SAN’A, Yemen (AP) - A boat loaded with Somali and Ethiopian migrants capsized in the Gulf of Aden during a treacherous night crossing in which at least 112 people died, a Yemeni official said Friday.

The boat was among a group of four vessels carrying migrants from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, a U.N. official and a Yemeni human rights activist said. More than 280 were aboard the boats. Thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians try to escape to the Arabian peninsula each year, many hoping to eventually reach Europe.

Source: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070217/D8NB7AHG0.html

Needless to say this is a terrible disaster, as is any accident resulting in the loss of multiple human lives, and my heart goes out to the family and friends of the unfortunate victims, but at the same time, some real issues come to mind.

First of all, why are these people being ‘allowed’ to (well, why is more not being done to stop them from) sneak into the Middle East and then move on to Europe? I’m not familiar with the security measures in the region, but it seems to me that there should be better border controls to prevent random people from getting in. And specifically with refugees, it seems that there should be some sort of program so that these people don’t have to sneak out of the country via smugglers as it is.

More importantly, why is the United Nations not doing more to stop or reduce the violence in Somalia that these people find themselves fleeing? It seems to me that most of the problems could be solved with some simple international intervention, even if the United States was to take no part.

Finally, I want to know what is going to happen to the smugglers if they are ever caught. Personally, I’d love to see them tried for murder, and given the region in which they would likely be charged, I’m hoping that they get the death penalty. Yes, this is an extreme case, but I support very strong penalties for human smugglers in all cases. I don’t care what the circumstances are, but there is simply no justification for breaking immigration laws and putting human lives at such risk simply to make money. I find it reprehensible on multiple levels.

I guess the point is that things like this should never have to happen, should never be allowed to happen, and should be prevented whenever possible. The same goes for refugees from countries such as Cuba and Mexico trying to flee to the United States.

It’s been yet another week and I’m again behind on my posting. I’ve decided to try something new this week, I’m offering a ‘news roundup’ of things I found interesting, important, and insightful. They are presented in no particular order.

Wisconsin Police Chief Writes Himself a Ticket

KEWASKUM, Wis. - Police Chief Richard Knoebel says he wasn’t about to take the easy way out when he accidentally drove past a stopped school bus with its emergency lights flashing.

For violating traffic laws, Knoebel wrote himself a ticket for $235, docked himself four points on his driving record and paid the fine the next day.

Yahoo! News

I applaud Mr. Knoebel and his actions. I’m sure that police are more honest and trustworthy than the general American population (not everyone, though, I’m making generalizations), but it’s still amazingly reassuring to see that he had the honesty and integrity to do what was right. I’m sure that he could just as easily have ignored his violation and gone on without a second thought. I wish I could say that this is indicative of a new moral and social direction in America, but I’m afraid it remains an outlier in the continuous decay that surrounds us.

Switzerland May Allow Assisted Suicide for the Mentally Ill

LAUSANNE, Switzerland: A ruling by Switzerland’s highest court has opened the possibility that people with serious mental illnesses could be helped by doctors to take their own lives.

Switzerland already allows physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients under certain circumstances but the Federal Tribunal’s decision, which was released on Friday, puts mental illnesses on the same level as physical ones.

International Herald Tribune

I see real problems with this on two fronts, one being the continuing decay of the importance and sanctity of human life, and the other being the fact that mentally ill patients are being allowed to make such decisions. If many mentally ill patients cannot even make decisions about their treatments, what position are they in to decide to end their lives?

Frankly, I just don’t get the idea of assisted suicide laws in the first place, and I find physician assisted suicide especially troubling - it is the role of doctors to work to protect and save their patients, not end their lives. I don’t really care if people decide that there lives are so terrible that they need to commit suicide, but at the point that there are laws that allow doctors to ‘help’ is just insane. And what is there to stop the slippery slip from assisted suicide (which is apparently now expanding) to mandatory euthanasia for seriously ill or elderly patients. I don’t like it one bit.

