Friday Shadows

Unearthing a few small stories lurking in the shadows of bigger news on a sunny Friday morning.

Feral: The rise of an alarming new trend in the UK, as dogs are increasingly being used as weapons by Britain's new generation of thugs.

It's been obvious to those working in animal welfare that this has been an increasing trend, and recent statistics produced by the RSPCA put an objective slant on the issue. Sixty-six per cent of all calls to the RSPCA about dog fighting last year involved youths fighting their animals in public places. This compares with 37 per cent in 2007.
... The figures tie in with the increasing trend amongst teenagers and young males for using stereotypically macho-type dogs as weapons of intimidation in urban areas of England and Wales.
...
The problem isn't limited to London. Areas including Merseyside, West Yorkshire, and the West Midlands have also seen a trend for young people using dogs to intimidate or attack other people and animals.

Initiative: The case for private solutions to the public problem of Somali piracy.

The international effort to combat piracy involves many navies operating in separate alliances, working with different rules of engagement in poorly coordinated operations. As governments fail, private security companies move to fill the void.
One such company, US-based Phoenix Intelligence Support, initiated a private sector conference in Cairo this week to discuss what it calls "real solutions" to the piracy threat. Speaking on phone from Cairo, Phoenix managing director William Fielding said so far a group of companies operating almost 1,000 ships have expressed interest in his protection services.
"The ideal situation would be to never have a pirate come on board a ship at all," Mr. Fielding said. "We are looking at the most humane ways to deter anyone from getting on board the ship, but we need to be true to our customers as well."
Mr Fielding said his company plans to install teams on board vessels, armed with high pressure hoses, long range acoustical devices and, as a last resort, conventional weaponry. The company also intends to employ airplanes to spot pirates at sea.
"We want our philosophy to be, just keep them off board the ship the gentlest way possible."
Mr Fielding argues the private sector can thwart pirates in a simple and cost-effective manner, while navies lack the resources to patrol enough ocean.

Synaesthesia: Hearing shapes? Tasting sounds? Just how separate do our senses remain as we navigate our way through life's challenges? Interesting article studying our capacity to blend sensory experiences together when we try and figure out what's going on around us.

It seems our brains may use these synaesthetic associations, says Professor Spence, "to combine all of the different sensory cues that are hitting our receptors at any one time".
"If there are lots of other visual events at the same time, for example, if I'm at a noisy party, how do I know which face goes with which voice?" he asked.

Tuesday Tides

I seem to have woken up on the cynical side of the bed this morning, my mood either due to the grey rainy day waiting outside or, more likely, because of some of the news drifting past us in the margins of bigger stories on a damp Tuesday morning.

Merry: 21st century objective journalism blurs the line between being an entreprising businessman and a hardened criminal, in this report on the hard times ahead for Somali pirates, as a combination of bad weather and capitalist outrage at being looted puts a crimp in this 35-year old's "merry life":

[Mohamed Said] worries that the foreign navies might make the pirates' business impossible.
"If dozens of warships remain in our waters, our work will be as futile as a chameleon trying to catch a fly," he said.
Lighting an imported Benson & Hedges cigarette and unwrapping a roll of leafy khat, a mild narcotic popular in the Horn of Africa, he says he is holding out for his share in a $1.7 million ransom being demanded for a hijacked German ship.
At small cafes on Eyl's dusty, unpaved streets, pirates are also swapping gossip about negotiations in progress for the release of a Dutch ship. The buccaneers want $2.5 million, but the owners have only offered $1.5 million so far.
"If they give me some cash I will clear my debts. You know khat is expensive here," he said, chewing on a twig from the bunch wrapped in banana leaves, then puffing on his cigarette.
...
"I wish this merry life would last forever. But I'm afraid that circumstances may force me to give up piracy completely."

