Sleeping Dog Blog

The scurvy dogs!

Pirates armed with grenade launchers and machine guns tried to hijack a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast Saturday, but the ship outran them, officials said.

Two boats full of pirates approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the Somali coast and opened fire while the heavily armed bandits tried to get onboard, said Bruce Good, spokesman for the Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.
-snip-
Edith Laird of Seattle, who was traveling with her daughter and a friend, told the British Broadcasting Corp. in an e-mail that her daughter saw the pirates out the window.

"There were at least three rocket-propelled grenades that hit the ship, one in a state room," Laird wrote. "We had no idea that this ship could move as fast as it did and (the captain) did his best to run down the pirates."
-snip-
There has been a steep rise in piracy this year along Somalia's nearly 2,000-mile coastline, with 15 violent incidents reported between March and August, compared with just two for all of 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a division of the International Chamber of Commerce that tracks trends in piracy.

Arrrrr.

Vice President Cheney made a personal appeal to Republican senators to exempt the CIA from a proposed ban on torture of terror suspects. That's right, the Vice President of the United States wants torture to be OK. For his part, Senator John McCain (who happens to be against torture, by the CIA or anyone else) is not budging, and has vowed to attach the torture ban wording as an amendment to each and every bill that the passes through the Senate until it is approved.

As John at Americablog points out, McCain's pledge is exactly the sort of thing we should be seeing out of the Democrats.

Crooks & Liars says:

A nation that has been a leader in the field of human rights has to have a Republican Senator stick his foot in the mouth of an administration that begs to act like the barbarians that it professes to despise.

I find it disturbingly surreal that in 2005, the government of the United States is debating torture. What the hell? Tonight, in cemeteries across this country, patriots are spinning in their graves.

The web is 15 years old this month. It has become an everyday tool that many of us take for granted, but it's easy for me to remember what life was like without it, and to realize how lucky we are that it panned out this way.

James Boyle at FT.com:

...there are three things that we need to understand about the web. First, it is more amazing than we think. Second, the conjunction of technologies that made the web successful was extremely unlikely. Third, we probably would not create it, or any technology like it, today. In fact, we would be more likely to cripple it, or declare it illegal.

there's more...

Hat tip to Atrios for the link.

The Full Moon Over the Klan blog has the scoop:

You are invited to join in the 2nd* Austin Mooning of the Klan, Saturday, November 5th, Austin City Hall (or nearby depending on where the police make us stand) from 1-3PM.

*The first mooning of the Klan was organized by Texas musician Steve Fromholz in 1993 and proved to be an effective means of making counter protesters smile and Klanspeople cringe.

Who: You, me, a few hundred of our closest friends, anyone you can double dog dare to get down there and drop trou. If this is your first time mooning, it can be easier to complete the deed if you have a good friend along for encouragement.

What: Mooning is a long standing Texas tradition of irreverant disobedience. Generally speaking mooning is a spontaneous event. Defined as exposing some part of one's ass in a gesture of friendly insult, Texas law allows for mooning as long as genitals are not exposed and there is no overtly sexual action involved. You may write a cheeky statement across yourself, but obscenities are a gray area, legally speaking.

Where: Counter protesters are going to be kept as far away from the Klan rally as possible. Given the geography of the site (South plaza of Austin City Hall) it will be difficult to avoid obstructing traffic and other arrestable offenses. Please try NOT to get arrested.

Why: Because one big ass deserves another (and they can't use footage of counterprotesters that includes naked butt). Mooning also defuses the potential for violence since it's nearly impossible to swing at someone when you are giggling.

Austin...my kind of town. =)

The Boondocks, the hilarious and brilliant comic strip by Aaron McGruder, is coming to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on Sunday at 10pm CST. Don't miss it.

Looks like El Rushbo is back on the hillbilly heroin. In the fevered imaginings of his narcoticized brain, Libby and friends are blameless - Joseph Wilson is the criminal.

Media Matters reports:

In an October 31 discussion of the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh stated, "The more the left talks about Libby's alleged perjury, the more you have to ask did Joseph Wilson commit treason." Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted on October 28 for perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements. Limbaugh later continued, "Did Wilson lie about Niger? Did Wilson commit treason?" Limbaugh also stated, "You still can't convince me ... that this whole thing is not a CIA-hatched plot to destroy Bush, undermine the war effort."

Uh, yeah. Hey Rush, your tin-foil hat looks like it may be a little snug..