A 20/20 on the 'bay!

[Dave W]

The 20/20 resemblance is passing and mostly fin-induced, but those Riverheads are way too close for comfort. Someone was very "inspired" here. Reminds me of those guys of the long defunct South Californian Gould bass boutique (not the other, still active Gould bass maker) who always claimed their basses had "nothing to do with the Kubicki design". Yeah, my ass, the Gould Rebel Bass is the green one om the left in the pic below, the Kubicki Factor is the black one on the right. Fine basses by the way, more organic sounding than the Kubickis via their Bartolinis.

And the Kubicki design had nothing to do with Rickenbacker. 

[uwe]

Now don't you start!

[Highlander]

[Cleese] You started it ... you invaded Nashville ... [/Cleese] 

Gibson, Gibson,  über alles ...

[Denis]

[Cleese] You started it ... you invaded Nashville ... [/Cleese] 

Gibson, Gibson,  über alles ...

Hahaha!

[Pilgrim]

Bluto: What? Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

[Highlander]

Hmm ... some resonance here ... anyone read "The Man In The High Castle" ... ?

A man dreams that the Allies won the war, when actually, the war ended when the Germans and Japanese forces met in the Midwest ...

[uwe]

"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"

That is one smart*** neat  and smooth military operation we would have prided ourselves in - and contrary to common sentiment: totally in line with the Hague War Convention too, the Japanese committed horrible war crimes, but Pearl Harbor wasn't one of them -, if only all those carriers had been anchored too! Of course, we had nowhere the logistic means to do what our Japanese Allies did. Third Reich naval power was makeshift at best.

***Unless of course ... the US weren't actually smarter still! I generally don't go for conspiracy theories, but I'd be darn surprised if US intelligence and administration did not know that attack (not just any attack) was coming. It cost you a couple of outdated WW I battleships and a few thousand men (lamentable deaths everyone of them, but "small change" in the cynic scope of a budding world power deciding to go to war), yet it so effectively and totally turned US public opinion which had been anti-interventionist into wholehearted war support, kicked the US economic war machine into gear (and shape), and - happy coincidence! - the really strategically important stuff (the carriers) was left unscathed to deliver blow after blow against the Japanese Fleet in a comparatively short time.

I'm not believing the "surprise attack out of the blue"-scenario (the Japanese Empire had in any case only fuel for another six months left - thanks to US sanctions being so effective, it was do or die for them) until those Pearl Harbor records are no longer classified in toto.

No disrespect for those of you who lost ancestors in Pearl Harbor intended. I know that along with Gettysburg it is one of your nation-defining, pivotal war occurrences.

[Pilgrim]

People have theorized for decades that Roosevelt and/or other members of his admin knew that the attack was likely or imminent, but that they needed a lever to move the isolationist US population to get into the war and so they let it happen.  I doubt whether that question can ever be resolved, especially in the minds of those who treat it as reality.

[uwe]

I wouldn't even blame Roosevelt if it has indeed been the case. On an abstract level and leaving aside the individuals who lost their life during the attack, it was the correct and morally right thing to do. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a conditio sine qua non for the liberation of German concentration camps by US, UK and CCCP troops in 1944/5.

[Pilgrim]

Without arguing the Pear Harbor end, I think it's a given that without the US involved in WWII the Axis would have prevailed.

[uwe]

Yup, same goes for taking Russia out of the equation though. The US supplied the goods, Russia supplied the blood - no Western democracy could have spent as many lives as the CCCP did fending off Nazi Germany without considering an armistice at some point. If all those Wehrmacht divisions in the East had been in France in the summer of 1944, even a major operational feat and highly impressive logistical mission such as D-Day would have proven too costly in lives (and btw left France as a barren wasteland). The US and its Western Allies could have held Nazi Germany in check regarding further extension of its sphere of influence, but they could not have liberated the Continent. And Nazi Germany would have been happy to leave the UK alone and South America and Asia to the US if it could have kept the Continent and great parts of Russia in exchange. Hitler's land grabbing instincts never extended beyond Europe (sans Great Britain), Russia and - for the oil - a bite off the Middle East. Africa, the Americas, the Pacific Region and the Far East/Oceania, all that did not interest him in the least.

Russia's importance and its huge sacrifices in beating down Nazism are often conveniently overlooked (which hurts Russian self-esteem and is historically incorrect). That is why I prefer Uncle Joe to Adolf. A lot.

[Pilgrim]

Russia's importance and its huge sacrifices in beating down Nazism are often conveniently overlooked (which hurts Russian self-esteem and is historically incorrect). That is why I prefer Uncle Joe to Adolf. A lot.

One should not ignore the fact that outside of wars, Uncle Joe killed as many of his own people as Hitler did Jews...and also expended lives freely as nothing but cannon fodder in making those huge sacrifices.  I can't say that I'm any more a fan of his than I am of Adolf.

[uwe]

Without him (and his ruthlessness), Hitler would have won, simple as that. Ask Ilan whose survival he would have preferred.

Or a more selfish view: Stalin never did anything to me except co-save me from becoming part of some vile fascist machinery intent on subjecting all of Europe and enslaving the East. And he didn't have my grandfather shot who, Nazi party member and all, attacked Russia with no imaginable excuse and lived to return from Russian captivity in 1949 (he never said a bad word about his treatment: "the Russkies had nothing to eat and neither did we, but I was never hurt by even one of them" was one of his standard sayings). I'm thankful for both. From my point of view then: Joe was the lesser (even if still gigantic) evil.

Admittedly, a Kulak, one of those Polish officers mass-shot in Katyn or Trotzki himself are allowed to think different.

[Pilgrim]

I appreciate your point of view!  It's much closer and more personal than mine.

[uwe]

Danke, I know it's a controversial statement (in Germany as well), but I really hold the view, grim as it is. Do not amass together and co-mingle all evil as one individually indiscernible monolith. There are shades of it and the shades look different from varying perspectives.