Candid: A Croatian mayoral candidate is admired for his refreshing honesty as he runs a campaign openly promising to be corrupt while in office:

Voters have flocked to the campaign, which runs under the slogan "All for me, nothing for you". Josko Risa polled 27.89 per cent of the vote in the first round of voting on Sunday, placing him second. Croatian newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija reports that he will now face Mate Lasic, the current incumbent from the Croatian Democratic Union, in a run-off on May 31.
...
"Whoever is in power, we know that they steal. At least he is honest," commented Ivan Vjisnic, a Prolozac resident. "He has said that if things get better for him then they will get better for us."

Fun: Teacher who had sex with her 12-year old student now hosting "Hot for Teacher" night at a Seattle bar. Former student, now her husband, acts as DJ; all in the name of fun on a Saturday night:

Fuel's owner, Mike Morris, said he realizes having Letourneau host a "Hot Teacher" night could be touchy and might rub some people the wrong way. But the way he figures it, "Mary's done her time. She's served her sentence. They're now married; they have kids together."

"It's turned into sort of a love story," he says. "I realize it had a sick twist at the beginning, but they're both adults now. They're both married by the state of Washington. So, it's just go and have fun on a Saturday night - and if people are looking to have some fun, just come check us out."

...

"It was sort of a joke but sort of real, and it was just something that we thought was a good name for it, and of course we got Mary's permission to do it," he says. "She's really trying to kick-start his career."

...

The couple first met when Fualaau was in the second grade. Their relationship became sexual when he was 12 and she was a 34-year-old married mother of four, a teacher at a suburban elementary school.

Saturday Sights

Whetting our appetite for news while fishing for items of interest on a sunny Saturday morning.

Booty: How Somali pirates spend their millions of ransom dollars in neighboring Kenya, buying up real estate and businesses, sometimes benefiting, sometimes hurting, the locals:

Kenya, with its large Somali population and lax authorities — who often are more enthusiastic about taking part in illicit dealings than they are about stamping them out — is a better place to blow through cash.
The sums involved are impossible to pinpoint because little of the money will ever be deposited in savings accounts or recorded by a bank.
...
[A]t the nearby al Habib shopping center, 28-year-old shopkeeper Hassan Said Abdullah said that more than a dozen local traders had been evicted recently when a Somali businessman bought up their stalls.
"Someone came to the owner of the building with a lot of cash, and suddenly the rent for those stalls went from $300 or $400 to $1,500," Abdullah said. "We'll all be flushed out, those of us with little money. This kind of big money brings problems."
...
Some pirates are paying top dollar for a piece of Nairobi's booming real-estate action. Osman Guyo, a veteran real-estate agent, recently took a Somali man to see an empty lot in Westlands, an upscale Nairobi suburb that expatriates favor. The seller wanted about $125,000, but was waiting on an assessor's estimate.
No matter, Guyo's client said. He offered $1 million on the spot...

Touch: Wish I could have had an experience like this when I was that age: Trucks Day in Silver Springs Maryland:

[A] group of children from the Spring Knolls Cooperative Learning Center in Silver Spring got a chance to climb all over the vehicles last week in a truck-touch event intended as an educational experience that builds relationships between youngsters and the county officials who drive the vehicles.
... "It's a great learning opportunity for the kids. It's one thing to see the trucks in a book, it's a whole lot different to be able to climb all over them."
Students were given the opportunity to explore the vehicles used by police, the fire department and other county service departments...
Spring Knolls, a cooperative, family-run nursery school for pre-kindergarteners, also arranged for an ice cream truck to supply students with dessert before the fire trucks arrived for the big finale, according to Sherry Russell, a parent volunteer at Spring Knolls.
"He was handing out ice cream faster than he could breathe," she said with a laugh, adding that the chance for kids to meet police and fire officials in a non-emergency setting was important to building positive relationships between students and county officials.
"In real life, it's not so fun when you see these people," she said...

Waves: Spain smells blood in the water as Great Britain's weakened economy and disgraced government put their bastion of Gibraltar at risk: "Royal Navy warships have forced heavily armed Spanish ships to retreat from British waters around Gibraltar."