China to Censor Year of the Pig Commercials

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese state television will censor advertisements featuring pigs in order not to offend Muslims in the Year of the Pig, a media company said on Friday.

“Originally they didn’t want pig images in ads on TV, because they worry about conflicting issues with Muslims in China,” said Lisa Wei, managing director of media investment firm GroupM China Trading.

Yahoo! News

Personally, I find this terribly surprising and a sad reflection of the world we live in. While I can’t say that I care for the Chinese government or their rampant censorship policies, this just seems to be going off the deep end. I’m not even going to pretend to be an expert on China, but I’ve always had the impression that they at least ignore religion and often seem to actively suppress it - it seems very strange to me that they would thus censor for such a purpose. The other aspect that gets to me is the fact that the Chinese have a rich culture dating back 1000s of years. For a great many of these years, the zodiac system and lunar calendar have been essential - that they are censoring their own traditions to pacify Muslims is silly at best and cultural suicide at worst.

More than 120 People Killed in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with a ton of explosives hidden beneath cooking oil, canned food and bags of flour obliterated a Baghdad food market on Saturday, killing at least 121 people in one of the most fearsome attacks in the capital since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

It was the fifth major bombing in less than a month targeting predominantly Shiite districts in Baghdad and one provincial city to the south. This one leveled about 30 shops and 40 houses, witnesses said.

Yahoo! News

What is it with these terrorists?! When are they going to learn that killing innocent civilians (and your own people at that) is no way to get the support you need to make real change. I’m going to refrain from offering many comments on this, mainly because I just can’t understand why the terrorists perform such heinous acts and I have no ‘advice’ to offer. I just know that there is someone out there who can stop this, some way that it can be done, I’m just not sure who or how.

Teacher Fired over Suicide Bomber Comment

Andrew McLuskey was sacked from Bayliss Court Secondary School in Slough after a Religious Education lesson discussing the pros and cons of religion.

Pupils at the predominantly Muslim school claimed Mr McLuskey said most suicide bombers were Muslim.

BBC News

I’m not going to bother finding statistics for this one, but I’m confident enough to say that his comments were 100% accurate (that most suicide bombers are Muslim). I understand that the fact he teaches ar a mainly Muslim school (talk about the Islamification of Europe), but if the facts do support the statement, I see no justifiable grounds for letting the teacher go. I understand that the school likely wanted to create a ’safe’ environment free of ‘prejudice,’ but to fire a teacher over (seemingly) factual comments is insane and incomprehensible in my mind.

Again on a bit of a tangent, this situation highlights an interesting difference between British and American schools. In the United States even teachers of accused terrible crimes will almost always be put on ‘administrative leave’ for weeks or months before the school can even consider firing said teacher. In England, it seems, a few complaints about a teacher’s comments (even if they are seemingly truthful) and the teacher’s out the door faster than you can ask, ‘huh?’

German Preteen Gets Sex Change

A 12-year-old German boy who insisted he was a girl trapped in a boy’s body convinced his parents that something had to be done, so they agreed to allow him to receive a series of hormone injections, making him the youngest sex-change patient in the world, according to published reports Monday.

[…] Her treatment, which has cost more than $40,000, is being funded by German taxpayers.

FoxNews

This story comes straight from the ‘what in the world were they thinking’ department on multiple levels. I’m really not even sure where to begin, so I’ll go ahead with the most obvious to me.

What in the heck were they thinking. There is no way in the world that a twelve year old has the maturity, intelligence, and common sense to make such a life-altering decision. The very idea that this was ever allowed even makes me a bit nauseous. People are born with a specific gender for a reason, and to do something so disgusting and self-mutilating as ‘gender reassignment’ is a complete travesty to the moral and ethical values that lie at the basis of our society and culture. I am also appalled at the doctors for taking any part in such a disgusting act.

