21st Century piracy . . .

Looks like attempted piracy to me, and even Aljazeera News treats it as a liklihood.

Suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia started shooting at U.S. navy ships. We shot back and then fished what was left of the suspected pirates out of the water. This hearkens back to the original internationalisation of the U.S. navy -- Islamic pirates capturing ships and enslaving or beheading the occupants of the European ships, with the European response being appeasement.

Lately, the pirates around Somalia have been raiding ships trying to bring charitable aid to the starving Somalis, who were starving well before 1991 when the warlords wiped out the government and then turned on each other. Before, the government was socialist and disposed to make decisions based on tribal or religious grounds.

Hey folks. This sort of thing has been going on for hundreds of years. I bet Columbus wasn't looking for a shorter way to China. He was looking for a safer way.

Getting away with the crime . . .

The prosecutor says that the death of Milosevic in his jail cell is a defeat for the United Nations war crimes tribunal.

So they are going to call for an autopsy to show that Milosevic was or was not poisoned. His supporters would surely think he was poisoned. Right? Because when you want to terminate somebody, you have to lock him in a cell and put him on trial for years and years, and then poison him after four years of trial. You surely couldn't just go ahead and do it, right at the very beginning, when it might mean something. That wouldn't be the United Nations way.

I figure the United Nations war crimes tribunal was screwed up as soon as the trial went into the third month. A trial shouldn't have to last for years. If it does, probably the judge, the prosecutor and defense attorney are all dealing with something other than the guilt of the defendant. They are turning a trial into a career. Self-important clowns.

The same mistake is being made with Saddam and it's too late at this point to do anything about it, now that he figures he can game the system and make speeches. What should have been done right after the taking the photographs of him, dirty and mortified and having his teeth examined, was to hand him a pistol with one cartridge and lock him in a room to himself to consider his options and reflect upon his prospects.

What passes for courage in SoCal . . .

I didn't watch the Oscars this year, pretty much like I haven't been watching for the last few years. The news from Holliwoodistan just annoys me. But Ben Stein watched all the stars and he's kind of Hollywood himself. Take a look at what he has to say.

A million dollar bounty . . .

The bounty pledged by the Muslim cleric to kill the cartoonists is a million dollars. Where's a Muslim cleric in Pakistan going to get a million dollars?

Either he's going to steal it, or the killer is going to get a hand drawn note for One Million Fatwa Bux (FB1,000,000.00) with a picture of a camel's ass on the back and a picture of the prophet on the front, the irony of which will escape CNN

Inshallah.

Here's a surprise. . . .

So now, some radical Muslim so-called religious leader is putting a bounty up to reward anybody who kills a cartoonist who dared to put up an image of the prophet.

I have to say it. [sarcasm alert]

I try to see the good in all, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to continue to respect these psychopathic dribbles of dog snot.

A burning mailbox . . .

Evidently, I'm not the only one who thinks that the current whoop-de-do over cartoons depicting Mohammed might be more than meets the eye.

It would be easy to dismiss the whole thing as just more of the same old same old from the seething Muslims.

But images of Mohammed aren't new, and it isn't even a sure thing that Islam forbids such images. Take a look; there's bunches of them that never before required the burning of any embassies.

Why now?

I figure it's a diversion. They only want a little more time for whatever real mischief they are planning, but they need a distraction so they can catch us while we are not looking. Based on the history of the last twenty years, burning embassies and cars won't provoke anything like a decisive response on our part. But it will occupy our leaders while they ponder what -- if anything -- we should do. And it will increase the fright among those among us who will always suggest that timidity is a rational diplomatic posture, and who will always argue for a measured response to any provocation. Debate in the U.N. sounds about right.

Yeah, I figure the heat over the cartoonish insult is a diversion. If we go for the burning mailbox on the curb, they plan to storm into the kitchen through the back door.

Breaking News! Cartoons plunge civilization into the dark ages!

The Muslim "street" is ready to burn and pillage over a few cartoons in a little country that is neither inclined nor capable of doing Islam any real harm whatsoever. In Syria, they are burning embassies because of the "insult" to Islam. And mostly it's their leaders who are deliberately and irresponsibly rousing the "street" to arson, automobiles earlier in France, and now, western embassies.

We aren't talking a competition of civilizations, here, Western civilization against theirs. This is barbarians who want to disassemble all civilization, because they think they can, because they enjoy the feel of their own potency. C'mon. There was a great Islamic civilization once. Now, Wahabbi-flavored Islam is going everywhere but Islamic civilization is in shorter supply.