Relations between the 30,000 residents of the British outpost and mainland Spain have become strained following what the Foreign Office described as 'a violation of British sovereignty'.
The warships were dispatched after Spanish ships sent boarding parties to inspect fishing boats in British waters, despite having no authority to do so.
...
The latest incident followed a day after Gibraltar's government vowed to block EU moves to give responsibility for the environment around the Rock to Spain.
A spokesman for Gibraltar's opposition GSLP/Liberal party said: 'The latest incident is far more serious than anything that has happened before. It represents a frontal challenge to British sovereignty, jurisdiction and control over Gibraltar's territorial sea.
'As such the UK must not only respond to Spain, but must also extract guarantees from Madrid that it will never happen again.'

Friday Reactions

It can be said that our actions are really reactions, to circumstances, situations and people. Here are a handful of reactions noticed in the margins of the news on a brisk Friday morning.

Integrity: Last Friday we blogged about a poor single mom's reaction when she discovered that her banks' clerical error made her rich. She admitted to the temptation to steal the money but nevertheless contacted the bank about their mistake and returned the full amount.

Today, a different reaction to similar circumstances in New Zealand, where a bank error added extra zeroes to a line of credit, turning a gas station owner into an instant millionaire.

His response: take the money and run.

A businessman and his girlfriend, whose bank accidentally handed them a $6.1 million credit line, have managed to flee the country with more than a third of the cash, the bank said Friday.
An international search is under way for the couple, who are believed to have gone on the run, possibly to Hong Kong or China, to avoid having to give the money back.

Heroism: In Nebraska, a remarkable six-year old son is sitting in the back seat next to his 3-year old brother when he suddenly notices his dad had fainted while he was driving them. Realizing the danger, he leaps into the front seat in order to safely take over the wheel of their family car:

Police say a 6-year-old boy grabbed the wheel of their pickup after his dad passed out from low blood sugar and kept them from crashing until a North Platte police officer could bring the truck to a halt.
...
Tustin [Mains] hopped up from the back seat to his father’s lap so he could steer and see out the windshield.
His dad’s foot had slipped off the accelerator, but even at idle the Chevrolet Avalanche was going an estimated 10-15 mph.
...
Tustin remained at the wheel for several blocks, even turning around when he got into a neighborhood he didn’t recognize.

The young son was not the only one with quick-thinking initiative on the scene...:

Other drivers noticed the boy driving the truck. Some maneuvered their vehicles in front or behind the pickup and turned on their emergency blinkers.

When officer Roger Freeze noticed the child behind the wheel, he quickly sprang into action as well, managing to catch up to the truck on foot without getting run over, reaching in through the window and stopping the vehicle by grabbing the gearshift. Later, the father expressed his gratitude:

“To chase down a moving vehicle and get it stopped the way he did took a lot of nerve, and if it weren’t for him, things could have turned out much worse.”

Battle: Headline of the day: "Hero cruise ship Britons fight off armed Somali pirates with deckchairs and tables".

British pensioners on a cruise ship bravely fought off machine gun-armed Somali pirates by hurling deckchairs and tables at them.
The holidaymakers were enjoying a midnight Mozart concert onboard MSC Melody when pirates armed with Kalashnikovs attempted to board it using grappling hooks and ladders.
But passengers forced them back to their boats by throwing chairs and tables over the stern of the ship as Israeli security guards onboard the cruise liner fired warning shots.

Tuesday Trek

After a refreshing day away from the computer, we take a brief hike through the headlines in search of interesting news stories lurking in the margins of history on a cold Tuesday morning.

Hood(lum): A Somali pirate being prosecuted in the Netherlands is compared to "Robin Hood" by his lawyer:

At a pretrial hearing in a heavily guarded court in Rotterdam, lawyer Willem Jan Ausma called his client, Ahmed Yusuf, a "Robin Hood." Speaking to reporters outside court, he said pirates "attack ships of rich countries to give the ransom to poor families."
He later told judges there were different types of pirates operating off Somalia's coast – those who gave ransom money to organised crime gangs and others "who just go to sea in the hope of getting something more than the fish that are no longer there."

