HIGH SEAS ECONOMICS

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Pirates holding a ship full of tanks and ammunition off the coast of Somalia are likely to be paid millions of dollars in ransom within days, senior U.S. military officials said.

Somali pirates holding the MV Faina stand guard on the merchant vessel’s deck on October 19.

The pirates have been holding the Ukrainian-operated, Belize-flagged MV Faina and its 20-person crew in the Gulf of Aden since September 25.

Military officials said the cash payment will be brought on the ship, directly to the pirates. Such a procedure is common because of the lack of electronic banking in Somalia.

The officials would not say how much ransom is being paid or who is paying it because it would be up to the individuals or company to make that announcement.

What’s known is that the pirates originally asked for a $35 million ransom, but lowered their demand to $20 million, Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya Seafarers Association told CNN in LINK

Wrong, wrong, wrong,wrong, wrong! Giving these filthy bastards one red cent is the absolute worst thing possible. We should either launch a maritime rescue mission to save the crew or sink the damned ship outright.This is my first reaction to this story and a damned good reaction it is. But I must be getting old, because I started to think maybe we SHOULD pay them after all. Read on:

Under no circumstances should these pirates be paid. Once you pay them, they are only going to buy better equipment (if they are smart) like faster speedboats, more powerful weapons and hire more manpower. Within a few weeks they will be out hijacking MORE ships. This will lead to an overall increase in pirate activity in the area. Before you know it the pirates will be buying fancy cars and big new houses. This will require construction companies relocating to Somalia to fill the increasing housing needs of the pirates.

With these big fancy new houses and hot new cars, more roads will have to be built. This will increase the ability of the pirates to travel to far off villages and find wives. Once this happens, it won’t be long before the pirates and their new brides will start having little pirate kids. You know what that means: That’s right. Little pirate SCHOOLS! Schools only mean one thing. Come on, say it with me: TAXES!

Now with the pirates having big fancy new houses and cars and little pirate offspring running around it won’t be long before the pirate wives start complaining about all the time the pirates spend away at sea pirating all these ships. Before long, the pirates won’t be able to stand it and will only spend more time at sea hijacking MORE ships.

Now after a while the pirate wives will get fed up and start filing for divorce from the pirates and that only means one thing: LAWYERS. That’s right. The pirate wives will want HALF of all the pirates sh*t. Lawyers will need COURTS and fancy high-rise buildings to send out bills from. They also need fancy expensive restaurants to eat at so they can bill their clients for even more money. Restaurants need staff  and that means Mexicans. So Mexico will probably need a border of some sort with Somalia so the Mexicans can cross it illegally in order to find the work Somalians won’t do. (Come on, they’re pirates after all).

Before long, the pirates will start to run out of money from all the lawyer bills and will need some cash to hold them over until the next hijacking. That means BANKS and BANKERS. The pirates will have to open up lines of credit at the local banks to help get them through the slow times of the year. Bank loans mean one thing: Paperwork.  And paperwork needs to be copied. You guessed it- KINKO’S.

Eventually, the US will elect a President with some (ball) intestinal fortitude and he will send the fleet to put an end to the piracy. This will mean one thing for the pirates and their bank loans: RECESSION.

As we have seen, if you have a recession your going to need a Government to bail you out of your bad loans. So Somalia will finally have to elect a government in order to bail out the banks and save the now unemployed pirates.

Since the pirates are now permanantly unemployed one of the first things the new government will have to do is create a jobs / retraining program to retrain ex-pirates. But in order to do that the government will have to INCREASE taxes. This way they can spread the wealth around.

So you see, in the end in order to get where we need to be all we really have to do is pay the pirates!

MEET SARAH PALIN

There may be no better word to describe John McCain’s vice presidential pick than “ridiculous.”

After months of criticizing Sen. Obama for his inexperience with foreign policy, McCain has chosen quite possibly the least experienced woman in politics to serve as his second-in-command. How little experience does Palin have, you ask? She was a part-time mayor of a tiny Alaska town and then governor of one of the least populous states in the union for less than two years. Palin has never met with any foreign leaders of any kind—in fact, she only applied for a U.S. passport last year! LINK

OOPS! How did that picture get there? My Bad. Well anyway, since it’s already there may I point out this is what the Democrats were saying about Sarah Palin as she was running for one of the less relevant jobs in our Government…the Vice Presidency? A job so easy to pull off even AlGore hid there for EIGHT years.

Now the problem with Democrats is that their lack of core values means they keep getting forced into “If the shoe was on the other foot” situations like this. The Dim’s caterwauled about our inexperienced Vice President. Fair enough. Being intellectually honest, Sarah may not have been the MOST qualified for this most ceremonial of jobs. But we all realize there is room for on the job training there. Hence the term, “Vice.”