Islamic civilization was not diminished because we won the Crusades, because we didn't. The Islamic civilization has shriveled because of the influential figures within Islam who despise the civilized processes of building and maintaining social and urban structures, and who are in love with arson, decapitation, blood and death. The sword and the flame. (Photos.) They reject civilization itself, ours, and theirs.

It looks to me as we have civilization besieged by the barbarians.

It happened to Rome, leading to centuries of the dark ages. It could happen again

I'm not sorry . . .

Now the police say they are sorry that they ejected Cindy Sheehan for the left, and the wife of a congressman on the right, for wearing tee shirts with messages on them. They say they went too far and they apologize.

I'm not sorry. I like the rule.

If it is decided that the audience in the balcony can wear tee shirts with messages, the state of the union speech will quickly become a lineup of self-important morons, left, right --and really out there -- together with their media co-dependents and facilitators, all stridently banding together to post their messages over the presidential message.

I don't actually know why the president couldn't just stop by and drop his written state of the union message on the congressional desk and leave, for all the good that it does. It's not as if presidents need to stay up nights trying to think up ways they can provide an opportunity for the likes of Cindy Sheehan to make a spectacle of herself.

First Amendment freedom to tee-shirt . . .

Looks like it wasn't just Cindy Sheehan who was removed from the capitol building for wearing a tee shirt with a political message. AP is reporting that the wife of a Republican representative was removed from the audience because she was wearing a "support the troops" tee shirt.

She was heard to shout, "Somebody stop me before I tee-shirt again!"

Palestinian democracy, and stuff. . .

I guess it isn't just a few isolated hard cases that want blood and death. It's a democratic majority. Lovely. Just lovely. Let's give them a country of their own.

WTF . . .

Damned if I know why the previous post is here two times. It wasn't that good.

The Mexican border . . this can't be good.

So, the government of Mexico is going to teach its citizens the best way of slipping over our border without bothering to get a visa. In otherwords, the government of Mexico is facilitating a border incursion into another sovereign nation - us. Basically, the government of Mexico is supplying a crime kit.

And this isn't the worst of it. The Mexican army has been slipping over into the U.S. from time to time, facilitating smuggling.

I think this is a bigtime security issue. If both meth and people are routinely smuggled into the country with the help of corruption in the Mexican government, what other nasty little surprises are in store for us?

I'd love to see a well controlled but easy to obtain guest worker status developed, so that honest, poor Mexicans can participate in our world-- as they have been doing up to now to our mutual benefit without the formal recognition of the law. Workers wouldn't need to be risk sneaking in by a desert crossing in the gentle care of bloody coyotes. (I'd also love to see Mexico open up their country to permit U.S. businessmen easy entry into Mexico to do business in Mexico without the need to bribe anybody or give a bunch of stock to a Mexican national.) If we know that the working Mexicans are crossing legally, we wouldn't need to hesitate in opening fire when we encounter people sneaking into the country and trying to avoid being caught by trudging through the desert. The guest worker program, once implemented, could make it harder for bad guys to hide in and amongst the good guys, where we risk injuring the innocent when we try to repel the guilty

But I would only want the guest worker status implemented if it is part of a plan to get control over our borders. And I have a tough time crediting the present administration or its liberal weenie opposition with any seriousness of purpose when it comes to U.S. security, despite the administration's committment to squashing terrorists in the middle east. We need to militarize our border patrol if they are going to face segments of the Mexican army.

Oh! That brings to mind another concern. I know that a lot of young people are volunteering for a tour of duty or two or three in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afganistan. Good for them. But I also know that many other young people are avoiding military service out of opposition to the war and the worry that they would be posted to fight a war not to their liking. Wonder if they would feel differently about military service, if they were promised that their service would be limited to guarding and defending our borders, and not going overseas?

The Mexican border . . this can't be good.

So, the government of Mexico is going to teach its citizens the best way of slipping over our border without bothering to get a visa. In otherwords, the government of Mexico is facilitating a border incursion into another sovereign nation - us. Basically, the government of Mexico is supplying a crime kit.

And this isn't the worst of it. The Mexican army has been slipping over into the U.S. from time to time, facilitating smuggling.

I think this is a bigtime security issue. If both meth and people are routinely smuggled into the country with the help of corruption in the Mexican government, what other nasty little surprises are in store for us?

