*grouch* I wanna gooooo.

Reliable pirate? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

Captain Sam Kidd

Even though there’s no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you’re the one in charge. Even though you’re not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

The world has turned into a frigging Tom Clancy novel, I swear.

I have commented (not here) on the similarity of the airplane attacks with the plot of his novels, but now there’s even a new twist. Russia is proposing an international group to fight terrorism. Now, this group would probably be more political than action-oriented, I’m sure, but the -idea-… on a side note, this makes me wonder if sales of his video game Rainbow Six have gone up after the attack.

Blah. Came home from class to find this in my email. The middle blurb on the page is the relevant one. I can’t say she was a close friend, but we were in the same dorm for a year and a half (and this was a dorm of 8 people, so that actually means something), and had several classes together. She was nice, and I liked her. Damn. Her homepage is still up, and gives you an idea of the sort of person she was.

I didn’t have much to say today other than to express my shock and horror that someone, who shall remain nameless but whom we shall call Kenpi, did not know that the Kennedys were from Massachusetts. o.O

Another interesting article. So typical.

Congress is asked to give the government wider surveillance powers. (article)

I had told myself I was going to stop blogging about things related to the WTC aside from updating my list of new security measures designed to make people think something was happening when it really wasn’t.

But I never can keep my mouth shut.

Re: “acts of war” — This phrasing has bothered me since it first came up, but it took a while to percolate before I realized exactly why. These weren’t acts of war. It’s very misleading to call them that, because it conjures up images of us sending troops into battle to fight back against… and there’s the problem. War is something waged between nation-states. All the information suggests that this was NOT the act of a nation-state. It was an act of terrorism. To call it an act of war conferrs upon it a legitimacy that it should not have; it gives people the idea that we’re going to go and attack something. And maybe we will, since as a result of his ill-chosen words, Bush has probably backed himself into a corner. But this was, at its heart, a criminal act. It was on a much grander scale than the man who stabs another man in anger, but the result should be the same: the perpetrator should be arrested and tried. BECAUSE THAT IS HOW OUR LEGAL SYSTEM WORKS.

Re: “you don’t do that to america, we’ll kick your butt” — This is hardly the first time someone has committed a terrorist act against America. We have had embassies blown up, troops blown up, military vessels blown up, and even portions of the WTC blown up. So you certainly DO do this to America. We are a big and very tempting target. And in general, America has been outraged after each attack, has made an effort to catch the criminals responsible, and then has moved on. Because that is how you respond to terrorism — you refuse to be terrorized. As to the issue of our military might, it is true that we surely do have the ability to bomb any small country out of existance. And it is true that Kuwait was liberated handily in the early 90s. The US has had an advantage for a long time, in that it is pretty isolated. We have a very large and stable country to the north, and a very large and very poor country to our south. East and West is water. A LOT of water. To invade us would be difficult; you simply cannot move large numbers of ground troops through the air or the sea without being noticed long before you arrive. And this fortunate situation has led to complacancy. Our lack of a sense of immediate danger is what held us out of the World Wars. But our history of “kicking butt” is hardly established. In the past century there were any number of wars and smaller conflicts that the US participated in: WW1, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Somalia, Nicaragua, and so forth. At best, our record is 50/50; our more recent record is far worse than that.

And let the crackdown begin:

• The John Hancock Observatory is closed. (article)
• New “security” measures introduced at MLB stadiums. (article)
• New “security” measures introduced at airports. Oh my. They’ve banned plastic knives. That will save us all. (article)

I heard on a show a few days ago that Coriander and Cilantro were the same thing. I only just found time to look this up and confirm that I’d heard correctly (I had.)

This clears up a huge mystery for me! I know what Coriander is; it’s an herb I’ve heard about for quite a while. Cilantro on the other hand, I only just started hearing about a year or two ago (it seemed like it was suddenly everywhere!). Why did no one mention they were the same?! Why are people calling it by two different names?! I hate it when that happens. It’s almost as confusing as when one name means different things depending on who you talk to (This is especially true of pastries, I’ve found.)