Pearl Harbor

On this day:

1941
World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy attacks the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, causing a declaration of war upon Japan by the United States. Japan also invades Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines at the same time (December 8 in Asia).
1965
Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
1972
Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
1987
Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.

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The European conservative harbors “fondness for authority” and a “lack of understanding of economic forces.” Although not blind to the potential—nay, likely—problems that attend innovation and change, the American conservative trusts in the largely unmanaged, undirected choices of individuals and institutions of civil society and the market to produce virtue, prosperity, and flourishing better than any state or statesman ever could. American history vindicates this confidence.--Hayek

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One of the mysteries of political life is that the opposition to Trump's questionable assumptions of power is not led by small-government conservatives but by the powerful central government Left and the totalitarian socialists.

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The bill that passed the Senate with Vance as the tie-breaking vote will add nearly $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
Yet Vance says, immigration is “the thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy.”

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By as late as 1940, the federal and state governments’ investment in research amounted to only 23 percent of U.S. R&D and 10 percent of U.S. basic science, and the nature of that investment had little or no impact on rates of American economic or health growth: Defense R&D has almost no economic benefit, while the agricultural R&D was surplus to requirement.
As current criticism of Trump's research cuts shows, perhaps as a consequence of its confidence in wealth elsewhere, this country believes money equals progress.

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Pearl Harbor

2,403 Americans were killed in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. The Americans then entered World War 11. One could argue that it pushed a hesitant America onto the world stage.

After Pearl Harbor, the country was terrified, especially along the West Coast. The proximity of the attack was exaggerated by the large presence of the American Japanese in California. Since there was no evidence of any Japanese-American involvement in the attack, the argument was made that the Japanese were lying low, waiting to pounce. 

Critical Race Theory Syndrome: the absence of something is proof it existed.  

Executive Order 9066, ordering the forcible removal of Americans of Japanese descent from the Pacific coast, was signed by the liberal President Roosevelt in 1942. 120,000 American citizens--Americans--were moved out of their homes into squalid camps and ancient Indian reservations.

This is another rule in politics that should caution anyone expecting the government to do the right thing: "When the going gets tough, everyone loses their principles."

Or, there are no countries, only governments.

STATS

 

On this day:

1240
Mongol invasion of Rus': Kiev under Danylo of Halych and Voivode Dmytro falls to the Mongols under Batu Khan.
1648
Colonel Pride of the New Model Army purges the Long Parliament of MPs sympathetic to King Charles I of England, in order for the King’s trial to go ahead; came to be known as “Pride’s Purge”.
1865
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, banning slavery.
1907
A coal mine explosion at Monongah, West Virginia kills 362 workers.
1917
Halifax Explosion: In Canada, a munitions explosion kills more than 1,900 people and destroys part of the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia.1941
World War II: The United Kingdom declares war on Finland in support of the Soviet Union during the Continuation War.
1957
Project Vanguard: A launchpad explosion of Vanguard TV3 thwarts the first United States attempt to launch a satellite into Earth orbit.
1969
Meredith Hunter is killed by the Hells Angels during a The Rolling Stones’s concert at the Altamont Speedway in California.
1973
The Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States House of Representatives votes 387 to 35 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on November 27, the Senate confirmed him 92 to 3).
1989
The École Polytechnique Massacre (or Montreal Massacre): Marc Lépine, an anti-feminist gunman, murders 14 young women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.

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You are angry that the current administration has not brought down prices attributed to the previous administration's deficit spending and artificially high energy prices, so you're going to vote for the previous administration?

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The thesis is that politicians, especially the modern Left, campaign on providing things in unlimited supply; is affordability one of those things?

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Somehow, the forgiving and optimistic Left who see in the women-burning, subway-rider-stabbing, habitual recidivist, the flag-waving, street-demonstrating homicidal nationalist bigot, and the cold Bundy-charming CEO back-shooter an element of the divine but can discern the heart of darkness in soldiers one thousand miles away trying to fight child-killing drug entrepreneurs.

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There are more than 80--80!!--large poverty programs in the United States.

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MIT engineers have designed an aerial microrobot that can fly as fast as a bumblebee

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STATS

Every Western European country scores higher on the global ranking of freedom and democracy than the U.S. does, according to Freedom House, a U.S.-based nonprofit that ranks countries according to measures such as election process, rule of law, and individual rights.

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'Autism Centers' in Minnesota grew 700% 2018 to 2023. Funding for them increased 3000% from $6 million to $192 million.

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About 28% of oxygen on Earth comes from rainforests. The majority of it — somewhere between 50% and 85% — actually comes from marine plants, like kelp and phytoplankton in the ocean.

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NYC's budget includes $7.4 billion in federal dollars. That's 6.4% of the budget.

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The restrike rate of attacks like the one in the Caribbean is about 25%.

