Today is Monday, 7 December 2009.

It is the 68th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which signaled the entry of the US into the second world war in a big way.

The Japanese code name for the attack was "Operation Z" -- apparently, Plan A gave way to Plan B, all the way through the alphabet and restarting again with Operation A, then Operation B... Erm...or not.

Click to enlarge. Attribution: xkcd.¹

A further bit of relatively little-known information: in 1944, the Japanese launched another attack against the United States using "Fu-Go Weapons" -- balloon bombs. The US Government knew about the effort and went to great lengths to keep any reports of the attacks out of the media in order to prevent the Japanese from learning of -- and learning from -- reports of any damage. One adult (a pregnant woman) and five children in Oregon were killed on May 5, 1945 when they came across a balloon and tried to pull it free from a tree, setting off the unexploded bomb.

War is, and shall always be, hell.

This is an Open Thread.

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Footnote
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1.   From the XKCD site:

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Note: You are welcome to reprint occasional comics pretty much anywhere (presentations, papers, blogs with ads, etc). If you're not outright merchandizing, you're probably fine. Just be sure to attribute the comic to xkcd.com.

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