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WWMD

Just want to make sure that everyone sees this cartoon before going off to the website to see what all the fuss is about:



Once again it is proved that Islamonazis have no sense of humor. If you can't laugh at youself, everyone else will do your laughing for you. You just look stupid and ignorant when you protest things like this... But in the Islamonazi's case they would look stupid and ignorant whether they protested or not... So I guess it is ok for them to make a big stink (probably just have to wave them robes around a bit) about this.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:17

Marx, Harpo Marx

Turns out Harpo Marx was a spy! You read that right, Harpo! Who woulda thunk it?!

IN the golden age of Hollywood, Harpo Marx was the definitive clown - a wild- haired mute in a dirty raincoat who chased women, sounding a loud horn.

Yet the most anarchic of the Marx Brothers - in order of age, Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo - was a secret agent for the US government. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, was so impressed he wanted Harpo to work for him as well, according to US records to be released soon.

The 165cm-tall comedian was inducted into the dark corridors of espionage in the winter of 1933 when - after the commercial failure of the slapstick comedy Duck Soup - the brothers agreed temporarily to go their separate ways. Joseph Stalin, who was a fan, authorised a six-week tour of the Soviet Union for Harpo, a skilled harpist and mime who played with comedians across the country.

At the end of the tour, Harpo told his family, he was asked by the US ambassador in Moscow to take home some "diplomatic mail", which he was instructed to conceal in his socks. The nature of the documents remains classified.

I got nothing more....
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:36

Koreans Can't Drive Either

Koreans have been going all crazy about the two girls who were killed by the American mine clearing machine driver last spring. They demand an apology from President Bush (which he has given but it is not good enough, I guess) and a revision of the rules that govern the prosecution of US military personnel stationed in Korea after the commision of a crime. The two soldiers in the tank-thing were cleared of negligent homicide by a military jury and sent home which smacks of paternalistic US policies not taking South Korean sensibilities into account.

What the South Koreans are mostly upset about, I think is that the evil soldiers ran over those two poor girls... depriving South Korean drivers the chance to do the same thing. Seems that South Koreans are the worst drivers in the world (pdf):

An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report on road safety released Tuesday, showed Korea ranking fourth, after the United States, Japan, and France in annual traffic accident deaths, with 8,097. The US was reported to have 42,116 deaths; Japan, 10,060; and France, 8160, brought about yearly by traffic accidents.

However, experts note that as the US, Japan and France have more cars per capita, Korea actually has the worst record for traffic accident deaths within the OECD. A 2000 OECD report on the number traffic accident deaths per 100,000 persons showed the country had the most deaths on the road with 21.8 persons. Portugal had 19.6 per 100,000; Luxembourg, 17.5; Poland, 16.3; and the US, 14.9.

Looks like this:

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:21

Nasty Commie Bitch

So much for solidarity with the working man and peseants are the owners of the revolution and such crap. Time (interestinly enough) has a pretty good article about the hell that is North Korea and when its wheezing corpse will finally fall into the 6-foot deep hole that awaits it. It has some classic class struggle shit that you would expect to hear from the commies directed against the US... not its own people:

Pyongyang isn't quite a worker's paradise, but for people like Li (a pseudonym), life there can be quite pleasant. Fashionably dressed and carefully coiffed, she is the kind of hip twentysomething single you might see on the streets of Seoul. She's even had her eyelids tucked Western-style, a popular form of cosmetic surgery in the capital. She uses eye shadow from South Korea, watches Western and South Korean movies on her VCD player and enjoys dining out, although she complains that the restaurants charge expensive prices in dollars these days. Speaking with a foreigner over dinner in China where she spends part of her time, she complains constantly about the quality of the food even as she's wolfing it down. Asked if she knows how people live in the North's provinces, she says she avoids leaving Pyongyang when in her home country. "I hate spending money where it is so boring," says Li. "There is no culture there. They eat and sleep. They live like pigs."

Contrast that with the "pig-like" desire to eat a meal that this boy recounts:

But one cannot talk to Jae Young, the 17-year-old border jumper, without wondering whether he is the explosive type. In the dumpling shop, he is discussing his village again. He remembers what it was like during the famine in 1996. He talks about the three executions he has witnessed. Villagers caught stealing corn were led up into the mountains and given a last meal of white rice and booze�all they could eat and drink. Then the soldiers shot them. Still, Jae Young won't stay in China. He misses his parents and he's frightened that border guards will murder them if they, too, try to cross the river. For now, his dream is to get enough money to take his parents to the black market. "I'll buy them some corn and corn soup so we won't be hungry," he says. Not white rice, he adds�that is too expensive. Maybe one day, when the Dear Leader's regime has finally become a distant, painful memory, he'll be able to dream bigger than of a bowl of soup.

A frigging bowl of soup! What a hellish rat hole. Don't know if it is time to send in the exterminators or just let the rodents kill each other over the last scraps of food.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:27

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! I'm Tainted!

According to this article I really have little chance to make it into heaven now since I saw (and secretly enjoyed) the Two Towers recently. Damn that Peter Jackson!

Shaa! Like I had a chance to begin with!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:21

Now That is Hitting Pretty Low!

Quick! Let us repair our relations with North Korea immediatly! Look what they did!

North Korea dumps US$ as an official foreign currency

BEIJING (AP) - Amid tensions with Washington over its decision to restart its nuclear program, North Korea has scrapped its reliance on the U.S. dollar as a foreign currency, ordering banks and traders to use European euros instead.

So now all four dollars are going to be converted to Euros? That would make... hmm.. carry the one... negative times a positive is a negative... transitive principle... Just about four Euros! What are our foreign currency exchange markets going to do without the North Koreans?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:24

And They Think We Don't Understand Them?

The lead story on the Korea Times web page today makes some rather odd observations:

A New York Times editorial suggesting the United States should begin pulling its troops out of South Korea reflects the misconception by Americans of the nature of the ongoing anti-U.S. protests, civic leaders said yesterday.

``They are barking up the wrong tree,�� a spokesperson of a coalition of civic groups Kim Sun-mi said.

``It is proved again that Americans don�t understand the nature of the anti-U.S. sentiment,�� she said.

``We don�t want to think the editorial has political motives. Citizens have been taking to the streets to call for an equal relationship between South Korea and the United States. They are not there to demand the withdrawal of the U.S. troops,�� she added. ``But we will take it positively because it is a sign that conservatives of the country have started to take the matter seriously.��

It is pretty clear to most that when you have huge crowds of people standing around in the cold who are willing to rip up the national symbol of a country who has stood by you for more than 50 years that you are not well liked. The tree we seem to be barking up is one of open hostility. As the editorial in the New York Times says, we do not stay where we are not wanted. We left the Philipines for similar reasons a few years ago and it wouldn't take all that much to leave South Korea.

Now for the misunderstanding. When did the New York Times become a mouthpiece for "conservatives of the country"? What this editorial says to someone who actually knows what the Times stands for is this call for withdrawal is even more serious than if it was only conservatives asking for us to get out. When you get a convergence of conservatives who might want us out because we are sick of seeing our national symbol torn up and dragged through the mud ("Screw the little ingrate bastards. If they want to get overrun by the commie hordes rather than live with us, let 'em!") and their counterparts on the liberal side ("You don't want us? Fine! We will take our toys and go home") then South Korea should start to see that maybe they have gone too far. Koreans, however have a hard time seeing when things get out of control. It is all a big group game until someone gets hurt.

