl Harbor -- Tora Notes

It's fair to wonder where this stuff is coming from. Aside from the general memory of an amateur student of the matter, the reliance so far is primarily on "Infamy" by John Toland and "I Was There" by Edwin T. Layton.

An historical coincidence: The days of the week /dates this year  correspond to those of 1941.

All dates are western hemisphere. Add one to get eastern. (It's a lot easier to think of the International  Date Line as the Sunday-Monday line; Sunday here, Monday there. It saves a lot of mental wrestling with the old gain-a-day or lose-a-day explanations.)

The Last Peaceful Weekend

Official Washington at the Limo Level was quieter on Saturday, Nov. 29, 1941. The President was away after a meeting with Hull, Stimson, Admiral Harold R. Stark, and Army Chief George C. Marshall. The Friday conference was to float his idea of a note to Emperor Hirohito, urging  conciliation. War Secretary Stimson  opposed it. He wanted to strike at the Japanese fleet in the South China Sea. The others preferred an ultimatum saying America would fight if the southern fleet passed a certain line.

 In Toland's words, " Roosevelt didn't feel like arguing. He agreed.  He was impatient to take his sinus problem to Warm Springs...". 

It was a vacationy time in the Capitol. Marshall had just returned from Florida and was trying  to get back up to speed on what had been  happening with  this Japan thing.

---

Not so at Station Hypo,  Admiral's Kimmel's   code-breaking shop at Pearl Harbor where fleet intelligence officer Ed Layton and  chief cryptanalyst Joe Rochefort were hustling  to answer a pertinent question from scanty evidence. They  knew where a few of the Jap carriers were. Where were the others?"  Layton and Rochefort spent the weekend in the office.

--

Around 43 degrees north,  Admiral Nagumo nodded appreciatively at seeing the meteorologists' early  weekend reports. Odds suggested better weather  for midweek when his Kido Butai would arrive at its final refueling station.

   

High Barbareeeee

We see by the morning news that another ship has been hijacked out there in the Indian Ocean. Just idly wondering here  if anyone has given any thought to blasting some  Somali thugboats out of the water.  

Clean Hands Hull; Thanksgiving, 1941.

As secretary of state, Cordell Hull's professional mission was to keep America out of war, war being an admission of failed  diplomacy by Cordell Hull.  Things had been intense at Foggy bottom, and he was getting frustrated with trying to deal with a couple of senior Japanese envoys. Caving in, he told Secretary of War Henry Stimson Thanksgiving morning: "(I've) washed my hands of it and it is now in the hands of you and Knox -- the Army and Navy."

(Bear Bryant, behind by two points with three minutes to play says, "Hell with it. I'm tired" and leads the Tide to the showers.) 

A dozen pay grades below was a worried Col. Rufus "Togo" Bratton -- who remembers him now? The Army's senior intelligence chief for Asia, he spent the  Thanksgiving holidays with decrypted Japanese cables from Tokyo to its embassies and consulates and writing a memo for the Limo Set. War by Nov.  30. He was a week off, but closer than most of his seniors.

The Bratton memo stirred his  superiors to meet and issue a warning to Pacific generals. "Negotiations with Japan appear to be terminated," began the Army version, then advised Hawaii to guard against sabotage and remarked that Washington was hurrying up on getting reinforcements to MacArthur in Manilla.  If the Japanese were crazy  enough to attack America, that's where it would happen.

Admiral Richmond Kelly "Terrible" Turner handled the Navy warning. He used the phrase "war warning" and parroted the Washington line: the real danger was to the Philippines. He was off only 4,000 ,miles or so.

In Hawaii,  General Short obeyed orders and bunched his warbirds in tight little knots, the better to ward off saboteurs. Admiral Kimmel consulted his war-plans chief about the liklihood of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor  was was informed: "Almost none." 

In the far northwest Pacific, Kido Butai was bouncing badly at 14 knots, course now about due east en route to the final refueling point on the International Date Line. No problem from the crashing gray winter waves. Sailors take storms as a matter of routine, and by now all aboard knew that in a few  days they would come right a few points, bound for the comfortable swells of the warm northeast trades.

---

Back in the  U.S.A., public attention was rivited.  On Nov. 27, Joe Dimaggio was named Most Valuable Player, American League. 

The greed gene riseth...

Continuing an annual tradition,  I will not shop  today. I like to think of it as an inspiring symbolic tribute to ludditical minimalism, but maybe it's just peurile cussedness.

Doesn't mean I actually forbid my loved ones to shop for me. I  cc'ed them on my letter to Santa,   which asks for just one toy, a nice little Lee Production Pot to melt down the 50 pounds of wheel weights  and miscellaneous leadite taking up shop space. Converted to .452 diameter 230 grainers, that translates to c. 1,500 projectiles for the 1911s -- probably enough  for me to discharge my obligations to liberty  when the New Administration Civilian Security Force sweeps Smugistan-on-Lake in quest of unregistered steak knives.

Thanksgiving? The food and company exceeded the highest expectations as it always does.  Folks who have friends of 30 years are very lucky. Thanks, C's.

