You mean military action really works? EU special forces (yes, I know, that does seem like a contradiction in terms, bear with me) recaptured a ship taken by Somali pirates and freed the crew, apparently with no deaths. The article says it was Danish special forces. Now, perhaps if they start hanging pirates from the yardarms again, that would stop the piracy. (What’s a yardarm? Is there such a thing as a yardleg?)
It’s now the “Great Recession”? That’s what the AP is calling it. And job losses are about to get worse. Huh. Go figure. I’m surprised, because Obama told me in the SOTU that two millions jobs were saved or created by his economic policies. Eight million jobs were lost, though, making me wonder if Scott Brown isn’t right when he says the stimulus didn’t create a single job. (Two great videos of his swearing-in and presser afterwards at the link.)
OHMIGOD! IT’S GONNA SNOW! Say, did you know there was a storm bearing down on us? (That’s the DC area, which is preparing for as much as two feet of snow.) I went to Kroger yesterday to stock up on the essentials (milk, produce, Tostitos). But not this one. And now I have to go to CVS to stock up on cold medicine. Bummer.
Anger management counselor is kinda an angry guy: This is just too perfect. An anger management counselor pulled a gun on two men he said were blocking his car. Awesome. I want that guy counseling me, boy. He’d probably give me tips to make the Snark Briefs even snarkier.
He didn’t fire. I’d say that was perfectly managed anger. (This happened less than a mile from my house.)
I wonder if all those people who criticized Bush and for that matter Israel for supposed violations of international law would be OK with the part of international law that allows summary execution of pirates. Meanwhile, the EU should be expecting a protest from the US because they didn’t Mirandize the pirates when they caught them.
There are degrees of truth and falsity, many statements contain elements of each. But unquestionably a statement that is common but is the absolute opposite of truth is, “Violence never settles anything.” There’s a line in “Starship Troopers” (the book, not that travesty of a movie) where someone says to the character who is Heinleihn’s voice, “My mother says violence never settles anything,” and the reply asks the mother to consider why she cannot spend her summer vacation in Carthage.
Noun 1. yardarm – either end of the yard of a square-rigged ship
yard – a long horizontal spar tapered at the end and used to support and spread a square sail or lateen
It is the horizontal spar of a mast. That is why it was used to execute people by hanging them as if from a gallows.