Saudi Arabia to Join NATO Naval Mission; Pirates Boost Defenses

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabia said it will join a fleet of NATO warships on an anti-piracy mission, as hijackers bolstered defenses around an oil-laden Saudi tanker captured off the East African coast.

The navies of India, Russia, France, Britain and Germany have all battled pirate vessels in the past 12 days alone.

The seizure of the oil tanker may push Western navies to step up their actions against hijackers, who find potential targets with Global Positioning System navigational aids and satellite phones and use captured fishing trawlers to launch attacks out at sea, according to an October report by Chatham House.

So it’s a fleet of warships from every major military power in the world vs. some fishing boats. I’m thinking these pirates may have bitten off more than they can chew.

Granted, the swashbuckers have been having Jack Sparrow-like success lately–capturing nine ships in the last month and asking for a mil in randsom for each. But then they got arrogant and commandeered an oil tanker. Big mistake. We’re they expecting us not to go war over oil? That’s the only thing we go to war over. Looks like in a couple months there probably won’t be too many pirates anymore.

“Flu Trends” uses search terms that people put into the web giant to figure out where influenza is heating up, and will notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in real time!

GOOGLE, continuing to work closely with government, claims it would keep individual user data confidential: “GOOGLE FLU TRENDS can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur each week.”

Drudge paints a 1984-esque picture of the whole project. Not surprisingly, the first news article the pops up on Google is much more flattering:

Google has applied its massive data-collecting power for the first time to prediction of the spread of disease, with the launch of a site that claims to be able to raise the alarm over flu outbreaks up to two weeks in advance of existing public services.

Google Flu Trends takes the general search tracking technology pioneered by Google Trends and applies it specifically to influenza. The firm’s engineers claim to have devised a way of analysing millions of individual searches related to the disease that in tests proved to correlate closely with the actual incidence of illness. That gives them the potential ability to predict rises in flu cases - information that could be used by health professionals to warn the public or plan their responses.

The ability to speed up the response of health services could prove invaluable in the event of a vicious outbreak, or the emergence of a virulent strain.

The results of Google’s comparisons with official health statistics will be published in the science journal Nature.

Google hopes to extend the service to other countries, and may in time include other illnesses.

So is this “just the beginning,” as Eric Schmit, CEO of Google proclaims? Or the beginning of the end?

Either way, don’t ask Google Suggests.

The distinguished Republican Congressman from from Georgia, Paul Broun:

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force. I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism. That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

And to think, just a week or two ago, this guy would’ve actually been taken seriously and made front page news, along with other cartoon characters such as “Joe” the “Plumber” and Michelle Bachmann. Now, he’s relegated to nutball status.

Suddenly, now that this thing is over, this feels a lot less controversial and a lot more satirical.

9. “Joe” the “Plumber“

8. Every interview Sarah Palin has ever done.

These were funny before, but funny in a sick way because it was so horrifying she could win. Now it’s easier to laugh wholeheartedly at her because she almost single handedly tanked McCain’s chances.

It’s also important that we don’t overlook that in her very first interview–before she couldn’t name any newspapers or Supreme Court decisions, or didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was, or thought the Vice President ran the Senate, or didn’t understand the First Amendment–she said the United States would INVADE RUSSIA. We should have known she never had a chance right then.

7. Michelle Bachmann’s call for an investigation into Anti-Americanism in Congress:

Even though she somehow won re-election, something tells me she won’t be pushing that again anytime soon.

6. This caricature of Rev. Wright:

The statement itself might be deplorable, but his unintentional comedic delivery really takes the edge off.

5. Joe Biden saying something stupid every time he’s in front of a big crowd.

You put this guy in a serious situation to talk about policy and he wows you with his extremely responsible, nuanced intellect. But if you put him in front of a cheering mass of people, he blacks out and blurts literally any idiotic thought that crosses his mind, no matter the consequences.

4. Sean Hannity.

3. Every news story that had those crazy quotes from nutty racists in Ohio or elsewhere, terrifying everyone that those people actually have a vote:

“He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch,” said James Halsey, chuckling, while standing in the Wal-Mart parking lot with fellow workers in the environmental cleanup business. “I just don’t think we’ll ever have a black president.”

“I’ve always been against the blacks,” said Mr. Rowell, who is in his 70s, recalling how he was arrested for throwing firecrackers in the black section of town. But now that he has three biracial grandchildren — “it was really rough on me” — he said he had “found out they were human beings, too.”

Turns out they didn’t matter, so now instead of being frightened by their ignorance, we can just laugh at them.

2. 2008 John McCain calling Barack Obama a “socialist” for supporting 2002 John McCain’s tax policy:

1. George Bush.

For more reasons than I can count.