And now, back to Tora Tora Tora, day-by-day. Soon as I haul in another armload of firewood and coffee up.

Don't Worry. Be Happy

The biggest  player  we never heard of in the Pearl Harbor fiasco was Stanley Hornbeck, Rhodes Scholar,  author, diplomat of note, and expert in all things oriental. He'd worked his way to the top of  the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy and had the ear of Secretary of State Cordell Hull. He told his boss the Sons of Heaven were bluffing. America had scads of time to prepare for Pacific war.  The silly goose even put it to paper in a memo to Hull  on Nov. 26:

"Were it a matter of placing bets, the undersigned would give odds of five to one that the Japan and the United States will not be at "war" on or before March 1 (a date more than 90 days from now..)."

In his autobiography he alibied with psychobabble,  hard to parse but apparently  basically claiming he misquoted himself.  Regardless, his memo may have given Hull  the excuse he wanted to go into full-Rambo diplomatic mode, even as the high chiefs of the Army and Navy were pleading: "Stall. We're not ready."

And so far, no one had thought to tell Admiral Kimmel and General Stark much about just how hairy things were getting.  Besides, that Japanese invasion fleet  --the one we knew about -- was a long way from Hawaii, south of Formosa and still chasing the Southern Cross.  Military Intelligence knew that was good news for the Ford Island moorings.

---

Twelve thousand miles away the choppy North Pacific Ocean aggravated the saki hangovers of the Emperor's airmen. Kido Butai was underway, the Kuriles just below the horizon astern, the sunny tropical target some 3,000 miles beyond the bow. Fleet course east by southeast.  Ten days to glory.

Back to Ruby Ridge; It's Personal

-

The excuses are starting to flood the internet from panicked flacks at H.S. Precision, a maker of sniper rifles and gear. HSP figured it  scored a coup in getting an endorsement from one Lon Horiuchi, crack FBI sniper and leader of snipers.  His letter is spread across the back of the new HSP catalog. Bad guess. Bad endorser. 

Balls in a vice, the best the company can do so far is disclaim prior knowledge of  who Lon Horiuchi is, other than a government killer,  honorably retired.   No Google there at HSP? Or just too busy to enter the 12  keystrokes yielding  17,300 Horiuchi hits? Or too swamped to ask virtually any of your customers? 

Lon Horiuchi  was the government marksman present and firing  at Ruby Ridge on August 22, 1992.  He  was after Randy Weaver,  wanted on a couple of low-level felony charges. He wounded Weaver,  shot at the back of a fleeing Weaver friend,  missed the friend but cleanly killed Vicki, one shot to the head as she stood behind a door, her baby in her arms. 

This is not the sort of man designed to win friends in the shooting community -- or the community of citizens who object to trigger-happy government snipers just as a matter of general principle.

Enter my memory of  Janine, RIP, my little sister, in her girlish years a Brownie, a horse buff, a barrel racer, and a friend of Vicki Jordison in the Des Moines River valley where our families were neighbors. In due course Vicki, a very nice kid as I recall, married Randy Weaver.  

Before Horiuchi killed Vicki, Janine died of a different  kind of evil, that of stupidity, a driver who explained, "I didn't notice the yellow line on the highway... errr, no, I didn't see the sign, either."

Was -- is --  Horiuchi stupid? Probably not. He got into West Point and graduated. He's clever enough to turn a retirement buck hustling endorsements.  So probably not stupid.  

What does that make him?  

Horiuchi,   you didn't have to hear again what much of your country still thinks of you. You could have taken the pension, foregone the endorsement  fee, and retired to Tierra del Fuego,  mouth shut all the way.

(A fair representation of  current thought on Horiuchi and HSP is available by just clicking Tam's blog,  View From the Porch, over to your left.)

It's not a hoax - Lon Horiuchi

http://www.awrm.org/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=21;t=003547;p=0


That's a scan of the back of the new H.S. Precision catalog. The Lon Horiuchi who signed the endorsement of their sniper rifles is the FBI slime who killed Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge. More later.

Gag-starting the day

The  morning news:

The administration and the Federal Reserve rolled out two new programs Tuesday that would provide up to $800 billion in an effort to get more loans flowing in such critical areas as mortgage lending, credit cards, auto loans and small business loans.

Translation: subversives who pay for their stuff are to blame for the depression. Patriots max out the Visas and,  every year or so,  go nothing down, six years to pay, for new wheels.  

Lord Polonius:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

Dad phrased it more elegantly once  when I borrowed  for a motorcycle I didn't need. "Dumb s--t."

(I paid off the bike. Had to  because in those primitive days  all us  neanderthals thought it was better to be out of debt than in.)

Party down tomodachi

=friend, tomadachi

Sixty-seven  years ago today, November 25,  in the cold Kuriles,  a bunch flying    s got together on  "Akagi" (Red Castle) for a gay old time. Hot saki by the quart  and a pep talk from the admiral who told them for the first time, "Next stop: Pearl Harbor."  The 30,000-ton carrier, converted from a battle cruiser,  rang with  "Banzais."