But this automatically leads us back to the shoe and the other foot, where we find an equally UNQUALIFIED candidate for the MOST IMPORTANT job not only in American government but arguably in the free world. Barack Obama was no more qualified to be President than Sarah Palin was to be Vice President. Any attempt to argue differently is crap. As a matter of fact, he probably was LESS qualified than President BUSH. Bush was a military veteran, fighter pilot, Governor and business owner prior to becoming President. Obama attempted to organize a community with unknown results. Other than being the product of a corrupt Chicago political machine (and according to Joe Biden) “clean and articulate,” the man did nothing. His Senate time qualifies as a mirage only. Maybe less important than Sarah Palin’s time as Mayor of Wasilla. His resume’ is paper thin.

That brings us to Princess Schlossberg-Kennedy. Suddenly she is Senator material. Well considering the low esteem I hold the Senate in anymore, maybe she is ideal for the non-job. In all reality, she should follow Barack’s model: once she gets in the Senate she should just vote “present” all the time and start her Presidential campaign while she can still wheel out Uncle Ted.

Honestly, the utter gall of these people and their massive egos constantly astounds me. Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg has NO qualifications to be Senator from anywhere, yet her overwhelming sense of entitlement demands that she be awarded the position because of her family name. If this isn’t a symptom of what is wrong in America today then I don’t know what is.

A CONFESSION

On a personal note I’ve avoided blogging about a personal issue for the past couple weeks. I just figured now is as good a time as any to talk about it.

Earlier in the month I got hurt at work. What seemed to be no big deal at the time has turned into a fairly significant and painful injury that’s really had me laid up.

It was at the beginning of my last night shift of the tour. I was checking my equipment and to make a long story short slipped and fell off the Ladder Truck. Luckily I was only about two feet off the ground but I landed all wrong as I was completely off balance for a split second. I ended up on my azz with my air tank crashing down on top of me.

At first I was more embarrassed than anything especially because one of my co-workers saw it and must of thought I was too stupid to walk and chew gum. (In reality he is right) But the pain in my shoulder immediately told me I was hurt. Initially my first ideas were to just ice it up (I did) limp through the rest of the shift, go home in the morning and rest up until next week. But after about an hour I decided I better go and get checked out.

After seventeen years I had never been off injured before. Mind you I didn’t say I had never been injured… I have been. A few times. I just have never been injured on duty bad enough to go off work. You cant be a firefighter and not get banged up. I’ve had ceilings fall on me, sprained my various limbs, stepped in holes in floors, tripped over hose line, fallen down steps, had smoke inhalation ect. Just about anything you can name at one time or another I’ve been there done that. But most of the time it doesn’t require hospitalization. Maybe a few days of ice packs and Ibuprofen and you limp back to work or occasionally take a few days off sick to recover. That’s how most firefighters deal with injuries.

Occasionally injuries are serious or happen on the fire ground. I’ve seen seemingly insignificant injuries end guys careers when they don’t heal correctly. I have been exceedingly lucky and so have my crews. I have had only ONE firefighter who worked for me seriously injured on a job and it was due to a stupid accident. He recovered but it was about as scary as it gets when a friend and co-worker gets hurt right in front of you and there’s nothing you can do about it. This just goes to show how easily you can get hurt doing something as mundane as checking the same air tank I have been checking for almost seventeen years.

It’s just as bad if you get hurt yourself (Especially if your the boss). So I went and got checked out by the doctor. Our department requires us to report all injuries no matter how minor but like I said most of the time we just ice it up and drive on. Initially I told him I thought I’d be all right by the next tour. He said (Astutely) he wanted to see me in a few days and knocked me off work.

Man was I wrong. Apparently I injured my sternum / clavicle area. This area is like a junction for where your shoulder, neck muscles, chest muscles all tie in to your sternum (breastbone). Ever since then I’ve been pretty well wracked with neck and shoulder  pain.

It’s an aggravating injury in that it hurts most when you move. Just about everything in your upper body is influenced by this tiny little region so laying still or reclining is fine. Just don’t try to get up. On top of it all I have a pulled muscle in my opposite side rib cage area. Probably happened at the same time, making it difficult to sleep. Ugh!

So far they have prescribed some pretty serious pain killers that I take only when I’m really at my limit, lest I become another Rush Limbaugh (Kidding). I’m also going to physical therapy three times a week to get back my range of motion. I’m not sure it isn’t making things worse.

Friday I go back to the doctor for a re-evaluation. The doctor said he may send me for an MRI if I’m still not healed. I have a feeling I’m headed for some magnetism sometime soon.The doctor is cool. He seems to like Firefighters and I suspect it’s because he usually doesn’t get many patients who are trying to get BACK to work. My goal is to get back ASAP but no later than Jan. 5th. If the city does succeed in closing these companies my station is going to be heavily impacted and I want to be there with my crew.

So if the blog is a bit incoherint or rambling (More than usual) as of late just chalk it up to the Vicodin. In the mean time I’ve been watching “Lord of the Rings” with Peach. She loves it as it’s the first time she’s ever seen it. I figure she’s old enough at eleven to watch it with an adult (That would be me). Of course she thinks Legolas (The Elf) is dreamy with his bow etc. Am I in trouble with her or what?

Anyway, in the meantime anyone needing to find me I’ll be on the couch.