Right to Opine

How do you repel pirates? Fire back. Seems too simple, no? My only criticism is the choice of weapons:

A team of Israeli guards hired by the vessel’s owners immediately began firing back with pistols and spraying the attackers with fire hoses.

The security team should have been armed with, at the least, Uzis or similar compact submachine guns. They were, however, effective.

Ignoring the obvious, the “head of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme” offered this gem:

“There are a number of other methods which can be used to deter the pirates, having weapons on board is dangerous because it raises the stakes for the pirates,” he said.

“There is a far higher risk that a crew member of a merchant vessel, or a passenger, could die if the pirates feel they must fight harder to win the ship.”

Or they might, um, give up and look for an easier target.

Mexican authorities have arrested a woman in possession of an anti-aircraft gun, grenades and a grenade launcher. Not surprisingly, the article eventually gets around to the usual lefty bashing of America’s lax gun laws being responsible for arming the Mexican drug cartels. You can be sure that the AA gun, grenades, and launcher weren’t purchased in a gun shop here and smuggled across the border. Weapons of that type simply aren’t available in stores. So where did they come from?

Authorities did not release any other details about the gun, including its make, where it was manufactured, or where it was sold.

But of course. We can blame America for smuggled small arms, but can’t identify the origin of heavy weapons. Guess what? If the drug cartels can get their hands on arms like these, it really doesn’t even matter if we completely seal our border with Mexico—they’ll get their small arms elsewhere. The real problem is a dysfunctional Mexican government and until that fact becomes a regular headline, and is dealt with, the cartel violence isn’t going to end.

Yet another reason the US should pull out of the UN and stop sinking your tax money in that disgraceful organization. The International Atomic Energy Agency, an arm of the UN, acknowledges that, among other dubious recipients, Iran & Syria received $55 million in funding for nuclear energy research. Our tax dollars provide “about a quarter of the budget.”

Of course the UN is rather egalitarian in its largess. According to the report,

there are no good countries and there are no bad countries.

As long as you don’t consider tyrranical regimes like Cuba, genocidal Sudan, or terrorist sponsors Iran & Syria “bad” countries.

Formula 1 racing is changing its championship system next season. Rather than relying on a strict points system, where the driver with the most consistent finishes takes the prize, the championship will be awarded to the driver with the most wins. How does this change the sport? In the words of “Formula One supremo” Bernie Ecclestone himself:

If you’re in the lead and I’m second, I’m not going to take the risk of falling off the circuit or doing something stupid to get two points. If I need a gold medal to win the championship, I will overtake.

In other words, under the points system drivers will drive safely. The new system will encourage them to do “something stupid” in order to get a win. Brilliant.

Over a 4 year period a hospital in the UK had around 400 unnecessary death due to horrendous emergency care. Per an inquiry into the outrage,

managers pursued targets at the detriment of patient care.

Targets, in this context, being financial targets set in order to keep costs down. This is what happens when medicine becomes more about cutting costs than treating patients. What else do you expect when the government runs the (increasingly expensive) show?

Gotta love the quotes from British politicians.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb, called for a “cultural change so that every part of this trust has open and transparent systems in place to ensure patient safety”.

and

Bill Cash, Conservative MP for Stone, said: “There have been systemic failures in the organisation and I have asked for resolute action to be taken.”

Mr. Lamb, that “cultural change” would be called the Hippocratic Oath. It makes the patient’s health a pretty darned high priority. There must be someone in the UK who’s heard of it.

Mr. Cash, how about this for “resolute action”: scrap socialized medicine. Otherwise you’ll just keep fighting this battle over and over again.

This is, of course, what you get when medical decisions are made by bureaucrats. Obama’s proposal for universal healthcare includes provisions for decisions regarding the availability and coverage for specific treatments. This will lead to denial of care and a reduction in the quality of healthcare we receive…just like we see in the UK.

You may recall a couple weeks ago the UK barred Dutch legislator Geert Wilders from entry because he is ostensibly a security threat, purveyor of hate, yada yada yada. Now they’re going to allow a spokesman for Hezbollah into the country to deliver a lecture. Go figure. Ban the critic of Islam, support the Islamic terrorist.

England, you’re getting the decrepit, decaying society you deserve. Sadly, I see too much of this happening here as well.

As in, gun control means hitting your target. There was another terrorist attack by a nutjob plowing a bulldozer through a couple police cars and into a bus full of schoolgirls. What slowed the goblin down long enough for the police to finish him off? A civilian taxi driver carrying a concealed handgun.

Self-defense works, folks, because even when the police are present, they sometimes can’t respond as quickly as an alert, armed civilian.

Great Britain provides further evidence that it has lost its collective mind, announcing that it will bestow honorary knighthood on Senator Ted Kennedy. Silly me. I thought knighthood actually meant something. Wonder if one of his ancestors drowned a peasant girl by riding a horse off a bridge?

Though they do enjoy playing the victim card, Palestinians aren’t at all serious about peace with Israel. Since the IDF withdrew from Gaza a month ago more than 100 rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza…around 3 a day. Where’s the outcry from the world demanding that the rocket fire cease? Of course you won’t hear any. The liberal media can’t even call this what it is, naming the aggressors “militants” rather than what they are. When you target civilians, as in the latest attack which hit a school, you’re not a militant but a terrorist.

Claiming they would save dozens of lives each year, a doctor in the UK recommends mandatory usage of air bag jackets by motorcyclists.

There is a shocking number of deaths of motorcyclists on the roads. I think dozens of lives could be saved if these jackets were made compulsory.

Is this really the biggest health problem in a country where thousands of people die every year due to alcohol (more than 8,700 in 2007)? Suggestion for the UK: have your doctors work on a problem that affects a growing portion of your population and costs your socialized health care system far more than a few hundred motorcycle fatalities annually.