The lawyer did not explain how the seven turks and one Azeri aboard the freighter his client tried to hijack may fit into his "Robin Hood" analogy; maybe they were the Merry Men..?

And speaking of merry, it seems that the Somali pirate may disagree with the tact his defense lawyer is taking, because he clearly hopes to be found guilty:

"For the first time in his life he has access to a real toilet. For the first time in his life he is in a safe environment," Ausma says about his Somali 'pirate' client.
Sure, 24-year-old Yusuf hasn't seen his family in more than four months. "But he intends to send for his wife and children as soon as he is released from prison. He knows he cannot easily be sent back to Somalia. He loves it here in the Netherlands."

The five Somali pirates are being tried in the Netherlands because of a technicality: the ship they attacked may have been sailing in international waters, but it was registered in the Dutch Antilles. A legal technicality of another sort may make such vessels targets of opportunity for these pirates in the future:

Dutch foreign minister Verhagen wants Somali pirates to be tried by a regional UN tribunal to keep them from applying for asylum in Europe.
...
Verhagen said prosecution should deter pirates, not encourage them with the prospect of starting a new life in the country that prosecutes them.

Maybe this explains the mysterious actions of the Dutch navy captain last April. After having his marines board a vessel that had been hijacked by nine Somali pirates, he freed the captured Yemeni sailors and then promply freed the pirates, as well. Rather than being "idiotic", maybe he merely considered his decision to be the lesser of evils.

Heroism: A 12-year old didn't set out to be hero when his class took a field trip to the Congaree River in South Carolina, but his quick-thinking initiative made him one, as he risked his own life to save a classmate from drowning:

"I was trying to hold her above water so she's shorter than me," says Taylor. "I have to save her, so that's all I was thinking through anything, I have to save her.
With unknown dangers ahead and his body numbing up in the cold water, Anthony stretched out his 5'7" frame and wedged his foot in the river's rocky bottom. It worked.
"Somehow I got a foothold somewhere and I grabbed her up," he says.
"If he didn't save me I probably would have died," Taylor says.
They were friends before, but they're even better friends now "because he saved my life," says Taylor. "I feel so awesome, I love him."

Holes: Thomas Sowell points out some of the pitfalls involved in increasing the television coverage of government proceedings in his latest article, "Photographic Fraud":

Some might argue that, in the absence of the cameras, many people might not know what is going on in Congress or in the courts. But being uninformed is not nearly as bad as being misled.
For one thing, it is much easier to know that you are uninformed than to know that you are being misled.
...
The more complex the issue, the more likely that understanding the context is vastly more important than seeing a picture and hearing sound bites.
Wars are especially susceptible to being distorted on camera. A dramatic event with emotional impact need not tell you what its military significance is. The viewer is able only to react emotionally, in circumstances where rationality can be the difference between life and death, not only for the combatants, but also for the societies from which they come.

Monday Reflections

A small selection of news stories fished from marginal waters on a rather rainy Monday morning.

Optimism: A new study sponsored by a British telecommunications company suggests that faith and hope, if properly channeled, can lead to great success, even in trying economic times.

Forget education, great contacts and networks or mentoring, it's the obstinacy of personality that drives people to business success.
That's the finding of a new study by O2, the mobile phone operator, to coincide with the launch of this year's OX Awards, which kick off this week to find the UK's best male, female and young entrepreneurs of the year.
The research asked 500 business people what drove them, and why. Simon Devonshire, head of O2's small business marketing, says that the research showed that the "obsessive optimism" trait is even more important in the current climate.
Only 14 per cent of those surveyed said that formal education was important to their success while fewer than a third had any formal business qualifications. ...

Requiem: In fulfillment of their mission statement to "proclaim the relevance of the living gospel of Jesus Christ in today’s world", and "...to make real the glory and presence of God in the world", the largest cathedral in Britain will be playing John Lennon's 1971 song "Imagine" on the Liverpool church's bells.