I realize that much of the scientific literature does not support my following contention, but I still firmly believe that virtually all of the diseases that deal with gender identity and sexuality are entirely psychological in nature and can be treated with the right combination of therepy and neurological medications. Until I see solid and repeated scientific evidence, I also refuse to believe that any of it is genetic.

In the whole scheme of things, some random Tim becoming Kim is not going to have any impact on me at all (beyond, perhaps, spawning a rant like this). But this is different, and if I was German, I’d be fuming mad and protesting the government right about now. Why? The $40,000 cost of Tim’s mutilation is being paid for by the German people, through their national health plan, and ultimately through their taxes. I’ve always thought that socialized medicine is nonsense, but this takes it to a new low. In some countries (Canada comes to mind), people have to wait days, weeks, or months for the medical care they need (perhaps to save their lives). Yet, at the same time, government funded health care is permanently disfiguring a young boy in Germany. Does anyone care to explain why this is a good thing? I guess that’s one more reason to avoid the Democrats in 2008.

Boston Bomb Scare

BOSTON — The CEO of a New York City-based marketing firm apologized for a publicity stunt that caused a bomb scare, saying the firm had acted quickly to try to resolve the problem.

[…] More than three dozen of the devices were installed around Boston weeks before authorities responded Wednesday. Authorities shut down highways, bridges and river traffic as bomb squads checked out the devices. There was barely a stir in nine other cities across the country where similar devices were placed.

NewsDay

I fully understand that authorities across the United States (and the entire world) have been very uptight and perhaps a bit jittery in recent years, but I just don’t see how LED signs can be confused for bombs. I understand that some of the locations they were placed could be considered targets for terrorist attacks, to nearly shut down the city over it was certainly an overreaction.

When it comes to punishment, I’m really not sure what should be done. Yes, the men placed very odd, clearly either littering or vandalizing signs around the city, but I believe them in that they had no criminal intentions and certainly did not intend to create a bomb scare. At the same time, I think that they (or the advertising agency) should be held somehow responsible for their actions, most likely in a financial manner (reimburse the police and other public safety costs) or perhaps community service, but not through prison time - we have bigger things to worry about. I also hope that this incident sends a message for any person or company considering an unusual or ‘creative’ marketing campaign, please try to avoid possible bomb scares.

News:
According to a report by Britain’s TimesOnline, officials from the Scotland Yard have come to the conclusion that the Polonium used to kill former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko cost more than $10,000,000. This staggering amount was actually more than ten times the lethal dose, and make it look more and more like the Russian Government was either involved or at least had some knowledge of the plot.

While the $10 million price tag could easily be footed by a unscrupulous businessman or organized terrorist organization, it would be very difficult for any entity not connected to, or at least allied with, a government or government official to obtain. As one British source put it: “You can?t buy this much off the internet or steal it from a laboratory without raising an alarm so the only two plausible explanations for the source are that it was obtained from a nuclear reactor or very well connected black market smugglers.”

Although little information is being released, mostly for diplomatic reasons, it also seems that there are heavy suspicions on two Russian businessmen, Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun, who met with Litvinenko in the weeks leading up to his death. Perhaps most incriminating of all, traces of Polonium have been found in places that they visited as early as October 16th, before the poisoning ever occurred.

Views:
If I were Vladimir Putin, I’d be sweating bullets right about now. I don’t care what the official explanations turn out to be: there is some connection to wither thew Russian Government or high ranking Russian officials, and perhaps the Russian President himself.

With the KGB being as scary, ominous, and corrupt an organization as it was back in the days of the Soviet Union, I am truly amazed that someone like Putin - former head of the KGB - could have ever been elected in the first place. Russia is a corrupt country, no doubt, but when you have former spy and secret police officials in positions of great power, problems are bound to occur - whether they mean to or not.

Surely, SOMEONE in the Russian administration must have known about or supported the plot. I simply don’t see how someone or some group acting without the help of an official could have pulled of such a dangerous.

The other question that this whole incident raises in my mind is just how safe and secure the United Kingdom’s borders are. I want to know how the Polonium was smuggled in and why nothing was done to stop it. Could this be the beginning of truly extensive use of radiation detectors? I don’t know, only time will tell.

What I really think this comes down to is the fact that there are going to have to be some major shakeups in Moscow. I’m not expecting Putin to step down or anything like that, but I have a gut feeling that someone is going to loose either his or his life over this whole fiasco. If it turns out to be the former, we’re going to get real answers; if its the later, than I’m not sure there’s ever going to be an answer.

Common Sense:
If you’re a Government official or prosperous businessman, stay out of assassinations and other terrorist-like operations: there is no good that can come out of it. If you’re a former spy for a corrupt former superpower, be extremely careful with what you say and do if you value your life.

News:
British Television Station Sky News is reporting that a former Russian spy killed in the United Kingdom is the victim of Polonium 210 poisoning. Alexander Litvinenko, who died Thursday night, had met with two other Russians shortly before falling ill.

British authorities have been searching many areas for radiation, and have so far found it in Litvinenko’s home, a Sushi bar in which he ate, and at the hotel where he met with the other Russian men. Although no one has taken responsibility, the general consensus of friends and family seems to be that it was a assassin working for Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government.

According to the victim’s father, who blames the Russian President for the death: “You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilized men and women.” Whether the claims turnout to be true or not, this could prove to be troublesome for the administration.http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13553599,00.html

Thanks to Captain Ed, we have some additional insight into the poisoning:

Views:
If the suspicions that seem to be present are true, I suspect that the administration in Russia is going to face some very tough questions. I see no reason that this would be terrorism, it is way too targeted, and Captain Ed’s insight (which is also available in Wikipedia’s Polonium article) seems quite convincing.

At the same time, however, I would not be surprised if this is a far more common event to have occur inside Russia and the news simply never makes it out. I realize that they have changed a great deal since the fall of the Soviet leadership, but there is still something a little strange with them, at least in my mind.

Common Sense:
If you’re a former Russian spy, watch out for your life. If you’re a Russian government assassin, be very careful and don’t use such unusual methods of poisoning.

Thanks to HotAir.com for the original story

News:

Views:

Although I’m not exactly sure that I’d want to eat whale in the first place, I see no real problem with Iceland’s decision to allow limited commercial whaling. Provided they severely punish those killing whales without licenses, thus allowing for sustainable populations to remain, there is really no downside to the decision.

I understand that endangered species need to be protected, but there are plenty of other animals that need more protection than whales. Scientists estimate only 1,500 Giant Pandas remain in the wild and around five to ten Northern White Rhinoceroses. According to the article, Iceland’s territorial waters alone have 43,000 minke and 25,000 fin whales - plenty to allow some minuscule whaling. Look at the numbers: nine fin and 30 minke whales are no more than 7/100 of one percent of the population in Iceland alone. I am not an expert, but it seems to me that so little a percentage is easily replaced be new calves.

Beyond the numbers, one must also look at the cultural significance of whaling in places like Iceland. Going back 1000 years and perhaps more, the Vikings tradition has included whaling. Why should exceptions be granted to Native American tribes and not other cultures with whaling ingrained - such as that of Iceland? I’d like to see a liberal give a good argument against that.

Regardless of everything else, it is my belief that international law has no real authority for regulating activities such as whaling that have no real impact/pose no real threat to other countries. Pollution, NBC weapons programs, genocide, acts of war, gross human rights violations; things like these are all valid reasons for international laws. In my mind, saving a whale (which is seemingly not all that endangered in Iceland) should not.

All I have left to say is thank goodness the International Whaling Commission has no apparent legal power and best of luck for Iceland in joining the elite club of whaling nations.

Common Sense:

Iceland and her fishing (er, whaling) vessels should be very careful of Green Peace and other environmental groups. It’s a sad reality, but violence and/or terrorism against whaling ships would not surprise me in the least.