September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day: try the ever useful English to Pirate Translator, Pirate Name Generator, and the Pirate Ship Name Generator.

In real life, African and Asian pirates are a serious threat, and IMO are another front in the War on Terror:

French troops wearing night-vision goggles killed one pirate, captured six others and pulled the French Polynesian couple to safety in an overnight operation described by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a triumphant press conference…

Sarkozy said piracy in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia has “literally exploded” this year, with some 54 attacks in the heavily trafficked zone so far this year.

He added that Somali pirates are holding 150 people and at least 15 ships, mainly in Eyl, a Somali area that serves as a base for pirates who have been seizing yachts, freighters and fishing boats.

SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM

Oddly enough, my comments to Flashpoint get caught in the SPAM filter, even when I’m logged in. Flashpoint receives several hundred SPAMs every day. I have to wade through the SPAM to find my comments and unSPAM them.  Believe me, this SPAM is nastier than the nastiest Stinky French Garlic. But, as an eternal optimist, I’ve found the silver lining - I get to practice reading Russian. Here are some samples:

порно = porno

фото - photo

эротика = erotica

секс = sex

And now for something completely different…

It seems like an ‘Army of Davids’ may have tracked down the person who ‘hacked’ into Sarah Palin’s email (he guessed her password security questions / answers). Michelle Malkin has been all over the story and Skirts, Not Pantsuits suggests that the ‘hacker’ may be the adult son of a Tennessee State Representative - Democrat.

I wonder how long it will take the FBI to catch up… Or at least tell us about it…

UPDATE: Wired reports on the story, says they’ve talked to the TN State Rep on the phone, who ”said he could not talk about the matter and would have no comment”.

UPDATE: The Tennessean reports:

State Rep. Mike Kernell confirmed Thursday that his son, a University of Tennessee-Knoxville student, is at the center of heated Internet discussion into the hacking of the personal e-mail of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Kernell, a Memphis Democrat, confirmed that it is his 20-year-old son, David, who is being widely named on Internet blogs and chatrooms in connection with an unfolding story about Palin’s hacked e-mail accounts.

UPDATE:  Terry Frank has posted screenshots of David Kernell’s Facebook, where Kernell describes his ‘Political Views’ as “Obamacrat”. Kernell is a ‘Member of’ groups like: “UT for Barack Obama”, “Support the Jena 6″, “Free the Jena Six”, and “The Fastest Way to a Girl’s Heart is Through Her Gay Best Friend” (OK, that one’s funny).

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni won the Kadima Party primary, which means that she will likely become the next Prime Minister of Israel, pending Ehud Olmert’s resignation (expected Sunday) and Kadima forming a Government (without a general election). Livni received 43% of the vote, beating out Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz (42%), Meir Sheetrit (8.5%), and Avi Dichter (6.5%).

Caroline Glick had this to say about Livni before the election:

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni may not be a crook, but she is a fraud. And if polls are to be believed, Livni the fraud is just one fraudulent election away from becoming our next prime minister…

Unlike all the other party primaries that have been held over the years, this one is designed not as a preparatory step ahead of general elections to the Knesset. Rather, it is intended to replace general elections. The expressed goal of Livni and her three opponents - Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter and Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit - is not to ready Kadima for elections, but to select a new prime minister who will form a governing coalition that will bar the public from electing its representatives until March 2010.

It should be noted that Glick is a former Likud Party official (the same party as former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu).  This part is interesting to me because of the ‘Vote Contractor’ angle (think ‘Community Organizer’ and ACORN):

Only 15 percent of Kadima’s members joined the party on their own initiative. According to analyses conducted over the past several months, these 15% are people who were swept up in the initial excitement when Kadima was formed by Ariel Sharon in 2005…

The other 85% of Kadima’s 70,000 members are people who were brought into the party by those nefarious standard-bearers of Israeli politics of recent years: the vote contractors.

Vote contractors are political bosses and paid political operatives who peddle their influence in various communities, labor unions and population sectors to persuade citizens to join specific parties as bloc voters.

In its brief political life span, Kadima’s membership rolls have been subject to multiple criminal investigations. In one case now under investigation, up to 1,000 people were signed up for the party without their knowledge. Vote contractors forged their signatures on membership forms and paid their membership fees.

 Seems like liberals use the same tactics all over the world. Saul Alinsky would be so proud.

 One of my favorite websites is ‘Sweetness & Light’, here is a post about ACORN and their history of undermining the US election system - ”to overwhelm, paralyze, and discredit the voting system through fraud, protests, propaganda and vexatious litigation.”

The FBI released the Crime in the United States 2007 report, dated 15 September 2008.  Here’s a summary of the Crime Summary:

After rising for two straight years, the estimated number of violent crimes in the Nation declined from the previous year’s total. The declining trend continued for property crimes, as those offenses were down for the fifth year in a row… the estimated volume of violent crime was down 0.7 percent, and the estimated volume of property crime decreased 1.4 percent in 2007 when compared with 2006 figures. The estimated rate of violent crime (…was a) 1.4 percent decrease… the estimated rate of property crime was…. a 2.1 percent decline…

Note: Caution Against Ranking—Each year when Crime in the United States is published, some entities use reported figures to compile rankings of cities and counties.  These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region.  Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents.

Of course, I can hardly wait for the National Rankings to be compiled. Last year, Huntsville ranked #83, Birmingham ranked #13.  Crime in Birmingham is up this year (roughly 5% over last year; murder down, robberies, burglaries, theft and car theft way up); crime in Huntsville seems to be down about 6% (murder up, theft and car theft down).  Here’s the FBI data for 2007.