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China’s fertility rate has fallen to one.

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Among people 45-plus, the rates of loneliness have increased from 35% in 2018, to 40% now.

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Financial fraud has affected 29% of checking, savings or debit account holders and 24% of credit card customers in the past 12 months.

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The 2025 hurricane season is drawing to a close without a single one making landfall in the continental United States — for the first time in a decade.

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IBIT has lost $1.4 billion over five trading days—the highest total for any consecutive-day stretch in its 22-month history.IBIT manages more than $73 billion in assets, the most of any of the spot Bitcoin ETFs.

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The penalty of Bad Stats: In 1937, Olimpiy Kvitkin, a statistician, was executed by firing squad. His crime? Producing inconvenient census numbers, which showed the Soviet Union contained about 6 million fewer residents than Joseph Stalin had claimed, probably because of that little famine the country had just been through.

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The digital marketing firm Graphite recently published a study showing that more than 50% of articles on the web are being generated by artificial intelligence.

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Palidromes
If a number is not a palindrome, follow these steps to make it a palindrome:
Example: 76
Reverse the digits.
67
Add the reverse number to 76, the original number.
76+67=143
Continue to reverse and add until the sum is a palindrome. 341
143+431=484
If you follow these steps, all the numbers from 1 to 100 will eventually become palindromes, and you will find unity and peace.

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Percent of young adults who say they are likey to leave their city. (This occurs for a number of reasons, but mostly, "It's about being engaged in your city, feeling pride in your city, as well as having this growing sense of belonging," Sofia Song, 'global leader of cities research' at Gensler's Research Institute said.)

Moving out
1	Baltimore	61.6%
2	Charlotte, N.C.	58.3%
3	Miami	51.8%
4	Detroit	51.6%
5	Atlanta	50%
6	Nashville, Tenn.	49.4%
7	Portland, Ore.	48.8%
8	Houston	47.8%
9	Philadelphia	45.7%
10	Tampa, Fla.	45.2%
11	Columbus, Ohio	45%
12	San Francisco	45%
13	San Antonio	44.4%
14	New York	44.1%

Bottom half of the rankings

Rank	City	Moving out
15	Phoenix	42.6%
16	Washington, D.C.	42.2%
17	Raleigh, N.C.	41.9%
18	Los Angeles	41.4%
19	Minneapolis	41.4%
20	Dallas	41%
21	Seattle	39.8%
22	Austin, Texas	38.9%
23	Las Vegas	37.9%
24	Denver	37%
25	Chicago	36.1%
26	Boston	27.8%
27	San Diego	27.1%

'Global leader of cities research'!

Sinterklaas

Sinterklaas

Amsterdam hosts the largest Saint Nicholas parade in the world. The white-bearded legend traditionally makes his spectacular entrance into the city by sailing down the Amstel River then trades his boat for his white horse Amerigo, and the parade continues through the streets. Although the feast of Saint Nicolas falls on 6 December, the evening of 5 December is the main gift-giving occasion during the holiday season in the Netherlands. Called 'sinterklaasavond' (Sinterklaas evening) or'pakjesavond' (presents evening), Sint drops off a sack full of gifts on the doorstep before heading back to Spain. Following his late-night visit, much like at Christmas, everyone unwraps their presents from Sinterklaas and reads aloud the poems that have been written especially for each recipient. The author of these light-hearted poems remains anonymous.

Saint Nicholas has had close ties with Amsterdam since 343 AD. Legend has it that Sinterklaas originally came from Turkey to Amsterdam as St. Nicolaus, the Bishop of Mira. He is specifically described as a benefactor of young women. No one really knows why he then chose to live in Spain but historians point to the Spanish domination over the Netherlands in the past. His name appears on the oldest Greek list and on five other lists of participants in the Council of Nicaea and he is said to have physically attacked and beaten the major Arian bishop over the nature of the Trinity--and is often pictured as having a broken nose as a result.

The Christmas-like celebration on Dec. 5 has in recent years become part of the polarized discourse about race in the Netherlands. At the heart of the discussion is "Black Pete," Sinterklaas' helper--often the Saint's "enforcer" who punishes naughty children--who is often played by white people in blackface makeup and Afro wigs. Opponents see him as an outdated and offensive caricature that harks back to slavery, while the majority of Dutch people see Pete as a harmless children's character who has come to symbolize what they see as attacks on Dutch culture and traditions. Even the sacred United Nations has weighed in, with its Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, urging the Netherlands to "actively promote the elimination of those features of the character of Black Pete which reflect negative stereotypes and are experienced by many people of African descent as a vestige of slavery."
This has persisted in the country's public debate with the Black minority increasingly annoyed and the traditional Dutch surprisingly resistant to change. Some additions have been made with Zwarte Pieten evolving into a sort of sooty chimney-sweep.

Dutch Stamps: