Tom McMahon

The Sad Life of Pearl Harbor Spy Takeo Yoshikawa

Pearl Harbor Spy Takeo Yoshikawa

Just a short excerpt from a fascinating article at Edit International:

Takeo Yoshikawa was World War Two's most famous Super Spy - so successful it ruined his life forever.

For years thousands of Americans who didn't know his name cursed him. Many Japanese hated him for getting their nation involved in a lost war. Some even blamed him for the atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yoshikawa, one of the most successful spies in recorded history, has received no awards,, no honors, not even a pension from the Japanese government he served so well. When I met him he had no job and lived as a down-and-out on the island of Shikoku south of Tokyo.

The famed spy died several years ago in a nursing home in Tokyo, alone and without honors except for his old wife Etsuko who had supported him for years by selling insurance.

Even though my Dad still walks around with a limp he received from a Japanese bullet in 1944, the only time I ever remember him cursing the Japanese was when Walter Cronkite interviewed Yoshikawa in 1961 for his show The Twentieth Century and he muttered "Damn Jap" under his breath. Just that once.

Nathaniel Branden On Ronald Reagan

From a Free Radical interview with Nathaniel Branden:

Let me begin by saying that I think he has been a very underestimated man by his opponents. I think that his understanding and handling of our relationship with the Soviet Union was brilliant. Gorbachev himself gives Reagan credit for effectively ending the Cold War. Are there areas where I would disagree with him? Sure. He was opposed to abortion. He did not believe in total laissez-faire capitalism. He did build up our national debt enormously. But I tell you one thing he did that impressed me so much it almost wipes everything else off the mat. It’s something I found thrilling beyond words. And that was: he was in Russia, and he gave a speech in the University of Moscow. And the theme of the speech was to explain to the people there what American capitalism is. Here is the president of the United States, in a distinguished university in a country with whom we’ve had hostile relationships for decades—getting up, and in the most passionate yet totally non-belligerent way, explaining what economic freedom means, what capitalism means. It was so extraordinary in the moral clarity that he brought to his presentation that I’ll remember it, with great admiration, forever.

Republican Christmas Ornament

Republican Christmas Ornament

Beware Of Flood Cars

From Clark Howard:

Years ago, Clark got quite a few phone calls from people who had bought used cars that turned out to be “flood cars.” It was after a series of hurricanes that totaled cars, which are then bought by salvage companies and the car titles are later washed. People involved in this unsavory business do something known as “title washing,” which basically shows that the car was never salvaged. Well, it’s about to happen all over again. Over the next several months, we could see hundreds of thousands of flood cars on the market in the aftermath of the four recent hurricanes – Charley, Ivan, Fran and Jeanne. People in the automotive industry are already bracing themselves for the influx of these cars, according to Edmunds.com and The Washington Post. Auctioneers are also concerned. One auction owner in Florida said he had already seen 5,000 flood cars. These cars often end up in the hands of “curb stoners,” which illegal dealers who run ads in the paper. They pretend that they are selling their sister’s car or their mother’s car and they hope you don’t know what they know. About 20 percent of these cars go to unsuspecting people overseas. The other 80 stay right here in the U.S.A. So, if you are buying a used car, be sure to do a Carfax report from carfax.com. The auto company, AAA, also does vehicle history reports for members. It’s imperative that you run one of these reports over the next six months because that’s when these cars will be out there. And, please spread the word to anyone who is considering buying a used car.

Mugs-A-Plenty: Hillary Santa

Mugs-A-Plenty: Hillary Santa

An NFL Weight Cap?

An interesting proposal from Jim Caple:

With more than 300 players who weigh more than 300 pounds, the NFL doesn't need a salary cap. It needs a weight cap. (And some slimming pinstripes wouldn't hurt, either.)

How would a weight cap work? You couldn't just place a maximum on the entire roster's weight, because teams would simply circumvent that rule by signing five or so vegan marathoners. Instead, the league should declare that a team can never have more than 2,800 pounds on the field at one time. ...

Sure, a weight-cap sounds goofy. But it really isn't when you think about it. The players would be smaller, which means they'd be quicker. Offenses and defenses would be more efficient, because leaner, quicker lines can move the ball and defend better than their sluggish counterparts. The Broncos, after all, currently have the lightest offense in the AFC, but are fourth in the conference in yards per game. The Bills, meanwhile, have the heaviest offense in the AFC, and are next-to-last in yards per game. More importantly, players would be healthier and sustain fewer injuries.

(via jeremy freese's weblog)

Eric Sevareid

Eric Sevareid

From The Museum Of Broadcast Communications

From 1964 until his retirement Sevareid appeared on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. During that period his Emmy and Peabody award-winning two-minute commentaries, with their penchant to elucidate rather than advocate, inspired those who admired him to refer to him as "The Grey Eminence." On the other hand those who were irked by his tendency to overemphasize the complexity of every issue nicknamed him, "Eric Severalsides."

This guy could say more pompous nothings than anyone I've ever seen before or since. He's been one of my anti-role models for many years. What a blowhard . . .

Jim Sensenbrenner: My Congressman, My Hero.

From National Review

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner is one of the villains of the hour in Washington. He has had the temerity to insist that the intelligence-reform bill — inspired by the 9/11 Commission and largely focused on centralizing U.S. intelligence, for no very good reason — actually include some provisions drawn from the commission's work that will enhance domestic security.

Sensenbrenner wants the federal government to set standards for driver's licenses to make them more secure and less liable to exploitation by terrorists. This is one of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. It can be found on page 390 of its report, in bold. One proposal would have a driver's license expire with the holder's visa — several of the 9/11 hijackers were here on expired visas. Sensenbrenner also wants to tighten up the procedures around the U.S. asylum system and make it easier to detain and deport suspected terrorists. As the 9/11 Commission's staff report on terrorist travel noted, "Immigration cases against suspected terrorists were often mired for years in bureaucratic struggles over alien rights and the adequacy of evidence." A bill with all these provisions passed the House by a healthy 282-134 margin.

But the Senate has had different ideas. It doesn't want to stray into the "controversial," instead hoping to stick with the non-controversial and mostly meaningless, i.e. reshuffling the intelligence bureaucracy. Senate Democrats and Republicans, with the support of the former 9/11 commissioners and (for the most part) the White House, have excluded or watered down the Sensenbrenner proposals. He has offered possible compromises, only to be rebuffed by the Senate. So who is being the obstructionist?

I am proud to have him as my Congressman.

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My Advice: If A Bat Gets In Your House, Kill It.

In the wake of the Wisconsin girl who survived rabies, Ann Althouse wrote a post about her experience being bitten by a bat and having to go through the series of rabies shots (they weren't that bad, according to Ann). Neither of them killed the bat. We used to live in an old house where bats would get inside the house every now and then, and I can't imagine not killing those damn things once they get inside the house. They're easy to kill once you knock 'em to the ground, there are plenty more where those came from, and most importantly, they won't bite you once they're dead.