An online poll of Church Times readers found that 64 per cent were against playing the song on Liverpool Cathedral’s bells.
Despite the opposition, Liverpool Cathedral said that it had considered the “sensitivities” aroused by the song’s content.

Plot: Are Somali pirates being directed by "well-placed informers" operating out of London? This is the contention of a Spanish radio station that claims to have obtained a copy of a military intelligence report issued to European navies.

These London-based "consultants" help the pirates select targets, providing information on the ships' cargoes and courses.
In at least one case the pirates have remained in contact with their London informants from the hijacked ship, according to one targeted shipping company.
...
"The information that merchant ships sailing through the area volunteer to various international organisations is ending up in the pirates' hands," Cadena SER reported the report as saying.
This enables the more organised pirate groups to study their targets in advance, even spending several days training teams for specific hijacks. Senior pirates then join the vessel once it has been sailed close to Somalia.
Captains of attacked ships have found that pirates know everything from the layout of the vessel to its ports of call.

McPhD: Is this the future of high education, now that Ivy League credentials have fallen into such disrepute?

Despite its reputation for creating lowly-paid, insecure "McJobs", the firm has made significant investments in employee training and now runs some of the most respected in-house programmes on the high street.
Last year it was one of the first companies approved by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) to offer practical qualifications to A Level standard.
More than 2,500 people have already signed up to the "basic shift management" scheme, which covers customer services, marketing and human resources, and a degree-equivalent management course is in the pipeline.

David Fairhurst, the chain's chief people officer, told the Financial Times that once these courses had been perfected McDonald's had ambitions to offer more academic qualifications to ambitious staff.
"One day I'd love to see us doing a PhD. I definitely think we can go as far as we can," he said, adding that the firm's awarding power already made it "a univesrity in its own right".

Ugetsued: Gates of Hell

The government that governs best governs least. But what government there is should make sense.

Gates: No need to bulk up response to piracy

By ANNE GEARAN – 7 hours ago

DOTHAN, Ala. (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday he doesn't see any immediate need to bulk up the military response to piracy near the Horn of Africa.

He added, however, that "we'll make those decisions as they come along."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gnPpwRiOsjgI0z57NytZve0-sHMgD97II3PG1

Let's hope he doesn't rush into anything here. It'd be a shame to see the man bang his shins.

Pirates Fail in Attack on U.S. Ship

By MARK McDONALD

Published: April 15, 2009

HONG KONG – An American cargo ship was attacked by pirates armed with grenade launchers and automatic weapons in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, but the attackers failed to take over the ship, which was able to continue with its delivery of humanitarian food aid to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

The ship, the Liberty Sun, was damaged in the attack but the crew members were not hurt, according to a statement from the shipowner, Liberty Maritime, of Lake Success, N.Y.

"We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets. Also bullets,” a crew member aboard the Liberty Sun, Thomas Urbik, said in an e-mail message to his mother, the Associated Press reported. “We are barricaded in the engine room and so far no one is hurt.”

Mr. Urbik said a rocket had "penetrated the bulkhead but the hole is small. Small fire, too, but put out.”

The attack occurred shortly before noon, a United States Navy spokesman said. By the time the U.S.S. Bainbridge arrived — about six hours later — the pirates had fled. The Bainbridge, the navy destroyer involved in the rescue last week of another American cargo ship, was escorting the Liberty Sun to Mombasa on Wednesday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/world/africa/16somalia.html

"Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday he doesn't see any immediate need to bulk up the military response to piracy near the Horn of Africa."

Well, it looks to me like Gates is offering less government. I think it's not what I mean when I call for less government.

So, if the government isn't going overboard defending the nation, what is the government doing?

Uh, I dunno, Lenny. what is the government doing? Living off the fat of the land?

Lance Fairchok, "DHS, 'Rightwing Extremism' and Information Warfare" American Thinker. 14 April 2009.

The DHS Intelligence Assessment Document marked "For Official Use Only" and entitled; Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, was released to law enforcement agencies nationwide. Its stated purpose was to "deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States." Read the entire document here.

[....]

Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/04/dhs_rightwing_extremism_and_in_1.html

Now I get it. Our government is freaking out about all them thar Klan rallies in Washington, D.C.

Somali pirates? What was I thinking?

But at least there's one ship coming on-stream from Gates that'll patrol the Somali coast. What a relief.
For a while there I was wondering just whose side our government is on here.

Sail Away, Sail Away

Looks like Obama is grist for caricature after all.

And for satire.

After maintaining his silence for two days, President Obama will soon make his first public statement about the pirate attack upon an U.S.-flagged vessel off the Horn of Africa. After several inquiries and a few well-placed bribes, Exurban League has received an early transcript of the President's remarks:

.

Good evening. As you know, early yesterday, Somali-based pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama, a freighter carrying relief supplies to Kenya. While we do not yet know all the details, the Alabama's crew re-took control of the vessel and forced the pirates off the ship.

Since the pirates are still holding the captain, I have sent FBI negotiators to facilitate his safe and speedy release. I assure his friends and family that I will not stop until this man-made disaster is resolved in a peaceful, tolerant and ecologically-sound manner.

Obviously, this incident has raised many concerns among Americans. There have been calls for justice and even violence against the misguided perpetrators. But such an emotional reaction has led to the disparagement of entire groups with which we are unfamiliar. We have seen this throughout history.

For too long, America has been too dismissive of the proud culture and invaluable contributions of the Pirate Community. Whether it is their pioneering work with prosthetics, husbandry of tropical birds or fanciful fashion sense, America owes a deep debt to Pirates.

The past eight years have shown a failure to appreciate the historic role of these noble seafarers. Instead of celebrating their entreprenuerial spirit and seeking to partner with them to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

Read it all here:
http://exurbanleague.com/2009/04/09/obama-issues-statement-on-the-pirate-attack.aspx

America: The world's most genocidally insane pot-smoking bureaucratic military in history threatens Somali pirates with, y'know, like, stuff.

President Obama still hasn't made any public statements about the latest act of piracy against American shipping. We turned instead to an unofficial source for a hint of the shape of things to come.

Joe DeCapua, "Somali Piracy - An Overstated Threat?" VOANews.com. Washington, D.C. 10 April 2009

While the piracy problem off the Somali coast is getting a lot of media attention, exactly how big a threat to maritime safety do the pirates pose?

John Patch ... associate professor for strategic intelligence at the US Army War College and a retired Navy surface warfare officer and career intelligence officer [has] an article an [at] US Naval Institute website – on Somali piracy. His comments are not to be taken as official US government policy.

In an interview with VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua, he says the Somali piracy problem may be overstated.

"Even with the incident of a US-flagged vessel taken, there's quite a lot of hype involved. World opinion and sometimes US opinion as well is often driven by passion, incidents of the moment and US pride. And we've got to be careful about formulating policy on those kinds of things," he says between puffs of some sah-mokin' weed.

Do statistics support an increase in Somali piracy activity? Commander Patch says, "Are the numbers up, numbers down? That's kind of debatable in a cosmic way. The data behind the actual seizures is very varied, actual as opposed to imaginary or smoke induced, y'know?. For example, if they have an approach by a small boat in the middle of the night, sometimes, with no actual piracy incident, that's still counted as an incident…. I'm not so sure that piracy is actually escalating out of control right now. My spidey-sense is, with the naval task force in the Gulf of Aden escorting daily many, many ships with safe passages, you've got to compare the number of piracy incidents to the actual safe passages and you'll see that the instances are still very low. Like, what's a ship here and there? Dig?"

The pirates, however, are now expanding operations outside the Gulf to the Indian Ocean, which is too large to adequately patrol, which is also a bummer.