More demonstrations are planned for next week. Let us see if certain truths have been transmitted to the leaders of those demonstrations by the incoming Roh administration. I would expect something on the order of "turn it down a couple of notches before the US really does get pissed".

Update:The Chosun Ilbo has started to try and reign in the typical Korean overzealousness:

It's finally begun to happen. Those who participate in the memorial protests over the death of the two middle school girls say it's about an "equal United States- Korea relationship" and not anti-Americanism, but to most Americans it still appears easy to interpret them as nothing more than the latter.

Incited by the recent activity in Korea, "anti-Korean" sentiment is appearing in America. The worry has been that this will escalate and ultimately threaten the whole of the US-Korea alliance. Now, recently, signs of this are appearing in the US.

Some regions are seeing campaigns to boycott Korean automobiles, and some American media are openly calling for US troops to withdraw. Well-know American columnist with the New York Times William Safire recently wrote that the US "does not belong where a democratic nation decides [it] is unwanted."

"We're sorry! It was all just a misunderstanding. Ha ha! Oh those crazy kids! Please keep buying our stuff and keep the boogey man (Kim Jung Il) away!"

Y'all just keep poking us with that pointy stick and see what happens.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:52

What A Load of Bull

Someone in the Boston Globe named Jeff Jacoby informs us that:

Religion is good for the spirit and good for the body

So here's a different idea.

Rather than trying to defend City Hall nativity scenes or menorahs - or school prayer, for that matter - on the grounds that the Constitution doesn't forbid them, supporters should defend them by appealing to an even higher value: health.

After all, in 21st-century America, all kinds of things are justified in the name of good health - from multibillion-dollar antismoking lawsuits to sex education in elementary schools. Why shouldn't public displays of a religion be embraced in the same way?

We may not ordinarily think of religion as a key to a healthy lifestyle, but there is no question that it is. Hundreds of scientific studies have found that religious commitment and practice are connected to longer life, lower rates of illness, greater stamina, and faster healing from injury. Numerous medical schools offer courses in spirituality and health; Harvard's annual conferences on ''Spirituality and Healing in Medicine'' draw huge audiences from across North America.

Oh, Really? I can spend a few minute son the internet and come up with the following from Centers for Advancement of Health (whatever that is):

Popular claims that religious activity provides health benefits have virtually no grounding in the medical literature, according to an article in the March issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

This conclusion sharply contradicts assertions that a large body of evidence indicates that religious people enjoy better physical and mental health. Belief in the health benefits of religious and spiritual activities is so widespread that many think these activities should be incorporated into clinical practice.

[snip]

The authors found that 83 percent of the 266 articles that they found were �irrelevant to claims of a health advantage associated with religious involvement,� Sloan reports, because these studies, while about religion, had nothing to do with an effect of religion on health.

For example, he notes, some studies examined only the association between health and the lifestyle practices -- not the beliefs -- of certain denominations, such as the dietary habits of Seventh-Day Adventists. Other studies examined how health problems influence religious practices, not vice versa.

And how about this little bit from ABC News:

Past Prayer Studies Poor
Sloan�s team said the idea that religious activities make people healthier comes from studies that have not been well designed, produce vague conclusions, and generate sometimes conflicting results.
For example, some researchers use church attendance as a measure of religiousness, making no distinction between Quaker meetings and Roman Catholic masses.
�Do advocates of the connection between religion and health propose that such differences are unimportant?� they asked.
Nor do such studies account for the stresses people feel when they change their denomination, sometimes over their family�s objections, said Sloan and his colleagues. �Religious practices can be disruptive as well as healing.�

And how about this quote from Dr. Koenig (who's name is all over the internet as a big believer in this sort of thing):

There have been about 1,200 studies on health and religion, says Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of Duke University's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health. But this latest research "is the best, most well-designed study looking at religion and health. It is one of the most powerful findings validating the relationship between religion and health. Involvement in the religious community is a powerful predictor of health."

The data show that regular involvement in religious activities can add seven to 14 years to your life, "but you'll spend all the time in church, so maybe you don't want to do that," Koenig says with a laugh. "I go to church, but I'm not crazy about it. It's a stress, but I go because of my wife, so it would be a greater stress if I didn't."

There it is. Many people's idea of hell.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:16

North Koreans Join Long List of Evil Not-So-Geniuses

Seems that North Korea has been cooking something up in one of those many underground labs of theirs. They must be cooking something up because just yesterday they threatened:

Pyongyang has issued a series of threats, including one to "destroy the earth" if the US resorted to nuclear war against it.

Now, come on. What kind of defender of the people would they be if they went ahead and used their giant space laser, tunneled to the earth's core and set off an explosion, or dropped a big rock from space? What kind of future for international socialism and Kimilsungism would there be?

So I am going to go ahead and put this in the "slightly overheated rhetoric" file for now, ok? Now why don't we all go have a nice lie-down until dinner, hmmm?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:19

The Deconstructionist in the Hat

Being Corsair the Good Dad, I have read the Dr. Seuss book "The Cat in the Hat" more than 1 million times. I do not exaggerate. What is it with kids and familiarity. Try as I might, it is very difficult to get the Corsair Princess #1 to pick anything but her tried and true favorites. Corsair Prince went through the same phase but now has moved on to Redwall, Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc. and does not wish for me to read to him so much anymore (any time I do he takes the book that we are trying to read together and goes ahead and finishes it himself). Corsair Princess #2 isn't quite at the book reading or listening stage so I have a bit of a respite before the whole thing starts all over again.

I think this guy is being silly when he deconstructs "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" but since you can't always tell with academia (and others who use really big words than make my head hurt when I sound them out): Try it and see:

These semiotic felines do exactly what a deconstructionist would predict: rather than containing the stain, they disseminate it. Everything turns pink. The chain of signification is interminable and, being interminable, indeterminate. The semantic hygiene fetishized by the children is rudely violated; the "system" they imagined is revealed to have no inside and no outside. It is revealed to be, in fact, just another bricolage. The only way to end the spreading stain of semiosis is to unleash what, since it cannot be named, must be termed "that which is not a sign." This is the Voom, the final agent in the cat's arsenal. The Voom eradicates the pink queerness of a textuality without boundaries; whiteness is back, though it is now the purity of absence�one wants to say (and, at this point, why not?) of abstinence. The association with nuclear holocaust and its sterilizing fallout, wiping the planet clean of pinkness and pinkos, is impossible to ignore. It is a strange story for teaching people how to read.

Huh? I am not sure what that means, but the rest of the article does include a great capsule history of Dr. Seuss and the number of words he uses in his books.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:16

That is So Cool

Type computer into google.com and you get apple.com as the first result.

Of course.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:51

What Time is It?

Go here and find out!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:15

More Lunacy Over at Lucianne.com

I keep telling myself that I shouldn't go there because it is bad for my blood pressure. Oh well.

In a discussion of allowing the government into people's bedrooms so they can legislate the type of monkey-sex that people are having we get this gem:

Reply 14 - Posted by: Gary O, 12/19/2002 1:11:12 PM

Government is established by God to restrain evil, and specifically commanded by God to punish homosexual acts.

