And in an exceptionally strange digression…

…I note that Gideon Defoe’s The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists: A Novel is out, and that The Pirates! In an Adventure with Napoleon: A Novel will be coming out soon.  My (lovely, long-suffering, and very patient) wife loved the previous two books in the series (The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists: A Novel & The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab: A novel): she’ll be happy to hear that there are more available/scheduled.

Really, without her forbearance this site would not be permitted to exist…

Good News / Bad News on Dutch anti-piracy efforts.

The good news is that the Dutch rescued some pirate victims:

Dutch forces free pirate captives

Dutch commandos have freed 20 people who had been captured by Somali pirates after the raiders attacked a Greek-managed tanker, Nato says.

The captives, Yemeni fishermen, were freed as the Dutch forces captured seven pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

The bad news is that the Dutch military is apparently saddled with some fairly onerous restrictions on how to deal with hostis humanis generis-type situations.

The pirates were set free, the Associated Press news agency reports, because under Dutch law they could not be held at sea under the circumstances in which they were captured.

Not to be bloodthirsty or anything, but there’s a fairly obvious answer to that.

Moe Lane

PS: Hush, ye lurkers. You wanted “I got this,” right? Well, that attitude is part of what you get when you get that.

Crossposted to RedState.

Rob Simmons: *I* can get in-state donations.

That was essentially Rob Simmon’s response to Jim Geraghty when the latter called him up to get his reaction to the news that Sen Chris Dodd (D-CT) received only five in-state donations this quarter.  Simmons also went on to opine that he was pretty sure that he himself could get more than five in-state donations that day.

Which, given the way that Dodd polls these days, may not be not a brag.

Crossposted to RedState.

BREAKING: Roxana Saberi convicted of spying by Iran.

Head’s-up from @jaketapper, who notes that this all started when the woman purchased a bottle of wine.

Lawyer: Iran convicts US journalist of spying
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI – 8 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An American journalist jailed in Iran has been convicted of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison, her lawyer said Saturday, dashing any hopes for her quick release.

Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But an Iranian judge later leveled a far more serious allegation, charging her with spying for the United States.

She appeared before an Iranian court behind closed doors on Monday in an unusually swift one-day trial. The Fargo, North Dakota native had been living in Iran for six years and had worked as a freelance reporter for several news organizations including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.

The Obama administration is currently attempting to get Ms. Saberi out of the clutches of the Iranian regime; which is good, because said regime has a problem with the way it treats its female journalist prisoners. As in, it’s worth your life to be one and in their clutches.

And yes, I should have been yelling about this more years ago.

Moe Lane

PS: If the Obama administration is prepared to make the quiet yet firm statement – as publicly or as privately as they like – that they’re prepared to go retrieve Ms. Saberi if that’s what it takes I think that I can see my way clear to not giving them too hard a time about it.

Crossposted to RedState.

Independence Day.

Independence Day is the movie that fuels the very idea behind TV Tropes.

Independence Day is proof that collages really are their own art form.

Independence Day is the movie that would result if you yanked an Atomic Horror director forty years forward in time.

Plus, it had this classic scene:

…so there’s that.

Moe Lane

*While Mars Attacks! is the movie that a 1950s Atomic Horror director would have made if he only had the budget and special effects access*. The difference is subtle, yet important.

Rep. Jim Moran’s (D, VA) brother sudden recipient of defense largesse.

In a stunning coincidence*, there seems to be a certain correlation between the contributions of the Virginian Moran Boys:

Moran Campaign Contributors Have Business Before Brother

More than a dozen defense contractors with business before U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the powerful House Appropriations defense subcommittee, have donated thousands of dollars to Moran’s younger brother Brian, a candidate for governor of Virginia.

Brian Moran filed a campaign finance report this week that shows he collected $80,000 during the first three months of 2009 from 18 contractors that have been longtime backers of the congressman. Seven of the firms are awaiting approval of Moran-backed earmarks totaling $14.5 million.

The claim, of course, is that there’s all sorts of separation between Rep. Jim Moran and Brian Moran – the fact that one is a powerful defense pork appropriator has no connection whatsoever to the generous contributions made to the other.  And the fact that the one is finding his campaign contributions drying up in the wake of the PMA raid and closure should not in any way, shape, or form be seen as an indication that any sort of money flow is attempting to find another channel.  It’d be silly to think otherwise. Continue reading Rep. Jim Moran’s (D, VA) brother sudden recipient of defense largesse.

While I think that this is a pretty good list…

…to be found here, the emphasis is on “think:” I know enough about guns to know that they’re not magical talismans that mystically control all situations, but pretending anything beyond that would only result in gales of horrified laughter from my father-in-law, who does know something about guns.

But I do know something about history, so I can comment about this:

image028

You see that guy? Don’t mess with that guy.

Just… don’t.

Moe Lane

PS: The Gurkha situation is actually fairly interesting: the current government of Nepal – democratically elected Maoists, and that’s apparently not an oxymoron – is in favor of ending the recruitment of Gurkha regiments; they’ve backed down in the face of the disapproval of former Gurkhas, because You Do Not Mess With Gurkhas.  Something that the British government itself might contemplate, particularly when it comes to pensions.

You know, I do believe Jeff Goldstein’s on to something here.

Alas, thanks largely to the Online Left’s decision to go full pornographic on their criticism of the Tea Party movement I can’t really reproduce the language here, but go read it over there and snicker at what happens when you take a thought to its logical conclusion.

Because… yes. Help. Help! I’m being repressed!*

Moe Lane

*Gimme a break: I got to pay for this site somehow.

Crossposted to RedState.