"I would say that's a valid concern. Big ocean, little ships. I checked it out in my bath tub. There are only so many US Navy ships and, frankly, so many international naval capabilities, navy assets. So, all of those nations, including the US, have to pick and choose where they're going to place the resources. Like, my yellow duck here, and my little boat here. Who keeps an eye on Mr. Winky? It's a tough call, man. My argument in the article I think is still valid. And that is if you rack and stack global national security interests for the US and, frankly, for other nations, there are much more important issues that have to be addressed with a naval presence. Like, what about all the dope coming into the country? Who will supply me if we have ships dicking around with pirates? Piracy falls very low on the scale of important global issues that affect national interests," he says.

If tough action is not taken against the pirates, however, could it make the United States and other nations appear weak and lacking political will?

Patch says, "It may perhaps in the short term, but I think there have been many famous quotes over the years by leaders that say if you base your policies on pride and passion and public opinion, you will go in the wrong directions. So I think we have to be cautious with that. It's like jazz, when a sax-player is off on a riff and doesn't come back to the main theme?"

He says the Maersk Alabama has a lot of people "shaking their fists like guys at a Bon Jovi concert." He advises, though, it would be better to "keep an eye on the big picture and look at the end game. Like with Nintendo. There is a reason for it and that is to win a free beer at the bar."

As for there being enough international will to solve the problem, Patch says, " I think if you put a dollar figure beside what it would require to solve the problem ashore – and in Somali waters you're talking a huge international requirement of essentially nation building…I don't think anybody wants to sign that check right now. My spidey-sense is there will not be a lot of international resolve to attempt to do that in Somalia. They grow khat there, which is not nearly as good as pot. So why bother?"

Some have suggested a very targeted military response, such as destroying the pirate mother ships or the pirate leader mansions built from ransom money. Patch advises caution there as well.

"If there was any kind of effort to move ashore, if I was making any recommendations, it would be to ensure it's a multi-lateral approach…sanctioned by the UN. We call it, in the business, C.Y.A. That is, very clear and specific information on what the objective is that you're going after…. Imagine the ramifications if we hit the wrong house, the wrong village and we have 50 dead Somali civilians on our hands. It's a p.r. nightmare, dude. When that kinda shit comes down you want to be able to spread the blame far and thin. It can really slow your career. That is an issue that might result in much worse situations and, frankly, a policy outcome that the US doesn't necessarily want," he says.

He stress[ed] his views are not those of the US government [or] the war college.

"My spidey-sense is we don't have enough will, enough wherewithal and enough information to prosecute a sound land campaign. We're pretty busy elsewhere. Two and a half other wars going on right now, and what with the dope we got, who needs the extra hassles," he says.

Patch says that US leaders are "mulling over" what actions to take against policy and it appears they favor a multi-national approach. He recommends using "law enforcement ships rather than warships against the pirates.

'We're talking Coast Guard vessels, maybe perhaps ten or fifteen nations could provide their coast guard-type vessels with law enforcement detachments on board to try to patrol Somali waters and stop those boats before they get out in the open ocean and threaten shipping," he says, "you know, like a Tom Clancy movie. I want Brad Pitt to play me in the lead. Cool, huh?"

http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2009-04-10-voa40.cf

Dude, now I know why we call 'em the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Far out.

Up-date:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama declined to answer reporters' questions on Thursday on a hostage crisis off the coast of Somalia, where a U.S. ship captain is being held captive by pirates.

Obama was asked to comment on the situation several times by reporters at a White House event on refinancing for homeowners. Obama, however, stuck closely to the script and replied that he wanted to remain focused on housing.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5383TQ20090409

Unlike those damned French who get people killed:

One French hostage has died and four others have been freed in a rescue operation by French troops on a yacht off Somalia, French officials say.

Two pirates were killed in the operation and three were captured, the French presidency said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7994201.stm

They could have sent an FBI hostage negotiation team to talk it over:

The US Navy has enlisted the help of FBI hostage negotiators to try and broker a deal for Richard Phillips, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, captured by Somali pirates in the sea of Aden.

http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/home/regularieninhalte/world-news-ticker/world/2009/04/09/us-send-fbi-negotiators-to-broker-deal-with-somali-pirates.html

An unidentified F.B.I. spokesperson said, "Chill, frog-dudes."