God said it. That settles it. Don't like it? Don't care.

Ahh! Morons like this vote! And they put Tom DeLay and Trent Lott into positions of power! AHHH!

But all is not lost. Our hero responds:

Reply 15 - Posted by: smoov, 12/19/2002 1:15:37 PM

"God said it. That settles it. Don't like it? Don't care"

That's the most un-American thing I've read in months.


Reply 17 - Posted by: smoov, 12/19/2002 1:21:43 PM

"Government is established by God to restrain evil"

That could come straight from the gob of some benighted Ayatollah. Jesus told us to render unto Caesar, etc. The United States of America is not a theocracy. It was formed as an antidote to theocracy. We are a God-fearing nation, but we govern ourselves through the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, which we as Americans created using our God-given talent and spirit.

It amazes me how many people out there really seem to want a society indistinguishable from those of our worst and most intractable enemies.

Yaaaay! Put the mouth breather on his ass! Unfortunately said mouth breather doesn't know when he lost:

Reply 18 - Posted by: Gary O, 12/19/2002 1:37:17 PM

All people are answerable to civil authorities and to God, each in its proper sphere. All governments are answerable to God. This isn't hard to understand, and has in fact been understood by most Christians for 2000 years and by most Jews before that.

The idea that America was formed as an antidote to theocracy is bizarre, and represents a misunderstanding of both what Americans were separating from and what they were separating to.

I believe that when it comes to church/state questions, the authors of America's constitution got it right. And does anyone doubt that they jailed homosexuals? It is those who want to subvert our Constitution by "finding" new rights to practice sexual perversion who are un-American.

The authors of the constitution did get it right! Women shouldn't be allowed to vote! And those pesky negroes? Put them back on the plantation! God knows we need more cotton (have you seen polyester?). God helped steady the hand that wrote those biblically inspired words in the constitution and who are we, mere mortals, poor reflections on the glory that is god to change his words... Oh, we already did? And this sort of thing is tolerated because the men who wrote the contsitution foresaw the need for it to change over time to better reflect the society in which it was being read? Oh, never mind.

Damn them founding fathers for not being as close minded and biggoted as the morons we have to put up with today.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:56

We're Not in America Anymore

Here in America it is said that anyone can grow up to be president. While we all know that is a lot of poppycock (that really is a silly word) at least we make the case for it (sort of like Santa and the Tooth Fairy). I guess this is not the case in certain Asian countries. While reading about Roh's election in South Korea, I stumbled across the following in one of their major newspapers:

As Roh looks ahead to the five year presidential term, he should keep in mind that his victory _ a personal honor no ordinary citizen can dream of _ also comes with the responsibility to devotedly serve the people and sacrifice for the nation.

Not only do they not say that anyone can grow up to be president in South Korea they expicitly state that you normal people shouldn't even think about such a thing!

Wow. Talk about difference in opinion.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:59

I Knew This Whole Pirate Thing Would Get Out Of Control!

First it was the crazy North Koreans misusing the pirate life now it is the increasingly senile Mr. Mandela of South Africa:

Former South Africa's president Nelson Mandela lambasted the US Tuesday for US efforts to sideline the United Nations and condemned a US grab for an Iraq weapons dossier as �piracy�.

----

�This was an act of piracy which must be condemned by everyone," the former South African president told members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

NO IT WASN'T! This is a pirate:




and this is the UN Security Council:




See the difference? Now go back to eating your gruel and having someone wipe your chin.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:16

USS Clueless Summarizes It

I tend to write a lot about Korea, North Korea, and all things Northeast Asian. Comes from having spent time over there and having an inflated sense of my own brilliance. While I have been approaching the whole "Korea Problem" piecemeal, leave it up to Steven Den Beste to wrap the whole thing up in a nice bow all ready for Christmas delivery.


A couple of points: I have a better picture than he does showing the depths to which technology has fallen in North Korea (The picture below indicates light and heat sources on the Korean peninsula):




One other point he makes is that:

If there's any rational explanation at all for the behavior of the North Korean government, it's been an institutional commitment to never admitting error, and to doing whatever is necessary to avoid even being forced to admit that anything that its leaders have ever done was unwise or wrong in any way.

While this has been true in the past (especially under the Great Leader Kim Il Sung) even this policy has been changed if the Dear Leader Kim Jong Il sees a chance to make some money out of it. I refer to this years' revelations by North Korea that they did indeed kidnap a number of Japanese (from Japan and Europe) to teach language and culture to North Korean spies. These spies would then infiltrate South Korea and Japan posing as Japanese (I covered this here) and blow up airplanes among other things.

Kim Jong Il needs dough and he saw a big pot of it over there in Japan. You see, Japan gave South Korea "compensation" (making sure not to call it that) in the 1960s when their relations improved. They never gave any to the insane asylum that is North Korea since they have always hated each other. Now the North wants it's share and with interest and a little arm twisting (carry the 5... add the decimals...) they think they can get $10 billion dollars. The kidnapping revelations were supposed to spur things along. "You brutally colonized us and we kidnapped your people. So we are even, right?" The Japanese saw this differently and the whole "money for protection" thing was put on hold until more details come out of North Korea (they won't be). And those who were kidnapped and are still alive (not many) were allowed to visit Japan to seal the deal with the understanding that they would go back to North Korea (I never got that part! Why would they want to?). When the deal started to fall apart, Japan said to them: "you can't go back" even though the North Koreans probably have their relatives' scrotums wrapped in electrical wire and are just looking for a charged car battery to attach the aligtor clips to.

All in all a wonderful summary of the issues involved on one Axis of the League of Dangerous Shithole Countries (or whatever Bush called it).
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:51

OK, things appear back to normal. Blogger doesn't usually eat up the template like that, does it?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:02

OK, Blogspot has gone all screwy on me... Does this font look fat on me?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:15

New Blog

Added The Color of Thieves to the blogroll as he has lots to say about Korea.

He pretty much said the same thing about me.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 18:36

Bad Guys Go Boom

I was alerted to a great video by Brian H. which shows some of the technology that the American taxpayer has been paying for all these years and that I referenced in an earlier post. Oddly enough I never saw this footage on the nightly news. Probably those that seek to shield all our wilting selves were outraged that this shows video of people actually being killed (albeit little tiny people) and it makes it look just like a video game circa 1983.

Also note the professionalism of the personnel involved. Outside of a few exclamations of satisfaction (this was the al qaeda scum who attacked us first, after all) there is none of the shouts of "allah akbar" or "Die infidel scum" or "your momma wears army boots" you would expect to hear from the islamonazis were they to have similar technology (which they never will have since they don't have two technological brain cells to slap together in the entire region).

Have a look and see what you think (be warned it is a 5.5 MB file that you have to download before viewing. Those on modems might want to get a cup of coffee or your favorite soda):



UPDATE: I think we crashed the original server that the video lived on. I managed to find another.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:41

Round and Round They Go!

Great site full of pictures of the 1980 JC Penneys catalog. Shield your eyes, ladies and gentlemen and set the wayback machine for "ugly clothes time":


posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:55

Great Article in the WaPo Magazine

Cool article in the past, present, and future of smart bombs in the US military inventory.