I'd love to see a well controlled but easy to obtain guest worker status developed, so that honest, poor Mexicans can participate in our world-- as they have been doing up to now to our mutual benefit without the formal recognition of the law. Workers wouldn't need to be risk sneaking in by a desert crossing in the gentle care of bloody coyotes. (I'd also love to see Mexico open up their country to permit U.S. businessmen easy entry into Mexico to do business in Mexico without the need to bribe anybody or give a bunch of stock to a Mexican national.) If we know that the working Mexicans are crossing legally, we wouldn't need to hesitate in opening fire when we encounter people sneaking into the country and trying to avoid being caught by trudging through the desert. The guest worker program, once implemented, could make it harder for bad guys to hide in and amongst the good guys, where we risk injuring the innocent when we try to repel the guilty

But I would only want the guest worker status implemented if it is part of a plan to get control over our borders. And I have a tough time crediting the present administration or its liberal weenie opposition with any seriousness of purpose when it comes to U.S. security, despite the administration's committment to squashing terrorists in the middle east. We need to militarize our border patrol if they are going to face segments of the Mexican army.

Oh! That brings to mind another concern. I know that a lot of young people are volunteering for a tour of duty or two or three in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afganistan. Good for them. But I also know that many other young people are avoiding military service out of opposition to the war and the worry that they would be posted to fight a war not to their liking. Wonder if they would feel differently about military service, if they were promised that their service would be limited to guarding and defending our borders, and not going overseas?

Holocaust - a divine punishment.

An Islamic cleric is on trial in England. It's his sermons that are the problem. Just lovely.

Arch-Liberals nipping at the judge & hifees wife . . .

Some of the archest of arch-liberals are commenting on the Supreme Court Judge nominee's wife running out of the Senate in tears in reaction to the bullying treatment her husband was receiving -- so much so that one of bully buddies felt a pang of decency and apologized. So, is the issue the smear in the Senate? Oh, no. It's the wife. Read these comments, (Thanks, rightwingnews, for reading the leftish stuff for us.) and it doesn't matter which side of the middle line of politics you swing towards. To most of us, these comments just don't sound like they're coming from sane people.

And not very bright either. What could the consequences be? I bet that when Alito is confirmed, and he is likely to be confirmed, he spends the next twenty-five years or so being excessively unsympathetic towards the favored notions of the unhinged left. He could even go out of his way to stomp on leftist ideals at every opportunity. (Hey, take a shot at me, well, I can take it. We'll work it out. But make my wife or kids feel bad? Now you must die.) I suspect that as a Supreme Court judge he will have a chance or two to retaliate.

As is now becoming ever more predicably regular, Judge Alioto is about to be repackaged as another one of the permanent evil icons of the loony left. But in so doing, the leftists are driving those who are moderately left into the arms of the Republicans, leaving a small core of white hot loonies in charge of what's left of the party. It's no wonder that the Republican party of today is looking a whole lot like the Democratic party of the forties, fifties and early sixties. It is now increasingly populated with people who think that way. If the Republican party used to the the minority and now it's the majority, well, where does the Democratic leadership think all those new Republicans came from. Did the stork bring them?

And it's kind of fun to think that President Jack Kennedy and his brother Bobby would probably have been a whole lot more comfortable with the current Republican government than that of the current Democratic party. And that it's their baby brother, Teddy, who feels no shame or responsibility for the decay of the party, but who should.

And by the way, whose bright idea was it to put Teddy Kennedy (muffled cough, "Kopechne!") on the judiciary committee in the first place?

Due Process for Saddam . . .

I don't think that all evil acts must be accommodated by a criminal prosecution. Crime implies punishment, deterrence, and some sort of due process. I think that sometimes evil people go beyond crime, that treating them as criminals cheapens the horror of their evil and lends them some regard and dignity that is not and should not be their due.

Now that Winston Churchill's notebooks are being released to the public, we are seeing that he was not a bit squeamish about the idea of destroying his enemies. His thought was that the Nazi top brass should have been shot at the first opportunity by anybody readily available, rather than having been tried as war criminals. Dymphna at the Gates of Vienna has it exactly right. Taking off from Churchill's attitude about Hitler, that the war crimes trials are only good if a defendant grovels for his crimes, Saddam shouldn't be given a trial where he is treated with any respect or dignity. If he isn't willing to grovel at his trial, shoot him.