At Pearl, Admiral Husband Kimmel was doing what he'd been doing for months, getting the Pacific Fleet ready to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy.  And fighting Washington for information.

In Washington, Cordell Hull tinkered with the  proposal to placate Tokyo, the modus vivendi, finally said  Hell with it,  and ordered his wordsmiths to write something tougher. The questions still remains: Did Roosevelt, acting for Churchill, order him to?

  

Over at the War Department, Secretary of War Henry Stimson was about to learn that 30-50 Japanese men-of-war and troop transports  were southbound in the South China Sea.  So of course any  Japanese attack would assault  the Philippines or British southeast Asia possessions such as Singapore.   As to Hawaii and the United States fleet there? Not to worry. They wouldn't dare.

A nice handgun is better, but

Fellow named Fred was misbehaving in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, the other day. Armed robbery, carjacking, hit-run,  and some other stuff you might expect from a 30-year-old  guy on probation and with a rap sheet going back first Clinton Administration.

Finally he sought to acquire  a fresh car in a Harris-Teeter parking lot with no down payment or annoying paper work.  Someone objected by whapping him up longside his haid with a frozen turkey. Fred's hospitalization ensued. Local cops called the citizen's method unusual but seemed to approve.

Thinking about this:

--I do not  object to law-abiding citizens going armed with a frozen Butterball, but I think I'll  cling to the old SW59; fits inside the jeans better; warmer, too.

--Try saying "Fuqua-Varina, North Carolina" with a beat a few times. Then, dammit,  P------, try  to quit saying it.

(On the strength of this newsbeat, P------ is hereby appointed  The McGee Reader official correspondent for Appalachia, but, please, Dear, no more syncopated locales.) 

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/4020689/

Travis McGee, historian

"With every passing year it will become more quaint. The little tin airplanes bombing the sleepy giants."

---

11-24-08

Sixty-seven years ago today Secretary of State Cordell Hull called diplomats from England, China, Australia, and Holland into his office for a chat about those annoying Japanese. Hirohito's lads  wanted a lot of American  oil, scrap metal, and  respect. Hull explained to his guests the Roosevelt-Hull scheme to give them a little of the first two and to pretend to give them a lot of the third; save their little oriental faces if we have to, just keep them quiet until MacArthur is ready (hah!).

Meanwhile,  aboard "Akagi," anchored in the bay of Etorofu,  a thousand miles north of Tokyo, swab jockies turned to and made the pilots' area shine.  Party time tomorrow, Baby-san!

(tbc)

 

We see by the news today...

Financial  experts say people are beginning to use more cash. Real cash, paper with pictures of dead presidents. Good enough.

The market -- any market -- is a system for telling us how much things cost and whether we can afford them. If we use cash, a glance in our wallets tells us how much we can buy --   loud and clear. 

With plastic you get an ambiguous answer for a long time,  but eventually the Plastic Lawyers come around and take your stuff. Then you know. 

It was McGee's buddy Meyer who said: "Everything is easier when you face reality."

I say, Old Chap

The Mother Country has erased guns (and working hard on pen knives), so there is no crime. Smoking in pubs is a criminal act, so London lungs are pretty pink.  But they face a new terror, AP reports today.

One  Imogen Shillito, shrieksperson for a Brit  do-good health organization,  is horrified that young masters and  their birds can  buy Guinness "with their pocket money" ...

(Imogen, My Dear, that is the desiderata, from Liverpool to Smugistan and beyond.  You would ask the thirsty to consult a mortgage brokre to finance a pint?)

...The result, she fears, is more rapidly deteriorating Albionic livers.

No. 10 Downing is listening, and throughout the realm serfs and yeomanry ponder dreary demise of the culprit -- happy-hour twofers or threefers or whateverthehell passes for a popskull bargain if  you can find a pub  in the fog.

Now, science and personal experience agree that the way to take booze  is "damned carefully." 

But surely somewhere in our common heritage, Imogen, we've concluded that Royal Authority ends short of man's own personal liver.  Haven't we?

Does the  new nobility of the  Sceptred Isle lust for a  land where nobody dies? Even if everyone wants to?

 

 

Now there are some real Luddites

For 74 years,  Roxbury, Vermont, library patrons  had to run next door to an accommodating church to answer natural calls.  Now, the AP reports, the old place is getting  indoor plumbing. 

The new  biffy en suite may  be a fine thing, but let not the era pass without a salute to generations of Roxburians willing to hold on for  a couple more excruciatingly cross-legged  moments  in order to see how Travis handles Puss Killian's note of adieu.

And then there's that  other nice Vermont characteristic. Those guys actually believe the Constitution means what it says about good folks going armed, so a law-abiding guy can slip his 1911A1 in his waist band and go for a walk, no permission required.  (I can carry here in Smugistan, too, but I had to ask mommy.gov.) 

Giggle Away

It you're bored, feel free to  gape and  giggle as I construct this thing. I've had to learn a little about digits over the years, but the default mode remains profanity while  pushing the button harder.