Some excerpts:

No other nation even approaches this new American military power. Not since 1945, when the United States had a brief monopoly on atomic weapons, has there been such a power gap between America and the rest of the world.

----

Lacking money for wind tunnel experiments, they built small 10-inch models of bombs with fins and dropped them into a backyard swimming pool, taking notes as they sank.

----

In the spring of 1968, Davis and a group of test pilots and engineers from Eglin flew to Thailand to test the bombs in actual combat. The first drop on a North Vietnamese bridge was a total failure -- the bombs missed entirely.

Back then, two aircraft were needed to drop a single laser-guided bomb. A weapons officer in the back seat of one F-4 Phantom used a hand-held laser to illuminate a target, much as Davis had aimed his movie camera at the dam. And a second F-4 Phantom dropped the laser-guided bomb on a glide path that enabled its sensor to pick up the laser spot. An extensive debriefing of both pilots determined that one of them had put the laser beam on one bridge, and the other had launched the bomb at another bridge 3,000 feet away.

----

In the early-morning darkness, Apache helicopter gunships hugging the earth fired laser-guided Hellfire missiles and Hydra rockets at two Iraqi early- warning radars. It was January 17, 1991. The Gulf War had begun.

Minutes later, F-117 stealth fighters began attacking hardened air defense sites and command facilities in Baghdad with precision weapons, undetected by Iraqi air defenses that were seven times as dense as those around Hanoi when the United States first started using laser-guided bombs in Vietnam.

"By the time dawn broke the morning of January 17," Hallion writes in his history of the war, Storm Over Iraq, "Iraq was well on the way to losing the war . . ."

----

What may be the smartest bomb of all is now in development at Eglin. The winged bomb would find targets, track them, and then decide what type of warhead would be best to destroy them -- all on its own.

Powered by a miniature turbo jet engine and weighing 85 pounds, each of the bombs -- dubbed Low Cost Autonomous Attack Systems -- would fly 55 miles to a target and then loiter over the battlefield for 15 minutes, searching a 25 square-kilometer area with a sensor that uses a laser beam to create images of targets moving on the battlefield.

Identifying a target involves something called "automatic-target-recognition algorithms" that enable the sensor to digitally compare what it is seeing on the ground with models already programmed into its onboard computer. "It can distinguish an SA-6 radar from an SA-8 telar," says James Moore, project manager. "Or an SA-6 radar from an SA-6 launcher, each having the same chassis. That's pretty good. Once it's convinced itself that it's got the right target, it would then start diving down on it."

Here, the bomb would exhibit its final act of autonomous intelligence, arming the warhead, either as an armor-piercing slug or as antipersonnel fragments, depending upon the type of target it has fixed. The cost of each of these "brilliant" bombs is only $63,000, roughly the same as the latest model laser- guided bombs.

And plenty more! Go and check out this article.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:04

What is Another Word for Gullible?

How about Jesus-crap-buyer on ebay? Like this fine thing here:



Looks like a turd, don't it? Well, it ain't! It is:

This extremely rare relic was made by Christian artisans almost 1400 years ago in 630 AD in The Holy Land, from a portion of The True Cross! It is �" x �" and is made of fine ash from The True Cross and clay or terracotta.

This Relic is registered with Axis Mundi, an antiquities dealer, and the Relic can be beautifully displayed with their Certificate of Authenticity.

Heal the sick! Grow hair where it ain't supposed to be! Clear up your cousin's gout! Releive yourself of the pain of the grip! Blow away the vapors! Banish your consumption to the ashbin of history!

It must be real! It has a certificate! From an antique dealer in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And we all know that the full name of the New Mexico state capital is "Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis," or "Royal Village of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi". So they must be "in the know" with the big man upstairs. And if he says that this is a piece of the cross that they nailed him to, then they must be right!

And you can have it for only $449 if you act right now! And they throw in an orange juicer, the steak knives, and a lock of Saint Blasphemous' back hair to seal the deal.

Idiots.

Of course I never would have found it without the Pagan Prattle Online. They seem to play a game wherein they try to find the gaudiest piece of Jesus crap for sale on ebay. I tried it and look what I got!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:35

See?!? That's What I'm On About!

First see the following:



Over there on lucianne.com (slogan: We never met a neanderthal we didn't like) in the comments section vast swaths of the American people (those who voted for Clinton, or parents who send the kids to public schools, or those who watch tv) are often derided as "sheeple" (sheep + people). In their minds sheeple are folks who do what they are told and don't question things because they are dumb and lazy. This is odd since most of them confess to being right-wing religiods who like nothing better than going off to church to hear about all the other unfortunate slobs who are going to burn in hell because they do not think the way I have been told to think by my church. Doesn't anyone see the contradiction here!??! Don't denigrate others for not thinking for themselves whilst you blindly parrot words, ideas, and concepts handed down to you from 2000 year old goat herders.

Think for yourselves!

But then their heads might explode. Damn, what a mess that would make.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:46

Arrrr, Me Hearties! Do Not Speake of What Ye Do Not Knowe!

piracy \Pi"ra*cy\, n.; pl. Piracies. [Cf. LL. piratia, Gr. ?. See Pirate.]
1. The act or crime of a pirate.
2. (Common Law) Robbery on the high seas; the taking of property from others on the open sea by open violence; without lawful authority, and with intent to steal; -- a crime answering to robber on land.

North "Loony" Korea is now accusing the US of being pirates due the the seizure of its boat foll o'missles a couple of days ago. As a pirate let me emphatically state that the actions taken by the US in no way even slightly resembled that of a legally registered Pirate® oraganization.

The Bucketheads in North Korea put out that:

North Korea has accused the United States of committing piracy (and they should know. Didn't they capture the Pueblo and kidnap Japanese citizens off the beach and sell drugs and blow up airplanes and cabinet ministers?- ed) for seizing and detaining a cargo ship in the Arabian Sea on its way to Yemen with a cargo of missiles.

It says the shipment was being carried out under a legal contract and it wants compensation for the incident.

Were to be an actual Sactioned Pirate® Operation (SPOP) the following would have happened:

1. Raising of the mizzen mast (whatever that is)


2. Grape shot across the bow


3. Musket fire directed against their Mainsail


4. Heaving to (with "me hearties" whoever they are)


5. Waving of scimitars, swords, and limbs with hooks on them


6. Actual boarding of the vessel by swinging across on ropes with aforementioned pointy objects held in teeth


7. A lot of to'ing and fro'ing around the deck whilst the cook bonks unsuspecting sailors over the head with a bottle of rum (when he isn't partaking of it himself)


8. Kicking of the Captain off of his ship and into the water to visit Davey Jones locker


9. Dividing the boodle, booty, goods, graft, hot goods, hot items, loot, make, pickings, pillage, plunderage, prey, prize, quarry, rapine, raven, spoil, squeeze, stuff, swag, take, things, trappings, tricks, winnings

You know how many of the above listed things actually happened? None of them! In fact the US was so stupid that they even returned the missles, swept up the broken glass, and offered to take the crew to TGI Friday's for an All You Can Eat Shrimp Fiesta! Is that the act of Murderous Pirate Scum(MPS)®? Not when this MPS rides the high seas in search of plunder.