But if you have to have a trial, to my mind, a better model to follow for Saddam's treatment after capture would have been that of Ceausescu. That is, run through a quick and private trial and then impose the final sentence immediately without appeal and dump the trash secretly so no morons try to build a monument on the gravesite. (To paraphrase, the moronic are always with us.)

Certainly, the idea of a trial with the routines of due process seems a bit much in the case of bloody-minded people like Saddam . The attempt to provide a pious and public display of due process inevitably is turning into a collectivist-type show trial, which merely gives Saddam additional opportunity to act out the alternate parts of Islamic strong man or emblematic victim of western persecution of the ummah.

Give him enough due process and he'll become the new caliph, by and by.

The Goldwater Presidency . . .

Good ol'Senator Ted Kennedy really nailed it once again. Speaking against the nomination of Alito, Senator Kennedy noted that the nomination of Alito comes right out of the Goldwater presidency.

And good ol' conservative Barry Goldwater. The Democrats said that if people voted for him, there would be riots in the street and Americans killed in a foreign war. Well, I voted for him, and sure enough, there was rioting in the streets.

It's just that Goldwater lost -- he never was president.

I know that politicians and reporters like to rewrite historic events when it makes a better story but I'm not so sure this little fib is Kennedy at his best. But I get real worried when I wonder if maybe this is too Kennedy at his best.

Iranian atomic bellicosity

Chester is worried about Iran. (Ref'd by Instapundit.) What he says sounds plausible to me. I don't think the Iranian statements that we and Israel are the enemies to be destroyed are mere rhetoric. I think they mean it and I think they mean to use atomic bombs if they can get them. I don't think they mean for atomic weapons to be used as a mere bargaining chip.

If that is true -- I hope it isn't -- what to do?

If it is true that Iran means serious mischief then if Bush were to strike hard and decisively, he might just turn out to be the cause of the preservation of western civilization, no less. But he would also be vilified by all of our home-grown and European left as a greater monster than they think he is now. But if he doesn't strike and tries the diplomatic route towards security, I think the best that can happen is that Iran would only be slowed and will eventually attack Israel, and possibly our east coast, anyway.

That would leave no doubt that there is a war on, after all. We could say, "I told you so." But it isn't worth it.

Google banners

Have you seen today's Google banner? For some time now Google has been marking special dates with special banners, a play on the now familiar colored Google name. Today, it looks like Google is spelled out in colored dots for the visually impaired. Of course, visually impaired people, running their fingers over the monitor, will get nothing, so I would say that this google banner is just being cute for the sake of cuteness.

And it is getting a little old.

And maybe a little self-indulgent and offensive.

Come on, google folks. You are well on the way to being one of the largest and most influential companies of our times. You aren't a couple of guys working in a dorm room, or a few people roller skating in the parking lot any more. Time to start showing a little gravitas.

Another scandal in Congress, . . .

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff is in the news. He has agreed to plead guilty and cooperate in an ongoing action against members of Congress. Mr. Abramoff is a lobbyist who gave gifts and goodies to various Congressmen who could benefit his clients. The present understanding is that this ongoing prosecution is going to lead to some prominent Republicans going down in flames. Of course, we aren't hearing more about this from the usual brayers (Pelosi) and bawlers (Schumer) because it looks as if some prominent Democrats might likewise be revealed to be a little sticky of finger.

In fact politicians of both parties are tripping over themselves in the rush to return campaign contributions, so as to be able to appear merely greedy, but not greedy and corrupt. The total so far amounts to over $200,000.00.

This is exactly wrong. We know damn well the politicians were going to keep the goodies and are only giving them up because Abramoff got caught.

Abramoff is going to take a fall, and he's going to take a few with him, but likely it won't be enough. Each party is going to make noises about a few bad apples in the bunch, and each will try to "get this behind them" as quickly as possible.

What would be right - don't expect to see it - would be if the leaders of both parties were to announce, either together or separately, that their parties would expect the resignations of everybody who accepted goodies for political favors. Their continued presence in Congress and as members of either party affects the reputation of all in politics.

And that isn't enough. I think the identity of the clients on whose behalf Mr. Abramoff made these expenditures in return for favors should be known. They were the ones who were paying the money out for political influence. They were the source of the corrupting influences $$$$ that Mr. Abramoff has admitted. Officers and/or directors authorized payments, for sure. I suspect that prosecution of a corporate client or two would be a good thing, and disclosure of the identities of all the individuals seeking political influence would be a very good thing.

Make them face the purifying ordeal of being the hot gossip at the country club.