The Birmingham News is reporting that “Birmingham makes FBI Top 10 lists in violent crime, property crime and homicides”.

Who Wrote This (reminiscent of the dormant ‘Daily Dixie’):

When the aim of education is the absorption of facts, learning becomes exclusively and exhaustively selfish, and there is no obvious social motive for learning. The measure of success is always a competitive one—it is about comparing results and sorting people into winners and losers. People are turned against one another, and every difference becomes a potential deficit. Getting ahead of others is the primary goal in such places, and mutual assistance, which can be so natural, is severely restricted or banned.

Unlike Dan, I’ll go ahead and give you the answer: “respected” “mainstream” “distinguished professor” “school reform activist” William Ayers (also known as Marxist terrorist William Ayers, who is “friendly” with Barack Obama). Note that all those glowing descriptions of Ayers are from Obama’s ‘Fact Check’.

Who knew that learning “facts” is “selfish” and that “winners and losers” are unnatural?  I’ll go ahead and answer that too, Antonio Gramsci.  Gramsci is credited with the idea of “cultural hegemony“, which addressed the failure of socialism to ignite communist revolutions in capitalist states:

Gramsci therefore argued for a strategic distinction between a “war of position” and a “war of manoeuvre”. The war of position is a culture war in which anti-capitalist elements seek to gain a dominant voice in mass media, mass organizations, and educational institutions to heighten class consciousness, teach revolutionary analysis and theory, and inspire revolutionary organization. Following the success of the war of position, communist leaders would be empowered to begin the war of manoeuvre, the actual insurrection against capitalism, with mass support.

Understanding Gramsci helps explain the mess that is public education, the leftism extant in many institutions, and the bias of the media.

To bring this home, consider this from a “News” article in the UAH Exponent:

…you could always try red: the Socialist Party of America has also announced their nominees. Far from hazy images of Cuba or the former Soviet Union (both of which were communist, not socialist), the party’s Statement of Principles asserts that “The Socialist Party strives to establish a radical democracy that places people’s lives under their own control—a non-racist, classless, feminist socialist society … where working people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically-controlled public agencies…

It’s obvious to most people that facts weren’t important to that reporter…  It’s interesting to me that communism has such a bad reputation among today’s socialists that they feel compelled to rebrand their beliefs.  Anybody here think that communism isn’t a form of socialism? Anybody here think that people like Gramsci and Ayers have impacted US education?

Heard on the Street - I was hanging around with some Yellow Dog Democrats today, talking local politics, when one them said he wasn’t voting for Obama because “I’m not voting for a Communist“.  This group of Yellow Dogs all agreed with that statement - not one defended Obama.

They don’t like Jeremiah Wright and Black Liberation Theology, they don’t like Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, and they don’t like Obama.

Note that these people don’t listen to talk radio, don’t spend much time (if any) on the Internet, and are leaders and contributors in local Democratic politics…

Sarah Palin’s campaign slogan in her 2006 Governor’s race was “New Energy for Alaska” and she has certainly brought New Energy to the GOP. 

I like ‘retail politics’: the door-to-door, talking to people, and especially BBQ kind of politics.  I volunteer at GOP Headquarters (Whitesburg and Airport by Publix); I also volunteered during the 2006 and 2004 election cycles at Parkway Place Mall (talk about retail politics). Compared to my prior experience, I can report that more people are coming in now asking for signs and bumper stickers than I’ve ever seen. Note to the Madison County GOP - you’re going to need more signs…

And these people are energized!  People came in wanting to give money, volunteer their time, get signs and stickers, and just talk about how much McCain and Palin mean to them.  Did you know that John McCain smells nice?  I didn’t either until today…

Somewhat surprisingly, the energy is not just for Palin. She was the spark, but people have been reminded of just who John McCain is, and they remember that they like him - and that they have enormous respect for his service and for his character.

Not so surprisingly, the women I met love Sarah Palin and they appreciate McCain for choosing her for his Vice President.  They appreciate men for their whole-hearted support of Palin; this pleasantly surprised some women I spoke to, I think that they weren’t expecting such a warm response…  Hmm. Smart, well-spoken, attractive, and she hunts and fishes…

Former California State Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (D), wrote Palin floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The Democrats are in trouble. Sarah Palin has totally changed the dynamics of this campaign.

Period.

Palin’s speech to the GOP National Convention on Wednesday has set it up so that the Republicans are now on offense and Democrats are on defense. And we don’t do well on defense.

BA-DUM-BUMP

From taxes to oil drilling, Democrats are now going to have to start explaining their positions.

Whenever you start having to explain things, you’re on defense…

She didn’t have to prove she was “of the people.” She really is the people.

Brown adds this tip on restaurant etiquette:

By the way, there’s a new dining tip for people going out in Oakland.

Be sure to order soup.

That way when the robbery starts, you can slip off your jewelry and drop it into soup so the robbers won’t see it.

Caroline Glick wrote The Master Strategist describing McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin in strategic terms.  Glick is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy and a former Captain in the IDF.  Here’s the lead-in to her analysis:

Both the challenges of war and the challenges of politics are challenges of leadership. And both military strategists and political strategists agree that the most basic leadership challenge in both arenas is to know and understand yourself - your strengths and your weaknesses - and to know your opponents and their strengths and weaknesses. While this may seem like basic common sense, it is quite amazing to see how often it is ignored.

The rarity of this sort of strategic wisdom in the public sphere was brought to a fore this week in the political uproar generated in by Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running-mate. McCain’s selection of Palin was remarkable because in selecting her from a list of possible choices, he made a decision that embraced rather than ignored this most basic challenge of leadership.