Makes me weep, the depths to which evil has fallen.

UPDATE - I have been informed that some of the actions taken during the "Piracy" did indeed rise to the level of SPOP, namely the swinging from helicopters to the So San and the waving in the faces of the terrified crew of the weapons carried by our boys in black.

Ok, I admit they got a few of the details right but they blow it when it came to the payoff stage. There was no loot recovered so they get an "F" in my playbook.










posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:47

Now Isn't That Neighborly of Them?

Eritrea wants to be our newest best friend. The enticement to that arrangement comes in the area of location. They are in a good location and we want to be there:

In a region packed with squeamish U.S. allies, the newest nation is working overtime to be part of Washington's plans for war against Iraq.

Eritrea, a tiny desert nation across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia, has even hired a Washington lobbying firm to press its invitation to American troops.

"We have very limited resources, but we are willing and prepared to use these resources in any way that is useful to combat terrorism," said Mr. Isaias. Asked if that included the use of Eritrean military facilities, Mr. Isaias replied: "That's the least you can imagine." Mr. Rumsfeld did not say if the United States, which has 1,000 elite troops stationed on a warship off the coast, would take up Eritrea's offer. But he did say that the relationship between the United States and Eritrea, a strip of coastal desert not quite the size of Florida, was one that he hoped would evolve and "grow in the weeks and months and years ahead."

Good! I am glad someone is thinking outside the box!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:31

Big Green Thing With Gray Teeth Found!

I think this is supposed to be some sort of North Korean SCUD missle thing... Or it could be a closeup shot of a trash compator. Who knows?


posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:36

International Trekies Unite!

Who even knew that there was Turkish cinema? And who knew it was this good? And who knows where I can get some (it even has an IMDB entry!)?

In the original Star Trek, Captain Kirk was all that is man. He�d tear his shirt off and fight a lizard monster from a space couch covered in green alien sluts. In Turkish Star Trek, reverse all of that. The movie starts with Kaptan Kirk practically prancing over to his chair to sit down cross- legged and daintily lisp out orders. He and the Turkish Uhura discuss something, which reminds me that I should let you know that the movie hasn�t been subtitled and I�ve never even heard of anyone who�s ever heard of anyone who speaks Turkish. However, judging by the way Kaptan Kirk is sitting, he and Uhura are discussing the useful applications of not having a penis.

The Turkish Enterprise�s dress code has got to cause problems. The female personnel are forced to wear miniskirts that end four inches above the bottom of their asses, and when they turn around to work on the spray- painted cardboard computers, they have no secrets. I�m sure this leads to situations where the navigator loses his concentration and says, �Miss Uhura, we are crotching a course for the panties sector, coordinates your whole ass hanging out. Repeat: panties, panties, panties.�

"I'm ready for my screentest now, Mr. Attaturk!"
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:54

Fighting the Good Fight

The students in Iran are acting like most students and rebelling against their parents. Normally I am not all in that much agreement with that sort of thing (rebelling for rebellion's sake seemed like a big waste of time and energy to me) but in this case the students have nailed it. What they are rebelling against, of course is the religious nutballs in power who used to be the students who rebelled against the Shah of Iran in the 1970s. ANd you can see what happened to the Shah.

Now is the time to support this new generation of students and hope they are able to make major changes for the better in their country.

Check out the Weblog Action Center for a report.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:05

Starting to Get Nasty Over There

Koreans love nothing better than to be part of a group. Their whole lives are arranged around what family, school, military, work or church group they belong to. And once they are in that group it is vitally important that they be seen supporting it. Loudly if possible. One of my first memories of Korea was in 1985 after there had been particularly bad storms that had washed away hillsides, flooded fields, and drowned lots of people. The Korean Government was doing what it could but the citizens needed to feel included in the cleanup and reconstruction work (the biggest group of all is the national one). When things got bad, they were all Koreans so it was up to all of them to help out in some way. Their way was to stand for hours in these long lines so they could give a few bucks for the cause. So all day long on TV (and this was back in the day when there was no TV on during the day) they had special news programs showing people lined up for blocks so they could donate some money for the people affected by the rains. I was moved by the public display of helping but I remember thinking that in the US we would have phoned or mailed in our contribution. Koreans, being such a group-based society need to be seen with the group.

This group think mentality of Koreans has shown up at other times as well. College students during the 1980s and early 1990s were invariably anti-government and would demonstrate daily in front of their campuses against all manner of dictatorial ills. It was, however more of a dance than a demonstration. Everyone would assemble in the morning to get their headbands and armbands on. Sit around chanting slogans for a awhile, break for lunch, come back, chant some more and then attempt to march off the campus into the surrounding areas. There they would be met by the combat police who would hit them with tear gas and water cannon and then everyone would go home only to return the next day for more of the same. Highly organized chaos. (There is a great P. J. O'Rourke "Holidays in Hell" article he did for Rolling Stone many years ago which captures this.)

This continued with the labor union protests (make sure you have your slogans and headband ready), political party rallies (make sure you have your slogans and headband ready) and sports (make sure you have your slogans and headband ready) culminating in the millions of Koreans on the streets during the 2002 World Cup (sporting red t-shirts and slogans this time just to be different). Koreans love to join those things because they are a safe and easy way to "buck the system". Does it work? Yes it does once it reaches critical mass. The politicians know which side their kimchi is served on and once they see enough people with headbands and slogans a big change happens.

We now have the beginnings or a new headbands and slogans movement. Due to the tin ear and over-protectiveness of the US Army, lots of Koreans are getting plenty pissed off about the two junior high school girls who were killed during a miliary exercise where a number of things seem to have gone stupidly wrong. Koreans of all walks of life are now learning how to say "Yankee Go Home" and meaning it. They don't see North Korea as the big bad it used to be (since it can't even feed it own people without the help of the US, Japan and South Korea) and they are starting to feel their oats as a playa on the international stage. Why should they have those ignorant Americans around messing up the place and killing our citizens whenever they want? Oh and Americans don't want us to Reunify with North Korea because then WE would be the big gun in Northeast Asia and they are afraid of our productivity! It is all a plot by the Man to keep a (Korean) Brother down.

Don't laugh, lots of them actually feel this way and if they can get enough headbands and slogans going in the streets it may not be too far off when the Americans are asked to leave. I think that would be a huge mistake, but it could happen.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:48

I'm In the Vanguard Once Again!

I have long thought that religious fundalmentalists are a bunch of gassy, uninformed, zombie-ish windbags who should be kept in that litle locked room under the stairs whenever decent people come by to visit. Seems I am not the only one:

WASHINGTON -- The American Family Association, a far right lobbying group in Washington, released results from a recent survey that shows mainstream Americans see evangelical Christians as one of the least likeable groups in the country.

Researchers from the Barna survey asked respondents how they felt about evangelicals, born-again Christians, ministers, and other groups of people in society. According to the survey, evangelicals came in tenth out of eleven, narrowly beating out prostitutes.

PROSTITUTES!! Bwahaha! Now, for the record I have nothing against prostitutes so that put the Fundies in 11th place on my cosmic ordering system.

Oh and just to throw gas on the fire:

Affirming results from other studies, the Barna survey also found the more highly educated non-evangelicals are, the less likely they are to have a positive view of fundamentalist Christians.

Smart people think they are pie-hole stuffing bufoons. Probably why they don't want real science taught in schools. Make more kids smart and the fundies will be seen for the empty-headed, food trough water that they are.

I fart in their general direction.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:36

Get Yer Facts Straight

The town of Oceanside, California took the unusual and non-moronic step of voting to NOT spend taxpayer dollars to buy some gaudy, meaningfully empty plaque with the words "In God We Trust" on it:

OCEANSIDE � There will be no plaque declaring "In God We Trust" on the wall behind the dais in the City Council chambers here.

The council voted 3-2 late Wednesday night to rescind a previous council vote taken in October to spend $6,500 for a plaque displaying the national motto.

Councilman Jack Feller, the plaque's biggest booster, insisted it was a patriotic statement, not a religious one. He called the motto "as American as baseball, hot dogs and apple pie."

Not everyone was on the side of non-idiotarians, it appears. A patriotic statement would be E Pluirbus Unum, or Get Out the Vote, or Uncle Sam Wants You. What does trusting in a god that can't save you from 9/11 have to do with being patriotic?

"Patriotism should not be a temporary fad (after Sept. 11)," he [Feller] said. "We city leaders should leave some kind of spiritual inspirational legacy. This is the United States of America. This is our motto, going back to 1814."

ERRRRR! Wrong on many accounts! City leaders should leave a civic minded legacy of doing good things for your city/county/state. That is totally unrelated to any religious thing. Ministers, priests (when they aren't diddling little boys), preachers (when they aren't poofing their hair), swamis, monks, faith healers (when they aren't lying) and other silly religious "leaders" should "leave some kind of spiritual inspirational legacy". And secondly, if you really knew as much as you think you knew you would know 10 times as much as you do. Exhibit One from the U.S. Treasury (took me all of 10 seconds to find it):

A law passed by the 84th Congress (P.L. 84-140) and approved by the President on July 30, 1956, the President approved a Joint Resolution of the 84th Congress, declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States.

Hah, laughing boy! While it may be true that coins were stamped with this silliness long before that. IN GOD WE TRUST first appeared on the 1864 two-cent coin. So there! Maybe you should have prayed for some more brains before going up against the big boys!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:44

My God Can Beat Up Your God

There is some loon on the G. Gordon Liddy show today talking about the terrorist mohammed. Says that mohammed made up all those stories in the Koran and then claimed that Allah told him to write it. Liddy asked if it was not true that Allah was in fact just their name for God (I suppose trying to make the connection that maybe god really did talk to him). Then loonman says that no, allah was only a figment of mohammed's imagination, nothing like the god of the bible.

Huh? Who is this clown to claim that one religion's wacky imaginary super being is any more real than some other religion's wacky imaginary super being? Does he not know that out in the world today some muslim idiot is spewing the same silliness but with the names reversed?

Can't religious people hear themselves? And if they can what is present in their minds that allows them to believe the silly shit that they are saying? Really, I would like to know!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:01

See! This is What I am Talking About!

Police are bracing for a massive anti-U.S. protest, possibly the biggest in South Korea�s history, to take place today outside the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and other cities around the peninsula.

Tens of thousands of civic activists, religious men, entertainers and students plan to join protests against the U.S. court-martial acquittals of two U.S. soldiers who were in an armored vehicle that accidentally hit and killed two schoolgirls during a training mission in Yangju, Kyonggi Province, in June.

All this could have been avoided if the Army wasn't protecting its own.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:18

Yankee Go Home

There was an incident in South Korea recently which has led to all kinds of bad blood between the Korean people and the US military who are supposedly there to protect them from North Korean agression. While out on a training mission, a unit of US Army soldiers managed to kill not enemy combatants of any kind but two junior high school girls walking down the side of the road.

The soldiers were driving an AVLM (Armored Vehicle Launched Mine Clearing Line Charge) which, it turns out was way too wide for the road that they were on:

Tracked vehicles normally travel 50-100 meters apart. The AVLM that squashed the girls was the third vehicle in the convoy. It was too wide for the lane and protruded into the oncoming lane. The road curves and turns uphill past the village.

An AVLM has a crew of two: a commander and a driver. The former has a wide view and guides the latter, whose view is restricted to the front and the left side. The driver claimed that he did see the girls who were on his right. Normally, the commander should have warned the driver of the girls but he claimed that he did not see the girls in time because of the curving uphill slope.

At the time, a convoy of Bradly armored cars came toward the AVLMs from the opposite direction. Bradley machines are 3.6 meters wide. AVLMs are 3.67 meters wide. And the lane is only 3.4 meters wide. The vehicles swerved away to avoid head-on collision. The killer AVLM swerved to the right to the edge of road beyond which was a sharp drop.

We will never know exactly when the girls saw the AVLM rushing toward them. The girls saw the Bradley coming in the opposite direction and covered their ears to muffle the Bradley engine noise. They could not hear the noise coming from the AVLM bearing down on them. The AVLM commander saw the girls and shouted STOP three times but the driver did not hear him because of a faulty earphone. The AVLM swerved out to squash the girls to death.

However the reason they were meeting the Bradleys heading the other way was because:

Finally, I would like to point out that the immediate reason for the accident was due to our convoy of large-track vehicles (AVLBs, ACEs and 113s) meeting another convoy of Bradleys. Those Bradleys were the ones that we were supposed to link up with where we already were. All we had to do was stay put and they would have come to us; we could have fallen in behind them (still outside of the training environment) and entered the battle, rather than going the opposite way and meeting them.

And they were not supposed to be on that road anyway.

To understand this accident, you need to understand where we were. Twin Bridges training area is near Yangju, South Korea. From where [my former] company is (in Paju), we are forced to take what is called the �Munsan Bypass,� because the roads on the Yangju side of the training area are entirely too narrow. The Munsan Bypass is the equivalent of an American two-lane highway. The accident happened on the Yangju side, which shows that the wrong roads were being used for travel. On those small roads where farmers, children and other pedestrians frequently walk, they had our unit as well as others moving quickly, not thinking about pedestrians as much as we were thinking about �enemy fire� in the theater of training operations.

So they weren't using the right roads, they weren't waiting for their Bradleys, and they weren't following correct procedures almost from the start. The Koreans, of course are pissed by all this and think that it is just arrogant ole Uncle Sam pushing the poor oppressed peoples of Korea around. "Killed a couple of gook girls? Too bad! Shouldn't have been on the road!" And then when we get called on it we charge the driver and officer of the AVLM as a public relations ploy. This backfires when the Army finds them not guilty of negligent homicide after a "trial" and sends them back to the States.

First off why were these two schmucks the only two being charged with anything? What about their Company commanders? Who gave the order to be on those roads at that time? Who decided to not wait for the Bradleys where they were instead of heading out into the community? Who was ensuring that all training guidelines were being followed in regards to sleep, equipment, and procedures?

In combat a lot of rules get to be thrown out the window but in training you have to follow all rules to the letter because that is what you are going to be able to fall back on when the shit hits the fan. You train the way you fight. Screwing around and getting people killed in training means that the training is defective or the people implementing the training negligent (crimminally? We won't know unless someone else gets charged). Why has none of that been addressed? Would it have been had some US soldiers been killed? Ultimate repsonsibility lies in the officers running the training and in this case it looks they they are hiding behind the cammies of the soldiers they are supposed to lead. And it is costing us valuable goodwill from the people of Korea. You can't put a price tag on that kinda thing and we are pissing it away behind the "thin camouflaged line".
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:17

Sounds Like Israel Ain't F-ing Around This Time

According to this article, Israel is rining out the big guns now that Osama (maybe) has decided to target its citizens:

Mr Sharon's blunt order on the day of his re-election to the leadership of his right-wing Likud party will compel Mossad � Israel's secret service for intelligence and special operations � to resort to the kind of measures it has not taken for 30 years.

According to a well-informed source, the service has alerted sleeper agents in Saudi Arabia and Yemen to hunt down the planners of the attacks on the Israeli-owned tourist hotel and Israeli passenger plane at Mombasa.

Codenamed Warriors, these highly trained agents who volunteer to live under cover in Arab countries normally remain dormant except in wartime, when their mission is to undermine Arab preparations for strikes against Israel.

The last time such a serious order was given was in 1972. The then prime minister, Golda Meir, ordered Mossad to kill the Palestinians involved in the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. All but one were eliminated over six years.

It appears someone on the bad guys side may have omiscalculated. We can only hope!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:12

Oh. My. God. What. A. Freakshow!

I was spinning through the channels last night looking or news on the impending blizzard sure to wreak havoc on the DC Metropolitan area (do the Eskimos have a story similar to Noah but with a big boat that skates on ice while 40 days and 40 nights of snow come down and they save all the walrusses and polar bears?) when I chanced up a show on the Oxygen network (god knows why we get that one on our basic cable) about Rosie at the hairdresser! It included some fellow named Issac Mizrahi who couldn't have been more gay if he was dressed as Liza Minelli, some unnamed flunky doing the actual hair work, and Rosie looking like she had just come off a construction site. There was shaving and teasing and blue spray paint and shrieking (from Issac mostly).. *Shudder* I had a hard time getting to bed, I will tell you.

If it is ever replayed you must watch it. But be warned ahead of time it cold take years off your life.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:09

So Now It Is My Fault They Don't Eat?

There are people in this world who do not get enough food to eat. Having just gone throught the baccanalian delights of American Thanksgiving and overeating at a decidedly unheatlhy pace I probably should feel badly for the misfortunes of others. Were it to be the case that people have been deprived of food not through the stupidity of their fellow man but through a hurricane or other natural disaster, I would feel the need to help out those less fortunate than I and mine. If it is the case, however that people are not getting the food they need due to gross negligence, outright stupidity, or moronic activities heaped upon them by their own "leaders" I have a hard time feeling a whole lot of sympathy. Case in point is North Korea. While it had friends (China and the Soviet Union) the people there did ok food-in-the-belly wise. Once the SovUnion disintergrated, China became less of a friend since they had no competition anymore. So the free stuff from those countries dried up and North Korea got to really inplement some of the moronic Juche (self reliance) stupidity that they had been spouting off about all these years but not really putting into practice (We are self reliant as long as we get food and assistance from our benefactors... Sort of like having a teenager mouthing off about how independent they are and oh yeah can I borrow the car and have 20 bucks for the movies). Once they became really self-reliant they became a basket case. They make nothing that anyone wants to buy (except missles) so they can't get any foreign exchange to buy things on the international market. They live in a cold rocky place where food production is difficult even in the best of times. They have a government so paranoid of invasion from the South that any money they do get ends up being used by the military. And their government is filled with conterfeiters, drug runners, terrorists, kidnappers, and certifiable loonies!

So now the UN wants me to pay for the citizens of North Korea's lunch and if I don't it is all might fault they have to subsists on tree bark and cardboard:

North Korea, whose newly revealed nuclear arms programme has deepened its international isolation, needed the aid to make up for an "unprecedented slump" in donations, the North Korean mission of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said.

"It is vitally important to get adequate pledges promptly if we are to repair the damage caused by enforced aid stoppages since September that have deprived three million of the hungriest children, women and elderly people of badly-needed help," said Rick Corsino, WFP country director for North Korea.

See, the damage is caused by my governments finally getting the message that North Korea is not to be trusted. They finally had the balls to call a spade a spade and quit propping up this despotic regime with food bought using my tax dollars! I am sorry the little kids have to suffer, but that is why they have their own government! To take care of the little ones in their society! Let them ask Kim Jong Il for some of his rice. He seems not to have missed many meals.

The U.N. agency said it halted aid to three million people in western North Korea in September and would be forced to cut off another 1.6 million by early 2003 after a slump in backing from big donors, notably Japan.

And Japan doesn't have a reason to shut off the spigot? Maybe they are mad about this whole kidnapping of its citizens thing? Wouldn't you be?

Tuesday's appeal said North Koreans suffered stark disparities between regions, with the south and west in food surplus and the north and east in severe deficit.

"Urban-rural disparities are even more pronounced," the statement said, adding the WFP planned to target urban populations hit by recent drastic price hikes.

So they have the food over there but they can't send it over here? What the hell is that all about? Put it in some trucks and get it moving! Oh, all the trucks are in use by the army? Well then too bad for the little kids.

The WFP statement came a week after officials in Washington said the United States -- the WFP's leading donor -- would not send additional food aid to the communist state any time soon despite earlier urgent appeals.

The officials told Reuters the decision had nothing to do with the recent discovery of Pyongyang's covert nuclear weapons programme, but rather resulted from budget pressures. Washington had already provided the 155,000 tonnes of food aid for North Korea that it pledged for 2002, they said.

Yeah, sure it has nothing to do with the nookular weapons. Uh huh. I believe you. I also think the 155,000 tonnes of food was wasted in the first place.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:08

Show 'Em Some Love

Over there on the Weblog Action Center this week's cause is to support all our boys and girls in the armed forces who keep the barbarians at the gates and out of your living room.

Surf over to Kathy Kinsley's article on what you can do to help out those that are always helping out you and yours (mostly without you even knowing it).
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:12

What a Pin-Headed, Mouth Breathing, Head Up His Ass, Dickless Windbag!

(This is long and a bit rambling, but I have been off for a while and it will take some time to get back into fighting form)

I am, of course, breathing fire at the empty headed, food trough water known throughout the blogworld as "an easy way to get back into Fisking practice"... Namely Mr. Fisk himself!

What little gem has he deposited on my screen today (put on your hazmat suits, people, this could get ugly!):

Time was when Bali would have been the story of the year, the most violent act in 12 months, to be recalled with horror in December as the most terrible of crimes. But Bali was just the story of the month. And soon, perhaps, the Karachi bombings and the Bali bombings and the Mombasa bombings will be just stories of the week. See how easily we have acclimatised to death on a vast scale? What is to be this week's nightmare? How many innocents will be killed by the time you open next week's Independent on Sunday?

Not sure how many innocents, but is there any way to ensure that you are listed amongst the dismembered? Now lets us move on to see why the Jooooos are at fault here.

But last week's killings in Kenya and the attempt to bring down an Israeli airliner were far more important than most people realise. For by bringing Israel into the loop � by allowing Israel to become a partner in President Bush's asinine "war on terror" � al-Qa'ida has ensured that the Arab Muslim world will henceforth give its real if quiescent sympathy to Osama bin Laden. Outraged as many Arabs were at the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001, few will object to an attack against Israelis, however cruel, while Israel's suppression of the Palestinians continues. If al-Qa'ida is now against Israel, Arabs will give their support.

The Arab world already gives its sympathy to that rotting dirtbag bin Laden. Did you not see the celebrations in the occupied territories after our buildings fell down? And "Outraged as many Arabs were at the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001" why do we not see more of them coming forth and proclaiming said outrage? I guess both Arabs who were outraged have been busy these last few months.

With utter predictability, Ariel Sharon walked into the al-Qa'ida trap. He vowed "revenge". Thus any strike against the al-Qa'ida � by America, by Britain, by Australia � will be seen as an Israeli attack. America and Britain and Israel are now fighting on the same side. In the short term � and in his mendacious attempt to link Yasser Arafat with Mr. bin Laden � Mr. Sharon may have gained some advantage. At last, Israel's war on Palestinian "terror" can be placed on the same footing as its new war against al-Qa'ida. No longer will Mr. Sharon's ghastly spokesmen have to justify their army's brutality towards Palestinians. Israel is fighting the same struggle of "good against evil" that President Bush invented for us just over a year ago.

al-Qa'ida trap? Oh the one where al-Qa'ida trap gets to kill some of your people and if you say anything about it they win? Why, pray tell, is al-Qa'ida attacking Jews in Kenya anyway? Despite apologists like Fisk here doing his damnedest, it turns out that they are losing out around the world and don't have the balls or the resources to attack the US at home. So now they use the cynical ploy of attacking Jews with the hope of getting a response. This, they think will unite the "Arab Street" (about as powerful as the "Sesame Street" if you ask me) into getting all "Wagga wagga wagga" and jumping up and down and shouting "Death to Everything!"

But for Israelis, there is one big error in all this. By responding to al-Qa'ida's wicked assault on its civilians, it is taking on a mighty big opponent. For Mr. bin Laden's men are not the hopeless suiciders that the Palestinians produce from their foetid refugee camps. The Afghanistan-trained men of Mr. bin Laden's legion do not spring from the squalor of Gaza or the occupied masses of the West Bank. They are ruthless, highly motivated, intelligent � just for once, William Safire was right when he called them "vicious warriors" � and they may be more than a match for Israel's third-rate intelligence men. Israel's rabble of an army can kill child stone-throwers with ease. Al-Qa'ida is a quite different opponent. And if Mr. Sharon wants to take on Mr. bin Laden, he is ensuring that Israel goes to war with its most dangerous enemy in 54 years. Better by far to let the Americans tackle al-Qa'ida � and even they don't seem to be all that successful � than bring Israel into the battle.

Dayum, his guy really hates the Jews, don�t he? �third-rate intelligence men� and �rabble of an army�. This is the same army and intel that has managed to smash into unrecognizable bits any and all Arab armies thrown at them over the years? Either singly or in groups? And I guess us running bin Laden and his ilk out of Afghanistan and tracking them down and killing them in Sudan and arresting them in Yemen means we are not all that successful? What planet does this guy write from?

But let's move to one side for a moment. Has anyone spotted something amiss about the latest episode in the "war on terror"? Has it dawned on any of the chickenhawks in the US administration or in Downing Street that they are losing the initiative? Has anyone noticed that Mr. bin Laden is writing the script? Al-Qa'ida attacks New York so we attack Afghanistan. Al-Qa'ida attacks in Bali and the Australian government re-pledges its support for America. Al-Qa'ida threatens America and so we murder four of its members in Yemen. And our governments � even the Irish last week � respond not by protecting us, not by uniting in a new, inspiring system of international justice, but by producing laws that will diminish our freedoms, our rights and our liberty. Under attack by al-Qa'ida? Let's tap into the telephones and emails of our innocent citizens. Let's frisk every Muslim who goes through our airports. Let's spy on our own people. How Mr. bin Laden � hardly a man of humour, as I can personally attest � must be smiling.

We now learn a little more about Fisk�s and bin Laden�s relationship than my gentle readers should be forced to know. Guess he didn�t get your knock-knock jokes while he was �doing� you, huh? And just what should we have done once your buddy attacked us? And what should the Aussies do? Set up another criminal court in the Netherlands that everyone ignores? And will bin laden live by the decrees of said court? Of course not. In his mind (such as it is) it is kill or be killed. We are now on the killing end of things and it appears to being going well. If the government has to frisk every Arab from your beloved middle east who enters my country, fine! Do it twice, in fact! Who needs �em!

Now Americans have got to live with the Department of Homeland Security. The Teutonic roots of this name � Homeland translated as Heimat in the Reich � are perhaps best ignored for the present. But already, travellers in the US are finding themselves targeted at airports because of their skin-colour or their religion or their jobs.

Shit Head! PROVE IT! Why then are grannies and congressmen and military people being frisked?! The stupid TSA is so afraid of being labeled �racist� for frisking people who might actually do us harm that they go out of their way to show that they frisk randomly (or whatever system they use). You got nothing to hide then shut up and take your shoes off! Oh, and �Homeland� is �bon gook� in Korean. So what? Are you implying we are all Nazis now that you can pull a Deutsch translation out of your ass?

Every time I travel on an American aircraft, up pops this little coding on my boarding card and all my hand-baggage is taken to bits.

Now I don't mind this at all. The security staff are polite, underpaid and often very friendly � I even persuaded one to turn up at my talk in Manhattan � but the origin of my journey, Beirut, or the number of pariah visas in my passport or perhaps just my reporting, has got me on to the American security list. The boarding card "security" coding is in fact quite easy to decipher � and if a numbskull like me can work it out, be sure that the bad guys can � but the point is that, yet again, a perfectly law-abiding civilian is paying the price for Mr. bin Laden.

Gee, maybe the fact that you are coming from places filled with people who want to do nothing more than blow us all to shit has something to do with you being �targeted�. I hope they are checking everyone who comes from that area, shithead. In case you forgot that is where all the evil Islamonazi terrorists are from! Damn, this guy is even stupider than he lets on.

So here's a few thoughts. Why must we let al-Qa'ida write the script? Why don't we set up the machinery of real international law? Why don't we talk about "justice" rather than revenge? Why don't we have international tribunals so that those who wish to kill us can have their time in court? I don't want al-Qa'ida's members blown to pieces in Yemen by Mr. Bush's hit squads. I want to see them tried, fairly and by due process. Of course, the Americans will whinge and whine about this

Gee, and just how are we going to get the nice little terrorists to come to your nice little court to explain why they want to kill us and get a judge to issue a restraining order that would keep the United States 500 feet away from the poor oppressed millionaires? Boo hoo hoo.

But it's time we wrote the script to this terrible conflict. It's time we stopped crushing our own freedoms. It's time we talked about law and fairness and justice. Not just for criminals. But for the whole Middle East.

The script is being written, dumbass. We take out anyone in al-Qa'ida, anyone related to al-Qa'ida, and anyone who ever harbored thoughts of solidarity with al-Qa'ida. Then we go after all the other shit-for-brains that want us dead. If that includes large portions of the Middle East, well then we can just hope you are included.


posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:12